Sweet Deception by Heather Snow Read Free Book Online

intense joy and relief at seeing Emma alive dimmed when so juxtaposed to her grief.
    He hadn’t even considered the possibility that she and the maid might have been friends. After fourteen years living behind enemy lines, always on his guard, Derick had nearly forgotten that genuine relationships with other people were even possible.
    He glanced down at the poor soul he cradled. She looked nothing like Emma, did she? How the hell had he thought otherwise?
    The moment he’d seen Emma safe on that horse, his panicked haze had lifted. Now he could see what he should have from the first. Molly was fine-featured like Emma, but taller, fuller-bodied. The dress she wore
was
green, but well faded. And she wasn’t wearing an overcoat.
    Mistakes like that were completely unlike him and would have meant death in his other life. Unforgivable.
    Gently he ran his palm over the maid’s face, closing eyes that saw no more. How had poor Molly Simms gotten to this place?
    And more importantly, was she an unfortunate victim of the flood, or of something more nefarious?
    A splashing noise jerked his attention to the stream. Hooves sloshed through water as Emma urged the horse into the elevated water. The steed’s eyes and nostrils flared but Derick could see that Emma gripped the horse tightly with her knees and had a firm grasp on the reins. She cooed something low to the animal.
    Damned disobedient woman. “I told you to stay put.”
    “And I might have listened had your dictate made any sense,” she retorted. “However, we have to get Molly back to the castle somehow, and this horse has a better chance of crossing these waters than you would. Particularly whilst carrying her…body.”
    Derick bit his tongue on an ungentlemanly response.
    Emma never looked away from the water sluicing around the horse’s legs, her teeth tugging on her lower lip with calm focus.
    While his bloody heart was in his bloody throat. And if she made it across safely, he might bloody well thrash her.
    He didn’t breathe again until Emma pulled the horse up onto the bank.
    As she dismounted, Derick lifted Molly from the water, laying her out on the bank. As he knelt beside the maid, Emma’s cumbersome boots came into view across from him. His gaze traveled up her as he rose to his feet.
    Emma seemed unusually pale. Her fist balled in front of her middle and deep brackets appeared on either side of her mouth. Poor Pygmy must be turning in knots, as she wouldn’t be used to such things.
    She circled Molly, flinching when her gaze met the maid’s face.
    “You needn’t look,” he murmured. “I will carry the mai—
Molly
on horseback, if you’ll walk beside.” He reached out his hand, moved with the desire to touch Emma, to comfort her.
    She gave a little shake of her head, and Derick snatched his arm back. He clasped his hands behind him. Just as well—he didn’t see himself as the comforting sort anyway.
    “Do you think her”—Emma cleared her throat—“her neck was broken prior to her washing downriver, or as a result of the flood?”
    “I’m not certain we can tell. We might attempt to estimatehow long ago she died by the stiffness of her joints,” he suggested. “But in this situation it might not tell us much.”
    “Because of the cold water,” she said, nodding.
    Derick raised a brow, looking at her with curiosity. He waited for her to fill the expectant silence, but she didn’t. She just stared at him.
Odd.
Finally, he had to ask. “And how would you know that?”
    Emma winced, and nodded. “This is hardly the first death that I’ve seen,” she replied. “I’ve…assisted my brother in his duties as magistrate for quite some time, and my father before him, so I am familiar with rigor mortis and how to calculate a person’s passing from it.”
    Derick gaped. Pygmy was full of surprises, wasn’t she?
    “However,” she said, “a few years ago, twin boys from the village went missing. Their…bodies were found in a