Page 50 of Ladies in Hating
And then a crash rocked the garden, a percussiveboomlouder than a gunshot and somehow very near. A fine white powder burst into the air around them.
Georgiana moved before Cat could react. She dragged Cat away from the noise and the dust that followed, then shoved her own body between Cat and whatever had…
Fallen? Exploded?
“What—” Cat managed. She was dazed, unmoored by the twin explosions of their kiss and whatever had caused the garden to shake.
“The timber,” Georgiana said. “The one that shifted inside the house. It—fell, I think.”
Cat swiped plaster off her face and peered around Georgiana’s body.
Georgiana was right. The plume of white powder had clearly shot outward from where the gap in the wall had been. It was heaviest there, still slowly settling, in the exact place where they had passed from the house into the garden. Where they had stood only moments ago, before Georgiana had pulled Cat back.
Georgiana scooped a shivering Bacon into her arms while Cat stared at the slowly descending blizzard of white debris.
“Dear God,” Georgiana said thickly. “Thank God we did not try to return that way. Thank heaven that timber blocked us. We might have—you could have been—”
Cat stopped the flow of words with a hand on Georgiana’s shoulder. “Thank you,” she said. “It’s thanks toyouwe weren’t harmed.”
Georgiana’s eyes fastened on hers. Her fingers shifted to cover Cat’s. “I didn’t—”
But before she could finish her sentence, Bacon wrested his way out of her arms, scampered down to the ground, and made an abortive charge in the direction of the settling flakes of plaster.
Georgiana cursed again and flung herself after him. The little dog stopped mid-charge, however, and his bark turned into a confused whine.
Georgiana nearly tripped over him in her hurry. She bent to pick him up again and then froze halfway down. Her lips parted. Her eyes went round as coins.
Cat followed Georgiana’s gaze to the former gap in the wall, which had slowly resolved into focus as the plaster dust had come to rest. Her heart seemed to lift into her throat, and she choked on the sensation as she made sense of what Bacon and Georgiana too had seen.
Half concealed beneath the fallen timber lay the body of a man.
Large. Coated in powder the color of ash. And extremely—decidedly—indubitably—
Dead.
Chapter 17
You have read this strange and terrific story, Margaret; and do you not feel your blood congeal with horror?
—fromFRANKENSTEIN
“Out,” Georgiana said.
She wrapped her fingers very firmly around Cat’s elbow and began to drag her away from the body in the garden.
Dear sweet bloody hell. There was abodyin thegarden.
“Wait—wait.” Cat dug her heels into the ground.
Georgiana, who had the advantage of several inches of height and a steely core of terror and determination, pulled harder. “No. Time to go.”
“You are the most exasperating—should we not stay to find out who—”
“I know who it is,” Georgiana said.
“You—what?”
“I recognized him.” She had managed to maneuver Cat to the courtyard wall, roughly as far from the collapsed section as it waspossible to be. She picked up Bacon and thrust his small, filthy body into Cat’s arms. “Hold this.”
