Page 5 of The Devil in Her Bed

The timbre of masculine voices changed from excited to outraged when they came upon the dead body in the hall. Their angry, clipped conversations ebbed and waned as they searched the study and the library for the culprit.

As they neared the fireplace, terror weakened Pippa’s limbs.

Seeming to intuit this, Declan pulled her close,settling her ear against the bones of his ribs. He trembled, as well, whether with fear or the exertion of keeping them aloft, Pippa couldn’t tell.

His heart became a staccato metronome against her ear, driving all other thoughts and sounds away. She held her breath when Declan did.

And shut out every sound in the world but the thrumming beneath her ear.

If she’d lost everything, she had this. This boy. This heartbeat of time. She’d always known he was possessed of the strength and goodness of a mythical hero.

Now everyone else would know it, too.

Because he’d saved her.

Pippa didn’t know how long they stayed like that. Perhaps minutes, perhaps hours. But when all fell eerily silent and the men moved on, Declan lowered his mouth to her ear.

“Ferdinand…” he said, his voice breaking with sorrow. “Did you see them? Did you see what they did?”

Pippa nodded, wishing she didn’t still see the tiny body bouncing and contorting in the darkness of her mind’s eye.

“What about Francesca, did she… did she make it?”

Despair choked off her breath once more, and Pippa swallowed several ragged sobs before deciding she was unable to answer.

She didn’t have to. The tension in his trembling muscles and the hitches in his breath as he fought his own sobs told her Declan understood.

“Where… where is my papa?” Somehow, Pippa knew her hope was ridiculous. Because her father never would have left them behind. Even to save his own life.

Declan didn’t answer for a long moment, and when he finally did, his voice was husky with shadows and pain. “Your father… they… they stabbed him first. It was quick. I-I’m sorry. He sent me to find you.”

A sharp blade of grief slid through her ribs and into her heart, this one finding purchase next to where her mother’s wound belonged.

“Am I an orphan now?” she whispered as her tears trickled from her chin and onto the still-bare skin of his abdomen.

“Yes.”

“How do you bear it?”

His arm tightened around her, and his face pressed into her hair. “I can’t tell you that. It was different for me.”

“How?”

“Because—because I didn’t lose good parents, Pip… not like yours.”

She lifted her head, swiping at her tears with the back of her hand. “I never thought your parents were good.”

His features shifted as he peered down at her. “I’ve never said a word about them.”

“But you were already sad when you came here. A kind of sad that isn’t gone… and now it might never be.”

His eyes fluttered closed as a gathering of tears dispersed beneath the fan of his dark lashes. “Pip… this kind of sad will never go away. But—” He stopped. Stiffened. Tested the air with sharp inhales. “Do you smell that?”

She gave the air a delicate whiff. Something was burning.

They both looked down to the dry fireplace beneath them. Little tendrils of smoke curled into the shafts of light.

“Bloody hell,” he cursed. “They’ve set fire to the manor.”