Page 2 of Honor Unbound

I blinked. And blinked again. “And if I were somehow involved in this death,” I said slowly, “what exactly would you propose doing with this man’s body?”

Mr. Stavers delicately cleared his throat. “It isn’t hard to make a body disappear in London. The Thames isn’t too far away. And there’s the Water Works. Me and the boys could—”

“No.” I held up my hand. I didn’t want to hear just how far my servants had plotted out disposing of a body, and just what they thought me capable of. I’d worry about how they perceived me later. “Thank you, but no.” I tried to hide the exasperation I felt from my voice. I fear I failed. “Please send for the nearest night watchman or constable. I believe there’s a sentry box two streets over.”

“Of course, milady.” Stavers nodded and crept back inside the house, on the hunt for our fastest footman, I presumed.

I sniffed and shot Jane a look, one she willfully misinterpreted.

“Oh, Joe’s all right.” She bobbed her head in the milkman’s direction. “He wouldn’t have said anything if I’d asked him not to.”

Lovely. Another citizen willing to cover up a crime for the sake of friendship. I feared I’d underestimated how scrupulous the average Englishman to be.

“Can you roll him over?” I asked.

Mr. Higgs’s face creased. “Ma’am?”

“Roll the body over.” I made a circular motion with my finger. “I want to see his face more fully. Maybe I’ll recognize him.”

“Of course. Erm. Sure.” The milkman ran his palms down the sides of his jacket and stepped to the body. “I’ll just… uh….”

I tapped my foot as he gingerly gripped the man’s shoulder and hip and eased the body to its back. Mr. Higgs jumped back and rubbed his hands over his jacket again.

The new position didn’t help me to identify the man. I took Jane’s candle and knelt beside the body, lowering the flame as close as I could without burning the corpse. There might have been something familiar about the man’s features, but one thing I had learned was that once death took a person, it changed their appearance almost immediately. A man known for his humor could become unrecognizable once death stole that emotion from his features. I didn’t think I knew this man, but did I know someone related to him?

I turned my examination to his wound. The whole front of his waistcoat was darkened with blood, but it wasn’t hard to find his injuries. The silk of his waistcoat was nearly shredded from stab wounds. The blood from his wounds had flowed down to soak much of his trousers and splatter his boots. “I find it hard to believe this man didn’t die instantly from the attack upon his person.” I looked back over the trail of blood down the street. How far had he walked? Whoever the victim was, he had some determination in him. Or he had when he was alive.

Heat coursed through my body. Not an hour ago, this man had been alive. Someone’s son. Perhaps someone’s husband and father. And his life had been viciously stolen from him, stolen from those who loved him. The injustice of it made me burn.

The soft tinkle of a bell met my ear, growing louder as the beast who wore it came nearer.

“Jane, shut the door,” I said sharply. “We don’t want….”

The cairn terrier burst through the entryway before Jane could block it. He arrowed straight towards me, his short tail waggling with excitement.

“Southey, no.” I pushed his front paws off my knee. “Go back inside. No, don’t step there!” I grabbed the dog’s collar and hauled him back from the pool of blood on the steps.

“I see ’e’s forgiven you for putting the bell on ’is collar.” Marie Murphy, my most recently hired maid, stepped onto the front porch and yawned. Her bright-red hair tumbled about her shoulders. Her hastily donned uniform fit loosely around her curves.

I shoved the small dog at her. “The beast gets underfoot and almost made Jane fall down the stairs. He needed a warning bell.”

Marie’s eyebrows slowly rose as she looked upon the scene. “Cor, that’s a lot of blood.” Being of sensible country stock, she didn’t shy away or feign hysterics. Instead, she inched closer. “What did ’e do to deserve that?”

I chose to believe she was asking a rhetorical question, not that she thought one of us could provide an answer because we had done the deed. “I have a hard time believing anyone could deserve that.” I looked back to our victim. Had he been hunted like prey, or had the attack been unplanned, committed in the heat of passion? “What are you doing up?” I asked Marie.

“Mr. Stavers has roused the whole lot of us.” Marie leaned closer. She cocked her head, a lock of her red hair tumbling to her shoulder. “Seems to think the authorities might want to ask us questions about your friend ’ere. Who is it?”

I lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know.”

“Perhaps something in his pockets might tell us more?” The milkman flushed when we all looked at him. “Or we could wait for a constable.”

“No, I liked your first idea better.” What I didn’t like was putting my hand inside the man’s pockets. The blood was starting to harden and felt sticky against my fingers. I quickly searched him and was glad when the task was done. I held up myhand away from my body, not wanting my red-tipped fingers to touch my wrapper. “Nothing.”

Mr. Higgs tugged a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to me.

I shot him a grateful smile as I wiped my hand.

“What about that there?” Readjusting the squirming dog in her arms, Marie used her elbow to point at the dead man. “It looks like there’s something in ’is ’and.”