The Heiress - Lynsay Sands [41]
“Very well,” Richard gave in. “Have you hidden him somewhere safe?”
Daniel grimaced at the question. “Er . . . well, actually no. I placed him in the pavilion in the back garden for the night.”
“In the . . . ?” Richard stared at him blankly.
Daniel shrugged. “It was the only place I could think of. I needed somewhere cold, but covered and that was all I could come up with at the time.” Besides, it had been late, he had been tired and cranky and really, where did one hide a dead man? The answer to that had been beyond him at the time. Now, he pointed out, “But he shall have to be moved before too much longer.”
“Yes,” Richard agreed grimly. “He definitely needs to be moved.”
“I had an idea about that too.”
“Do tell,” Richard requested dryly.
Daniel ignored his sarcasm. “I thought it might be best to put him back in the master bedroom.”
The suggestion had Richard’s eyes bugging out. “What? You—”
“Now hear me out before you protest,” Daniel insisted firmly. Really, he’d never known the man to be this excitable, but then they’d never before been in quite this position. “The girls have already seen that “Dicky” is gone and so believe you are you . . . which of course you are. They also know the bed is now in ruins thanks to the ice they packed around who they thought was you. So, we dump him back in the bed, you keep the windows open to cool the room, and then lock off the doors and keep the keys. Then you say you have ordered a bed to replace the ruined one and that no one should bother entering the room until it arrives and the chamber can be set to rights.”
Daniel thought it a rather clever idea himself. Basically they would be hiding the body in plain sight. He sat back with a smile, finishing, “That way he is close at hand if we need him for proof of anything, and yet out of the way of being found.”
“I suppose that could work,” Richard said thoughtfully.
“It will,” Daniel assured him, and then admitted, “The only real problem I see is getting him out of here and back to your townhouse in broad daylight.”
Richard stiffened and lifted his head, eyebrows rising in question, so Daniel pointed out, “He has to be moved soon. One of the servants might decide to take a turn around the gardens and stumble upon him before the day is out.”
“Damn,” Richard breathed. He stared at him with horror for a moment and then lowered his head.
When Richard sat staring at his feet for a prolonged period, Daniel sat back to wait, sure the other man would come up with something. He himself wasn’t up to the task at the moment. He was exhausted, his eyes gritty and a yawn threatening to force his jaws open. What Daniel really wanted to do was go back to bed. However now that he had recalled the problem with his choice of hiding spot for the body, he knew he wouldn’t rest until it was moved. It had seemed a perfectly fine place to put the body at the time, but the moment he’d admitted where he’d put George he’d recognized the dangers in leaving it there. Daniel supposed he’d just been too tired and out of sorts last night to think of these problems.
“You don’t happen to have an old rug you don’t mind getting rid of?” Richard asked suddenly, and Daniel glanced his way to see that the horror that had been on his face had now been replaced with a smile. Richard obviously had an idea.
“Why, you’re still abed.”
Suzette shifted her eyes from the window she’d been staring at, the window Daniel had entered through the night before, and glanced to the door as Lisa entered and moved toward her.
“You’re always