Page 30 of Honor Unbound

Marie leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. The creamy skin above her bodice glowed golden in the lamp light. Brett forced his gaze not to linger. “How do you expect to get in the Trent house?”

“Charm and my natural ability for persuasion.”

Marie huffed out a laugh, a sound that warmed Brett straight through. “This I have to see.”

The footman Brett had met earlier seemed immune to his charm. He did, however, accept the five quid Brett slipped his way to let them in.

“Persuasion, huh?” Marie rolled her eyes as she walked past him into the house.

They followed the footman to Trent’s study. The walls were painted a deep bottle green, and a large rectangular desk dominated the space. The floor was bare. A one-foot wide strip of hardwood planks by the large casement doors was faded a lighter shade of oak than the rest of the floor.

“The carpet has been removed?” Brett asked the footman.

“There was no getting it clean.” The kid sidled up to Marie. “You work for that Lady Mary, too?”

“I do.” She spun in a slow circle. “Aside from the missing carpet, it looks like a normal office.”

“Well, we cleaned it up.” At Brett’s look, he added, “After the magistrate said we could. It was a right mess. The lamp was knocked over, oil spilt everywhere. Books and papers strewn everywhere. And that had to be replaced.” He pointed to the floor-length curtain that hung over one of the casement doors. “It looks like Mr. Trent pulled it down as he stumbled out that door after he’d been stabbed.”

There was no grief in the footman’s voice when he spoke of his employer’s murder, and Brett wondered at it. “Was Mr. Trent a good master?”

The young man shrugged. “He was fine.”

“Who let him in that night?” Brett picked a gold ink well up from the desk, testing its weight. “Was it you?”

“Nah. He didn’t make us wait up for him.” The footman stepped close behind Marie and pointed over her shoulder at the empty floor. His gaze flicked down to her bosom. “The pool of blood was right there.”

Brett forced his hand to unclench. Marie wasn’t his yet. She wouldn’t appreciate his planting a facer on someone being inappropriate with her. Other men would look. As long as that’s all they did.

Marie scooted away from the footman. “And no one heard anything? Not a shout? Not those books or drapes falling to the ground?”

“We’re up on the top floor.” There was that stupid shrug again. “No one heard anything.”

“And is anything missing?” Brett asked. He walked to where Marie stood, fingering the fireplace instruments.

She answered for the footman. “The fireplace poker. It’s not in its place here.”

“The magistrate took that. Thinks it was used to beat Mr. Trent before he was stabbed with something else.” The servant scratched his jaw. “We did tell Sir Kelsey that Mr. Trent usually keeps a small sum of cash in his top desk drawer. There wasn’t any there after his murder. But it wasn’t much usually. Not more than twenty quid or so. He could have taken it earlier that night when he went out.”

Or one of the servants could have lifted it when cleaning the room. Brett narrowed his gaze at the footman.

The boy shifted his weight from foot to foot. “One thing interesting though. It wasn’t missing, it was found.”

“What do you mean?” Marie asked.

“One of the girls found an embroidered handkerchief. Real fancy like. Tucked into the cushion of that chair, there.” The footman pointed to a squat, harp-backed chair. “Had initials embroidered on it. Real flowery like.”

Brett waited a moment, gritting his teeth. “And? What were the initials?”

The footman must have had a flair for the dramatic. Or a flair for irritating Brett. He gave a theatrical pause before answering. “The initials were M.E.R.”

Chapter Twelve

Marie

“Jane is stillgetting up early to meet the milkman.” Marie smoothed the skirt of her new lavender gown. Well, new to her. The fabric had been repurposed from one of Lady Mary’s older dresses into a more modern creation. Marie didn’t mind that it had been used. It was still the finest gown she’d ever owned.

“Is she now?” Lady Mary used the falcon’s head atop her walking stick to draw the carriage curtain open wider. “She’s a crafty old devil. If she hadn’t been found out because of the dead body, she never would have told me about hertendre. If a cup of coffee in the morning can be called such.”