Read Online The Prince in the Tower by Lydia M Sheridan - Free Book Online Page B

Adam Weilmunster was murdered,” she stated baldly.
    Curtis schooled his face into that of his usual butleresque imperturbability.
    “Did they see you, Miss Kate?  Where there any witness?”
    Kate shook her head.  “They came upon me before the robbery.  I had just found the--found Mr. Weilmunster.  The only one they saw was the Cavalier.  Diana and I circled away.  I disposed of the costume, most of it, under a log in the woods behind Malford House, then came back as myself.  To visit to a sick tenant.  That’s what I told the dragoon who stopped me in the village.”
    “Which direction?”
    “Coming west along Tinkum’s Lane.  He was suspicious that I didn’t have a coat.”
    She could see in his eyes unfocus as he rapidly weighed the information she’d given him. 
    “Miss Timmons.   She’s old, delights in imperfect health, and would as lief cut off her head than give information to a foreigner.”  He nodded briskly.  “I shall need your oldest cloak, your ladyship.”
    Kate nodded.  “I’ll get it.”  She hesitated.  “And Curtsy--about Adam Weilmunster--”
    He shook his head decisively.  “Begging your pardon, Miss Kate, but seeing as to how you’ve been nursing Miss Timmons all night, I fail to see how you could know about Mr. Weilmunster’s tragic demise.”
    Relieved that her own diagnosis matched his, she sagged slightly, but pulled herself up.  There was yet much to do this night.  She smiled at her fatherly, grandfatherly, soldierly butler and hurried up the stairs. 
    It was only after she’d hurriedly grabbed her cloak from the wardrobe that a blinding flash of apprehension burst upon her consciousness wi th the force of a bolt of lightning. 
    The pistol.  The pistol she’d lost the night in the cavern.  So much had happened since she’d forgotten--put it out of her mind, arrogant enough not to give it the importance it now assumed.  She sank to the edge of the bed, clutching her cloak to her tightly.  But such was her faith in Curtis that the frisson o f fear passed.  For a long time she’d been relying on her butler’s help and counsel.  He hadn’t failed her yet.  He wouldn’t fail her now.
    Kate’s mind drifted to Edmund.  He had teased, yelled, blackmailed, playacted, thrown her off a cliff, and eavesdropped on a fight with her sister.  He’d also saved her neck.  If anyone was the proper person to ask about the pistol it was he.  She took a deep breath and relaxed oh-so-slightly.  Between the two of them, she’d live to see another day. 
    Then she felt ashamed.  Adam Weilmunster, whom she’d disliked so intensely, lay dead.  Pompous and judgmental, yet in love with Lucy.  As was normal, his death put a glossy finish on his lesser qualities and made Kate feel guilty, but she shrugged it off deliberately.  Time for that later, for she was alive and owed it to her family to stay that way.  She’d deal with his tragedy when she could.
    She quietly closed the door of her room, glancing down the hall.  Behind the closed doors her family lay sleeping.  Her heart constricted in love.  Anything, anything was worth them.  This moment.  All the terror and close calls.  They were safe and warm and together.  That was all.  That was everything.
    Kate lay down and drew the bedclothes up around her neck, though she knew sleep would not come soon that night.  But her desperate thoughts scattered when the deep crash of the door knocker sounded throughout the house.  Her first thought was that a tenant really had fallen ill, but common sense told her that they wouldn’t have come to the front door or knocked with such ferocity.
    Racing back down the hall, she stopped at the landing, keeping to the shadows, overlooked by portraits of rapscallion ancestors by insignificant artists.  And she waited.
    In the darkness in the marble foyer below, she saw a glimmer of light grow stronger, throwing weird, huge shadows over the ancient, carved