by Rebecca King
“The poor man,” she whispered, horrified at the very startling possibility that it could have been her floating face down in the river.
Luke looked up at her when she spoke, just in time to watch her glance around them far too furtively to convince him she was innocent. She had the look of someone who was extremely worried about something. Was she expecting someone to appear? Luke glanced around but couldn’t see anyone. For all intents and purposes they were all alone – for now. So what – or who - was she expecting?
“Well, well, well,” he murmured as he drew the man’s cravat away from his neck and found dark, mottled bruising around the throat that had clearly been the cause of death.
That rules the woman out, he mused with no small measure of satisfaction. Once again he had to stop and think about the quiet thrill of relief that surged through him. Rather than acknowledge any form of attraction to the intriguing bundle of trouble beside him, he buried his interest behind a deep scowl.
“What is it?”
Luke glared up at her. “Well, given these bruises are around his throat, I think it is safe to say it is the reason he is dead,” he said sarcastically.
“You don’t have to be so rude,” she declared with a sniff. “I don’t know as much about dead bodies as you apparently do.”
There was a hint of accusation in her voice that irked him. He pushed to his feet and glared at her. “Are you hinting that you think I had something to do with this?” he asked with one longer finger pointed at the corpse.
Poppy shifted warily. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea for her to raise her suspicions about his innocence right now, and with him directly.
“I am just saying that it is an odd time of the morning for a gentleman to be taking a stroll.” She glanced pointedly at his suit that was more befitting for a gentleman trader, maybe a shop owner, who should be at work by now rather than in a park. Sensing he was about to scold her, she tried to reason out her deduction. “You seem to be completely disaffected by that, him, and, well, you are tall enough, and strong enough to, well, you know.” She lapsed into silence, not entirely sure if she knew where she was going with this. She watched the cold flash of fury flicker in the depths of his eyes and shivered with a deep sense of foreboding.
“Well, you had better hope and pray that I am not the killer, my dear, or you are in serious trouble. You have seen me run after those street urchins not long ago. What makes you think that I can’t catch you, especially as encumbered by those long skirts as you are?” He studied the said skirts meaningfully for several moments before he allowed his insolent gaze to roam freely over her until he met her somewhat horrified gaze.
Poppy swallowed and stared at him. “I-I-I shall scream,” she threatened in a voice that shook with fear. She took a step backward. He took a step forward.
“Well, go on then,” Luke declared, holding his arms out wide to indicate the empty pathways. “I don’t think many people will be able to hear you, but feel free if it makes you feel better.”
“I am not saying you k-killed him,” Poppy countered. She wished now that she had kept her mouth shut.
“No? Really? It is better for you if I didn’t,” Luke retorted flatly.
He swore beneath his breath and decided there and then that he had pandered to her delicate sensibilities enough for one day. She had been stupid enough to wander around a park unchaperoned; so anything that happened to upset her was just her tough luck. He pierced her with a glare and pointed toward the body. “Do you know him?” He demanded when she didn’t seem inclined to say anything else. “Are you here to meet him?” His question lashed across the silence.
Poppy hated to do it but she looked at the body. She squinted until her eyes were nearly shut but peeped down at the pale face of the dead man. It was something of a relief to be able to declare quite pointedly:
“No, I do not know him.”
“Did you see him in the park this morning?”
Poppy shook her head. “The only people I have seen in the park have been you and those pick-pockets. I take it that’s what they were?”
Luke nodded. “Did they snatch anything from you?” Given the way she was clutching the handle of her bag with white knuckles he suspected that nobody was going to get that bag away from her and was unsurprised when she shook her head.
“They tried but then you turned up.” Poppy gulped. “Do you think they did it?”
“The pick-pockets?” Luke was already shaking his head. “The urchin who ran at you barely came up to your waist. I cannot see him having the capability of strangling someone of this size, can you?”
Poppy shook her head. If the only people in the park had been her, Luke, the pick-pockets and the dead man, and the pick-pockets hadn’t been responsible; she knew she wasn’t responsible. That left only one person. Not only did Luke have the size, he also had the strength. She gulped and took another step backward.
Luke watched her study his arms and turn her gaze back to the mottled bruising still darkening around the dead man’s neck. He knew from the look in her eye what was going through her mind and was as stunned as he was disgusted by it.
“Don’t think for one second that I am responsible for this. I was just walking through the park when I came across you and the pick-pockets.” He cursed again when she merely stared at him in silence that was more accusatory than anything she could have said.
He heaved a sigh and wondered where his colleagues were. While he hoped they had continued to chase the pick-pockets across London, he also hoped that someone would have been close enough to come to his assistance by now. At the moment, he needed as much help as he could get. The woman, as intriguing as she was, was next to bloody useless, mainly because he suspected she had an entirely different set of problems completely unrelated to the corpse. He suspected that her problems had more to do with the precious contents of her bag she was protecting as though her very life depended on it. He tried to decide whether it was worth pursuing; to find out what was in the bag, but then wondered if he was involving himself a bit too much. He had enough problems to contend with already. The last thing he needed was to get involved in some foolish woman’s idiosyncratic issues.
