Jenna Petersen - [Lady Spies] (20 page)

“Lucas?” she murmured.

“Hmm?” His response was sleepy, satiated, and it filled her with a giddy power.

“What you did with your mouth—” She lifted her head and watched his eyes come open with interest.

“Yes?”

“That would be something that would please you, too?”

From the way one corner of his mouth lifted and a dimple flashed, she knew the answer.

“Oh yes,” he said with a chuckle that edged on a groan. “Most definitely.”

She bit her lip as she began to inch her way down the length of his body.

“Teach me.”

Lucas lifted his head from his pillow as the sound of knuckles rapping against the door sounded a second time. He looked over. Ana was still asleep, her tangled locks spread across the pillows. The sheets were pulled down around her waist, baring the soft curves of her breasts.

He suppressed a groan at his body’s renewed craving for her and slung his legs over the side of the bed. He reached out to pull the sheet up for modesty, though when he brushed his knuckles against her nipples and
they hardened instantly, he almost ignored the knocking and dove back in beside her to wake her up in the most pleasant fashion.

Instead, he forced some fraction of control. Pulling a robe on as he crossed to the door, he yanked it open.

“What is it?”

He could tell how fierce his expression was by the way the color drained away from the young footman’s cheeks.

“I—I’m sorry, Mr. Tyler, but an urgent message just arrived for you.” He held out an envelope with trembling fingers.

Lucas stepped into the hallway and pulled the door nearly shut behind him as he took the letter. The footman stepped back to give him privacy while he read.

The seal was that of his superior from the War Department. He broke it and withdrew a short note written on heavy, expensive paper.

Sansbury dead at home. Come immediately.

Lucas let loose a curse that made even the previously pale servant turn red up to his ears. He pushed the door open and looked inside at his wife. Ana had rolled over on her stomach, her arm across his side of the bed. She remained asleep.

“Is the messenger still outside?” he asked, folding the note to burn it later.

The footman nodded. “He was instructed to wait for your reply, sir.”

“Tell him I will be on my way shortly. And have my valet meet me in her ladyship’s chamber.” He returned to the bedroom and looked at Ana again.

He should wake her. This was a huge break in their investigation, and she would want to be part of it. In fact, he was certain she would insist.

But then he thought of all her theories. Of the questions he was beginning to have about Henry, himself. No. If his best friend was about to be implicated in the deepest, most desperate treason, he wanted to be the one who uncovered the information.

And if Henry’s name could be cleared, he wanted to be the person who did that, as well. He would let Ana sleep and face her wrath later.

Gathering a few things from the armoire, Lucas slipped past his wife into the sitting room and into the adjoining bed chamber to ready himself.

L
ucas had seen death before, but violent death like this was never something easily stomached. He exchanged a glance with the man from the Watch who was investigating the crime, and they both grimaced.

“It was a personal attack,” Lucas murmured.

The Watch guard scribbled in his notebook. “Why do you think that, sir?”

Lucas looked down at Sansbury’s body. It was disfigured now, the skin smashed, bone sticking through in the arms and through a tear in the trouser leg. His face was twisted in a mask of horror and fear, though his eyes—or the eye that wasn’t swollen shut—were empty of all emotion or life.

Lucas shook his head. “There wasn’t any reason to beat him so severely. A few of these strikes to the head would have incapacitated him. But the killer kept hitting. He was trying to cause pain.” He motioned to a few of the uglier marks. “To punish.”

The guard wrote furiously, and Lucas cast him a quick glance, knowing the man would likely take credit for Lucas’s comments in his report. Not that it mattered. His Majesty’s spies would solve this case, not the Watch. They were fine for breaking up a drunken rout, but not this kind of horror.

The man caught his eye and had the decency to blush before he left the room. Lucas crouched down beside Sansbury’s twisted frame and tilted his head, looking for any clues before he moved the dead man. He didn’t want to miss anything.

“Mr. Tyler is there, sir.”

He turned at the mention of his name. Charles Isley was standing in the parlor door with the guard, face pinched as he took in the bloody scene around him.

“Thank you.”

Isley took a few steps inside, carefully dodging overturned furniture and blood splatter. “Good morning, Tyler,” he said. “Ugly mess, eh?”

Lucas got to his feet and nodded. “Ugly, indeed.”

As ugly as the guilt that suddenly slashed through him. Isley’s appearance only served to remind him of how he’d snuck out of his bedroom an hour before, leaving Ana blissfully ignorant of this very big
development in their foundering case. She would be justifiably angry when she found out, and probably hurt, especially after she had opened up to him the night before. Gave him so much of herself while they made love. After she found out about this, he would definitely lose ground with her.

“Where is Ana?” Isley asked as he peered around.

Lucas flinched. There was no avoiding the subject now. “She—”

Before he could make some lame excuse, the Watch guard returned to the room with a round, older woman behind him. When she looked around, her knees buckled. Lucas rushed forward, catching her just before she hit the floor. He glared at the young man.

“Dear God, have you no decency! Don’t bring the woman in here.”

