Miss Abbott and the Suspect Lord (Dazzling Debutantes #6)

Prologue

“The rise of the birds in their flight is a sign of an ambush. Frightened beasts indicate a sudden attack is coming.”

Sun Tzu, L’Art de la Guerre (The Art of War)

The baron is dead.

Brendan Ridley staggered through the gloom of the study, his boots muffled by the thick rug as he sank into an armchair opposite the fireplace.

The early morning light strained through the curtains, casting long, pallid rays that mingled with the wavering candlelight to illuminate a scene grotesque in its composition.

Lord Josiah Ridley lay motionless on the carpet, a dark pool of blood seeping beneath his thinning hair.

His eyes—glassy and vacant—stared upward into nothing.

The silence was thick, punctuated only by the soft flicker of wax-dripped candles and the measured tick of the baron’s carriage clock.

The once-imposing mahogany desk stood violated, drawers flung wide, their contents ransacked in a hurried search.

Brendan pressed his fingertips to his temples, the weight of realization settling over him like sodden cloak. He had just become Baron of Filminster.

Long live the baron.

The thought landed with the weight of irony and a stab of bitterness. How was he meant to feel? Aggrieved? Hollow? Vindicated?

Perhaps all of those at once.

Josiah Ridley had never been a true father to him.

The truth had arrived years earlier, on the eve of Brendan’s majority.

With clipped formality, he had been banished from Baydon Hall, and the reason had followed swiftly behind.

Josiah was not his father but his uncle.

The elder Ridley, Brendan’s true sire, had died in a fall from a spirited mare mere weeks before his intended wedding.

Brendan’s mother, already with child, had married Josiah instead.

A swift union to preserve reputations and ensure lineage.

Brendan had lived under the man’s roof, but never in his affection.

They had not spoken in over half a decade, Brendan confined to this London townhouse while the baron brooded in Somerset, tethered to Baydon Hall by fear.

A terror of horses had rooted him to the countryside for more than twenty years.

And yet, against all expectation, he had come to London. For the coronation.

And now … this.

Brendan stood slowly, his limbs heavy. He moved to the body, gaze falling upon the twisted sculpture that had been discarded near Josiah’s head. Bronze. A horse rearing on its hind legs, nostrils flared in frozen alarm. Blood streaked the muzzle.

The image was obscene. Macabre. Fitting, somehow.

The baron had not left Filminster in two decades, so profound was his mortal dread of horses. That he should now lie dead beside a sculpture of one was not only grotesque, it was unnervingly poetic.

Was it coincidence? Cruel poetry? Or intent?

He swallowed against the lump rising in his throat. A wave of dread built beneath his breastbone.

It would only grow worse from here.

He knew it. Felt it.

Brendan rubbed his temples again, more forcefully this time. The gossipmongers would have their whispers before the clocks struck nine. He, the estranged heir. Alone in the house. A quarrel, perhaps. A financial motive. Convenient timing.

He could already hear the murmurs forming in the clubs and drawing rooms.

And Lady Slight—she of the knowing smile and selective allegiance—would not be emerging to offer him an alibi. Of that he was quite certain.