Reckless Desire (Saved By Desire 6)

“He has been here for a couple of hours,” Marcus murmured.

“He was still swinging when I found him,” she whispered.

Joe’s gaze flew to hers. “Pardon?”

She repeated it.

They all tensed. Joe stared hard at her. “How long were you unconscious for?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered tearfully. “Everything just went blank. I was in the house about five minutes, maybe a bit more, while I got changed. Then I came here. I intended to go to bed once I had spoken with my father and found out about that arrangement the Count said he had with him. My father isn’t here, but I found him instead.”

Joe had no reason to doubt her, but then they had lost her late last night and hadn’t found her again until this morning. In the five hours she had been gone, one man had died, and nobody, it appears, had been around her at the time.

“So how did you get back here?” he asked, eyeing her up and down.

Marguerite looked at him. “I walked,” she replied calmly.

Marcus guffawed. It was a good eight miles from the Carmichael’s house, in the fog, in the pouring rain, and she was unchaperoned. They all doubted that explanation given the danger that lurked on London’s streets during the night.

“It is true,” she protested. “I got lost when I left. I didn’t know where I was going, so I found my way to Regent’s park and then came home. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Why didn’t you just take a carriage?” Joe demanded.

“I didn’t have any coins on me,” she replied.

Joe sighed. He didn’t want to acknowledge the relief that swept through him when he realised the murderer couldn’t be Marguerite. He knew she hadn’t killed the dead man because the difference in size between her and the corpse was too great. She was too slight in stature to get a heavy, fully grown male high into the air. The man had either committed suicide in Eustace’s bedchamber for some reason, which was a ridiculous notion at best, or someone had murdered him by strangulation and left him in the bedchamber as a warning.

That sounds like something Sayers would do, Joe thought.

Given how well the Star Elite knew Sayers, the second option would be something they all knew Sayers would do as a visual warning to people who refused to go along with his demands. They all knew how Sayers liked to murder people. The corpse was undoubtedly one of his victims. Joe could only hope that Eustace wasn’t on Sayers’ list as well. Until they found Eustace’s body, it was difficult to know for definite what had happened to him, or if he was still alive.

Had the corpse been left as a warning for Marguerite? Had Sayers gotten hold of Eustace with the intention of keeping him while he persuaded Marguerite to go along with his dastardly plan? Was the body there as a warning to her that this was the fate that befell anybody who denied

him?

Joe had no idea but knew one thing for certain, now that Marguerite had found the body; she was in just as much danger as the dead man had been. Troubled, Joe watched Marcus lay the body on the floor and search through the pockets. Apart from a snuff box, a handkerchief, some loose change, and a packet of tobacco but no pipe, there were no identifying items on the corpse to give anybody but those who knew him any idea of who he might be. That meant Sayers left the body for someone who would recognise the victim.

Joe turned to study Marguerite. “I need to search the rest of the house,” he said.

With a nod to Ben, he left Marguerite to Marcus to guard and went to search the house.

At the back room on the upper floor, he opened the door and was immediately assaulted with the scent of flowers. It reminded him of honeysuckle; sweet yet delicate. He knew immediately that he had found Marguerite’s room.

“What have you found?” Ben murmured when he came to see what Joe was studying.

Joe picked up the sodden dress he could remember Marguerite wearing last night.

“She had to have been out all night,” Ben murmured. “That is soaked.”

Indeed it was and was disturbing to Joe. The material was cold and wet to the touch and left a sizeable puddle of water on the floor when he picked it up. While it assured him that she had been telling the truth, it galled him to think of her being out there all alone, in the dead of night, freezing cold and this wet.

“She is damned lucky she didn’t die out there,” Joe muttered in disgust.

His curse was bitter as he threw the dress on the floor. He searched the rest of the room and realised that apart from her clothing, she had packed very little. What she had packed had been stuffed into a bag with haste because the items she had left had been abandoned half hanging out of her drawers.

“Nothing surprising here,” Ben murmured as they returned to Eustace’s bed chamber.

Joe nodded but was too lost in thought to pay much attention.