A Gentleman's Honor Read Online Free Page B

necessary orders.
    He’d been visiting Amery House since he’d been six months old; the staff knew him well. They acted on his orders, summoning his lordship from the cardroom and her ladyship from the drawing room, and sending a footman running for the Watch.
    He wasn’t entirely surprised by the ensuing circus; his godmother was French, after all, and in this instance she was ably supported by the Watch captain, a supercilious sort who saw difficulties where none existed. Having taken the man’s measure with one glance, Tony omitted mentioning the lady’s presence. There was, in his view, no reason to expose her to further and unnecessary trauma; given the dead man’s size and the way she’d held the dagger, it was difficult if not impossible to convincingly cast her as the killer.
    The man he’d seen leaving the grounds via the garden gate was much more likely to have done the deed.
    Besides, he didn’t know the lady’s name.
    That thought was uppermost in his mind when, finally free of the responsibility of finding a murdered man, he returned to the drawing room and discovered her gone. She wasn’t where he’d left her; he scouted the rooms, but she was no longer among the guests.
    The crowd had thinned appreciably. No doubt she’d been with others, perhaps a husband, and they’d had to leave….
    The possibility put a rein on his thoughts, dampened his enthusiasm. Extricating himself from the coils of a particularly tenacious matron with two daughters to marry off, he stepped into the hall and headed for the front door.
    On the front steps, he paused and drew in a deep breath. The night was crisp; a sharp frost hung in the air.
    His mind remained full of the lady.
    He was conscious of a certain disappointment. He hadn’t expected her gratitude, yet he wouldn’t have minded a chance to look into those wide green eyes again, to have them focus on him when they weren’t glazed with shock.
    To look deep and see if she, too, had felt that stirring, that quickening in the blood, the first flicker of heat.
    In the distance a bell tolled the hour. Drawing in another breath, he went down the steps and headed home.
     
    Home was a quiet, silent place, a huge old house with only him in it. Along with his staff, who were usually zealous in preserving him from all undue aggravation.
    It was therefore a rude shock to be shaken awake by his father’s valet, whom he’d inherited along with the title, and informed that there was a gentleman downstairs wishful of speaking with him even though it was only nine o’clock.
    When asked to state his business, the gentleman had replied that his name was Dalziel, and their master would assuredly see him.
    Accepting that no one in his right mind would claim to be Dalziel if they weren’t, Tony grumbled mightily but consented to rise and get dressed.
    Curiosity propelled him downstairs; in the past, he and his peers had always been summoned to wait on Dalziel in his office in Whitehall. Of course, he was no longer one of Dalziel’s minions, yet he couldn’t help feeling that alone would not account for Dalziel’s courtesy in calling on him.
    Even if it was just past nine o’clock.
    Entering the library where Hungerford, his butler, had left Dalziel to kick his heels, the first thing he became aware of was the aroma of fresh coffee; Hungerford had served Dalziel a cup.
    Nodding to Dalziel, elegantly disposed in an armchair, he went straight to the bellpull and tugged. Then he turned and, propping an arm along the mantelpiece, faced Dalziel, who had set down his cup and was waiting.
    “I apologize for the early hour, but I understand from Whitley that you discovered a dead body last night.”
    Tony looked into Dalziel’s dark brown eyes, half-hidden by heavy lids, and wondered if such occurrences ever slipped past his attention. “I did. Pure chance. What’s your—or Whitley’s—interest?”
    Lord Whitley was Dalziel’s opposite number in the Home Office; Tony had been