The Virgin Who Ruined Lord Gray - Anna Bradley Page 0,47
faded to a wheeze, and his head fell against the stone wall behind him, his face pale with exhaustion. Sophia waited as long as she dared for him to catch his breath, but she heard a step in the corridor beyond, and knew they were running out of time. “You did very well, sweetheart. Now, tell us one more time everything you remember from that night, but you’ll have to do it quickly, all right?”
Jeremy nodded. “I come down the Strand from the Turk’s Head. Mr. Sharpe were at the front of the church, sort of wandering about, ye see. I were about to pass through, but Mr. Sharpe started carrying on, calling me a thief, and I were arguing with him when Mr. Gerrard came up, sudden, like. Mr. Sharpe were still shrieking, an’ I thought Mr. Gerrard were going to take me up for theft, him being a Runner.”
Sophia cast a fearful look over her shoulder toward the corridor. “He didn’t, though?”
“Nay. It were strange, Miss Sophia. He didna pay me much mind at all. He turned on Mr. Sharpe and started going on, saying he knew what he were about, knew everything, like, an’ then Mr. Gerrard tried to take up Mr. Sharpe, an’ that was when t’other man came out of the shadows, like he were there the whole time, and he…he…”
“What did he do, Jeremy?” Sophia whispered, squeezing his hand.
“Quick like that, he s-stabbed poor Mr. Gerrard in the chest. Mr. Gerrard fell down, an’ the man, he…he grabbed his head and run the sword across his throat—”
“Sword?” Sophia interrupted. “Mr. Gerrard was killed with a sword, Jeremy?”
“Aye, Miss Sophia.”
Not with Jeremy’s knife, then, but something much larger. There’d been a fourth man there that night, and he’d vanished into the shadows with the murder weapon.
“An’ then there was all blood everywhere,” Jeremy said, his voice thick. “An’ Mr. Gerrard, he fell onto his back in the dirt, and I…it were so q-quick. I couldna think what do to, but I tried to help him. I got down on my knees next to him and I tried to stop him bleeding, but it were too late. He was blood all over, and there weren’t nothing I could do. He made a noise—an awful noise, a kind of gasp, like, and then he weren’t breathing no more, and I knew he was dead.”
“This all happened in front of St. Clement Dane’s Church?” Lord Gray asked, his voice not quite steady.
Jeremy nodded. “Aye. An’ then the man, the one what hurt Mr. Gerrard got angry, an’ he started carrying on at Mr. Sharpe, an’ I don’t know, something about me, and Mr. Sharpe getting the wrong man, an’ then I felt a terrible pain in my head, an’ the next thing I know I wakes up here, an’ I’ve never spoke to a single soul since that night until you come.”
Sophia leaned back on her heels, stunned. It was a strange story, but she knew Jeremy was telling them the truth. It was too complicated a tale for him to have concocted on his own, and he was trembling with horror at the memory of it. No one could feign such anguish.
Lord Gray had gone still when Jeremy described what happened to Henry Gerrard, but now he asked, very quietly. “Henry Gerrard, Jeremy. Was he…did he say anything before he died?”
Just talking about that night had sent Jeremy into a panic. His breath was sawing in and out of his chest, but he calmed at the sound of Lord Gray’s soft voice. “Nay. He couldna talk, my lord, but he…he…”
“Yes? I’d be grateful, Jeremy, if you could tell me anything more.”
“He were looking at the spire of St. Clement Dane’s Church when ’e passed, my lord. Just staring up at it, like, and he…he were calm there at the end, just staring up at that spire, an’ I thought ’e must a’ been a good man, ’cause he died peaceful.”
“He was a good man.” Lord Gray pulled himself to his feet like a man who’d aged a lifetime in the past half hour. “He was the best of men.”
Sophia’s throat closed at the pain in Lord Gray’s voice, and tears stung her eyes. She’d been so caught up with saving Jeremy she hadn’t given as much thought as she should have to Henry Gerrard. But now, witnessing Lord Gray’s stark grief, she wanted to shrink away from a pain so dark and heavy, so suffocating.