Demon Blood

entrance.
    On the center of the steps, a white sheet concealed a body-shaped lump. No blood soaked through the sheet. A man waited on the top step, his slight form in a poker-straight posture that Mina couldn’t place for a moment. Then it struck her: Navy. Probably another pirate, though this one had been a sailor—or an officer—first.
    A house of this size would require a small army of staff, and she and Newberry would have to question each one. Soon, she’d know how many of Trahaearn’s pirates had come to dry land with him.
    As they reached the fountain, she turned to Newberry. “Stop here. Set up your camera by the body. I want photographs of everything before we move it.”
    Newberry parked and climbed out. Mina didn’t wait for him to gather his equipment from the bonnet. She strode toward the house. The man descended the steps to greet her, and she was forced to revise her opinion. His posture wasn’t rigid discipline, but a cover for wiry, contained energy. His dark hair was slicked back from a narrow face. Unlike the man at the gate, he was neat, and almost bursting with the need to help.
    “Inspector Wentworth.” With ink-stained fingers, he gestured to the body, inviting her to look.
    She was not in a rush, however. The body would not be going anywhere. “Mr—?”
    “St. John.” He said it like a bounder, rather than the two abbreviated syllables of someone born in England. “Steward to His Grace’s estate.”
    “This estate or his property in Wales?” Which, as far as Mina was aware, Trahaearn didn’t often visit.
    “Anglesey, inspector.”
    Newberry passed them, easily carrying the heavy photographic equipment. St. John half turned, as if to offer his assistance, then glanced back as Mina asked, “When did you arrive here from Wales, Mr. St. John?”
    “Yesterday.”
    “Did you witness what happened here?”
    He shook his head. “I was in the study when I heard the footman—Chesley—inform the housekeeper that someone had fallen. Mrs. Lavery then told His Grace.”
    Mina frowned. She hadn’t been called out here because someone had been a clumsy oaf, had they? “Someone tripped on the stairs?”
    “No, inspector. Fallen.” His hand made a sharp dive from his shoulder to his hip.
    Mina glanced at the body again, then at the balustrade lining the roof. “Do you know who it was?”
    “No.”
    She was not surprised. If he managed the Welsh estate, he wouldn’t likely know the London staff well. “Who covered him with the sheet?”
    “I did, after His Grace sent the staff back into the house.”
    So they’d all come out to gawk. “Did anyone identify him while they were outside?”
    “No.”
    Or maybe they just hadn’t spoken up. “Where is the staff now?”
    “They are gathered in the main parlor.”
    Where they would all pass the story around until they were each convinced they’d witnessed it personally. Blast. Mina firmed her lips.
    As if understanding her frustration, St. John added, “The footman is alone in the study, however. His Grace told him to stay there. He hasn’t spoken with anyone else since Mrs. Lavery told His Grace.”
    The footman had been taken into the study and asked nothing? “But he has talked to the duke?”
    The answer came from behind her, from a voice that could carry his commands across a ship without shouting. “He has, Inspector.”
    She turned to find a man as big as his voice. Oh, damn the news sheets. They hadn’t been kind to him —they’d been kind to their readers, protecting them the effect of this man. He was just as hard and as handsome as they’d portrayed. Altogether dark and forbidding, his gaze was as pointed and as guarded as the fence that was his namesake. The Iron Duke wasn’t as tall as his statue, but still taller than any man had a right to be—and as broad through the shoulders as Newberry, but without the spare flesh.
    The news sheets had shown all of that, but they hadn’t conveyed his power. But it was not just size, Mina immediately recognized. Not just his looks. She’d seen handsome before. She’d seen rich and influential. Yet this man had a presence beyond looks and money. For the first time, she could see why men might follow him through kraken-infested waters or into Horde territory, then follow him back onto shore and remain with him.
    He was terrifying.
    Disturbed by her reaction, Mina glanced at the man standing beside him: tall, brown-haired, his expression bored. Mina did not recognize