Chapter 26

On his head. For a breathless second, a second where Cass's heart vaulted up her ribcage and thudded against her teeth, she swore that was where Pearl was going to land the trowel. With a smack. If she did they were finished. Completely. Utterly. As it was Cass's breath screamed like a rusty gate hinge and the hole wasn't even half dug. Not in million years could she make it big enough for two.
"I said ... "
As the trowel thudded against the ground, Cass's throat dried to match the frost-laced earth she'd labored to crack. A fall into the black, half dug hole, swimming there beneath her, would be a welcome release, from everything. Him most of all. Especially now Pearl flew wailing along what Cass always thought of as Brother Kentigern's path, as if the devil was not only here, on the very boundary of the herb garden, but right behind her.
How could Cass fall down in that hole though? Pearl was followed immediately by Ruby. Code red must have been flagged and, with such speed, Cass couldn't bolt after them. Someone was going to have to stand here and face him. Tightening her mouth, she dragged up her chin.
"I heard what you said, Lord Hawley. Indeed, I think we all did."
His footstep echoed close beside her. "Dead, is he?"
What a stupid thing to say. She had given Devorlane Hawley better credit for brains than that. Of course Gil was dead. Would he be lying there, wrapped in tablecloths, his legs tied in bolster covers she had taken from the linen cupboard, and fixed on with curtain tassels, if he wasn't?
"Well?What do you think?"
Yes, the thing was to make this look natural.
Setting her foot on the spade, she pushed downward into the ground as if she cut with a cake knife that neat little section of earth.
Why stop, after all? To stop only made herself look guilty. She would be arrested. She would hang. There was always the chance that if she tried to make this look as if it was all perfectly normal, planned-why shouldn't she bury Gil here-she just might get away with it.
Besides, there was something calming about the ancient rhythm of the action-thrust, lift, throw, thrust, lift, throw.
"Give me the spade."
An order, not a suggestion. Her eyes widened. He stepped closer, the weight of his stare burning holes in her. If she didn't hand it over, was he going to grab it?
"The spade, Lord Hawley? I'm sorry?"
Why, if she gave him that, what would be next? Lord Koorecroft's? A prison cell? The hangman's noose? This was over, unless she could think of something. Unless--pray God--Ruby stole back along the path with something. The broom handle. The meat mallet. Something. Anything. Because she couldn't hang. For something she never did? God, no.
"Must I believe you're deaf as well as everything else? I said-give me the damned thing."
"No."
He reached for the shaft. She'd give him it all right. Right across the top of his skull. A flying smack was all it would take. Of course it would mean explaining to Pearl and Ruby why he was now lying face down in Brother Kentigern's herb garden. Why they must dig more. But no-one would understand better than them.
She tried prying his fingers loose, but he jerked the shaft towards him. Terrible, wasn't it, when he'd one calf-skin booted foot in the grave that all she could see was his lips, close enough to kiss?
She'd never done such a thing. Certainly not over a corpse. In a carriage, at a door, but no more than that. It was terrible. Unseemly.
Somehow she found her voice. "Why?"
"Why?" He let his gaze roam her face. Actually she wasn't mistaken about how close he was. "Why do you think?"

***
She didn't think, did she? Not in that instant, or the next one either. He knew by the way she lowered her eyelashes, over her widened eyes and directed her finally skewered gaze to his waistcoat. She couldn't believe it. And as for now? Devorlane shut the door of the monk's cell and joined her at the dresser. "Do let me get that for you Mrs. Armstrong, seeing as your friends seem to have deserted you and you obviously need it." The drink he poured, firstly for her then for himself, was like her. Darkly deceptive. "But maybe murder requires it?"
"Me?" She shrugged and took a step forward. "I'm sorry but whatever gives you the idea I'd do that, Lord Hawley? Well?"
"The fact you were burying a corpse in the garden. Let me get the fire too."
"Fine. Be my gue-"
She took another step. So did he. Right in front of her. "Seeing as I wouldn't want you thinking it's warmer outside. And bolting."
"Me? How do you make that out?"
"What do you think? Well?"
He slid his gaze over her face.So formidable a front. Even now she stared at his waistcoat as if she was trying to work out how to steal it off him and how far she'd get with it too. No, he wasn't about to think a fa鏰de was also what he lived behind. He didn't. Or if he did, it had become so moss encrusted, so lichen bound, he had crumbled beneath it into a pile of dust. A heap you'd have to kick to get a reaction from on any other subject but one. Revenge.
The last thing in the world he'd planned on doing was taking that spade from this baggage, never mind digging the damned grave and helping her deposit a body in it, without fully considering how any of it would look in the eyes of the law, he needed every particle of his wits about him.
"What exactly do you want, Lord Hawley, seeing as this isn't exactly a social call? And you'd hardly dirty your perfect boots for nothing."
"Want?"
"Yes. Want."
"Why do you think I'd want anything?"
"Because people always do. So don't pretend. I don't imagine you're exactly the exception."
"Well, run with the jackals, Mrs. Armstrong, and you'll soon find they always want a piece of you, especially when the meat is fresh."
"How informative. I should never have guessed."
"But even when it's not."
"Hmm." She tilted her chin. "You've run with the jackals, you know so very much about them?"
"It all depends on the jackals."
"No, it depends on what you run as. A wolf in jackal's clothing."