Royal Blood - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,98

of steps above the entrance hall—those alarming steps that hugged the wall with no kind of banister. A group was already assembled at the bottom. One of them was indeed a maid, now sobbing instead of screaming while other servants attempted to comfort her. Beside her was a spilled scuttle of coal. The rest of the group was standing around something on the floor.

“What is it?” Siegfried called, his voice echoing through the high-ceilinged hall. “Why are we being subjected to this noise?”

The group broke apart. A couple of maids curtsied. Dragomir stepped forward. “Highness, there has been a tragedy,” he said. “The English lady. She must have fallen from a great height. There is nothing to be done.”

And there at the bottom of the steps lay the body of Miss Deer-Harte, her head at an unnatural angle. I had seen death before but the heightened tension of the past few days brought bile up into my throat. My head started to sing and for a second I thought I was going to faint. I leaned against the cold stone of the wall and inched my way down the stairs before I could pass out and join Miss Deer-Harte on the flagstones below.

“Someone should let Lady Middlesex know,” I said, trying to master myself. “This lady was her companion.”

“Poor woman,” Siegfried said, eyeing the body with distaste. “I wonder what she was doing wandering around down here in the middle of the night?”

“Maybe the commotion from Patrascue’s men upset her and she was coming down for a hot drink or a cognac,” Dragomir said. “Or maybe she was sleepwalking. Who knows. It is unfortunate that such a thing should happen.”

There was a certain smoothness to his voice that made me look at him sharply. I knew very well why Miss Deer-Harte had been wandering around. Had she actually spotted the man she was seeking this time, and been foolish enough to follow him? And was it possible that Dragomir was somehow involved? I wanted to get back to my room to tell Darcy what had happened, but perhaps my first duty should be to break the news to Lady Middlesex.

We heard her long before we saw her. “What is this nonsense now? Why am I being dragged out of bed at this godforsaken hour?” Her voice echoed down the hallway. She came out to the top of the steps. “What do I care if some other stupid foreigner has fallen and—” She broke off, her face rigid with horror.

“Deer-Harte?” she gasped. “No. No, it can’t be.” And she pushed her way down to the bottom of the stairs until she was standing over the body. “Oh.” She put her hand up to her mouth and a great gulping sob came out. I went over to her and put a tentative hand on her shoulder. She wasn’t the sort of person one would think of embracing. She continued to stare down at her friend, her body heaving with convulsive sobs. I was as shocked as everyone else. It wasn’t the reaction I had expected of her over someone I thought she considered a rather annoying companion.

“I’m really sorry,” I said. “It’s a horrible thing to have happened.”

She nodded, fighting to compose herself. “Poor silly woman. Always imagining she saw danger and intrigue everywhere we went. She said she was going to keep her eyes and ears open.”

“Yes, she must have been prowling around and fallen. Those stairs always struck me as awfully dangerous.” I didn’t say what I was thinking—that she hadn’t fallen at all. She had been pushed.

“Come, my Lady Middlesex.” Count Dragomir took over. “There is nothing you can do here. Let me escort you back to your room and have some cognac and hot milk sent up to you.”

“It’s all right. I’ll take her,” I said. “I know you have plenty to do down here.”

I had to half drag Lady Middlesex back up those horrible stairs. She staggered up like a person in a trance. But by the time we reached her room she had regained her stiff upper lip.

“So good of you,” she muttered. “Bit of a shock, isn’t it? Don’t know what I’ll do without her, actually. Grown used to having her around.”

I assisted her into her room and over to her bed.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep again,” she said. “I must make arrangements somehow to have her body taken home. She wouldn’t want to be buried on foreign soil. She hated it