Page 62 of A Pirate's Pleasure
“You expected there to be someone here, didn’t you?”
Zephyr’s smile was little more than a twitch of his lips. “You said you had no enemies. Therefore, the only scenario that makes sense is that someone wanted to get their hands on the house. That someone has obviously decided, seeing as you ran and then had the authorities on your back, that you weren’t coming back. Plus, I’m sure your exploits in Glimmerfield have reached the ears of the people here by now. As will the fact that you escaped capture and ran away to sea with pirates.”
“So, what you’re saying is that you believe that whoever that is, that it’s the same person who framed me, and that they’ve what? Just strolled in and taken over?”
“Got any better ideas about what’s going on?”
I shook my head, my heart hammering and nausea starting up in my gut. If Zephyr was right, I was about to come face to face with the person who’d murdered Erolith in cold blood and been happy to ruin my life. Did I want to know who that was? What if I knew them? What if it was someone I trusted?
“How do we get in without them seeing or hearing us?” Zephyr asked.
“There’s a pantry around the back of the house. The window is loose. I kept meaning to have it fixed, but I never got around to it. If we can climb up to it, it’s far enough away that whoever it is won’t hear us. From there, we can gain access to the main part of the house.”
Zephyr started to rise from his crouched position, and this time, I was the one who grabbed his arm. “We don’t know how many of them there are. Perhaps we’d be better fetching the authorities.”
The look Zephyr shot me as he sank back to his haunches was nothing short of scathing. “And you’re going to tell them what? That you think someone is in your house? And you think they’re the person responsible for committing a murder in your house with your knife? They won’t want to hear it, Lief. Not without evidence. It’ll be you they take into custody, and you they’ll hang before the week is out.”
I sighed, knowing he was right, my gaze drifting back to the house where I’d lived for eight years, the light blazing in the window transforming it into a place of foreboding rather than a home, and making me yearn for the gentle rocking of a deck beneath my feet. At least life had been simple on The Navarino. If you took harpies out of the equation, anyway. The rest of it had just been about ships and plunder.
Zephyr’s fingers were a warm, gentle weight on my wrist. “Come on, Lief. You’ve never backed down from a challenge before, so don’t start now.”
He was right. Again. I needed to suck it up and discover the truth, no matter how unpalatable it might be. That had been our whole reason for coming back, so running from it made no sense. But I guess there was no accounting for the moments when the fight-or-flight instinct kicked in, and which one would win the battle for supremacy.
Zephyr’s eyes glittered in the darkness as I nodded. I took a deep breath and then led him in a semi-crouch—neither of us wanting the person or persons in the library to look out of the window and spot two dark shadows flitting across the lawn—around to the side of the house to where the familiar shape of the pantry stuck out. I pointed up to the window about two feet above our heads, Zephyr immediately interlocking his fingers together into a stirrup and gesturing for me to go ahead.
Stepping onto his hands, I heaved myself up, saying a silent prayer as I did so that no one had thought to have the window fixed in my absence. If they had, it would leave us no other option but to go in through the front door, an approach that would completely do away with stealth and give the perpetrator ample opportunity to get away.
A push of the window had it creaking open under my ministrations, the sound it made louder than I would have liked, but there was nothing I could do about that. I pushed it as far as it would go, Zephyr already lifting me higher to facilitate me squeezing through it. It was a tight fit, but with a bit of wriggling, I managed it.
The drop to the floor below was a gamble without knowing what I might land on. I was lucky, though, finding nothing under my feet except half a turnip and the remnants of something I couldn’t even identify in the pantry’s darkness. I pulled a sack of flour across to the window, piling more on top until it was high enough, and then I climbed on top. I hung out of the open window, extending my arms as far as they would go until I felt Zephyr grasp hold of them.
It was a struggle to haul him up and through, Zeph broader in the chest than I was. For one horrifying moment, I feared he’d end up stuck. A hard tug, though, had him coming free with a momentum that sent the two of us careening backwards.
With his weight bearing down on me, I slipped off the sacks, Zeph following me down with an unavoidable crash. We heaved ourselves to our feet and stood stock still in the darkness, both panting. Only after a couple of minutes had passed without the pantry door bursting open, and someone appearing to demand we explain ourselves, did we conclude we’d gotten away with it. Although, it would have been quite ironic for someone to question my presence in my house.
“You’re fucking heavy,” I whispered in the dark. I couldn’t see Zeph’s answering smile, but I could feel it against my neck.
“I thought you already knew that,” he said, his words loaded with double meaning.
As now really wasn’t the time to be thinking about Zeph pinning me down during sex, I did nothing more than shake my head and tug him toward the door of the pantry. There was no lock on it, so there was nothing to stop us from stepping through it and into the kitchen beyond. As the person who knew the house the best, I took the lead, Zeph’s fingers warm on the small of my back to ensure we didn’t get separated as I endeavored to navigate the house’s twist and turns and remember any obstacles that might lie in the way. That was assuming that whoever had gained access to my house in my absence hadn’t made themselves so at home that they’d moved things around. So far, so good, though.
There were no lights on downstairs, the house holding an eerie stillness. Enough moonlight streamed in through the windows that I could see as Zeph held up one finger with a questioning lift of his brows. One person? I shrugged. There was no way of knowing until we confronted whoever was in the library. There could be an entire army in there for all we knew. With that in mind, I bent to extract my dagger from my boot, the action of holding it in front of me making me feel slightly better as we made our way to the staircase.
Progress up the stairs was slow, too many of them prone to creaking if you put too much weight on them too soon. Finally, though, we reached the top, Zeph waiting for my cue to tell him which direction we needed to go. We tiptoed along the corridor, my heart hammering so hard against my ribs that it wouldn’t have come as a surprise if the person in the library could hear it. The floorboard beneath my foot gave a slight creak, and we both froze, the darkness curling around us as we stood in that same spot, waiting to see if anyone had heard us.
No footsteps. No sound at all. No sign that there was anyone here except us. Lights didn’t switch themselves on, though. Signaling my intention to Zeph, I started moving again, each slow footstep bringing us closer to our destination.
A thin ribbon of light leaked out from beneath the closed library door as we rounded the corner. A few more steps and we stood on either side of it. My breathing came too fast as Zeph reached for the door handle, his fingers closing round it. One twist. One gentle push, and then it was too late to back out as the door opened beneath Zeph’s ministrations, the truth lying on the opposite side of it.
Chapter Twenty-four
Zephyr
A man stood by the window with his back to us, looking out across the lawn. Lucky for us he hadn’t been there earlier or he would have seen our approach and known to expect us. I studied the back of him, trying to take in anything that might be of use. He wasn’t overly tall, a few inches shorter than Lief or me. His hair was a nondescript brown color, his build average.
In fact, everything about him from the back was average. I turned my attention to the room in case any clues to his identity could be found there. A table sat next to a comfortable-looking high-backed chair, with an open book on it, giving the impression that he’d been reading before something had prompted him to move to the window. Whoever he was, he’d certainly made himself at home. Was he an ex-lover? Lief’s habit of changing the subject whenever the conversation had meandered that way hadn’t escaped my attention. Something twinged in my chest. Something I refused to think of as jealousy.
The man turned, something alerting him to our presence. A reflection in the window? A sound? Some sixth sense that he was no longer alone? I don’t suppose it mattered. From the front, he was no more remarkable than from the back. Nice enough to look at with regular features and a neat beard, but easily forgettable.