He opened his mouth to ask for her address when movement in the trees beside them captured his attention. Instinctively he grabbed hold of her elbows and pushed her around until she stood behind him.
“What is it?” She whispered.
She clutched on to the back of his jacket with fingers that shook now with fear. She was too far behind him to see what had caught his attention. He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He didn’t even appear to be breathing all that much. His sudden watchful stillness was alarming.
She cast a wary glance down at the corpse now far too close for comfort behind her she side-stepped carefully away only to jump in alarm when Luke’s hand came to rest on her hip. It blazed a trail through the material of her dress to the flesh beneath. She felt hot. She felt cold. She felt branded by the single touch. It was the first time a man, other than her father, had ever touched her and she wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. A part of her wanted to move away, but worry kept her still.
Luke didn’t bother to answer. His gaze was trained on the man hidden in the trees. The watcher hadn’t moved yet, but Luke was sure that he hadn’t been there when he had last looked just a few minutes ago. Aware that they were standing out in the open, and were intensely vulnerable in contrast to the hidden predator, Luke kept his gaze locked on his target and quickly made a decision.
“Stay here, Poppy,” he ordered quietly. “Whatever you do, don’t move away from this body.”
“Why? What is it?” she whispered. She tried to peer around him but his shoulders were too wide.
Luke didn’t bother to explain. With his gaze locked on the man dressed entirely in black now trying to hide in the shadows, he began to walk toward the trees. Before he took more than a few steps though, the watcher suddenly left the shadow of the huge oak tree he had been resting against and disappeared deeper into the woods. Luke didn’t even stop to look back a
s he gave chase for the second time that morning and left Poppy all alone with a dead man on her hands.
“Well, really,” she snapped as she watched the mysterious Luke Brindley vanish for the second time that day.
CHAPTER FOUR
Poppy watched as Luke disappeared into the trees as silently as a ghost. The stealth and speed behind his departure unnerved her in a way that nothing else ever had. She listened carefully for a moment but couldn’t hear any snapping twigs or crackle of dried leaves. How did someone so large manage to move about so quietly? He moved with panther like grace so confidently that it seemed almost like second nature.
Whoever he was, he was no common or garden gentleman at leisure; that much Poppy did know. Luke Brindley was someone who was considerably more dangerous than a mere tradesperson; not only in persona but to her as a woman. Something deep within her knew it and was warning her to get out now while the going was good.
“You are no help,” she groused looking down at the body at her feet. Thankfully he didn’t reply, but that only increased her sense of being all alone in the world. It was then that she realised that she was all alone. Mr Brindley had vanished. He could be the killer. He had emptied the man’s pockets; the contents of which were now scattered all over the man’s chest. Had he been looking for something, some incriminating piece of evidence maybe?
If the pick-pockets returned now, they would help themselves to the coins Luke had found, dead man or not. To anyone who else happened to be genuinely taking an early morning stroll, she was standing over a dead man whose personal property had been bared for the world to see. Not only that, but the marks around his throat were clearly visible now that Luke had untied the cravat – marks that highlighted he had been murdered. It looked incriminating even to her and cast her under a cloud of suspicion she knew she would struggle to explain her way out of.
“He could come back,” she whispered. “Again. He will ask questions – again.”
Given how he had studied her bag, she wondered if he would insist on taking it off her so he could have a look inside. If anyone was arrogant enough to, it was the man who had chased after a shadow without a qualm.
“What to do, what to do,” she whispered. She didn’t want to, but she knew that there really was only one option available to her. With one last furtive glance around to make sure that nobody was watching, she turned around and retraced her steps toward the main gates. She didn’t know what she would say if she happened to cross paths with Mr Brindley again but didn’t want to even think about that right now. She felt guilty for having to abandon the body, especially when Luke had told her to stay with it, but she just couldn’t risk being accused of killing someone.
“Whoever Mr Brindley is, he can deal with the body himself if he ever returns,” she muttered. “Besides, you don’t want to wait around just in case the killer does turn up.” That thought made her feel a little queasy and was enough to force her to redouble her efforts to get out of the park before Luke reappeared and stopped her.
As she merged into the passing pedestrians on the busy main road, her thoughts remained locked on the enigma that was Luke Brindley. She hated to think that someone like him could be a cold-blooded murderer, he was just too handsome. Besides, there was something about his calm, unflappable manner that was distinctly reassuring. He had been annoyed at her questions, but then she hadn’t really done herself any favours by sounding fraught and irrational. He hadn’t been aggressive, just impatient and a little patronising. Just the thought of some of the questions she had asked him made her wince. It was her own fault if she had irritated him. Now that she came to think her questions over, she had been a little foolish.
“He must think you are a right nincompoop,” she muttered, then clamped her mouth closed when a passing gentleman looked at her warily.
If she wasn’t so attracted to Mr Brindley – Luke - she could begin to put the entire debacle behind her and focus on what to do about the contents of the bag she still carried. It wasn’t lost to her that she still had the wretched thing, but couldn’t quite make her mind up whether that was a good thing or not. She had a strange feeling that it wouldn’t just be the face of the corpse that would haunt her dreams from now on. The image of a rather dapper, and incredibly mysterious man called Luke, would stay with her for a very long time as well. Still, there was no reason why her rather unexpected attraction to him should mean that she should allow herself to be suspected of a crime she hadn’t committed, especially when the mysterious Luke Brindley appeared guiltier than she did.
Confident that she was doing the right thing, Poppy ducked her head, sent a silent prayer of apology to the mysterious Mr Brindley and the corpse, clutched her bag tighter, and made her way back to the hovel.
“Sodding hell,” Luke snarled as he side-stepped a barrow man and had to take his eyes off the stranger only a few feet ahead of him. Although he did so for only a few seconds, it was more than enough time for his quarry to vanish. Luke lengthened his stride and scoured each nook and cranny as he walked to the end of the street and out onto the main road, but he didn’t see the stranger again.
Had that been the killer? Or was that who Poppy had been in the park to meet?
Although Luke hadn’t had the opportunity to see much in the way of distinguishing features, he had noted that the man had cropped jet black hair and was so slim he looked almost gaunt. To cap it all, his clothing was unremarkable; the kind of clothing a lot of people in London wore, and that gave him the ability to blend in with the many pedestrians out on the pavements this morning. And vanish he had. Completely. Totally. Disappeared off the face of the earth in a heartbeat.
“Where in the heck have you gone?” he groused with a frown as he scoured the people hurrying in all directions.
At the end of the road he turned around and studied the busy thoroughfare closely. Traders were setting up stalls to one side of the busy high street. Barrow men were pushing their carts loaded with wares while women carried baskets of goods and foods. Children scurried this way and that as they too headed off to work. At first glance it was just an ordinary street in London full of working-class people. However, Luke knew that somewhere in the midst of the chaos was a possible killer; the murderer of the man in the park. He also suspected that he had gotten that close, but luck had worked against him for a third or fourth time that morning.
The first had been with Miss Cleghorne and her questionable bag, the second came in the guise of the pick-pockets, the third bundle of mystery was the corpse, and the fourth the mysterious stranger in the woods.
Disgusted at his amateurish mistake, Luke swore, and was about to retrace his steps back to the park when someone appeared at his elbow. He glared at the man who drew too close for comfort but then cursed aloud when he immediately recognised the tall gentleman who was his best friend.