For Deader or Worse Read online

  FOR DEADER OR WORSE

  Another John Pickett mystery

  Sheri Cobb South

  [Stop right there!

  Yes, you. Before you begin reading For Deader or Worse, you might be interested to know that there’s a new John Pickett short story available for free download. Chronologically, it falls between Too Hot to Handel and For Deader or Worse—in fact, it takes place about two days after Too Hot to Handel ends—and although it’s certainly not necessary to read it in order to understand this book (it’s only about 2,000 words, or 7 typed double-spaced pages), it does offer readers a brief glimpse of what happens to the very newly married John and Julia after the last page of Too Hot to Handel is turned. Download your free copy of “I’ll See You in My Dreams” in EPUB, MOBI, or PDF formats at http://dl.bookfunnel.com/aipv9hyob5

  Ready? Okay, now you can start reading ...]

  Prologue

  Which Finds a Lady in Distress

  May 1796

  Somersetshire

  His lordship paused in the doorway of the drawing room, observing with a critical eye the beautiful young woman sitting on a striped satin sofa and making minuscule adjustments to the tea tray and the sumptuous tower of cakes which filled the small table conveniently placed at her elbow. Any other man might have taken pleasure in the sight of the lady’s golden beauty, but his lordship, noting the second cup and plate, scowled his disapproval.

  “Entertaining visitors to tea, Claudia?” he asked, his tone cautioning the lady to answer in the affirmative at her peril.

  “Yes, my love. Won’t you join us?” The endearment was strictly a matter of form, for any affection she had once felt for his lordship had not long survived the marriage vows.

  “It depends. Who, may I ask, is honoring us by accepting our hospitality?”

  The lady colored slightly, but answered in a voice that was clear and strong. “Jamie Pennington is to return to Oxford tomorrow, so I thought—”

  “Damn Jamie Pennington!” his lordship exploded. “Are we never to see the back of that whelp?”

  “I can hardly cut the acquaintance when Jamie and I have been friends since we were both in leading strings,” she protested in coaxing tones.

  “It is not your childhood friendship, but your present one which troubles me.”

  His lordship’s chiseled countenance darkened ominously and her ladyship, recognizing the warning signs, made haste to placate him. “Recall, my dear, that Jamie is to have the living at Norwood Green when his father retires. Am I not even to entertain the vicar without provoking your jealousy?”

  “Jealousy?” scoffed his lordship. “Why the devil should I be jealous of a cub still wet behind the ears? But I tell you this, Claudia: I will not stand idly by while my wife plants cuckold’s horns on my head under my own roof!”

  At the injustice of this charge, her ladyship’s spirit, still not entirely quashed after two years of marriage to a highly volatile man almost two decades her senior, overcame her fear, and she shot to her feet. “Oh, how dare you?”

  “I might ask you the same, madam! Do not think I have not noticed the way you encourage that young man’s infatuation, all in the name of a childhood friendship which he would have outgrown long ago, did you not constantly feed the flames.” His gaze flicked from her face to her abdomen, which had not yet begun to swell with the advent of his lordship’s heir. “And what of my son, Claudia? May I expect him to have ginger hair?”

  It was too much to be borne, this final insult not only to herself, but to one who was entirely innocent of the sordid charge laid at his door. White to the lips, she picked up the silver teapot and flung its steaming contents over his lordship’s immaculate shirtfront. With a roar of rage, he sent tea table, cups, and cakes scattering with one sweep of his arm. In the next instant he was upon her, raining blows down upon her face, head and shoulders, while she huddled lower and lower in an attempt to shield the child she carried. At last, having reduced his lady to a quivering heap upon the floor, his lordship administered a swift kick to her ribs, then turned on his heel and left the house, slamming the door behind him.

