Murder on Charles Street - Leighann Dobbs Page 0,49
the casual contact. Her eyebrows knit together, her mouth dropping open as she stared at Katherine.
“What’s happened to your ankle?”
Katherine grimaced. “Is it that obvious?”
“You look as though your foot has grown to the size of Wayland’s.”
Under his breath, Wayland muttered, “Should I be offended?”
Katherine sighed. “It’s the bandage. I twisted it; that’s all.”
As the pair lingered in the doorway, Wayland neatly sidestepped them and entered the room. Not a hint of irritation from the way she’d treated him betrayed whether or not he thought ill of the altercation. In fact, as he crossed to her, he looked nothing but concerned. When he stood between her and her friends by the door, Emma trotted up and pawed at his boot. He ignored the dog. “May I have a look at it?”
Katherine didn’t know what he, a detective and former military captain, hoped to do to heal her, but she nodded nonetheless. As he kneeled, Pru and Annandale took their customary positions on the loveseat. McTavish had disappeared for the moment, likely teasing Harriet, wherever she had run off to.
As Wayland lifted her ankle from the stool Harriet had fetched for her, white pain erased her thoughts. She gritted her teeth to keep from making a sound as he gently unwound the bandage. The pain intensified without the compression. When her bare ankle and foot were open to the air, the former being too painful and swollen to don a stocking, he set aside the bandages slowly to probe her flesh. A hiss escaped from between her teeth.
He lightened his touch, grazing over the blue-and-purple bruise near her Achilles tendon. When he gripped the bottom of her foot to turn it, she gasped.
“Don’t!”
He rested her foot on the stool once more. “For how long did you apply the ice?”
“A few minutes. I went up to bed when my father left.”
He grunted and straightened. “Apply more ice. It will help. And how much have you moved this morning?”
Cantankerous from the pain he’d subjected her to, she glared at him. “I didn’t sleep in this chair, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Especially since I left you in that one.” He pointed at the loveseat, where Pru now rested, staring at them with rapt attention.
She leaned forward. “You left her here, did you?”
Something that looked suspiciously like panic crossed Wayland’s face before he looked away, the color high in his cheeks. He turned his back and knelt to replace the bandage on Katherine’s ankle. If not for the suddenness of the motion robbing her of her breath, she might have pointed out that she hadn’t yet applied ice to the injury. Then again, given his mortification, perhaps now wasn’t the time.
In a brusque tone, Wayland informed, “I was searching for clues, footprints and the like, as to who has been lurking along the rear path near our victim’s house, when Lady Katherine was hurt.”
That hadn’t been the story he’d told Katherine. She pressed her lips together.
Pru smirked. “And did you find anything?”
He glanced at her for only a moment before he stood, putting space between himself and Katherine. “Nothing suspicious.”
Because she couldn’t stand the knowing expression on her friend’s face, Katherine added, “I was out searching for clues as well. I fell leaving Dr. Gammon’s house, where I went to look for the notes about which he had expressed concern when I visited him. I couldn’t find those. Not in his study or his bedchamber, and they hadn’t been in the parlor when I accompanied Lyle the morning he was found. Dr. Gammon’s notes on his treatments for Lord Westing seem to have disappeared.”
Pru exchanged an uncomfortable glance with Lord Annandale but didn’t comment. At the very least, she had ceased interrogating Wayland.
Katherine sighed, staring at her ankle. “I suppose that will be the last piece of evidence I will find—or not, as the case may be. I’m unable to go out until my ankle heals.”
By then, the murderer might have left the city, or even the country.
“Lucky for you, lass, we’re here to do the searching for ye.” McTavish’s voice boomed from the entryway, where he carried a tray holding the tea service, along with some leftover scones from the day before. Under Harriet’s uncharitable direction, he placed the tray on the table and helped her to fix the tea for the parties present.
Eager for the change in topic, Katherine straightened and looked between the men. “What did you find? The only thing Pru, Harriet, and I were able to