A Fine Passion (Bastion Club 4)

Clarice twitched the hems of her skirts from beneath Jack’s legs, and scrambled around him to view the damage. Her heart seemed to have lodged in her throat, choking her; the sight of the blood oozing from around the blade made her reel, not with faintness but with a medley of emotions so powerful she had to slam a door on them just to function. “What can I do to help?”

She laid her hand lightly on Jack’s shoulder; he was obviously in pain.

He met her eyes as she peered around his shoulder. “Can you pull the knife out?”

She blinked. She was thankful the path was so shadowy; he hadn’t seen the blood drain from her face.

“It hasn’t touched anything serious. It’s lodged in muscle, but it’ll do less damage if I don’t move until it’s out.”

She shifted back to face the knife. “How?”

“Just grab it and pull it slowly out. I’ll try to relax so it comes out more easily.”

She dragged in a huge breath, held it, closed her hand around the hilt, and did as he said, careful to exert only enough force to draw the knife slowly free…then it was out, in her hand. She blew out a breath, and slumped to sit beside Jack.

He offered her his handkerchief. “Use that to press on the wound.”

She did. Just as she pressed the linen pad down hard, a shot rang out.

They both looked down the path in the direction of the sound.

Jack closed his hand around hers. “It won’t be your brothers.”

She looked at his grim face. “How can you be sure?”

He started to rise. She scrambled to her feet, then helped him up, keeping one hand pressed to his wound.

“Let’s go and find out.”

Others had now ventured down. A few gentlemen, seeing Jack’s injury, offered their handkerchiefs to help staunch the blood. Clarice accepted them, adding them to the wad beneath her hand as, followed by a small procession, they headed down the path.

They traveled more than half the length of the huge gardens before they reached the scene of the shooting. It wasn’t on the path, but a little way off it, in a small clearing surrounded by bushes. A shocked group of revelers, including, Clarice noted with relief, Alton and Nigel, stood staring, silent and stunned, in a wide circle around the round-faced man.

He lay on his back, arms wide, staring, sightless, up at the night sky.

A large hole in his chest bled sluggishly. On the grass beside him lay a nondescript pistol.

There was no question that he was dead.

Halting beside Alton, Jack sighed.

“I don’t understand.” Frowning, Alton turned to Jack. “We’d gone past on the path, then heard the shot. But who shot him?”

Jack looked down at the pale, round face. “His master—our last traitor.”

Using Alton and Nigel as assistants, Jack gathered what information he could.

Nigel found a young lady who had seen a man leaving the clearing immediately after the shot had rung out; he convinced her parents that she should talk to Jack, and escorted the party to where Jack sat on a bench beside the central avenue, Clarice at his side still holding the wad of handkerchiefs tightly to his wound.

A few gentle questions confirmed that the young lady had indeed seen the murderer. Unfortunately, she was in the grip of incipient if not actual hysterics; Jack wasn’t sure how to proceed.

Clarice shifted, drawing the girl’s startled gaze. “Come now. This gentleman was injured trying to catch the man. You’re not injured, just frightened, but you’ll feel much better after you’ve told us all you saw. Where were you standing when it happened?”

The girl blinked, and replied, telling them she and her group were strolling the lawns just beyond the small clearing. Clarice’s calm questions, asked with the transparent expectation of receiving coherent answers, steadied the girl; she responded increasingly freely. When the shot had rung out, she was the best placed of their group to see the gentleman who had walked, calmly and unhurriedly, away from the scene.

Unfortunately, beyond describing him as tall, with a well-cut evening coat and fashionably styled dark hair, she couldn’t identify him. She hadn’t seen his face.

“He didn’t look around at all. At first, I thought he couldn’t have heard the shot. Indeed, I wondered if it was a shot I heard, given he was so calm.”