“Should we say a prayer or something?” Poppy asked suddenly. She had never found a dead body before and wasn’t sure what the correct thing to do was. Should she cross him, or say a prayer, or just run for the magistrate?
“Look, if it makes you feel better then yes, say a prayer. I don’t really care right now,” Luke groused.
Before he lost his temper with her completely and did something he would regret later, he turned his attention back to the contents of the man’s pockets. He tried to open the sodden mess that had once been a piece of parchment, but it was too wet to be of any use. Anything that had been written on it had long since been washed away by the river water. The coins were just loose change Luke himself usually carried in his pocket and, apart from a fob watch and chain there was nothing else on the man that gave any hint as to where he came from.
“He is aristocracy,” she said quietly. The fine quality of the shirt he wore, together with the small, gold cravat pin was an indication that this man had once been a gentleman of leisure. “Who lives around here?”
Luke snorted. “This is London. At this time of year it is packed to the rafters with the wealthy. He could be from anywhere. Just because he has been found here doesn’t mean he came from here.”
“He is a big man for anyone to move far,” she reasoned.
Luke sighed and pierced her with a glare.
“What? I am just saying,” she countered with sniff before he could say something as condescending as the look he was giving her.
“I know, but he is an adult; a fully grown male who can go where he pleases, when he pleases, and doesn’t have to account to anybody. There is nothing to say that he hasn’t walked himself here and been in an altercation of some kind.” His thoughts immediately turned to the much older and consid
erably more ruthless gang who roamed the area. Was this a mugging gone wrong?
“How do you go about finding out who he is then?”
“I don’t,” Luke countered. “This is something the magistrate can deal with.” The last thing Luke wanted was to get involved with solving a murder mystery. Unfortunately, from the keen interest in Poppy’s eyes, she was too curious for her own good and likely to get herself involved in something she ought to leave well alone. He had to find a way to warn her off somehow. With that in mind he rounded on her.
“We could do with those pick-pockets coming back,” she muttered glancing around at the empty pathways, oblivious to his somewhat threatening stance.
“Really? Why? Do you want to give them your bag this time?” He lifted a querulous brow and wondered if she was having a dig at him.
She glanced around them. “Did you catch any of them?”
Luke shook his head and threw her a rueful look. “You started to scream again before I could. I decided to come back to see what else had happened to you given the racket you were making.”
Poppy’s lips twitched as she fought a smile. She nodded sagely but didn’t bait him. He was clearly put out that she had dared to question his masculine fitness. When he looked at her suspiciously she merely stared back, her expression as bland as she could make it. She could do nothing to hide the mirth in her eyes however and seeing it seemed to make him grumpy. Desperate to change the subject before she laughed and incurred his wrath even more, she looked in the direction the pick-pockets had vanished.
“I could go and find someone to go for the magistrate,” she offered hopefully.
Luke snorted and shook his head. He wondered if she thought he was as daft as he looked. “I think it is safest if we stay together. After all, there might be a murderer watching us right now.” He didn’t think so but if he had to frighten her into wanting to stay close to him then he would. Even while they had been talking she had started to stare far too longingly at the paths around them and, although he was positive he could catch her before she got too far, she screamed – loudly. The last thing he wanted this morning was add to his problems by being caught wrestling with a hysterical female in a secluded park with a dead man by the river. His colleagues in the Star Elite would never let him live it down.
“Where are you from, Poppy?”
“Pardon?” Poppy’s stomach dropped to her toes. Her mind went blank. She didn’t want to lie to him but then she didn’t want to tell him the truth either. She wracked her brain to come up with something plausible, but didn’t know London well enough to come up with any place names nearby she could give him as an alternative to the truth.
“Which part of London do you hail from?”
“Oh, well, I recently moved to Camden,” she replied evasively, and hoped her lie didn’t show on her face. “I hail from down south and don’t really know anyone around these parts.”
He was watching her as she spoke and suspected from the furtive way her eyes kept darting about that she hadn’t told him the truth. Listening to her speak, there was a faint brogue to her voice that had nothing to do with the south. Unless his ears were deceiving him she was from up north somewhere. Disappointment blended with anger as he realised that she might not be as trustworthy as she appeared after all. He felt a flicker of self-disgust that he had been foolish enough to be attracted, even for a short while, to someone who was not only trouble but also a liar.
Poppy fought the urge to squirm beneath that steady regard. For a moment she felt like a naughty child and wanted to blurt her guilt out just to get him to look at something else. There was something about this Luke Brindley that made her feel gauche and tongue tied. She rather suspected that he knew she had just lied to him and he wasn’t all that impressed by it. When she did try to brazen her deceit out and glare at him challengingly she felt the guilty flush of telltale warmth sweep over her cheeks and gave up. Instead, she turned her gaze away from the accusation in those wonderful eyes of his before she caved in and confessed everything.
