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

themselves with her before she’d met him. While she couldn’t call that day fortunate, something good had come of it. “Yes.” And flattered that he wanted her to stay. “Freeman will take Amelia and Gregory to the ferry.”

“You’ll have a long wait,” Ash said. “With London Bridge closed, they can’t use their carriages unless they go all the way up to Putney Bridge. Next year or the year after we’ll have Westminster Bridge.”

“That would have been useful.” The site of the new bridge was close by, but the never-ending building seemed to go on forever. “I’ll believe it’s open when I see it,” she said.

He humphed. A laugh wouldn’t have been appropriate. He nodded to Amelia. “Be safe,” he said. “Take Freeman.” The footman had given them signal service last year, when she’d nearly—She turned her mind away from past ugliness in favor of the current example.

Amelia worked her way back, and joined their footman, who led her and Gregory away. Gregory looked back. Ash’s younger brother showed signs of the keen intelligence that marked the family. Not least the man standing by her side. Unlike the unfortunate man on the floor, Ash was dressed modestly, but pin-neat, his wig precisely set on his head, the hat at the perfect angle. Few people would give him a second glance in a crowd. That was one of his gifts. “Come,” he said, but he didn’t touch her, only led the way to the body on the grass. “Careful of the blood.”

She flicked a glance at the spatter of blood, bone and gore that had punched over the space when the gun had gone off. A wave of nausea rose from nowhere. Up until now she’d managed very well, but the sight of the blood made her stomach churn. She forced the sensation down. If she were going to vomit, she would do it somewhere else. No, she would not be sick.

She pulled her shawl more securely around her. The evening was fine, but the chill of spring still hung in the air. And now the chill came from witnessing this scene of death.

Juliana lifted her skirts, but she was wearing a practical ankle-length gown with small hoops, easier to control in this crowd. The nobility had arrived in their private boats and carriages, the women with skirts so wide they could barely sidle into their seats, the men’s coats stiffened so they could have stood up on their own. White faces, enlivened by the occasional patch or circle of red, in the artificial style currently high fashion, made anonymous by the heavy paint that eventually ruined their skin. Until last year Juliana would have belonged there, but now she did not. Would never belong there again.

She walked carefully around the corpse. The cramped space meant she had to bend her neck, to avoid banging her head on the wooden benches set above. She bent, putting her revulsion away to deal with another time. She examined him closely without touching him. “I see no signs of struggle. He’s a strong man, large hands, but his nails are carefully manicured. He hasn’t broken any, and I don’t see any marks, either.”

Ash made a “hmm” of acceptance. Pulling off his coat, he set it on a ledge made of the back ends of two rows of seats. Then he crouched, sat on his heels. “Nothing else? No weapon?”

She shook her head. “No sword.” Only the nobility were supposed to wear swords in the City, but plenty of people disobeyed that bylaw.

Ash bent forward and examined the man’s head without touching it. “No injury there, either.” He stood, and brushed off his knees, although they had not touched the grass. They’d had no rain for a while, so the ground was dusty. Better than mud, she supposed. Or blood. She rose, too, without taking his outstretched hand.

The happy chatter of gossiping people leaving the gardens rose all around them, but this enclave was almost empty in comparison.

“Let’s turn him.” Ash signaled to the attendants standing by. They rolled the dead man on to his back.

Together, Ash and Juliana studied the square face, slight jowls softening the lower jaw. “Alive and standing, he’d be tall,” she said. “And broad.” But not with fat, or not much of it. “He’s strong. He’d have fought off an attacker.” He looked familiar.

Her first husband had been such a man. Large, shorter than this one, and quick with his fists, as he’d proved on their wedding night. The memory remained with her, but every day its power declined. Except for the dreams she couldn’t control.

“Which indicates he was taken by surprise,” her husband added. He touched his jaw, smoothed his fingers along the sharp chin, his habit when thinking.

The dead man left a dark, irregular shadow where the blood had seeped into the ground. The skirts of his red coat flared around him, the ivory silk lining bright against the darker turf.

The bullet had left his body at approximately the corresponding point to the entry point; it hadn’t gone up or down.

“The killer pressed the pistol into his back and pulled the trigger,” she murmured.

Ash nodded. “His back tells the same story, with the blackening of the wound and the neat entrance point.”

The waistcoat had been a fine one. Above and below the wound, traces of heavy embroidery remained. The buttons glittered with chips of diamonds or paste. His heavy red broadcloth coat had gold embroidery on the cuffs and down the front.

She might know him.

Reluctantly, she raised her gaze to the dead man’s face. It was heavy, jowled, a square face that suited the broad shoulders and powerful body.

“Juliana?”

She didn’t need to know the rest of Ash’s question. “I’ve seen him, I’m sure of it, but in some ballroom somewhere, or at the theatre. He’s not an intimate, not a friend or a fellow houseguest. I’ll have his name in a minute.”

“So, he’s wealthy, probably aristocratic. We shouldn’t have difficulty identifying him. Don’t worry about it now.”

“This was a