A Portrait of Love (The Academy of Love #3) - Minerva Spencer Page 0,124

and it came from the bowels of the house.

Simon scrambled clumsily for purchase on the bloodied, polished wooden floor, getting to his feet just as the sidelight next to the door shattered, sending splinters of glass glittering in the air around him.

He ran without a backward glance.

“Wyndham,” he shouted breathlessly, heading deeper into the house.

“Back here,” Wyndham yelled.

Simon followed the sound of his voice, turning down what he knew was a very short hall with only four or five rooms off it.

Long smears of blood on the wood floor led into the second room on the right.

Simon skidded to a halt in the open doorway.

His brother was opposite the door, lying on the floor next to the room’s only window.

“Watch out for the wind—”

Something flickered past the window just before chips of wooden doorframe exploded beside Simon’s head.

For the second time in less than a minute he dove, landing with a muffled grunt of pain

He crawled the rest of the way toward his brother, keeping clear of the window.

Only when he was beside Wyndham did he notice the state of his brother’s clothing. “Good God! You’re hit,” he said stupidly.

Wyndham smiled, but it was weak. His left hand was pressed over his right side and blood was oozing from between his spread fingers.

Simon shrugged off his overcoat, coat, and waistcoat before pulling off his cravat.

He worked quickly to fashion a compression dressing for the wound. “Tell me what happened,” he ordered, folding his waistcoat into a small square.

“Raymond was headed off on his quarterly rounds on estate business this morning, but he’d forgotten that he’d arranged to meet the builder here. I told him that I’d take care of it. When I got here, he was waiting for me.” Wyndham pointed to the far corner of the room.

Simon turned to look. “Bloody hell,” he said, noticing the unmoving body for the first time. “Is that—”

“It’s Taft, Raymond’s groom.” Wyndham grimaced as Simon pressed the folded waistcoat onto his wound. “I unlocked the door and was about to come inside, when something just—” he shrugged and then moaned at the pain the action caused.

“Don’t shrug, Wynd,” Simon said, earning a glare for his unnecessary advice.

“For some reason, I hesitated at the doorway,” Wyndham said, a hint of wonder in his voice.

“Survival instinct,” Simon said. “It’s a good thing you listened to it. Those instincts have saved my life times beyond counting. So, Taft shot you? Then what happened?”

“I played dead and the silly bugger came to riffle my pockets and I got him in the throat with that.”

Simon glanced over at Taft’s body and squinted. “Good Lord! Is that—”

“It’s the handle of my quizzing glass.”

Simon barked a laugh. “Death by quizzing glass. Where the hell was Raymond while all this was happening?”

“He got here not long after. I’d just started crawling toward the front door, toward my horse, when I heard him riding down the driveway. So, then I crawled right back here.”

“Why hasn’t he come in?”

“He thinks I have Taft’s gun. But he knows I’m wounded. Right before you arrived, Raymond told me that he’d given you a message ensuring that you would come.” Wyndham snorted, his expression one of disgust. “The bastard confessed that he’s been poisoning me for months. He knows that I’m as weak as a bloody kitten.”

“Good God, this is like the plot from a bad gothic novel,” Simon said, shaking his head. “He expects to kill us both and step into your shoes, I take it? I expect he will set it up so it looks like we killed each other?”

“That is the plan. He’s tried to shoot you twice—or had Taft do it for him.”

“Ah, so that’s our poacher, is it—Taft? Bastard must have learned how to shoot from Raymond,” Simon muttered.

Wyndham chuckled and then groaned. “Lord, don’t make me laugh.”

“What do you suppose he’s doing out there?” Simon asked.

“Figuring out the best way to kill us both.” Wyndham squinted at Simon. “How did he get you here, by the way?”

It was Simon’s turn to laugh. “Because I’m a bloody fool.” He looked at his pale, bleeding brother. “But I can’t say that I’m sorry for my impulsive foolishness. He would have finished you for sure if I’d not shown up.”

“Now he might finish us both,” Wyndham pointed out.

“I’ll be damned if I survived the war only to die at the hands of a bloody land steward,” Simon said tartly, earning another gasping laugh. “He sent a letter telling me that Bella’s daughter was