The guard flinched. “I—I’m sorry, sir. This is the housekeeper, Mrs. Farnsworth. She found the body.”

Isley shot Lucas a glance. Lucas nodded, guiding the woman into another room with the other two men at his heels. He helped her into a chair while Isley poured her a glass of sherry from Sansbury’s sideboard. The man probably would have begrudged her that kindness in life, but his opinion was no longer an issue.

“Mrs. Farnsworth,” Charlie began as he handed the glass to the woman. “Can you tell us what you remember?”

The housekeeper sipped the liquor slowly, her hands
trembling. “Yesterday afternoon, his lordship demanded his servants take leave of the house.”

Lucas’s eyebrows shot up. “All of you?”

She nodded in a few jerks. “Yes. Everyone and for the entire night.”

“Was that a common occurrence?” Lucas asked.

A blush darkened the woman’s lined cheeks. “Y-Yes, sir. Lord Sansbury did a lot of…evening entertaining. He didn’t want servants underfoot when he had his…his female companions here. He did things with them that were—”

Charlie held up a hand. “We understand, madam. You needn’t elaborate if it troubles you.”

The housekeeper nodded with relief. “Thank you. I assumed that was what he was doing last night. This morning when I came back from my sister’s, the house was very quiet. I thought nothing of it, I believed his lordship to still be abed. He doesn’t—
didn’t
like to be disturbed after one of his nights. Then I went into the parlor to light the fires and—”

She broke off and her skin turned a sickly green. “I found him.”

Lucas nodded slowly. “And is there anything missing from the house?”

“Nothing I’ve found so far, sir.” She drew in a few harsh breaths. “The other servants are looking. I’ll inform you if they find anything.”

“Thank you,” Charlie said with a warm smile for the woman. “You may go now.”

As the woman stumbled away, the Watch guard’s face lightened. “So it’s a whore we’re looking for.”

Lucas got to his feet, smoothing a hand over his face. “No. I doubt many women could do such damage to a grown man of Sansbury’s strength. And most lightskirts would have taken the valuables in the room. There are many expensive items that were left behind completely untouched. I don’t think Sansbury was expecting a woman last night. But he
was
expecting someone.”

Charlie nodded in agreement. “Have you searched the body?”

Lucas shook his head. “No. Not yet. I was about to do so when you arrived.”

Isley looked at the guard. “Continue interviewing the servants.”

The young man seemed disappointed not to be involved in the grisly work ahead, but he went away as ordered. Lucas went back into the bloody parlor with Isley at his heels.

“I’ll search the body if you want to look in that desk on the west wall,” Lucas suggested.

Charlie met his eyes and Lucas could see he hadn’t forgotten the subject of Ana’s absence, just set it aside for the moment. There was mistrust in the other man’s round face and annoyance at the idea that one of his spies had been left out of the investigation.

But as Lucas looked around him, he was happy she wasn’t there. She shouldn’t have to see such carnage.
Such brutality. Truth be told, he didn’t want to see her beautiful face surrounded by the ugliness, either. Didn’t want her tainted by the blood and turmoil.

“Very well,” Charlie finally answered. “I’ll look at the desk.”

As the other man crossed the room, Lucas hunched down. Sansbury was laying on his back, arms raised in front of him in a failed attempt to shield himself from the attack that took his life. One hand was clenched into a fist, but the other was mangled. Lucas reached out and touched the rigid fingers. They were all broken, torn backward.

He tilted his head. Hidden amongst the blood in Sansbury’s palm was a little piece of paper. A corner from a larger piece. Gingerly, he removed the slip and turned it over. There was nothing on the paper, but it was a heavy sheet. Expensive.

“He was clenching a paper. Someone broke his hand to get to it,” he called out.

Charlie joined Lucas. “Let me see.”

He took the piece gingerly to examine it. Lucas thought he saw some look of recognition in Charlie’s face, but then it was gone. He pursed his lips. If the other man knew something, he wasn’t going to tell him, likely as punishment for leaving Ana out of the scene.

He probably deserved that.

“Did you find anything?” Lucas asked, giving Charlie a look of challenge.

The other man’s face remained stoic. “There’s nothing
new to be found, I don’t think. Except that Sansbury isn’t the man behind these attacks after all.”

As Charlie returned to the desk and his search, Lucas sighed. Yes, that much was becoming clear. He couldn’t believe that Sansbury’s brutal murder didn’t relate in some way to the deaths of the spies in the field. And if he’d been murdered for what he knew, that meant someone else knew more. Someone else had secrets to keep of their own.

The only solace he could take was that Henry couldn’t be responsible for this attack. In his wheelchair, there was no way he could brutally murder someone in this fashion.

He straightened up. He couldn’t believe he was even thinking such a thing. Taking the time to eliminate Henry from a crime he wouldn’t have even considered him a suspect in just one month before.

And he could only pray he was right in eliminating his friend from guilt.

“Sansbury is dead?” Ana repeated, sitting down in a chair across from Charlie with a thud. “When? Where? How?”

