The Courtesan's Courtship

Hortense, who had been returning from the privy, had stopped and stared. “My goodness, Dianthe, she could be your twin. Even her hair is your light blond,” she’d said. That had been hours ago.

Dianthe knelt beside the girl and touched her shoulder. “Miss? Are you ill? Do you need help?” she asked, fighting rising alarm.

“Miss?” she asked again, shaking the girl’s shoulder gently. A faint moan sped Dianthe’s heartbeat. She tugged at the woman’s shoulder and turned her over, her hands coming away wet and sticky. A dark gleaming stain spread in a ragged pattern over the bodice of the young woman’s gown. Dianthe was shocked by the look of panic and despair on the girl’s face.

“Oh…’tis you. S-stop…him,” she whispered in a faint, wavering voice. “Don’t let…him get away with…this. Promise me.”

“What?” Dianthe asked. “Get away with what, miss?”

“M-murder. Promise….” The woman was agitated, though her voice was growing weaker by the moment. “Be careful, Dianthe…he saw you and will come for you next.”

“Do I know you, miss? Who will come? And who was murdered?” she asked.

“The others…and…me,” she said with a soft sigh. “Stop him…before…”

A chill of fear and dread raced along Dianthe’s nerves. No, that didn’t make sense. The girl expelled another sigh and seemed to settle into her arms.

Dianthe shook her again, and her head lolled to one side. “Miss!” she said, her voice tight with anxiety. “I promise, miss! I promise! Just say something. Please!”

The girl’s eyes were open. Why wouldn’t she answer? “Miss?” Dianthe asked again, louder this time, and fighting the onrushing panic.

She leaned forward, her hair tangling on the branches of the honeysuckle bush and coming loose from her coiffure. An object lay on the ground beside her and, without thinking, she picked it up. Moonlight flashed off the edge. A knife!

Aghast, she recoiled and fell back on her bottom, growing dizzy with disbelief. No, it wasn’t true. The young woman’s eyes were still open—she couldn’t be dead!

Dianthe gulped in a lungful of air, then another, fearing she was about to faint. She couldn’t gather her wits or comprehend the horror of what lay before her. Still dizzy, still holding the knife, she drew her knees up and placed her forehead on them, breathing deeply and fighting her rising nausea.

“What the deuce—”

She looked up to find a stranger staring down at her in horror. “Someone bring a lantern!” he shouted.

A moment later, the small clearing sprang to life and a sea of faces surrounded her. Hortense and Harriett pushed forward, staring down at her with mouths agape. Their father knelt on the other side of the dead girl and felt for a pulse.

“What happened, Miss Lovejoy?” Mr. Thayer asked.

“I don’t know,” she squeaked. “Miss Banks went home and left me to search for you alone. I was trying to catch up for the fireworks and I tripped over…” She swallowed hard, bile rising in her throat. Blood. There was blood on her gown and her hands. And on the knife she still held.

A gentleman dressed in sober black pressed forward and appraised the scene. She recalled meeting Dr. Worley at parties and soirees, and had even danced with him once or twice. Surely now that he was here everything would begin to make sense.

He looked across the body at her. “Why, ’tis Nell Brookes. What is she doing here? And what are you doing with her, Miss Lovejoy? She’s hardly the sort I would expect to see you with.”

What could he mean? What sort? “I found her here,” she said, pushing her tangled hair out of her face.

The doctor knelt beside Mr. Thayer, touched the dead girl’s neck and shook his head. “She’s only been dead a few minutes,” he said. “The knife punctured her heart. That’s why there’s so much blood. Her killer will be covered in it.” He looked back at Dianthe and frowned. “What happened, Miss Lovejoy?”

Uncomprehending, she glanced from the girl to Dr. Worley and back again. “She… I found her…” She glanced around at the growing crowd surrounding her. They were looking at her in fascinated horror. Good heavens! Could the murderer be among them? Could he be staring at her even now? Would she be next, as the girl had warned? “I…I fell over her,” she said weakly.

