I Adored a Lord by Katharine Ashe Page A

footprints lead from the chamber down the stairs. Also, a quantity of rust is scattered about the threshold, suggesting a door opened after long disuse. An attempt may have been made to depart through this door, then abandoned.”
    â€œThen why did you wish to come here to study the base of the stairs when the murderer never came down all the way?”
    â€œTo encourage my memory.” He walked toward the platform from which in warmer seasons a boat could be launched. “To try to imagine what the murderer might have intended by descending.”
    She moved away, peering at the turret high above as she disappeared around the corner. “Perhaps it was not the murderer who opened that door in the tower room,” she called back. “Perhaps it was someone else.”
    â€œI found blood on the door handle, and upon the floor a candlestick stained with it as well.” Before him, half buried, was a door to a storage shed built into the castle wall. Within he would find a boat and oars. “You might consider searching the ladies’ belongings for garments or linens stained unusually with blood.”
    â€œI will if I can manage it. It would be fairly easy to disguise such a stain as—­ What? No!”
    The splash that followed her exclamation grabbed Vitor’s chest and catapulted his legs along the wall to the chateau’s corner. A flash of a dark body darted into the trees, but his eyes sought the woman in the river. Her cloak and skirts ballooned with trapped air but in moments they would tug her to the bottom. Not wasting breath to shout, she struggled toward the bank, but the current pulled her away faster than she could paddle.
    He stripped off his coat and boots and dove.

 
    Chapter 7

    The Hero
    W ater burning his skin with cold, Vitor reached her and grabbed her beneath the arms. His legs tangled in her skirts. He kicked them free and pulled her back against the current. She helped him, but her skin was already white.
    It seemed an age of frigid pain before he reached the platform. Together they struggled against her sodden garments and dragged her entirely from the water. With shaking hands she fumbled at the fastening of her cloak. Struggling to his feet, he grabbed his coat, pulled forth his knife, and fell to his knees before her.
    â€œCan’t—­” She plucked at the knot. “Get—­” Her words were barely audible, her lips blue.
    He pushed her hands aside and cut the cloak fastening, then turned her and at her back sliced a line up the fasteners of the heavy woolen gown and the linen undergarment below. The laces of her stays split beneath the sharp blade, and she struggled out of the garments. He reached for his coat and she slid her arms into it stiffly as he pulled on his boots. She climbed to her feet in the slushy depression they’d made in the snow. Like a wraith, her black hair was matted about her face and neck and her eyes were sockets of ebony in the stark white oval of her face.
    He took her up into his arms and climbed toward the road. As slight as she was icy, she tucked her face and hands against his chest and did not protest, which terrified him.
    By the time he strode through the main gate, her body shook in violent tremors. But he felt her hard breaths and knew she was trying to withstand it. A guard followed. No one stirred in the great hall. Vitor carried her to the housekeeper’s day chamber, small and easily heated.
    â€œHave a fire laid immediately and bring tea,” he commanded the guard. “Then alert Monsieur Brazil and Sir Beverley, but no one else. Be quick.”
    â€œ Sim, meu senhor .” The man disappeared.
    He lowered her to the chair before the hearth, drew his coat from her stiff limbs, and wrapped a blanket about her. She allowed it all in trembling silence. But when he tucked the wool around her feet, then took her hands between his to chafe, she tugged them away.
    â€œGo,” she