Charlie’s forehead wrinkled. “Blast that Lucas Tyler! I knew he kept you in the dark.”

“What do you mean?” she whispered, even though she knew exactly what her superior meant. Her chest tightened. When she’d awoken alone, with only a note from Lucas, she’d been too flushed with the night’s
pleasures to question where he had gone. What a fool she was!

Here she’d been fantasizing about his touch all while he’d left her out of the case. Her face burned with embarrassment.

“Lucas was on the scene this morning, along with members of the Watch. He avoided all my questions about your whereabouts.” Charlie rubbed his eyes. “He did not inform you of anything?”

“No, I have not seen him this morning. When he left Sansbury’s residence, he didn’t return home.” She folded her arms. “Please fill me in.”

Charlie nodded. “Sansbury was found dead this morning.”

“How?” she pressed, leaning forward. The anger was still burning inside of her, but she set it aside to do her work.

“He was bludgeoned to death some time during the night.” Charlie grimaced. “Ugly business.”

She nodded, though some part of her was suddenly glad she hadn’t gone with Lucas. She’d seen the dead before, but it was never something she relished.

“Tell me everything.”

She listened in horror as Charlie steepled his fingers and quietly recounted the brutality of the murder. And the fact that Sansbury had been expecting whoever took his life.

“So he probably knew the man.”

She thought of the shadowy figure she’d seen with
Sansbury the night of the General’s soiree. Neither she nor Lucas had been able to make out his face in the dark. Though she’d heard snippets of angry words, she hadn’t been able to place the person’s voice, either.

“Is this connected to the attacks on the spies, do you think?”

Charlie shrugged. “We aren’t sure, but it fits. As you know, there has been a cloud of suspicion around Sansbury for weeks. Nothing in the house was stolen except for a piece of paper the man was holding in his hand during the attack. Tyler found it in the man’s broken fingers.”

Ana winced. “Do you have it?”

“No.” Charlie barked out a humorless laugh. “He insisted on keeping it as evidence. But I found something else. Something I kept from him as deftly as he kept all this information from you.”

She cocked her head. “You did?”

“Yes. While your new husband was searching the body, I found this in Sansbury’s desk drawer. It was jammed into a book.” He pulled out a piece of paper that was covered in scattered numbers. “It is written on the same kind of paper as the scrap found in Sansbury’s dead hand.”

She snatched it up. “These numbers could be code.”

He nodded. “I thought perhaps Sansbury invited his killer there to blackmail him with whatever was written on the note in his hand.”

She smiled. “Do you think he might have written
it out twice, once encoded, just in case he needed it for leverage later? Do you have the book this sheet was in?”

Charlie nodded as he opened a thick file and withdrew a heavy tome. “I took it as evidence, as well. Why?”

Ana looked at the book. It was a thick volume about animal husbandry. Her suspicions pricked.

“Perhaps Sansbury wanted us to find this.” She held it up. “It’s certainly not the sort of reading a man of Society would normally have in his desk at his fashionable London home. I think this is a book code.”

“Book code?”

“The numbers coincide with page numbers, line numbers, and letter numbers in a book.” She clutched the volume against her chest. “Probably the one he hid the note in. Charlie, I could kiss you!”

The other man smiled, his red cheeks reddening even more. “But you won’t. You’ll go home and decode this letter.” His smile fell. “Now, would you like to see the evidence I’ve uncovered that involves Henry Bowerly?”

The joy Ana felt over the potential power of the evidence in her hand bled away at Charlie’s reminder of why she had been summoned here initially.

“Yes,” she said softly as she put the encoded letter and the book in her reticule. “What did you find?”

Charlie motioned to a mountain of paperwork on the table behind her. Together, they walked over to it.

“It was not easy to obtain, I assure you. The War Department isn’t keen on our organization.”

“I can imagine,” she said, staring at the pile.

“And since Cliffield does internal work for them, getting access without it being common knowledge was even more difficult. But I called in a few favors and I can only hope my contacts will be discreet.”

Ana nodded. She had the feeling Lucas had not yet told Henry her assertions when it came to his potential involvement. She could only imagine Cliffield’s reaction when he heard she suspected him of treason.

Especially if she was correct. That could be a terribly dangerous prospect. If the man was capable of murder and maiming his fellow spies, people he claimed to like and respect, what would he do to her? What would he do to Lucas?

And how had he orchestrated it all from his wheelchair? That was another lingering question she had yet to find an answer to.

“I’ve yet to sift through most of it,” Charlie admitted as she thumbed through a few pieces. “But I did find some troubling things in the pages I did review.”

“Which ones?” she asked.

He picked up a slim pile and handed it over. She skimmed the lines and found they were internal reports from Henry’s superiors. Each was dated before Henry’s attack a year before.

“It seems the Marquis of Cliffield was investigated at least twice just before his injuries,” Charlie said. “Once
he was reprimanded for mishandling evidence that was ‘lost’ on a case. And once for taking a large sum of money in another case. But he was cleared of that.”

Ana found the file he was talking about and read over the lines. “This has a notation at the end about seeking another internal investigation.”