Christmas Revels IV by Hannah Meredith

Author:Hannah Meredith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hannah Meredith
Published: 2017-09-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Two

This was as close as Will had been to Susanna, to the dowager Countess of Roekirk, he corrected himself, in thirty years. It had been a long thirty years full of war and diplomacy, of missions for which the crown had rewarded him, and of missions the crown didn’t want to see the light of day.

Thirty years had changed the gangly boy Will Marsden, son of a solicitor, into the stately Earl of Keyminster, elevated by a grateful sovereign. Now that he was worthy of Susanna, fate had thrust them together over the body of a traitor. Fate had a wicked sense of humor.

“I don’t know who brought him here, milady, or why.” He kissed her gloved hand. “With your permission, I’ll endeavor to find out.”

“We’ll find out. Please, find out everything you can from the body, and then we’ll put it in the shed until after the ball is over.”

Susanna had always been practical. No vapors. No hysterics. He’d often wondered if the Earl of Roekirk had known what a jewel he had won. “If you and Birdwell will hold the candles up, please, I’ll see what we can learn.”

First he tipped the body forward, finding the arrow had gone through and the tip had pierced the back of the chair. “Begging your pardon, milady,” he said as he worked the tip out of the chair, one hand on the shaft in front of the body and the other behind.

Both the lady and the butler were looking away with sickened expressions. Neither noticed the heavy blow low to the back of the skull. If the blow was inflicted first, the arrow was not necessarily the cause of the man’s death.

“Not too much damage done,” he told her.

“You were always very neat. Very practical,” she told him, and the boy inside the man puffed up with pride.

The corpse had bled little from the front and back wounds, soaking the clothing around the hole but not spilling all over the chair. Will searched the corpse’s pockets next. He’d done it so many times over the years he felt not a twinge of horror or pity.

Especially for Atwell. He knew the real story, and it was far more traitorous than what Susanna had heard.

There were some nice coins in his purse, “He wasn’t short of money, despite his villainy,” and then he found what he expected to find. And something extra.

He slipped the something extra into his pocket until he had time to study it. “Here’s a note, giving directions to enter this room from outside. It set the meeting for seven o’clock.”

He looked up to see Susanna’s eyes had widened again. She looked down and closed her eyes. “That’s when we ordinarily would have been sitting down to dine before the ball. On the far side of the house.”

“But that’s not when you dined this night?”

She raised her head and stared at him. “No. Rose was so nervous we moved dinner up to six. We’d left the table by seven. Instead of everyone being in the dining room, family and servants both, we were all over the house.

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