Page 109 of Immortal Rose

The body had been laid out with care on the ground, placed on a bedsheet and respectfully covered with another, as was the usual custom in Foxcourt House. This was, sadly, not the first body to have landed on their doorstep. It was not even the first to have been dragged off and hidden from guests in the scullery.

Hugh knelt, seizing the top sheet. Blood had seeped through the white cloth and stuck to the face as it had dried. His mind had always worked quicker than his hands; he knew who it was before he lifted the shroud.

The sight of the Roach’s battered face struck him square in the chest. Whoever had done this had been at Stratford for hours, judging by the bruising and swelling. They had tortured him. Whether it had been enough to break the man mentally, to crack open his deep vault of secrets, was another question entirely.

“Was he one of yours?” Keyes asked.

Hugh nodded. As the pain relented, a numbness replaced it.

Another one, he thought.

“Is there family to contact?” she asked.

“No.”

The Roach had no family. He’d believed wholeheartedly in Uncle Giles’s demand that a man’s first and only love be his country. As a spy, he had been unparalleled. Even Hugh had admired his relentlessness and his ability to see any job through. He had envied it as much as the praise Uncle Giles had lavished on the other man.

“Cleaning up should be uncomplicated then,” Mrs. Keyes said softly. “You know where the lye is. I’ll leave you to it—unless you’d like for me to stay?”

“No,” Hugh said. “I’ll take care of it.”

And not with the lye. Their garden already had too many bodies buried in it. Stratford deserved better.

“Tell Mrs. Silver I said good night, won’t you?” he said.

“I shall if she’s still awake,” Keyes said. “You know how little this sort of thing bothers her.”

If only, Hugh thought, listening to her shuffling footsteps fade, he could reach that same peace with death.

He drew a hand over his face. Another one.

He shoved the rising emotions back down, steeling himself. Exhaustion ran deep to his bones, but he couldn’t be careless. He owed it to the Roach to handle this as quickly and methodically as possible.

“I knew tonight was too easy,” he muttered, drawing the sheet fully off the man. He’d known Glenmoor would hear about Reddy’s meeting and have accounted for that. What he hadn’t expected was for the duke to make the man who’d been tracking his secretary for months.

Another one. Lost to the labyrinth of blood and misery Hugh and Glenmoor had erected over the years. Another one.

Nine in total now. His uncle had told him not to count, but how could he not remember them? They’d trusted him with their lives, and all of them had paid dearly for it.

He began his examination at Roach’s feet, removing his boots, searching his pockets, his hands, his arms, his chest. But the message had been in the very first place Hugh had looked.

Someone had taken the Roach’s eyes and cut out his tongue.

He fell back, resting an arm against his knee as he stared down at the poor bastard. In the darkness his sight flickered, and, for a moment, the shadows painted his face onto Stratford’s.

No. Enough. Stratford had lived alone, and, in the end, he had died alone. But at least—at least there was no collateral damage. No wife or husband to mourn him. No children to struggle without his income. There was no one to care that he was gone, to suffer his absence.

His uncle had been right. That solitude was for the best. Every time Hugh made a move now, he had to weigh it against how it would affect the others, what would happen to the household if he was gone. They were his responsibility as much as this role was. As much as Eleanor was.

And Viola.

He pressed a fist against his forehead. If he hadn’t been so busy making calf eyes at her, if he hadn’t been bumbling about the garden gathering a posy like a besotted idiot, he would have given Reddy’s complaint about the Roach not making their meet more than a passing thought.

There could be no more distractions now.

“That is a very bad end.”

Hugh twisted around at Reddy’s somber voice. His friend’s face leeched of color as he stepped inside the small scullery, leaning down to have a closer look. “And here I thought he’d done it to annoy me.” He only had to look at Hugh to know the answer to his next question. “Glenmoor?”