Tasha Alexander - Dangerous to Know

For Andrew—

Everything, always

Although a stranger to the Norman countryside, even I knew a dark pool of blood under a tree was not something a tourist should expect to see during an afternoon ride. Sliding down from the saddle, I put a calming hand on my horse’s neck, then bent to investigate more closely. Had I been able to convince myself the congealing liquid was something less nefarious, the sight of a pale hand, blue fingertips extended, would have changed my mind at once. Without stopping to think, I rubbed my abdomen, the remnants of dull pain still present after my own encounter with violence, and took a step towards the body.

Only a few months ago, during what was meant to be a blissful honeymoon, I’d been trapped in a cavernous cistern deep below the city of Constantinople with the villain who shot me in an attempt to keep quiet my discovery that he was guilty of murder. His efforts were, of course, in vain. But although I succeeded in exposing the odious man and saving the life of the sultan’s concubine whom he’d held as a hostage, I’d lost something more dear. I did not know when I stepped into the gloomy bowels of the city that I was with child. Now, instead of preparing for an heir, my husband and I were no longer sure we could ever have one.

Colin Hargreaves was not a man to be daunted, even in the face of such tragedy. He insisted that nothing mattered but my recovery and packed me off to France the moment I was well enough to travel. His intentions were the best. His choice of location, however, fell something short of perfection. Not Normandy itself—the lush countryside was stunning, the rich, cream-laden food magnificent—but our lodgings at his mother’s house left something to be desired. Although that, too, is not entirely precise. There was nothing wrong with the manor, a sprawling, comfortable building constructed primarily in the seventeenth century by an aristocrat whose descendents did not fare well during the revolution. Rather, it was I who was the problem. At least so far as my new mother-in-law was concerned.

I’d heard nothing but complimentary words about Mrs. Hargreaves, who had fled England after the death of her husband some ten years before. Her own father had been left a widower early, and encouraged his daughter to remain at home—not to take care of him, but because he, not much fond of society, felt she should be allowed to lead whatever sort of life she liked. His fortune ensured she would never need a husband for support. Free from the restraints of matrimony, Anne Howard passed nearly twenty years traveling the world while her girlhood friends married and had children. It was only when she reached her thirty-sixth year that, halfway up the Great Pyramid at Giza, she met Nicholas Hargreaves. By the time they were standing again on terra firma, the couple were engaged. Three days later they married, and afterwards, never spent a single night apart.

I had hoped Mrs. Hargreaves would shower me with the warmth she showed her son—that she would rejoice to see him so happily matched. But after a fortnight of her cool detachment, I determined to spend as much time as possible away from the prickling discomfort of her disapproving stare, and it was this decision that led me to the unhappy resting place of the girl sprawled beneath a tree, her blood soaking the ground.

Bile burned my throat as I looked at her, my eyes drawn from her fingers to her face, framed by hair so similar in color and style to mine we might have been taken for twins. There was no question she was dead, no need to check for any sign of life. No one could have survived the brutal gashes on her throat. The bodice of her dress was black with blood and had been ripped at the abdomen, revealing what seemed to be an empty cavity.

I could look no further.

I wrapped my arms around my waist as my stomach clenched. I wasn’t sick, but only because I was too horrified, too stunned even to breathe. Closing my eyes, I tried to focus, to move, to think, but was incapable of anything. I spun around at the sound of a sharp crack, like a branch breaking behind me, then turned back as my horse made a hideous shriek and reared. Realizing I’d neglected to tie him to the tree, I started towards him, but was too late. He’d already broken into a run.

Which left me six and a quarter miles from home, alone with the murdered girl.

Trees and grass and flowers spun around me as I tried to regain enough composure to take stock of the scene before me. I should have been better equipped to deal with this. In the past two years, I had become something of an investigator after solving the murder of my first husband, Philip, the Viscount Ashton, whom everyone had believed died of fever on a hunting trip in Africa. Since then, I’d thrice more been asked to assist in murder cases, the last time while on my wedding trip in Constantinople. Colin, my second husband (and Philip’s best friend), worked for the Crown, assisting in matters that required, as he liked to say, more than a modicum of discretion. Because no man could gain entrance to the sultan’s harem, he had asked me to work with him in an official capacity when a concubine, who turned out to be the daughter of a British diplomat, was murdered at the Ottoman Palace.

Successful though I’d been, none of my prior experience had prepared me for the sight before me now.

I squinted, blurring my vision so the field of poppies beyond the tree and the body melted into a wave of crimson buoyed by the wind. My boot slid on slick grass as I stepped forward and forced myself to look, memorizing every detail of the gruesome scene: the position of the girl’s limbs, a description of her dress, the expression on her face. Simultaneously confident and sickened that I was capable of giving a thorough report of what I’d seen, I turned and started the long walk back to the house, my stomach lurching, my heart leaping at every sound that came from the surrounding fields, my legs shaking.

For the briefest moment, I wanted to pretend that I’d seen nothing, wanted to abandon myself to fear. Tears, ready to spill, flashed hot in my eyes, and I dug my fingernails into my palms. Which was when I heard a twig snap. I stopped long enough to see a rabbit scurrying across the path in front of me. And all at once, my fear turned to anger—anger that I no longer felt safe in this place that was supposed to offer respite. Pulling myself up straight, I marched back to the house, ready to tell Colin we had work to do.

It had taken me more than two hours to reach Mrs. Hargreaves’s manor, nestled in a tree-filled grove deep in the Norman countryside northwest of Rouen, but as long rides had become my daily habit, I had not thought my absence would strike anyone as unusual. Hence my surprise when my husband rushed to greet me almost as soon as I’d opened the door. Overcome with relief at the sight of him, I collapsed into his arms, hardly pausing to breathe as the story tumbled from my lips.

“You’re not hurt?” he asked, patting my arms and taking a step back to inspect me.

“No,” I said. He looked me over again and then, seemingly satisfied, took me inside, sent the nearest servant to get the police post-haste, and sat me down on an overstuffed settee in the front sitting room. His mother, who had been reading, set aside her book and rose with a look of horror on her face.

“What has happened?” she asked.

“Emily has found a body,” Colin said, pacing the perimeter of the room. Mrs. Hargreaves remained perfectly still, her face serious, as he recounted for her all that had transpired.