  Her ladyship lay there for some time after he left, sobbing softly as she considered her husband’s accusations. Had she indeed encouraged Jamie to dangle after her? It was true that she had known he loved her, had done so ever since he had returned from Eton. There had been no talk of marriage between them, however, for at eighteen he had been much too young to support a wife and she, not quite seventeen, had entertained too many hopes of a brilliant season in Bath to consider an early marriage to the vicar’s son, however sincere her affection for him. Yes, she could see how there might have been some grain of truth to her husband’s claims; still, her actions had not been from any intention of playing her husband false, but rather a futile attempt to return to those happier, more innocent days when she had been the belle of Norwood Green, before she had married his lordship and the scales had been ripped from her eyes.

  The long-case clock in the hall began to chime the hour, and her ladyship wiped her eyes with her sleeve, flinching at the pain. Jamie would arrive at any minute, and she must not let him see her like this. She must get up the stairs to her room, closing the drawing room door behind her lest he see the wreckage of the tea things littering the floor and draw his own conclusions. Although she had not yet surveyed her reflection in a looking-glass, she was certain that cosmetics could not disguise her husband’s handiwork; she would have to instruct the butler to deny her, saying she was unwell. It would be no less than the truth; she only hoped she could reach the privacy of her own bedchamber before she vomited all over the carpet.

  She pushed herself upright to a sitting position, and felt such a stab of pain in her side that she was temporarily deprived of breath. Steeling herself against the agony she knew would follow, she forced herself to stand on legs that balked at supporting her. With her left hand pressed to her ribs, she managed to reach the nearest wall, and by bracing herself against it contrived to trace the perimeter of the room to the door. In the same manner she circled the hall until she reached the foot of the stairs, noting that the servants had all disappeared, as was their usual habit when the master and mistress quarreled. Her split and bloodied lower lip twisted in a cynical travesty of a smile. God forbid that they should be called upon to defend her against his lordship’s wrath.

  By the time she reached the staircase, the last of her strength was exhausted. When she released the wall in order to grasp the banister, her legs buckled and she fell to her knees. She tugged her skirts out from beneath her and began, slowly and painstakingly, to climb the stairs on all fours. All too soon, a knock sounded on the door.

  “Jamie,” she murmured. She looked up and found that, although it felt as if she had been climbing forever, she was only halfway to the landing. At this rate, she could not possibly reach her bedchamber in time. Perhaps, if she could get as far as the landing, she might turn the corner and be out of sight. Perhaps the butler would refuse to come out of hiding, and Jamie, receiving no answer to his knock, would go away ...

  The knock sounded again, more insistently this time, and her ladyship dragged herself up one more step. Four more to go ... Three ...

  The door swung open hesitantly, and a familiar voice called cheerfully, “Hullo? Is anyone home? Claudia? Claudia!”

  A red-haired young man of twenty-two crossed the hall in three strides, then took the stairs two at a time until he reached her. Jamie Pennington dropped to one knee beside her, taking in at a glance her bloodied lip and rapidly swelling eye.

  “Claudia, what’s happened?” he demanded, his face turning pale beneath its scattering of freckles.

  “It’s nothing,” she insisted feebly, tur
ning her face away. “His lordship—we—we quarreled—”

  “ ‘Nothing’? My parents quarrel every now and then, but Papa has never once blackened Mama’s eyes!”

  “It’s not usually this bad,” she protested feebly. “I brought it on myself. I provoked him—”

  “The devil you did!” He stood upright and glanced swiftly around the hall. “Where is his lordship?”

  “I—I don’t know. He stormed out right after—after—”

  She broke off as Jamie retraced his route down the stairs. Instead of departing the way he had come, however, he stopped before the massive hall fireplace, standing on tiptoe to take down one of the two crossed swords mounted above it.

  “Jamie, what are you doing?”

  He wheeled about to confront her. “Do you think I haven’t noticed all those Sundays you’ve come to church with a black eye or a swollen lip? Cover them with cosmetics all you like, Claudia, and joke about your own clumsiness in tripping over the carpet. You can fool everyone else in Norwood Green, but you can’t fool me. I should have killed the bastard years ago.”

