The Virgin Who Ruined Lord Gray - Anna Bradley Page 0,108

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A lantern, lying on its side, and beside it, just at the edge of the pool of light was the lifeless body of Peter Sharpe. Tristan didn’t gasp or flinch at the sight. He didn’t blink, and he didn’t pause in his flight. One glance, and he could see by the spreading pool of blood seeping into the ground around the body that Peter Sharpe was beyond help.

But Sophia wasn’t. She was here, and she was alive.

He ran for her, the graveyard unfolding at his pounding feet, and suddenly he was trapped in his nightmare of the past few weeks, the white marble crypt at his back as he ran for her, faster, then faster still, drawing closer with each step, his hand reaching for the long strands of her dark hair, catching it between his fingers just as she dissolved into mist.

But he ran on, his heart shuddering in his chest, each breath tearing from his lungs until there, at last, just ahead, at the edge of the graveyard…

He couldn’t see them, but he sensed movement, some sort of struggle, and an instant later he heard it. A muttered curse, and a woman’s choking cough, as if someone was squeezing her by the throat. Tristan’s heart clenched with fear, but as terrifying as it sounded, he wasn’t prepared for the sight that met his eyes when he found them at last.

It was the scene out of his worst nightmare.

Poole had a handful of her hair in his fist, her head back to expose her neck, and a dagger, the edge of the blade gleaming, was pressed hard against her throat. Sophia was fighting him, but Tristan could see she was weakening as she struggled to draw breath into her lungs.

Poole was either going to slash her throat, or strangle her.

Tristan bit back the agonized shout that tried to escape his own throat. The only advantage he had was Poole hadn’t yet seen him. His body tensed to attack, to leap on Poole and tear Sophia loose from his arms, but once again a tiny shred of reason prevented him.

Poole had a blade pressed to Sophia’s neck. All it would take was an unexpected noise or movement for Poole to startle and for the dagger to slip…

No. He couldn’t risk it. Before he had a chance to stir a step, Poole would spill Sophia’s blood all over the ground at their feet. There was only one way, and it wasn’t a battle of blows.

It was a battle of wits.

He crept as close as he dared, his footfalls silent against the soft ground. “You’ve saved me a good deal of trouble this evening, Poole. I owe you my thanks.”

Poole’s head jerked up, and his entire body went rigid when he saw Tristan emerge from the shadows. His arm tightened around Sophia’s neck, and his fingers curled on the hilt of his dagger. “Stay where you are, Gray. Not one bloody step, or I’ll carve a slit in her throat before you’ve drawn a single breath.”

Sophia was retching and choking against the pressure on her throat, and it took every ounce of Tristan’s control not to look at her, to wipe all expression from his face. “Go ahead. I don’t give a damn what you do to her, though it occurs to me she’d be far more useful to us alive than dead.”

“Us?” Poole gave a scornful laugh. “Who’s ‘us,’ Gray?”

“You, me, Everly, and Willis, of course. Sharpe’s part is finished, by the look of him. Willis told me you’d manage it, but Everly wanted me to come after you, just to be certain.”

“You!” Poole’s grip on Sophia loosened as he stared at Tristan in disbelief.

Tristan stared steadily back at him. As far as Poole knew, the only way Tristan could know Willis and Everly were involved in this business was if Tristan was involved in it, too. “Yes, Poole. Me.”

Poole was staring at Tristan with his mouth open. “What do you know about Everly’s business, Gray?”

“A great deal more than you do, I suspect. For God’s sakes, man, why else would I be wandering around St. Clement Dane’s churchyard in the middle of the bloody night? Sharpe’s a loose end Lord Everly wants tied up. You know his lordship too well to think he’d leave something as important as this to chance.”

Indeed, Everly was much cleverer than Tristan and Sophia had given him credit for being. As soon as Tristan saw Sharpe’s dead body lying in the dirt, he knew they’d