“Whereabouts in Camden?” Luke demanded.
“I can’t remember,” she said blankly before she could think of a better answer. It was the truth. She couldn’t remember. She did know which route she had to take to get back to the hovel, but she couldn’t remember which street it was on. If she was honest, she didn’t really care because she wasn’t going to be there for too much longer. It certainly wasn’t home. To her, it was unimportant where in Camden the house was located, as long as she could put it behind her once and for all.
When he looked at her sceptically, she explained. “I can remember how to get there, and which door leads to the place I am staying, but I cannot remember what the address is. I only arrived in London last week.”
Luke sighed and shook his head at the curiosity of females. Who in the hell leaves home without knowing what the address is? Did she really think he was that gullible? He knew for definite now that she was lying and the investigator in him was itching to pummel her with questions to get to the truth, but he knew that now was neither the time nor the place.
“God save me,” he mused, eyeing the way she was biting into the soft pink flesh of her bottom lip as though deeply worried about something, or forcing herself to withhold further information. The sight of those pearly white teeth lying in stark contrast to the moist, pink flesh immediately made his body surge to life, and he had to force himself to look away before he really did something they both might regret.
“So?”
It took him a moment to realise she had spoken. “What?”
“So, do you want me to go and find someone to fetch a magistrate? I don’t mind admitting that I don’t want to stay here with the body any longer than I absolutely have to.”
Determined that she wouldn’t escape until he knew more about her, Luke looked her square in the eye. “No, I don’t want you to go for a magistrate. Someone will be along shortly. This is a park after all. As soon as someone appears we can send them.”
“Oh, but –” She took a wary step backward when he stepped toward her.
He opened his mouth to ask for her address when movement in the trees beside them captured his attention. Instinctively he grabbed hold of her elbows and pushed her around until she stood behind him.
“What is it?” She whispered.
She clutched on to the back of his jacket with fingers that shook now with fear. She was too far behind him to see what had caught his attention. He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He didn’t even appear to be breathing all that much. His sudden watchful stillness was alarming.
She cast a wary glance down at the corpse now far too close for comfort behind her she side-stepped carefully away only to jump in alarm when Luke’s hand came to rest on her hip. It blazed a trail through the material of her dress to the flesh beneath. She felt hot. She felt cold. She felt branded by the single touch. It was the first time a man, other than her father, had ever touched her and she wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. A part of her wanted to move away, but worry kept her still.
Luke didn’t bother to answer. His gaze was trained on the man hidden in the trees. The watcher hadn’t moved yet, but Luke was sure that he hadn’t been there when he had last looked just a few minutes ago. Aware that they were standing out in the open, and were intensely vulnerable in contrast to the hidden predator, Luke kept his gaze locked on his target and quickly made a decision.
“Stay here, Poppy,” he ordered quietly. “Whatever you do, don’t move away from this body.”
“Why? What is it?” she whispered. She tried to peer around him but his shoulders were too wide.
Luke didn’t bother to explain. With his gaze locked on the man dressed entirely in black now trying to hide in the shadows, he began to walk toward the trees. Before he took more than a few steps though, the watcher suddenly left the shadow of the huge oak tree he had been resting against and disappeared deeper into the woods. Luke didn’t even stop to look back a
s he gave chase for the second time that morning and left Poppy all alone with a dead man on her hands.
“Well, really,” she snapped as she watched the mysterious Luke Brindley vanish for the second time that day.
CHAPTER FOUR
Poppy watched as Luke disappeared into the trees as silently as a ghost. The stealth and speed behind his departure unnerved her in a way that nothing else ever had. She listened carefully for a moment but couldn’t hear any snapping twigs or crackle of dried leaves. How did someone so large manage to move about so quietly? He moved with panther like grace so confidently that it seemed almost like second nature.
Whoever he was, he was no common or garden gentleman at leisure; that much Poppy did know. Luke Brindley was someone who was considerably more dangerous than a mere tradesperson; not only in persona but to her as a woman. Something deep within her knew it and was warning her to get out now while the going was good.
“You are no help,” she groused looking down at the body at her feet. Thankfully he didn’t reply, but that only increased her sense of being all alone in the world. It was then that she realised that she was all alone. Mr Brindley had vanished. He could be the killer. He had emptied the man’s pockets; the contents of which were now scattered all over the man’s chest. Had he been looking for something, some incriminating piece of evidence maybe?
If the pick-pockets returned now, they would help themselves to the coins Luke had found, dead man or not. To anyone who else happened to be genuinely taking an early morning stroll, she was standing over a dead man whose personal property had been bared for the world to see. Not only that, but the marks around his throat were clearly visible now that Luke had untied the cravat – marks that highlighted he had been murdered. It looked incriminating even to her and cast her under a cloud of suspicion she knew she would struggle to explain her way out of.