Morley moved to the side, inspecting the fountain. In doing so, he uncovered a sight that sent Cole’s heart slamming against its cage.
Morning light glinted off pale hair. A prone woman in a bright dress askew among the wildflowers. Her skirt bunched to her knees.
Cole had seen enough of death to recognize it. Without thinking, he bolted, reaching the door before his tumbler of Scotch spilled to the carpet.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Imogen had suppressed her tears for so long, her throat ached and her head throbbed. Her home, her sanctuary, and the refuge she had been trying so long to build for others had been infiltrated, desecrated by death and brutality.
Perched on the shaded bench she’d shared with Trenwyth the prior evening, she watched as Inspectors Argent and Morley conducted their investigation.
Imogen refused to look in the fountain, where the evidence of sexual brutality floated on the surface, stitched with sullied white lilies.
Poor Lady Broadmore. How terrified she must have been. Did she try to call for help? Had her ordeal been quick or drawn out? Had she been violated before her death? Or after? Imogen put her head in her hands. She’d slept through someone’s assault and murder. How would she ever forgive herself? She’d been so angry. So heated and then humiliated by Cole that she’d spent the rest of the night attempting to salvage the evening, and had barely given the absent Lady Broadmore another thought.
She’d gone up to bed after everyone had left and all donations had been tallied with a sense of smug satisfaction. Despite Trenwyth’s dire fit of public temper and Lady Broadmore’s ignorant comments, she’d done better than she’d ever predicted. A small, spiteful part of her had wanted to make sure they knew of her success. To prove that she would neither be intimidated nor dissuaded. That she’d moved others to action and charity despite their best efforts to sabotage her.
She should have looked for her missing guest. She might have noticed, then, that Lady Broadmore’s cape and pelisse were still in the cloakroom, but the woman was nowhere to be found. The villain had been in her home as she’d gone to sleep, blissfully unaware of the ghastly crime being committed on her own property.
Imogen blinked up, unable to believe her eyes for a moment as Trenwyth materialized across her garden. Where he came from, she could only guess. She was sitting by the garden door and surely would have seen him arrive from the house.
Hair and eyes blazing like burnished ore, he surged against Argent’s and Morley’s restraining holds until his wide, restless gaze latched upon her, and the flame flickered out upon an expression she’d almost identify as relief.
Dear God, what was he telling them? Why did the way he was looking at her now make her want to clutch her robe closed to the throat? She felt so exposed to him, even in her modest nightgown and wrapper. It was easy to fear that the force of his masculinity gave him some sort of inhuman capability. She absurdly worried that he could see through not just her clothing, but also the secrets that shrouded her very existence. She’d been naked in front of him once before.
But never truly exposed.
Though, she’d been unutterably stupid last night, kissing him like she had. It had been a dangerous move. One born of impulse and anger. And it could have cost her everything.
What if he’d remembered her from her kiss? He and Ginny had never kissed like that. But that had been before. Before he’d been captured. Before she almost killed a man.
Before a woman was murdered in her garden.
Imogen stood on quivering legs and made her way toward them. Why should he look so wild and concerned when he’d made his feelings about her irrevocably clear? Where had he come from?
Strange and precarious suspicion lanced her as she sidled around the horrific scene. Had their interaction pushed him past the edge of sanity? Could he have been the one to—
Trenwyth’s head snapped up at something the chief inspector said, his temper sparking from his eyes as though Morley’s last words had been a blacksmith’s hammer, and he the tempered steel on an anvil.
With a burst of strength and speed, he shoved past the two men and stalked to her, the inspectors quick on his heels.
“You think I did this?” he thundered at her.
“I never said that.” Imogen put an ineffectual hand up, as though to ward off an attack. To her utter surprise, it worked. He stopped a few paces from her, his hand curled tightly at his side, and his prosthetic gleaming like pewter in the morning sunlight. “I only told the inspectors the truth. That you were the last person I was aware of in this garden, and that you threatened to make certain my venture failed.”
“This is certainly one way to see to that,” Morley remarked, his alert blue gaze making studious calculations of Trenwyth’s every move and expression.
“Yes, but not my way,” the duke managed from between clenched teeth. “I would never—how could you even think—” He blinked, his hard mouth pressing into a hyphen.
He was remembering what he’d done to her in the garden, Imogen was certain. His hand at her throat. His body against hers. The menace he’d used to attempt to frighten her away from her current path. The way he’d dominated her with his kiss.
His gaze flickered over to the fountain, but not before she noted a lick of regret behind the temper. Perhaps even shame.
Good. He should be ashamed of his behavior.
“No one is accusing you of rape and murder, Trenwyth.” Argent’s dry inflection broke the tension of the moment.
“Not as of yet,” Morley amended, earning him a sharp look from both men.
“We’re establishing a timeline,” Argent continued. “Could you tell us how long you tarried in the garden after Lady Anstruther left you alone?”
They didn’t remark on the scandal that would be caused by the very fact they’d been in the garden alone together, and for that, Imogen was unfailingly grateful.
“I left immediately,” he clipped, lifting a brow at her. “As it was made abundantly clear I was no longer welcome on the premises.”
“A definitive that remains unchanged,” Imogen stated, folding her arms over her breasts as something made them tighten painfully. A chill in the morning air, not the one in his glare, surely.
“Lady Anstruther, can you think of anyone who has recently expressed displeasure with you?” Morley asked.
“With me?” Imogen blinked, unsure of his meaning.
“Any enemies or antagonists you’re aware of?” he prodded gently.
“You mean aside from the one standing right next to you?” She gestured to the duke with her chin, unwilling to uncross her arms. Not only was she shielding herself, but she felt as though her own grip might be the only thing keeping her together.
Thunder rolled in the distance, as though Trenwyth had conjured it by the storm building in his countenance. The sound matched the violence in his posture. “I can prove I didn’t kill Lady Broadmore.” His glare reminded her of the glint of light on a lethal blade.
“By all means,” Argent invited.
Trenwyth stalked to the body and bent one long knee. “Look at the finger marks here.” Without hesitation, he laid his fingers over the bruises on Lady Broadmore’s neck. Not only did it demonstrate that his hand was much too large to match the perpetrator’s, but … “Whoever strangled this woman used both hands.”