He was cursing beneath his breath; he felt like he'd been kicked in the gut. After the serenity outside, finding Horatio like this seemed obscene-a nightmare he knew there'd be no waking from. Deadening loss engulfed him; his earlier anticipation lay like bitter ashes on his tongue. Pressing his lips tight, he drew in a deep breath-
He wasn't alone.
In the instant he sensed it, he heard a sound. Then came a clunk and a scuffle behind him.
He sprang to his feet, gripping the letter knife-
A heavy weight crashed down on his skull.
It hurt like hell.
He lay slumped on the floor. He must have gone down like a sack of bricks, but he couldn't remember the impact. He had no idea whether he'd lost consciousness and only just regained it, or whether he'd only just reached the floor. Exerting every last ounce of his will, he cracked open his lids. Horatio's face swam into-and out of-focus. Closing his eyes, he bit back a groan. With luck, the murderer would think he was insensate. He almost was. The black tide of unconsciousness surged and dragged, trying to suck him under. Grimly, he resisted its pull.
The letter knife was still in his fist, but his right arm was trapped beneath his body. He couldn't move. His body felt like a lead weight he was trapped within; he couldn't defend himself. He should have checked the room first, but the sight of Horatio, lying there still bleeding… damn!
He waited, oddly detached, wondering if the murderer would stop to finish him off or just flee. He hadn't heard anyone leave, but he wasn't sure he could hear at all.
How long had he been lying there?
From behind the door, Phyllida Tallent stared wide-eyed at the gentleman now stretched lifeless beside Horatio Weiham's body. A squeak of dismay escaped her-the ridiculous sound prodded her into action. Dragging in a breath, she stepped forward, bent, and wrapped both hands around the pole of the halberd now lying across the fallen man.
Bracing, she counted to three, then hauled. The heavy head of the halberd rose. She staggered, boots shuffling as she fought to swing the unwieldy weapon aside.
She hadn't meant it to fall.
Having only just walked in and discovered Horatio's body, she hadn't been thinking at all clearly when the stranger's footsteps had sounded on the gravel outside. She'd panicked, thinking him the murderer returning to remove the body. With all the village in church, she couldn't imagine who else it could have been.
He'd called a "Hello," but so might a murderer checking to see if anyone else had come upon the scene. She'd frantically searched for a hiding place, but the long drawing room was lined with bookcases-the only gap that would have hidden her from the door had been too far away for her to reach in time. Desperate, she'd secreted herself in the only available spot-in the shadows behind the open door, between the frame and the last bookshelf, squeezing in alongside the halberd.
The hiding place had served, but once she'd realized from his actions and his muttered expletives that this man was no murderer, and after she'd debated the wisdom of showing herself-the daughter of the local magistrate and quite old enough to know better than to slip into other peoples' houses dressed in breeches to search for still other peoples' misplaced personal belongings-once she'd got past all that and realized that this was murder and she'd gone to step forward to make herself known, her shoulder had nudged the halberd.
/> Its descent had been inexorable.
She'd grabbed it and fought vainly to halt it or deflect it; in the end, all she'd been able to do was twist it enough so that the heavy blade had not struck the man's head. If it had, he'd have died. As it was, the hemisphere at the side of the iron axe-head had connected with a sickening thud.
With the halberd finally angled to the side, she lowered it to the floor. Only then did she realize she'd been repeating a breathless litany: Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!
Wiping her palms on her breeches, sick to her stomach, she looked at her innocent victim. The sound of the halberd connecting with his skull echoed in her ears. It hadn't helped that he'd chosen that precise moment to leap to his feet. He'd come up propelled like a spring, only to meet the halberd going down.
He'd hit the floor with a sickening thud, too. He hadn't moved since.
Steeling herself, she stepped over the pole. "Oh, God-please don't let me have killed him!" Horatio had been murdered, and now she'd murdered a stranger. What was her world coming to?
Panic gnawing at her nerves, she sank to her knees; the gentleman lay slumped forward, facing Horatio…
Lucifer sensed a presence approaching. He couldn't hear, he couldn't see, but he knew when they knelt at his back. The murderer. He had to assume that. If only he could gather enough strength, even to lift his lids. He tried, but nothing happened. Unconsciousness welled, lapping about him-he refused to let go and sink under. There was a roaring in his head. Even through it he knew when the murderer reached out. The roaring in his head escalated-
Fingers-small fingers-touched his cheek gently, hesitantly.
The touch blazed across his brain.
Not the murderer. Relief swept through him, and relentlessly carried him into the black.
Phyllida traced the fallen man's cheek, mesmerized by the stark beauty of his face. He looked like a fallen angel-such classically pure lines could not possibly be found on mortal men. His brow was wide, his nose patrician, his thick hair very dark, sable black. His eyes were large under arched black brows. His lids didn't flicker; her stomach clenched tight. Then she saw his lips, lean and mobile, ease, softening as if he'd exhaled.
"Please, please, don't die!"
Frantically, she searched for a pulse at his throat, ruining his cravat in the process. She nearly fainted with relief when she found the throbbing beat, steady and strong. "Thank God!" She sagged. Without thinking, she carefully rearranged his cravat, smoothing the folds-he was so beautiful and she hadn't killed him.