Evan rolled his eyes. “For the viscount to fall down and break his neck, obviously.”
“That’s quite brilliant,” Thomas said, his admiration for the duke growing. “They’re known to be tricky.”
The staircase was close by, but it was also mostly deserted due to the stone steps being narrow and set at an awkward angle. It was handy for when someone didn’t want their comings and goings to be seen, though, so it was feasible that the viscount would be using it.
“I thought so, yes,” Evan said, rolling his shoulders before crouching and grabbing an ankle and starting to drag the viscount towards the door. “We can prop him up between us so it looks like he’s in his cups and carry him that way.”
“Or,” Thomas said, “I could check if there’s anyone about.” He ducked out the door and strode along the passageway at anunhurried pace, just as he would if he was doing his regular patrol, his footsteps echoing through the silence. He turned left, then left again, and then right, until he could see the staircase in question.
There was nobody in sight.
He walked casually back to the viscount’s room, where he found Evan sitting on the side of the bed, his ankles crossed as he leaned back on his elbows. It showed off the lean length of his body, and it was incredibly distracting. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that instead of his normal bright colours, Evan was clothed from head to foot in black and the fabric of his clothing was clinging to him in a way that was guaranteed to set Thomas’s pulse racing. “There’s nobody about,” Thomas said, averting his gaze. This was not the time to be thinking about the duke’s narrow hips or finely shaped calves. He bent and scooped the cooling corpse into his arms, which was an excellent way to kill the flare of lust in his belly.
The body was—quite literally—a dead weight, but Thomas was able to lift it without any trouble, and he didn’t miss the way Evan’s gaze lingered on his straining biceps.
It occurred to him that perhaps Evan had posed on the bed like that deliberately. For the first time, Thomas considered that maybe the attraction he felt went both ways.
He shoved the thought aside as something to ponder when he wasn’t carrying a dead man, and strode toward the door.
They made their way to the top of the staircase without being seen and once there, Evan said, “We’ll carry him down to the first landing. It’s important that we arrange the body so it seems like he fell. Otherwise it will look suspicious.”
Thomas eyed the treacherous staircase. “Or I could just do this.”
He hoisted the viscount up in his arms and threw him down the stairs.
He winced as the crack of a skull on stone steps rang out, followed by a series of meaty thuds as the body tumbled downward, gathering speed as it raced toward the first landing. Thomas expected it to stop there, but the force of his initial throw meant it rolled merrily over the smooth patch of stone and careened halfway down the next set of steps before coming to rest with one arm at a peculiar angle. The viscount’s head lolled to one side, and sightless eyes stared up at the ceiling.
He looked exactly like a man who’d fallen down the stairs.
Evan cleared his throat. “Well, yes, that’s one way to do it.”
He turned and headed back towards the guest wing, his steps rapid, and Thomas hurried to catch up. “Wait, are we just leaving him there?”
“Obviously. This is the perfect chance to look around his room for anything that might tell us who he’s working for.”
Well, that made sense, but Thomas still felt a lingering sense of guilt. “But we’re not leaving him there for too long? I don’t want one of the maids stumbling on the body.”
Evan turned the door handle of the viscount’s chambers. “Trust me. I’ve done this before.”
They stepped inside and Evan wasted no time, lighting a lantern and tipping the contents of the viscount’s trunk out onto the bed. He went through all the pockets of his clothing with a quiet efficiency, and in the inside pocket of the man’s coat he found a square of parchment folded over into tight squares. Unfolding the paper, he held it up to the light. Thomas leaned over his shoulder to get a better look and snorted.
It appeared to be a crudely drawn rendering of a cock and a pair of oversized balls, similar to the scribblings the younger guards sometimes did when they were bored. It was decorated with little pairs of circles around the edges where whoever drew it had been doodling.
“Good to see the viscount was paying attention in all those meetings,” Evan said. “Doesn’t help us, though.” His brow furrowed. “Damn. I never checked the pockets of his robe before you threw him down the stairs.”
A flash of memory came to Thomas then, of the day Evan had swanned down the passageway wearing a coat belonging to the Earl of Aramanthe. That hadn’t been the first time he’d seen the duke in someone else’s jacket either. Another penny dropped. “Wait, is that why you’re always taking people’s clothing?”
Evan turned to face him and raised an eyebrow. “You’re really not just a pretty face, are you? Smartandhandsome. How is it that you’re single, Thomas?”
He blinked. Was Evanflirtingwith him? Heat rose in his cheeks, and he did his best to ignore it.
Evan’s smirk suggested he’d noticed, but he didn’t mention it. Instead, he said, “And in answer to your question, can you think of a better way to rifle through a man’s pockets?”
The lamplight flickered, casting shadows over his features, and Thomas was suddenly all too aware of how close they were standing and the elegant curve of Evan’s throat where he’d tilted his head back.
“Should we go back and check his pockets now?” Thomas asked, stepping back and fixing his gaze on the wall in an effort not to be distracted by the very pretty man in front of him.
“Oh, I’ll do it when I go back and discover the body,” Evan said. “I don’t know why all these idiots think the best place to store their secrets is in their coat pockets, but that’s invariably where I find them.”
