Anne Stuart Read Free

rested.”
    “ Damn you,” Nathaniel snarled, but it was in a low voice. There was a limit to the young man’s bravado, after all.
    Killoran smiled sweetly. “Indeed.”
     
    The bedchamber mine host provided for him was damp, the linen unaired; the fire smoked, and the noise was appalling. Killoran was beyond objecting. He had tossed himself down on the lumpy bed with a complete disregard for his elegant clothes, unfastened his tormenting queued hair, and closed his eyes. The rain was coming down in earnest now, and the bedchamber was far from warm. The windows rattled in their casements, determined breezes swept through the room, and Killoran’s mood did not improve. One hour of sleep, that was all he asked. Just enough to take the edge off the miserable pounding in his skull.
    The voices in the next room were muffled, angry. He heard a thump, and a cry that was cut off abruptly.
    Another man might have evinced some level of curiosity. Not Killoran. He had seen enough in his life to be particularly disinterested in the violent doings of others. It sounded as if someone had just met his demise, violently. He could only hope things would now quiet down.
    He was just drifting off into a pleasant, wine-benumbed slumber when a shrill scream sent him leaping off the bed. Whatever semblance of a good mood he’d possessed, and there’d been precious little, had vanished. He strode to the door, slammed it open, and advanced down the hall, in the direction of the witless screaming.
    All was silent now. The door stood open to a private bedroom, and there were only two inhabitants. One was a bedraggled, bloodstained, and astonishingly lovely young female.
    The other, at her feet, was quite dead. And so it was that he found himself at the Pear and Partridge, on the outskirts of London, embroiled in a cold-blooded murder.
    Things, he thought faintly, were definitely looking up.
     
    “ Are you going to swoon?”
    The voice was cool, ironic, with the faintest trace of a lilt. It was enough to gain Emma’s attention. She looked toward the door, to the man lounging there, surveying her with a bored air.
    He was a startling figure, dressed in deep black satin, with ruffles of lace trailing down his cuffs. His waistcoat was embroidered with silver, his breeches were black satin as well; his clocked hose were shot with silver. He had no need of the diamond-encrusted high heels on his shoes to add to his already intimidating height, nor to show off the graceful curve of his leg. His hair was midnight black, falling loose on his shoulders, and his eyes were green, cold, amused.
    “ I don’t think so,” she said, finding her voice from somewhere. She wanted to wipe the blood off her hands, but the only possible spot she could find was her full skirts, and that would only make things worse. She wasn’t used to men. Cousin Miriam kept the house almost cloistered, a fact which Emma had accepted without argument. She didn’t see many men, and she’d certainly never seen one like this.
    “ Because if you are,” the elegant man continued, moving into the room and closing the door very quietly behind him, “I suggest you take a step or two back so that you don’t fall on the corpse.”
    Emma swallowed. “I’m not going to swoon,” she said with a fair degree of certainty. “I might throw up, though.”
    He didn’t appear alarmed at the notion. “Surely not,” he murmured. “If you’ve survived this much, you won’t succumb to such paltry behavior. I presume you killed him. Why?”
    “ I... I...”
    “ Not that it’s any of my business,” he added casually, skirting Horace’s body. The smallsword lay on the floor beside him, and the man picked it up. “But I do confess to a bit of curiosity. Logic impels me to assume you’re a doxy, set on robbing one of your customers. Frankly,” he said, glancing at her as he hefted the weapon, “you don’t have the look of a doxy. The clothes are wrong. And there’s something