The Wedding Night Affair--An Historical Mystery L.C. Sharp (i read books .TXT) 📖

A bee, perhaps. But as she turned, ready to laugh at her skittishness, someone screamed.

Amelia had gone. When Juliana looked around, she saw her. Amelia was bent over something on the floor.

Someone.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ash stared at the body of the maid, lying on the terrace leading to his garden. Fury seethed through him. How dared anyone attack him in his home?

He should never have allowed his work to come so close. Nothing was worth putting his family into danger.

Too late. Juliana was part of his family, someone he considered his to protect. He had included her in his family gatherings, the meals, the relaxing times, discussed his opinions on various matters with her. She had slotted into her place as if she’d always been there. Juliana, his friend.

He’d sent the shaken Amelia with Juliana back to their room. As if they had not been immured enough, but he had no choice. He had to ensure they came to no harm.

Wood lay on her side. The arrow that had killed her had spun her around with the force of its impact. Her skirts were tangled around her legs, the cane hoops smashed. Her white silk-clad legs and the sturdy black leather shoes sprawled unnaturally on the damp grass, the green stains an obscene reflection of the red splashed over her upper body. One of her legs was probably broken, judging by its angle, probably done as she fell.

The arrow—arrow!—had come from the garden, not from the high fence that separated it from the world outside. Juliana had said she’d seen the gardener just before it happened, but today was the gardener’s day off. Rowley did not live in, but close by, with his family. Ash had sent a servant to ensure the man was well, but Rowley was not the man Juliana had seen. Rowley was at home on his day off. Juliana had caught a glimpse of the assassin.

A soft footstep behind him made him spin around. “You should not be here,” he said.

Juliana gazed down at the maid. “I want to help.”

He was too honest to deny that she could help him. Her talent of detailed observation, her support, the way he could talk matters over with her had come to mean more to him than it should.

Anger simmered. They should be celebrating her escape from the gallows, not dealing with the death brought to his house.

The black feathers on the arrow shivered in the breeze.

“You’re too kindhearted. She would have seen you on the scaffold if you had not found that bottle.”

Juliana shook her head. “But she is dead now. She didn’t deserve that.” Neither did he. He would take this death personally. “What will you do?”

“Record the death. I’ve sent a man to Bow Street to let them know. I do not want this to get out. The servants won’t speak about it, and I want you to promise me you will not, either.”

She blinked at him in surprise. “Why?”

“Because that is what the killer wants.” He indicated the arrow. “Who uses that if they don’t want to make a splash?”

She turned away from her dead maid to face him. “You should not have to bear all this on your own.”

“Me?”

Her words took him aback, as seeing a woman killed by an arrow through her chest had not. Nobody had considered his reactions before. Not like that, at any rate. People assumed his customary cool demeanor was what he was all the way through. She didn’t. She saw straight through to the troubled man beneath.

“Yes, you.” She folded her arms. “I was standing close by. The arrow skimmed past me.”

“It could have been meant for you.”

“It wasn’t.”

He followed her gaze to the arrow.

She indicated the feathered shaft. “There is a message burned down the side of the shaft, probably with a hot needle. It reads ‘So perish all traitors.’”

“Traitor?”

“She told us something her killer didn’t want us to know. And he found out about it. I haven’t betrayed anyone and the arrow isn’t sticking out of my back.”

“Thank God.” He bit his lip as if taking back his words, but it was too late. She’d heard them.

Freeman came outside bearing what Ash had asked for. He tossed the blanket over the recumbent form, arrow and all. Then Ash held out his arm. “Let’s go back inside.”

They went upstairs to the main drawing room, where Amelia waited with a pot of tea. Amelia was white, still shaken, but she poured the tea with a steady hand.

Taking his customary place in the armchair nearest the fireplace, he accepted a dish of tea from Amelia, who gave him a worried stare before she returned to her seat by her brother’s side.

Juliana sat opposite him, in the chair that was a twin of his own. Her tea stood on the small table at her elbow, but she did not make any move to touch it. She remained completely still, her hands clasped firmly in her lap, but he could see through that calm exterior now. Her lips were taught, her eyes starkly wide. She was deeply distressed.

Ash wished he’d done a better job of protecting her, but it was too late now. In any case she’d responded in a way that made him proud of her. She’d made the deduction that had completed his theory. “As Juliana ably pointed out, the arrow was not meant for her. It was for Wood, and it carried a message from the Raven.”

That was everything he had for now. Listed like that, it wasn’t much. Not enough, a web of rumors and conjecture. But he knew. The Raven worked in the shadows and surrounded himself with them. Except that once, after the masquerade ball. Ash still didn’t know what had driven him to do that, to attend in person and make his presence known to him.

“A mysterious assassin. Like Robin Hood,” Amelia mused.

He remembered the legends. Somewhere upstairs was a book they had shared as children, one they’d kept hidden from their disapproving parents. “He