"My condolences for his loss," I said.
"I wanted to go. But I was only fifteen, and me ma wouldn't hear of it. What was to happen to her if both her sons died over in foreign parts? she wanted to know. So I stayed. My brother came back all right, so she worried for nothing."
My own father had forbidden me to go into the army; the fact that he could not afford a commission for me had been moot. We'd had day-and-night screaming rows about it, which included him cuffing me or beating me with a stick when I couldn't elude him. I'd no money of my own for a commission either, and I'd assumed I had no hope. Then, just after my twentieth birthday, I'd met Aloysius Brandon, who convinced me to come with him to India and volunteer.
Brandon had been a compelling man in those days and our friendship had deepened quickly. So I'd turned my back on my father and gone with Brandon to the King's army. I heard of my father's death the very day I'd followed Arthur Wellesley, the brilliant general who was to become the Duke of Wellington, into Talavera, in Spain. The next morning, I'd been promoted from lieutenant to captain.
We heard the butler returning, but he was running, clattering down the stairs. Somewhere upstairs, a woman began screaming.
The footman with his young exuberance gained the hall before I could. The butler swayed on the stairs above us, clutching the rail, his face gray. His gaze fixed on me and clung for a moment, then he doubled over and vomited onto the polished floor.
The screaming went on, winding down to wails of despair. Footsteps sounded on the lower stairs-the rest of the staff emerging from the kitchens to see what was the matter.
The footman charged past me and up the stairs. I came behind, my injured leg slowing me. On the first floor, in the doorway of the study in which I'd met Horne the day before, huddled the maid called Grace. Her cap had fallen from her brown hair, and her face was blotched with weeping.
The footman looked past her into the room, and his face drained of color.
The pretty yellow carpet had been ruined. A huge brown stain marred it, spreading from under the body of Josiah Horne. He lay face up, his eyes wide, his mouth frozen in a grimace of horror. The hilt of a knife protruded from the center of his chest, and a small circle of blood stained his ivory waistcoat.
But that wound had not made the dull brown wave that encompassed most of the carpet. Horne's trousers had been wrenched opened and his testicles sheared from his body.
Chapter Seven
The stink of blood and death coated the stuffy room. I pushed past the footman and made for the window, taking care to step only where the carpet was still yellow. I unlatched and opened the window onto the garden letting in the chill wind and rain. I gulped the cold air in relief.
When I turned back, Grace was clinging to the doorframe, sobbing wretchedly.
"Take her out," I told the footman.
The footman tried to coax Grace to her feet, but she remained in a heap, weeping. The footman grasped her under the arms and hauled her bodily up and away.
I made my way back across the room, barely feeling my stiff knee, my thoughts tumbling. In these moments of shock, when the world blurred for others, it became crystal clear for me. I saw the room with sharp edges, every piece of furniture, every shadow from the tiny fire, every fiber of carpet soaked with blood.
Horne's face was a mask of surprise. His mouth was wide open, his brown eyes round. He'd died without struggle, I could see from the way his hands lay open at his side. His fingers were curled slightly, not raised in defense. His testicles, bloody and disgusting, rested on the carpet between his spraddled legs. The knife in his chest must not have killed him instantly, but the mutilation of his body had spilled his life onto the bright yellow carpet.
I turned away, like a man caught in a dream, and found the butler in the hall. He leaned against a wall, his handkerchief to his mouth, his breathing shallow.
Here was one whose world blurred with shock; he'd be useless to me. My long habit of command seeped through me, and I straightened my shoulders. "Send someone for a constable. And a doctor. Keep the others from coming in."
The footman trotted back to us from the stair, his young eyes wide and excited. "A doctor's not going to do him any good. He's dead, ain't he?"
"A doctor can tell us how long he's been dead," I said.
"Can he, sir? Must have been a long time. Would have to be for all that blood to dry, wouldn't it?"
The butler whimpered, and I snapped my attention back to him. "When was the last time you saw Mr. Horne?"
He moved his handkerchief a fraction. "This morning, sir. In this very room."
"This morning? It is five o'clock. You did not speak to him all day?"
"He told me he did not want to be disturbed, sir."
"Was that usual?"
The footman nodded. "Aye, on account of his ladies. We were never to come nigh him when he was with his ladies. No matter what."
"Shut up," the butler wheezed.
"We weren't supposed to know. He kept it quiet like. But we knew."
I kept my gaze on the butler. "So you thought nothing of it when you never saw him from that moment to this?"
Both servants shook their heads.
I scanned the room again. An odd place for Horne to have a liaison. The desk was littered with books and papers and the chaise was too narrow to be comfortable. Odd places could be exciting, but Horne was older than I was, his body thickset. A man of his stature would long for a deep featherbed for anything more than a playful kiss.
I looked again at the wardrobe. It was of cheap mahogany, like the rest of the furniture, but its presence bothered me.
I went to it, again keeping to the edges of the carpet. It sported two keyholes, double locks like misshapen eyes. I ran my hand down the seam between the doors. Near the locks, the crack between the doors was nicked and chipped, small gouges in the finish.
I pulled on the handles. The doors did not move.
"Do you have a key for this?"
In the hall, the butler said, "I have keys for all the locks."
"Bring it to me."
Keys jingled as the butler sorted them in his shaking fingers. The footman carried one across the room and laid it in my outstretched hand.
I inserted the small key into one of the locks and pulled open the door. It swung on its hinges, noiseless as mist, and I stopped in shock when I saw what was inside.
Inside the wardrobe lay a young woman, her knees pulled against her chest, her hands twisted behind her back and tied. She lay motionlessly, her eyes closed, her pale lids waxen. A fall of yellow hair half hid her bruised face, and the brown tips of her breasts pressed the opaque fabric of a chemise.
I felt the footman's breath on my shoulder. "My God, sir."
I knelt and touched the girl's bare neck. Her skin was cool, but her pulse beat under my fingers.
"Who is she?" I demanded.
The footman stammered. "That's Aimee. I thought she'd gone."
Aimee. My heart beat thick and fast. Jane Thornton's maid. "Where is the other girl? Where is Jane?"
"Don't know any Jane."
"Damn you, the young woman she came here with."
The footman took a step back, dark eyes bewildered. "The girl she came with weren't Jane. She was Lily."
"Where is she?"
"Don't know, sir. She's gone."
I drew a short knife from my pocket. The footman looked at me in alarm, but I turned away and gently cut the cords that bound the girl's hands.
I rose to my feet. "Lift her."
"Sir?"
"I cannot carry her. You must. Is there a chamber we can take her to?"
"I suppose a guest chamber, sir, but Mr. Bremer's got the keys."