  “No, Jamie!” She raised a trembling hand in supplication. “No, you mustn’t!”

  “You would defend him?” Jamie’s wrath faded, replaced by bitter envy that one so undeserving should command such loyalty. “You would plead for his life after the beating he gave you?”

  “No,” she said, her voice faltering until only a whisper remained. “But if he were to kill you, I should have no one.”

  “Your parents—”

  She shook her head. “I can’t tell them. Mama would never understand.” Her lower lip twisted, her upper one being by this time so swollen as to make movement impossible. “Mama is very big on a woman doing her wifely duty.”

  Jamie, coming to a decision, let out a sigh and returned his weapon to the mantelpiece. “Very well, then. Have you a shawl anywhere?”

  “In the drawing room,” she said, indicating its direction with a vague gesture that made her wince. “Jamie, what are you going to do?”

  “I’m getting you out of here before he kills you!”

  Ignoring her faint protest, he strode across the hall to the drawing room, his copper-colored eyebrows arching upward at the sight of the wreckage which was all that remained of the repast to which he’d looked forward for days. He snatched up the large paisley shawl draped over the back of the sofa, and returned with it to the staircase. He draped it over her head like a hood, the better to protect her poor battered face from curious eyes, and then lifted her in his arms.

  “Am I hurting you?” he asked, hearing her sharp intake of breath.

  “Yes.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but she clung to his lapel with all the strength she could muster. “But please don’t let go.”

  “I’ll never let you go, Claudia,” he said, and the words carried all the weight of a sacred vow.

  Chapter One

  Which Finds John Pickett

  Embarking Upon a New Mission

  March 1809

  London

  The bells of St. Mary-le-Strand woke him.

  This in itself was not unusual, for the bells of the old church at the foot of Drury Lane had been tolling the hour for almost a century, and had summoned John Pickett to Bow Street every morning for the last five years.

  But he was not going to Bow Street today. The realization of what he was to do instead propelled him from the warmth of the bed, and he stepped barefooted onto the rag rug that afforded the only protection from the cold wooden floorboards. He stirred the banked coals of the fire and set a kettle of water to heat, then picked impatiently over a breakfast which had been sent up by his landlady, and for which he had no appetite. Pushing the bowl of porridge away, he set about his morning ablutions without waiting for the water to heat fully. After washing with water that could only charitably be described as tepid, he shaved with more than usual care. Staring back at him from the mirror mounted on the wall over the basin was a rather pale young man of almost five-and-twenty whose brown eyes held an expression of nervous anticipation not unmingled with stark terror. Having managed to eradicate his faint beard without accidentally slitting his throat, he dressed in a snowy white shirt, breeches, stockings, and shoes before tying his starched cravat with fingers that shook. He brushed his rather wild brown curls into submission and tied them back at the nape of his neck with a black velvet ribbon before putting on the white brocade waistcoat and dark blue double-breasted tailcoat that had been sent over from the tailor only the day before.

  He patted the inside coat pocket (quite unnecessarily, for he knew very well what it contained), then packed his shaving kit into the battered valise standing open in the corner. He closed it and fastened its worn leather straps, then paced the floor for the next ten minutes, until a knock on the door put an end to his perambulations.

  “Good morning, Mr. Pickett,” said the grinning individual standing just outside, a stout fellow wearing the striped waistcoat and caped driving coat of the town coachman. “Whenever you’re ready, we’ll be on our way.”

  “Good morning—Jervis, isn’t it?” Pickett said, trying to recall the man’s name. The conveyance was courtesy of his magistrate, Mr. Colquhoun, who had made many of the arrangements, up to and including the clothes on Pickett’s back. And perhaps it was just as well, Pickett thought, for today’s mission was quite outside his own experience. “I’m ready, so let’s be off.”

  He bent to pick up the valise, but the coachman waved him away. “I’ll just get that for you, shall I?”

