The Saint Who Stole My Heart: A Regency Rogues Novel (2 page)

“She’s probably up in the nursery right now, laughing at us,” Nicholas muttered as the three boys took the servants’ stairs to the fourth floor, the sounds from the house party muffling their movements.

Dash frowned. Nicholas didn’t like losing. Dash didn’t either, but he’d been the one who’d gotten stuck in the window and wasted precious time, so he could hardly commiserate with his friend.

“Girls,” Nicholas added begrudgingly, his footfalls heavy as he trudged on, shame making his shoulders sag.

“She’s upset about your talk of girl parts,” Langdon said accusingly as they made their way down the hall. “She could hardly let such nonsense go without a set-down.”

The three approached the nursery door, Langdon in front. “Apologize, and perhaps she’ll be inclined to torture you only for a month rather than an entire year,” he said optimistically, leaning toward Dash and whispering, “you might want to tell her about your window predicament—or not. Your choice.”

He winked at Dash, then turned the door handle.

“Oh, all right,” Dash began, following Langdon into the room with Nicholas close behind. “You win, I suppose—”

The sight before him stole the remaining words from his mouth.

Sophia sat on the cheery rose rug, feet tucked up beneath her wrinkled dress and arms wrapped tightly about her waist. Lady Afton lay next to Sophia, her head cocked at an impossible angle and a horrible red, jagged line running along her neck just below her chin.

“Sophia,” Langdon uttered as he ran to her.

“I don’t know …” Sophia whispered, looking first at Langdon, then at Dash and Nicholas. Her eyes were huge in her pale face. “She won’t get up. She can’t. I thought, maybe, that she wasn’t … I screamed at her, pushed her—but she won’t get up. Langdon, do something,” she pleaded.

The boys watched Langdon hug Sophia tightly. Then Nicholas fell to his knees and sat back, his face turning ashen gray as he looked on with a dazed expression.

Langdon reached out and gently searched Lady Afton’s neck for her pulse, his hand shaking. “Sophia, I’m so sorry. She’s gone. There’s nothing I can do.”

“Don’t say that, Langdon,” Sophia begged, shoving him hard. “Don’t you dare say such a thing.” She savagely pushed him a second time, and then collapsed against him, hiding her face in his shirt.

“I’ll find whoever did this, I promise, Sophia,” Nicholas growled, his fists knotting at his sides. “I’ll catch the—”

“Enough,” Langdon choked out, tears welling up in his eyes.

Dash couldn’t think. His head emptied of everything but the sight of Lady Afton. His heart beat loudly in his ears. He was waiting for her to rise. Expecting to hear
her gentle laugh after pulling such a glorious prank. Wouldn’t Langdon look the fool then?

Tiny beads of sweat broke out above Dash’s upper lip and he wiped them away, still willing Lady Afton to move. None of it made sense. It couldn’t. Because if it did, then Dash had to accept that it was real. That Lady Afton was dead.

Nicholas bent forward and beat his fists on the floor. Dash knelt down and hesitantly placed his hand on the boy’s back, as much for himself as for his friend.

Nicholas recoiled at his touch. “Don’t,” he demanded low in his throat, his voice thick with tears.

Sophia began to sob and Langdon continued to hold on to her, the muffled sound making Dash’s chest tighten painfully.

“Christ, Almighty.”

Dash looked up pleadingly at the sound of his father’s voice, as though the man could awaken him from the ghastly nightmare. “Father …”

Lord Carrington rushed to Dash and swept him up in his arms. “My boy, are you all right?”

Dash clutched his father’s shoulders and tried to answer him. But his throat held tight to the words, allowing only a gasp to escape.

Lord Carmichael, a particular friend of the Aftons, entered the room. He braced himself on the doorjamb as he looked upon the scene. Uttering a guttural “no,” he punched the paneled door and sent it crashing into the wall. The sudden noise seemed to prompt him into action and he began to move swiftly about the room.

“Answer me, Dash,” Lord Carrington pressed, shaking his son.

But Dash could do nothing more than watch Lord Carmichael in silence. The man scooped Sophia up and pressed her small body to his chest, gently urging Langdon and Nicholas to follow him.

“Come, Carrington. The children must be seen to. And Afton … God, Afton. I’ll fetch a footman and have him posted at the door. No one will disturb the room until we’ve had an …” He looked right at Dash, his jaw visibly tensing as though he’d done something wrong. “Now, Carrington,” he finished, then strode from the room.

Dash threw his arms around his father’s neck and held on for his very life. Lord Carrington squeezed him securely and followed Carmichael, leaving Lady Afton all alone.

“You’re
quite
tan.”

Honorable Nicholas Bourne looked across the card table at Lady Sophia Afton with a devilish grin. “Yes, well, exposure to the sun does tend to cause such things.” He lifted his crystal tumbler in salute before draining it in one quick swallow.

“Nicholas,” Sophia said reproachfully, in the same disappointed huffing of breath she’d exhibited while still in pigtails. “You’re bluffing.”

“I’m shocked,” Dashiell Matthews, Viscount Carrington, objected, settling back against the gold patterned sofa. “Not Bourne,” he admonished, a sly grin forming on his lips.

Next to him, Langdon Bourne, the Earl of Stonecliffe, stifled a laugh. “Come now, Sophia. Must you always be so suspicious?”

“Really, Mrs. Kirk,” Nicholas commented as he looked at Sophia’s companion with mock disapproval. “I’m greatly disappointed. The poor girl hasn’t the first clue when it comes to scientific facts regarding the result of sun exposure on one’s skin. What do you have to say for yourself?”

