Never Gamble Your Heart (The Secret Society of Governess Spies #2)

Chapter 44

F rankie had seen dead bodies before; everyone had. She’d viewed her great-aunt Salome after she had passed—along with a number of other loved ones over the years—and thusly inherited her great-aunt’s spectacles. But the bodies that had been washed and laid out in Sunday finery for final mourning had not prepared her for the gruesome scene before her.

Lord Devon, who had been sneering at her only the day before, lay flat on his back, his eyes staring unseeing into the steel sky as if they were still shocked by some final image. His face was gray and stiff, the upper half of his body sprawled on the ground while his feet lay in the water. The stream gurgled and rushed over his bobbing boots. But it was the dark, raw wound in his chest that made Frankie pause and take several deep breaths through her nose. It appeared as if something small had tunneled through his ribs, exposing the gory, meaty bits within.

Jasper’s hand closed around the back of her sweaty nape and he tugged her close enough to whisper, “Are you all right?”

She blinked, breathed, and nodded. It comforted her that Lord Houndsbury, for all his stature, and Lord Trawley did not look any less affected than she.

“Well, he was certainly shot,” Lord Houndsbury said in a strained voice.

Frankie edged closer to the body and peered down at the chest wound. She noted the black smudges on Devon’s shirtsleeves and the fact that he was wearing the same evening frock coat he’d had on the night before rather than hunting attire. She circled the upper body, focusing on visual measurements. “May I see your rifle, Your Grace?”

Lord Houndsbury seemed startled by the request, but he held it out for her inspection. She studied it for several moments, turning it this and that way, focusing particularly on the barrel, and handed it back. “I believe he was murdered.”

“Preposterous!” Lord Trawley snapped. “What gives you the right to make such a wild accusation? It is every bit as possible, in fact more probable, that he was killed by accident.”

Jasper stiffened beside her. “Let the lady speak.”

“ She is no lady.”

“Say that again,” Jasper warned, “and I’ll show you a hunting accident.”

“Enough!” Lord Houndsbury roared. “Miss Turner, explain yourself.”

Frankie felt a warm glow from Jasper’s defense of her. Her mother had never found it prudent to defend her oddities. It was a unique feeling to know that she had someone at her side.

“First, he is wearing his evening frock coat rather than his hunting coat. That leads me to believe someone murdered him late last night, rather than his death being a result of a hunting accident this afternoon. If that is not enough to convince you, look at the powder burns around the wound.” All of their eyes fell to the ragged hole in Devon’s shirtsleeves. Jasper inhaled sharply. “When one hunts, one typically fires far enough away that there is no residue of gunpowder from the explosion on the target, am I correct?”

Lord Houndsbury nodded, but Lord Trawley’s eyes flashed with anger. “Why does that matter? Perhaps Devon took a late walk and a nearby poacher fired on him by accident.”

“If that were the case, Lord Trawley, the poacher would’ve had to have been so close that it would have been impossible for him not to know he was firing on a man rather than an animal.”

Lord Trawley did not have anything to say to that.

“There is more,” she continued. “Do you see the size of the bullet wound? What kind of hunting rifle makes that small and that clean of a wound? If the circumference of the barrel Lord Houndsbury is carrying is indicative of the average hunting rifle, then a hunter could not have inflicted Devon’s wound. Rather, it was likely the result of a much smaller weapon, such as a derringer.”

Lord Houndsbury lifted his eyes from Devon’s chest, and in them she read acceptance of the facts and approval of her methods. “Miss Turner, not only have you displayed more fortitude than half the men here today, but you have also displayed twice as much brains. If you are ever in need of employment, I could use someone with your intelligence and constitution.”

Frankie was astounded, and so was Lord Trawley, because his mouth rounded in disbelief. Never in her wildest dreams had Frankie imagined that one day the Duke of Houndsbury would not only address her directly, but also call her intelligent and strong.

She glanced up at Jasper, and he was smiling down at her with pride written all over his face. But the pride was quickly overtaken with worry. He lifted his head and said to Houndsbury, “Lord Devon was murdered, which would suggest the killer is a guest on premises. It would be too conspicuous for the murderer to leave directly after, unless he happened to be the man you sent for the inspector.”

Houndsbury’s face was solemn, and his shoulders sloped, as if he carried the weight of the world on them. His rifle rested in the crook of his arm, and he was still wearing the leather hunting gloves he’d put on before his property had become the scene of a murder. Those leather-clad fingers tapped on his thigh as he contemplated a decision. After a moment he said, “No one leaves.”

“Excuse me?” Lord Trawley cried. For once Frankie agreed with the irritating lord.

“Until the inspector arrives, no one leaves,” Houndsbury repeated. His gaze was iron when it settled on each of them. “Whoever killed Devon is still here, and here he shall remain.”

Frankie sensed Jasper thinking quickly at her side, but he did not say anything.

“I will send someone out to collect Lord Devon.” Houndsbury turned to face the direction of the house. “You are all witness to the position of the body should the inspector ask.”

Trawley trotted after Houndsbury, who, for all his silver age, moved with the purpose of a much younger man. Frankie and Jasper fell in step behind.

Once enough distance separated them from Houndsbury, Jasper pulled up short, grabbed her by the upper arms, and tugged her in for a quick and crushing kiss. “I know that was unpleasant, but you were brilliant.”

Frankie rested her cheek on his chest and steadied herself with the beat of his heart and the rhythm of his breath. “Whoever murdered Devon did it in cold blood, Jasper. He looked Devon in the eye and shot him through the heart. Who could do something like that?”

“There are a lot of bad people in the world. At times, I am one of them.” He traced his finger along the chain that held his ring, snug between her cleavage. “Lucky ring,” he muttered.

Frankie swatted at his hand and repositioned the necklace. “You may have done bad things in the past, Jasper, but you have never been a bad man.”

He tilted his head to the side, the pale light from between the leaves sliding over his dark hair. “It seems I have been successful in fooling you.”

“You aren’t fooling anyone.” She looked ahead to the disappearing back of Houndsbury. “What will we do now that the duke is insisting everyone stay?” She scooped a stick off the forest floor and began walking again, thwacking leaves with it as she went.

Jasper’s jaw was tight. “Unfortunately, we cannot leave now without arousing suspicion, so we stay, and we stay together. No one goes off alone.”

“That extends to you as well.”

His lips were starting to curve when he froze. The pure instinct that had him tensing made the hairs on the back of her neck stand straight.

“Jas—”

Without warning he shoved her. Frankie landed hard on her hands and knees, her palms stinging as twigs jabbed through her gloves and into her skin. Before she could react, she heard a loud crack , and splinters of bark rained over her head.

Everything that followed was a kaleidoscope of images, scents, and sounds: shouts from ahead, the acrid bite of gun smoke in the air; another rifle firing, dogs barking, a flash of Jasper’s dark-blue coat as he plunged into the forest, and then someone was hauling her to her feet. She straightened her spectacles and realized she’d been unable to see because they’d been askew. Grasping her arms was Lord Houndsbury. He was out of breath, as if he’d just sprinted back to her. “Are you injured, Miss Turner?”

“I am fine,” she said through numb lips. “Where is Mr. Jones?”

“He ran after the shooter.”

“The shooter?”

Houndsbury’s gray eyes shifted over her shoulder, and she spun to see what he was looking at. The tree behind her was missing a chunk of bark, the wound deep enough to reveal the tender pulp beneath.

“Holy Queen V. Someone just tried to kill me!”