  Pickett nodded, still uncomfortable with the idea of letting servants do for him what he was quite capable of doing himself. As Jervis hoisted the bag to his shoulder, Pickett cast a long look back at the two-room flat that had been his home for the last five years, then followed the coachman out of the room and down the stairs into the crisp March air. Once in the street, he reached for the door of the carriage, only to fall back in some chagrin when Jervis rather pointedly cleared his throat. He allowed the coachman to open the door, then climbed inside.

  The distance from his own lodgings in Drury Lane to his destination in Curzon Street was a scant two miles—less than that as the crow flies—but there were far greater differences than could be measured in linear dimensions. As the unrefined bustle of the Covent Garden district gave way to the elegant shops of Piccadilly and finally to the manicured residential squares of Mayfair, Pickett fell victim to increasing doubts as to his ability to succeed in the approaching endeavor. By the time the carriage rolled to a stop, his state of mind had deteriorated to a condition approaching panic. Granted, Mr. Colquhoun seemed to think his future at Bow Street was bright, but before that he’d been a collier’s apprentice and, before that, a juvenile pickpocket. There was nothing in his past—nor his present either, for that matter—to render him in any way qualified for what he was about to undertake. Who was he to think he could succeed where another, far more advantaged than he, had failed? Who was he to—

  “Curzon Street, number twenty-two,” trumpeted Jervis, flinging open the carriage door and putting an end to Pickett’s self-disparagement.

  The time had come. Pickett disembarked, then took a deep breath, gave a tug to his waistcoat, and mounted the shallow stairs to the front door. He was obviously expected, for no sooner had he lifted the knocker and let it fall than the front door was thrown open.

  “Mr. Pickett, sir!” exclaimed the butler, beaming at him. “Do come in.”

  “Rogers.”

  Pickett returned the butler’s greeting with a nod, but retained his hat and gloves, for he would not be staying long. He followed Rogers down a short narrow corridor to a drawing room at the rear of the house. The butler opened the door to this chamber with a flourish.

  “Mr. Pickett, my lady—er, madam,” he announced, then fell back to allow Pickett entrance.

  At the butler’s announcement, a woman rose from her chair before the fire, a beautiful golden-haired lady wearing a high-w
aisted gown of light blue silk along with a radiant smile.

  “John!” she exclaimed.

  At the sight of her, all his misgivings fell away. He was the luckiest man in the world, and it was a wise man who did not question his good fortune, however undeserving of it he knew himself to be.

  “Well, my lady?” he asked, regarding her with a quizzical smile. “Are you ready to marry me?”

  * * *

  In fact, they were already married, and had been since the previous October, when an expedient yet innocent masquerade as man and wife while in Scotland had resulted in their finding themselves legally wed according to the laws of that country. The annulment process was already well underway when Pickett had been seriously injured in the line of duty, and Lady Fieldhurst had taken it upon herself to nurse him. That had been two weeks ago, and while he had lain unconscious, her ladyship had decided (as his magistrate said) to keep him. In a way, Pickett supposed he owed his attacker a debt of gratitude. For the last week, he had been recovering from his wounds and, if he were honest, he had to admit that not all his time in bed had been spent sleeping. Today’s wedding ceremony was not strictly necessary, since their irregular marriage was perfectly legitimate, but a practical measure to prevent the lady’s aristocratic in-laws from challenging and perhaps invalidating the union. Lady Fieldhurst—how long would it be, Pickett wondered, before he was able to think of her as Julia?—had left their Drury Lane love nest only the previous afternoon, when her friend Lady Dunnington had appeared at the door, announcing her intention of dragging Julia back to Curzon Street, where she might prepare for the wedding and pack her bags for the journey to Somersetshire that would immediately follow the ceremony. When he had tried to protest this high-handed kidnapping of his bride, Lady Dunnington had insisted that it was not at all the thing for a bride to spend the night before the wedding with her husband—an exercise in logic so convoluted that by the time he had deciphered it sufficiently to form a rebuttal, she had already borne Julia off in her barouche.