For Love Alone Read Free Page A

against a step. He had no doubt that such would be the conclusion reached by everyone.
    Taking a deep breath, he allowed a faint smile to cross his lips. All was well, although he admitted he’d had a nasty moment when Sophy had stared so piercingly in his direction. Had she seen him? He doubted it. She’d given no sign. But if she had, he considered slowly, he would simply have to silence her. Pity.
    Putting the thought from him, he glanced complacently at himself in the mirror and gently patted his intricately tied cravat. His movements froze as he noticed with a chill that his cravat pin was missing. A very distinctive pin at that, the large bloodred ruby and ornate setting not commonly seen in the cravat pins usually worn by fashionable gentlemen. Telling himself that it meant nothing, that he could have lost it at any time, he hastily searched his room. It was not there. Where the devil had he lost it? In the hall? Nothing to fear from that. He took a steadying breath. Even if the ruby were found on the stairs, there was no harm in it. But if it were found underneath Simon’s body. . . . He swallowed. Do not think of it. You are safe. You will not be undone by something so insignificant as a cravat pin! He had dallied long enough. It was time to slip down the servants’ stairs and join the others, with no one the wiser that he had been gone. He smiled. Marlowe had been a fool to think that he could best Le Renard, the Fox. He hoped that sweet Sophy appreciated his efforts.
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    Lying awake in her rooms, still uneasy and unsettled by the scene with her husband, Sophy jerked bolt upright as the sound of a muffled thud met her ears, followed by the thud and thumping of a heavy object falling down the stairs. What was that? Simon?
    Slipping on her robe once more, she hurried to the door, unlocked it and stepped into the hall. Shadowy darkness met her eye; only the sounds of the storm could be heard. Something drew her on, however, and, taking just enough time to light a candle, she walked to the head of the stairs. She gasped as she stared at Simon’s unmoving form on the floor below. Is he dead? Had he really been so drunk that he had stumbled and fallen?
    Before she had time to consider her actions, instinct had her hurtling down the stairs to his side. Kneeling beside him, she nudged him gently, and called softly, “Simon? Are you hurt?”
    There was no answer and never would be again. The flickering light of her candle clearly showed his head lying at an odd angle to his body and the matted blood in the thick black hair. Whether it had been the broken neck or his head striking one of the steps that had killed him, she had no idea, but Simon Marlowe was clearly dead. He would never pound on her door again. She would never have to face him down with a pistol again.
    White-faced, Sophy rose shakily to her feet, her first thought to cry out, to alert the household, when a terrifying idea crossed her mind. Only moments ago she had shot at Simon. Everyone knew she hated him. And Simon, drunk or not, had gone up and down these same stairs for years. The question was sure to be asked: Why had it been tonight that he had fallen? Fallen almost immediately after she had shot at him and had threatened to shoot him again? She shivered. Would it be thought that she had pushed him? Murdered him?
    As she stared at his crumpled body, she began to tremble with shock and an inexplicable fear. She must not, she thought dazedly, be found here. The urge to run, to hide, clutched her, and she swung away from the ghastly sight of Simon’s body and stumbled to the stairs. Halfway up the staircase, she paused and, lifting her candle, looked backward, staring down at his still form, hardly able to comprehend what had occurred. He was dead, and if she were found here . . .
    The very real fear that she would be suspected of pushing him to his death sent her scrambling up the remaining stairs. Trying to compose