To Seduce a Sinner (Legend of the Four Soldiers #2)(92)

Two people were on the floor behind the chairs, a woman cradling a man in her lap. She rocked back and forth steadily, a whispered whimper coming from her lips. The man’s coat was fouled with blood, and a dagger still protruded from his chest. He was quite obviously dead.

“What has happened here?” Jasper asked.

The woman raised her eyes. She was pretty, her eyes a lovely blue, but her face was bone-white, her lips colorless.

“He said we would have a fortune,” she said. “Enough money to go to the country and open a tavern of our own. He said that he’d marry me and we would be rich.”

She dropped her eyes again, quietly rocking.

“It’s the butler, my lord,” Pynch said from behind him. “Mr. Horn’s butler—the one I talked to.”

“Pynch, go get help,” Jasper ordered. “And see that Horn is all right.”

“All right?” The woman laughed as Pynch ran from the room. “He was the one who did this. Stabbed my man and shoved him back here like so much rubbish.”

Jasper stared blankly at her. “What?”

“My man found a letter,” the woman whispered. “A letter to a French gentleman. My man said Mr. Horn sold secrets to the French during the war in the Colonies. He said we would make a fortune selling the letter back to the master. And then we could open a tavern in the country.”

Jasper squatted by her. “He tried to blackmail Horn?”

She nodded. “We’d be rich, he said. I hid behind the curtain when he asked to talk to Mr. Horn. To tell him about the letter. But Mr. Horn . . .”

Her words trailed into a low keening.

“Matthew did this?” Jasper finally grasped the full horror. The butler’s head lolled on his bloody chest.

“My lord,” Pynch said from behind him.

Jasper looked up. “What?”

“The other servants say Mr. Horn is nowhere to be found.”

“He went looking for the letter,” the woman said.

Jasper frowned at her. “I thought your man, the butler, had it.”

“Nay.” The woman shook her head. “He was too smart to have it on him.”

“Where is it, then?”

“The master won’t find it,” the woman said dreamily. “I hid it well. I sent it to my sister in the country.”

“Good God,” Jasper said. “Where is your sister? She might be in danger.”

“He won’t look there,” the woman whispered. “My man never spoke her name. He only said who had told him to look through the papers in Mr. Horn’s desk.”

“Who?” Jasper whispered in dawning horror.

The woman looked up and smiled sweetly. “Mr. Pynch.”

“My lord, Mr. Horn knows I am your valet.” Pynch was white as a sheet. “If he knows that—”

Jasper was already scrambling to his feet, racing desperately for the door, but he still heard the rest of Pynch’s sentence.

“—then he will think that you have the letter.”

The letter. The letter he didn’t have. The letter Matthew would naturally think was in his house. His house where his darling wife had no doubt returned by this time. Alone and unprotected and thinking Matthew was his friend.

Dear God in heaven. Melisande.

“MY MOTHER IS an invalid,” Matthew Horn said to Melisande, and she nodded because she didn’t know what else to do. “She cannot be moved at all, let alone flee to France.”

Melisande swallowed and said carefully, “I’m sorry.”

But that was the wrong thing to say. Mr. Horn jerked the pistol he held against her side and Melisande flinched. She really couldn’t help it. She’d never liked guns—hated the loud explosion when they fired—and her flesh cringed at the thought of a ball tearing through her. It would hurt. A lot. She was a coward, she knew, but she simply couldn’t help it.

She was terrified.

Mr. Horn had been a little strange when he’d come to the door. He’d seemed agitated. When he’d been shown into her sitting room, she’d wondered whether he might’ve been drinking, even though it was still not noon.

Then he’d demanded to see Vale, and when she’d told him that her husband was not at home, he’d insisted on her showing him Vale’s study. She hadn’t liked that, but by then she’d begun to suspect something was wrong. When he’d rummaged in Jasper’s desk, she’d started for the door intending to summon Oaks and have Mr. Horn forcibly rem£rn eguoved. Which was when the man had pulled the pistol from his pocket. It was only then, while staring at the big pistol in his hand, that she’d seen the dark stain on his sleeve. As he moved more papers with that hand, she noticed that his sleeve left a dark red smear behind.

It was as if he’d dipped his coat sleeve in blood.

Melisande shuddered and tried to calm her wild thoughts. She didn’t know if the stain was blood, so it was no use becoming hysterical over what might be a misunderstanding on her part. Soon Vale would be home, and he would take care of things. Except he didn’t know Mr. Horn had a pistol. He might come in the door and be taken completely unawares. Mr. Horn’s mania seemed focused on Jasper. What if he intended to hurt him?

Melisande took a breath. “What is it you look for?”