“Cordelhia—”
Her brother’s face thrust into his own. “Do not ever utter her name again. Ever!”
The slap came from the right, and the contact of the hard palm on his face was so violent, he spun around, or mayhap the room was spinning, he did not know. As his balance left him, he hit the wall across from the bed, the oil painting of his female’s favorite wee terrier falling from its mount.
Kane’s knees went out from under him and he sank down to the floor. “I did not kill her! It was not me!”
Cordelhia’s brother snatched something off the needlepoint rug, and as the male lunged forward, the sterling silver blade of the envelope opener caught the lantern light, flashing with a wink.
Kane rolled onto his back and presented the front of his throat. “Kill me! Kill me now! I do not want to live without her—”
The words stopped the other male, and there was a moment of suspended time. Then his female’s brother fell to his knees. He was panting, his chest pumping beneath his finely tailored clothing, his flushed face a horrible facsimile of what it normally appeared to be.
The letter opener trembled in his hand. But it steadied as he raised the tiny sword over his shoulder, the arc of its sharp point angled so that it would pierce Kane through the center of the chest.
“Kill me,” Kane moaned as he tore his shirt asunder. “Kill—”
“No!” Abruptly, the other male leaned forward and made a fist. “No! You will live with what you have done, Kanemille, son of Ulyss the Elder.”
Her brother slashed his arm down and the blow to the head finished what the delirium had started. Kane lost consciousness, his final awareness the scent of his tears mingling with the copper bloom of her blood and the…
… smell of the earth.
No, that couldn’t be right.
Firstly, he surely must be dead, so why would he be smelling aught? And secondly, if he were alive, he would be at his home, so why would he be smelling dirt if he were in Cordelhia’s bedding chamber?
And there were other things in the air: A wretched rotting stink. Mold. Old fabric. His own blood. Verily, he was no longer at his estate.
Unable to assess his surroundings, he performed an accounting of himself: His mind remained sluggish, his hearing was phasing in and out, and his eyes refused to open. Farther down, his belly was both sour and empty, but he could not worry about that—
“Aye, yer in rough shape.”
The voice was close by, and as the words registered, he was unsure who was talking. He had a thought he should lift his lids, but his head was pounding and his face felt swollen—therefore, he did not believe it waspossible.
“I beg your pardon?” he mumbled.
“Ah, so yer a posh one. I fig’d by the looks of yer—and who dropped yer off.” There was a shuffling, as if someone was moving around on packed earth. “Yer’ll be needin’ to take cover, gov’ner.”
With sloppy thoughts, he attempted to remember what had happened after Cordelhia’s brother had struck him that last time. He had the sense that there had been a passage of hours. Perhaps even a day and night cycle.
“Where am I?” he asked.
When there was no answer, he tried again to open his eyes. And when he was unable, he had a thought that he would lift up one of his hands—but alas, his arms did not seem to be of function.
“Yer in the prison camp. Yer were dropped here at dawn yest. Yer cannae stay here. There be people yer needing to stay away from.”
Prison camp? Wherever was that?
“Yer best be moving, gov’ner. Yer caught here, they’ll be takin’ yer to the Hive. Yer be an exemplification.”
He had to get out of here, Kane thought. He had to find whoe’er was in charge, and explain his situation, and tell whoe’er would release him that he was being held under false pretenses. Then surely they would return him unto his freedom and he could set about speaking properly with Cordelhia’s bloodline. After all, he had a funeral to prepare, and there weredoggenand servants to settle.
And a murderer to find.
Someone had planned the death. They’d removed his envelope opener from his desk—and chosen it with purpose as something, in a house full of items and art that had been gifted unto him, identified as his own possession. Then they had put some kind of substance into his sherry, in the decanter from which he, and he alone, partook. And just before he had collapsed—
The sound. Outside the study.