A quiet, intelligent woman, Mrs. Lettie Kirk had been hired as Sophia’s nanny shortly after the death of Lady
Afton. And when her charge had outgrown the need for such things, she’d been persuaded to stay on as Sophia’s companion, though it took very little to sway the woman, for she loved the girl as her own. She shifted her willowy frame in the chair across the room and adjusted her spectacles. “Lady Afton received the finest education a young woman could hope for, Mr. Bourne.”

Sophia turned to Mrs. Kirk and arched an eyebrow. “Thank you, Lettie, for enlightening the man. But we both know the bluff I refer to is in his cards, not the sun in the sky.”

She turned back to Nicholas and drummed her fingertips on the table. “Show me your cards.”

“And
so
forward! Mrs. Kirk—”

“Now,” Sophia ordered, pinning Nicholas with a lethal glare.

Nicholas threw down his cards, feigning outrage. Shoving back in his chair, he rose abruptly and carried his glass to the mahogany sideboard where the decanter sat, already nearly empty. “Do you steal away at night to a gambling hell and lighten the pockets of cutthroats?” he asked, pulling the crystal stopper out and pouring the rest into his cup.

“I needn’t bother with such things,” Sophia replied, her eyes narrowing as she assessed his cards. “Your behavior tells me all I need to know.”

“What on earth is she talking about?” Nicholas asked, his words slurring slightly.

Sophia winced as the syllables slid into one another. “It’s of no importance,” she answered blithely, stacking the cards in a neat pile. “What matters is that you lost. I’ll collect my winnings, now, if you don’t mind.”

Dash listened to the banter, letting his mind wander. He’d not set foot in Stonecliffe House since the night before Nicholas Bourne’s departure for India. It hadn’t changed a bit, the dark, masculine touches put in place
by Langdon still evident throughout. Their mother had retired to the country upon her husband’s death, eager to make room for Langdon and the wife and family she’d confidently assumed he’d acquire once he’d taken on the title.

Said wife and family were still breathlessly awaited by the Dowager Duchess. From what Dash knew of the woman, she’d wait as long as she had to, duty and responsibility far more important than dying ever could be.

“Yes, do pay up. I’ll not have you besmirching the name of Bourne by denying what rightfully belongs to Sophia,” Langdon chimed in, the cigar in his fingers giving off a mellow, smoky glow.

Nicholas finished off the brandy and leaned against the sideboard. “No, we wouldn’t want that,” he said sardonically, folding his arms across his chest. “Now, Sophia, these winnings. Remind me, what is it that we were playing for?”

“A promise,” she answered so quietly that Dash thought he misheard her.

Nicholas stared at Sophia, his brow furrowing. “Well, that’s rather vague, isn’t it?” he replied, shifting his feet. “What, exactly, did I promise you?”

“Anything that I asked,” she said, smoothly pushing back in her chair and standing. “Lettie, I’m chilled. Would you please fetch my wrap?”

Mrs. Kirk closed the book she’d been reading and rose. “Of course, Lady Afton,” the companion replied. She walked from the room, gently closing the door behind her.

“Well, one lady alone with three men. This is scandalous,” Nicholas jeered, waggling his eyebrows at Sophia. “Which I fully support, of course.”

Dash couldn’t put his finger on precisely why, but he knew a squall was brewing. He could feel it. “I’m eager
to hear of your Indian adventures, Bourne,” he interrupted, hoping to throw the storm off course. “Were there tigers? Oh, and cobras, of course. Wouldn’t be a proper trip without a few snakes.”

“My mother’s death,” Sophia said, as if Dash hadn’t spoken. She twitched the silken skirt of her dress into place. “I want to talk about my mother’s death. And how we’re going to catch her killer.”

Langdon stubbed out his cigar in a crystal ashtray and abruptly stood. “We promised to never speak of it—we all did, Sophia. I can’t see the point in dredging up the past. It would prove far too painful for you.”

Nicholas slumped against the sideboard, his composure markedly compromised. “Hell, Sophia. I’d no idea you’d ask for something so …”

“Yes?” she demanded, crossing her arms over her bodice. “What is it to you, Nicholas? What is it to
any
of you?” She pierced each one with a tormented gaze. “I know what it means to me …” she paused, clearly close to crying.

Dash didn’t want to hear any more. All those years ago, Lord Carmichael had made the children promise to never speak of the tragedy. He’d assured them that doing so would only make the death harder to leave behind. They needed to forget if they wanted to move on, he’d reasoned.

Proper honor and respect was always shown for Lady Afton, but no one was ever able to explain what happened. No one even tried—not even Lord Afton. Or so it had seemed to him.

That is until his father and Lords Carmichael and Stonecliffe had invited Dash, Langdon, and Nicholas to join them and become members of the Young Corinthians, a clandestine spy organization that operated within the cavalry’s Horse Guards. Nicholas had refused while the other two had gladly seen to their duty. Subsequent
access to the files concerning Lady Afton’s death had forced Dash and Langdon to accept that the less any one of them had known when they were children, the safer they all had been. The killer had made a habit of preying upon Corinthian agents and their families. No one had been safe.

The same was true today. Dash clenched his jaw as he thought back on all of the lies he’d told. The Corinthians had never come close to finding the killer, but Dash had kept the truth of the situation from Sophia. He’d played his part so well over the years that the guilt had nearly disappeared.

Or so it had seemed.

“Listen to Langdon, Sophia,” he said. “He’s right. It’s ancient history. It would do more harm than good.”

Sophia swallowed hard, not allowing one tear to fall from her eyes. “My dear, diplomatic Dash. Listen to yourself, would you? Hasn’t there been enough harm done by the silence?”

She uncrossed her arms and walked toward him, reaching out to tightly grasp the settee. “Where did you go, Dash? Can you tell me? You’ve played at life so skillfully that I hardly remember who you were before my mother’s death. Who are you, Dash? You’re afraid. You know it and so do I.”