“The weapon?” he asked, gesturing at the knife in her hand. “Where did you get it?”

“On the ground. B-beside her.”

“How did you come to have so much blood on you, Miss Lovejoy?”

“Here now!” Mr. Thayer interceded. “What are you suggesting? Miss Lovejoy is a proper lady. She does not get herself into trouble.”

Hortense and Harriett nodded in agreement.

Mr. Thayer calmed himself and spoke again. “Miss Lovejoy has not been out of our sight more than ten minutes.”

Dr. Worley looked sympathetic. “Miss Brookes has been dead less than five,” he said. “Was there anyone else about, Miss Lovejoy? Anyone who can verify your story?”

She shook her head. She couldn’t even recall her own name. She could only remember a feeling of dread and disquiet.

The crowd was pressing forward in morbid curiosity, and Dr. Worley turned to them. “Did any of you see someone fleeing down any of the paths?”

No one spoke. A number of cautious glances passed from person to person. Surely they couldn’t believe she would murder a complete stranger for no particular reason? Dianthe sought a friendly face, someone who had witnessed the event and who could solve the mystery. But they were all strangers to her.

Oh, dear! Not all strangers, curse the luck.

One man, taller than the rest, and absurdly good-looking, edged through the crowd and quickly scanned the scene. He took in the dead girl, the people crowding into the tiny clearing, the shrubbery around them, and then his gaze settled on her. Only the quickest blink of his hard hazel eyes betrayed that he recognized her.

Lord Geoffrey Morgan! Oh, of all the people she’d not have wanted to find her in such a state, he was at the top of her list. How he must be relishing this moment after her set-down in her aunt’s drawing room months ago.

But why was he here? For all that he was a baron and from a respectable family, he had fallen low. He should be in some Covent Garden hell, bilking some poor green lad of his fortune. He was a devil—a notorious, ruthless and unscrupulous gambler. And it was ridiculous to think that he might have a life as mundane as to include visits to a pleasure garden.

Edging past the front row of spectators, he knelt beside Dr. Worley and looked at the body. “Nell Brookes,” he muttered, his frown forming creases between his eyes. He passed one graceful, elegant hand over the girl’s face to close her eyes. “What happened, Worley?”

“Stabbed in the heart. She cannot be dead five minutes. Miss Lovejoy, here, was…found her.”

Morgan looked up at her, a flicker of surprise lifting his eyebrows. “What were you doing here, Miss Lovejoy?”

“I was going to the river to meet the Thayers. I tripped over her as I came down this path.” She looked around at the faces again. If the murderer knew the girl had spoken to her—had made her promise to find him—would he come after her? No, she had to keep the dead girl’s words a secret. “She…she was already dead,” she finished, horrified to hear her voice rise with hysteria.

Lord Morgan reached across the distance, gently opened her fingers and pried the knife from her grip. She suddenly realized that she must look very suspicious, indeed—with blood on her hands and gown, her hair tumbling loose from its pins and the knife in her hand. A sinking feeling caused her to go suddenly cold, and she shivered.

The frown lines between Lord Geoffrey’s hazel eyes deepened, but she took heart from the strength that poured into her from him. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “This is no time for missish vapors, Miss Lovejoy. Keep your wits about you.”

She clamped her mouth shut and hugged herself tightly, fighting back tears.

He smiled with satisfaction. “There’s a good girl.” He turned to the crowd. “Back away please. You are trampling evidence. Someone fetch the constabulary. And someone bring a blanket.”

Dianthe could not take her eyes off the girl. “She is so young,” she said.

“In years,” Lord Morgan agreed.

“Should…should someone fetch her parents?” The tears she’d been fighting welled in Dianthe’s eyes as she thought of how deeply they would mourn. She looked down, not wanting Lord Morgan to witness her weakness.

“I do not believe she has parents,” he said.