The Iron Duke Read Online Free PDF

But whatever his staff thought of his title, Trahaearn apparently didn’t force them to address him by it.
    The gatekeeper didn’t return—and former pirate or not, he must be literate if he could write a gram and read the answer from the main house. That answer came quickly. She and Newberry hadn’t waited more than a minute before the gates opened on well-oiled hinges.
    The park was enormous, with green lawns stretching into the dark. Dogs sniffed along the fence, their handlers bundled up against the cold. If someone had invaded the property, he wouldn’t find many hiding places on the grounds. All of the shrubs and trees were still young, planted after Trahaearn had been granted the property.
    The house rivaled Chesterfield before that great building had been burned during the revolution. Of gray stone, two rectangular wings jutted forward to form a large courtyard. Unadorned casements decorated the many windows, and the blocky stone front was relieved only by the window glass and the balustrade along the edge of the roof. A fountain tinkled at the center of the courtyard. Behind it, the main steps created semicircles leading to the 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 an 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. Take photographs of everything before we move it.”
    Newberry parked and climbed out. Mina didn’t wait for him to gather his equipment. 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 slicked back from a flushed, 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 wasn’t in a rush. The body wouldn’t go 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.
    “His estate on Anglesey, inspector.”
    Newberry passed them, 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 she? “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 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’d pass the story around until they were each convinced