‘What’s wrong?’ Will was on his knees beside them, his voice cracking. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘We found the missing Rector,’ Theo said grimly. ‘It… he… is
not a pleasant sight.’
‘Dear Lord.’ Will rocked back on his heels as Perry scrambled out of the side of the tomb.
‘Laura?’ He frowned at her in Theo’s arms and Theo made a sound surprisingly like a growl. Perry blinked, then said mildly, ‘I suspect you have the wrong pig by the tail, my friend.’
‘Are you calling me a – ’
‘I must go down there,’ Will said.
‘But – ’ Perry began, then shrugged. ‘Don’t tear your stitches when you bend. I’ll go down first and give you a hand.’
‘You go too,’ Laura said as she wriggled out of Theo’s embrace. It was far too safe in his arms, she could pretend nothing was wrong. But everything was wrong and there was real life to be faced. ‘Perry needs help to make certain Will doesn’t hurt himself.’
‘Are you sure?’ Theo knelt beside her, watching her face with a peculiar intensity.
He is looking at me so strangely. I must be white as a sheet where I’m not filthy dirty and covered in cobwebs. ‘Go, I will be fine here with Jed and Tom Waggett.’
She sat there staring rather blankly at the cherubs until Jed offered her a flask containing something apparently concocted from fire, pepper and lamp oil. Two swigs of it left her feeling warmer and less shaky, even if the churchyard did have a tendency to swim in and out of focus.
The men emerged eventually, all looking rather grim and, in Will’s case, distressed. Perry and Theo closed the tomb and loaded the tools back into the curricle and helped Will up to the seat.
Laura made to climb in too, but Theo took her arm. ‘You ride back with me,’ he said and, before she could protest, tossed her up into the saddle of his hack, then swung up behind her.
‘I’m – ’
‘Shocked and shivering and I’m not having you jolted all the way under a rug on the floor of the curricle,’ he finished as he guided the big gelding down to the gate.
‘But – ’
‘We’ll talk about it when we get back to the Grange.’
‘You – ’
‘What have you been drinking?’ he asked as the breeze blew her breath back to him.
‘Something Jed gave me. Goodness, you allowed me to finish a sentence, I feel quite faint.’
One strong arm lashed around her midriff as Theo urged the horse into a canter. ‘I worry about you. No lady should have to see sights like that.’
‘No-one should have to,’ she said with a shudder and let her head drop back against his shoulder. ‘He was murdered, wasn’t he? Killed and covered up and left in the dark.’
‘I’m not certain. Wait until we can all discuss it together. This may be more complicated than we think.’
Theo told himself not to fuss, not to over-protect Laura. She told him she’d fret herself to flinders if she was sent off to bed while the men discussed their grisly find – not, she assured him, that she’d allow herself to be sent in any case. He had to accept that she knew what was best for her, even though it ran exactly counter to his desire to wrap her up in cotton wool and put his body between hers and the entire hostile world. And kiss her until that look of horror was replaced by something else. Something he had no right to put there.
He and Perry were down first after bathing. They suggested to Mrs Bishop that a very light luncheon might be all anyone could face and then found themselves in wary confrontation in the drawing room.
‘I appear to have allowed my feelings to become apparent,’ Theo said when it seemed that Perry was not immediately going to punch him in the face.
’Yes, you have, rather,’ Perry agreed, with an amiability that could only be false and dangerous.
‘Naturally Laura’s state of shock accounts for the fact that she did not repulse my… attentions.’ Hell, but this was difficult. And why was Perry being so confoundedly calm about it?
‘I doubt it.’ Perry strolled over to the decanters. ‘A dry sherry?’