Antonia stared aghast at Lord Ranelaw’s loose-limbed form sprawled across the red and blue Turkish rug. The poker she’d swung at his head dropped from nerveless fingers to hit the carpet with a muffled thud.
Bile soured her mouth. Vaguely she realized she should feel remorse, but terror was paramount. A terror that cramped her throat shut and set her swaying with dizziness.
Explaining a live Lord Ranelaw in her bedroom would be difficult enough. How to excuse a dead one? She had no way of hiding the body. She’d have trouble even shifting him.
The blood flowing copiously from his temple stained the rug, she’d never get the betraying marks out. Her heart racing, she whirled toward the washstand. Before she reached it, someone knocked on the door. Antonia’s stomach twisted with nausea as she remembered it wasn’t locked. If anyone came in, her goose was well and truly cooked. In fact, her goose was completely incinerated.
“Miss Smith, are you all right?” It was Bella, Cassie’s middle-aged maid, who slept in the dressing room next to her mistress. “I heard the most almighty thump.”
“Bella . . .” Oh, dear Lord, could this get any worse? She struggled for a cheerful note. She hoped it sounded more convincing to Bella than in her own ears. “I tripped over a chair. Nothing to worry about.”
“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” The maid, jealous of Antonia’s influence on Cassie, would luxuriate in any fall from grace. No way could Antonia ever enlist Bella’s sympathies to keep this incident secret. “Would you like me to come in?”
Sweet God, no!
“No.” Then because her sharp answer might rouse curiosity, she continued more carefully. “No, thank you. No damage done. Go to bed, Bella. You must be tired after these late nights.”
There was a fraught pause. An iron band of suspense tightened around Antonia’s chest as she braced for the door to swing open. Then what on earth could she do? She had no money to buy the woman’s discretion. And she’d never bring herself to silence Bella permanently with the poker.
Lord Ranelaw was one murder too many.
Her breath hissed in relief when Bella eventually spoke. “If you say so, miss. Good night to you.”
“Good night, Bella.”
Antonia poised in quivering stillness as she listened to the maid make her way up the corridor to her room. Then, wishing herself anywhere but here, she stared at the disaster lying motionless at her feet.
She’d killed a peer. She could claim self-defense, but who would believe a woman with her history? Given the scandal that threatened, the hangman’s noose almost offered blessed escape.
Please don’t be dead.
She’d caught him across the face as well as the temple. A long graze marked one slanted cheekbone. Blood dripped sullenly from his wound onto the carpet. Her paralysis shattered. She dashed over to splash water into a bowl and grab a washcloth. Breathlessly she dropped to her knees beside Ranelaw.
So desperately she’d wished to banish him from her world where he caused nothing but chaos. Now it looked likely she’d never hear another of his sardonic responses or shiver with unwilling awareness when he laughed.
She struggled aga
inst suffocating panic. She hadn’t hit him that hard. But when she was a girl, a branch had struck the temple of a workman in Blaydon Park’s orchard and he’d died instantly.
Ranelaw’s face was pale, severe. The provoking glint in his eyes usually distracted attention from his elegant bone structure. Unconscious, he looked surprisingly ascetic. Like a knight carved on a monument, not a man whose name was a byword for vice.
Please, don’t let him need a monument anytime soon.
The dreadful truth hammered at her heart. She didn’t want him lying dead. He made her life difficult, he threatened disaster to Cassie. But the world, her world, would be poorer without him.
She wet the cloth and pressed it to his wound. Her hands shook uncontrollably and she sank her teeth into her bottom lip to stave off frightened tears. His skin was warm. Surely if he was dead, he’d be cold as stone.
Don’t die.
She wasn’t aware she spoke the words over and over like a litany until he groaned and stirred, and she faltered into silence.
He became terrifyingly still once more. Had she imagined that brief sign of life? His thick black lashes lay unmoving on his cheeks. At least her agitation had exaggerated the blood. It was only a sluggish dribble. She raised one hand to brush moisture from her cheeks.
“Ranelaw? Speak to me.”
Nothing.
She injected a stronger note into her voice and his Christian name slipped out before she realized. “Nicholas? Nicholas, please, please wake up.”