several other servants who’d appeared in the doorway scrambled to obey the giant bodyguard. Within moments, Victoria found herself inside the front hallway. Her father was in the process of descending the curving marble staircase, and he, too, was calling out orders.
Servants rushed around her in chaos. When the sea of bodies separated, she caught a glimpse of Arch still on the front stoop. He’d fallen to his knees and was staring blankly ahead.
“Arch?” She elbowed her way toward him. But before she could reach him, he fell face down and hit the floor with a painful-sounding thwack. With his body sprawled across the threshold, several servants dropped to their knees next to him. Deep crimson began to form a puddle on the floor underneath him.
“Send someone for the doctor!” the footman yelled. “He’s been stabbed.”
“Stabbed?” Victoria dropped to her knees next to her bodyguard. Her pulse raced erratically as she took in his silent, unmoving frame. “Will he be all right?”
The footman and another manservant gently rolled Arch to his back, exposing the wide circle of blood near his waist. The blood had turned the wool of his dark blue coat almost black.
The footman lifted Arch’s coat and then rapidly lowered it while sucking in a hissing breath. “The wound is deep.”
“And he’s already lost a lot of blood,” said the other servant, with a glance outside.
Only then did Victoria see the blood on the front steps, trailing across the road from where Theresa stood, a lone figure in the open gate of the park.
Victoria stared at the blood and tried to make sense of what had happened. Arch had been stabbed and bleeding. Had he carried her to safety anyway?
She pressed a hand against his cheek expecting warmth but was met cold pallor instead. “He isn’t—” she started in a shaking voice. “He isn’t dead, is he?”
The footman turned and shouted at another servant in the hallway. “Hurry!”
Victoria sat back on her heels, suddenly dizzy.
“Someone take Victoria away,” her father said, kneeling on the other side of Arch. “This is too much for her.”
Gentle hands were upon her instantly, helping her to her feet and guiding her toward the stairway. She couldn’t find her voice or the strength to protest.
All she could think about was the fact that Arch was dying. And she was to blame.
Chapter 2
Tom Cushman eyed the glass doors that led to the second story balcony of the Cole mansion. The elaborate iron railing surrounding the spacious outside sitting area provided at least a dozen holds for a grappling hook. An easy climb for an intruder. Only one lock on the double doors. A simple latch-style lock that even an idiot could pick.
The balcony and doors were safety hazards. If he took the job, they would have to go.
A servant’s heels clicked against the wooden floor in the hallway, nearing the sitting area where he’d been ushered exactly six minutes ago. Lighter footsteps than before. A different servant this time. A female. One hundred twenty pounds. A bunion causing her to favor one side, which meant she was probably middle-aged.
He rose as the servant entered the room. Sure enough, she was a petite woman with her hair pulled back into a tight bun revealing wings of gray at her temples. She wore a long black dress with a starched white apron over the top. From the pristine condition, he guessed she was probably the housekeeper in charge of all the other maidservants.
“Mr. Cushman?” she asked. The hint of chamomile surrounding her and the grains of sugar on her fingertips told him she’d just poured tea for someone. “Mr. Cole is ready to see you.”
Tom jerked on the wide lapels of his suit coat to straighten them and nodded at the woman. He followed her down the hallway decorated on either side with enormous paintings from a variety of famous European artists, Gainsborough and Blake among them. Open doorways on either side revealed a music room, a library, and another sitting room. They were all as elaborately furnished as any of the royal households he’d worked in during the past five years. The palatial size of the New York home, the classical columns and cornices, the lush carpets, the brightly papered walls, the ornamentally carved furniture. None of it made him even blink.
But with each step he took through the house, he spotted safety hazards—a loose window latch, a broken fireplace grate, a door without a lock, and many other small issues that could mean the