Читать книгу The Wicked Truth - Lyn Stone - Страница 9

Bearsden Manor, Middlesex

Sunlight streamed through the window and sliced across her face. Elizabeth forced one eye open and quickly clamped it shut against a shard of brightness. Her head ached abominably and her stomach churned like a kettle at full boil. She tried to roll off the bed to find a chamberpot, but froze when a huge hand settled on her shoulder.

“Stay where you are,” a deep voice warned.

Elizabeth screamed.

Terrorized, she struggled with all the wildness of a cornered fox. This was it. He’d kill her now! But not, by God, without a fight! She struck out with her fists. Desperate to live, Elizabeth flailed against him until her body heaved violently.

He dodged to one side as her stomach emptied the little that was in it. Heedless of indignity or even death, she retched endlessly before collapsing back against the pillows.

Fear shifted to anger and frustration. She’d done all she possibly could and it wasn’t enough. Her eyes wouldn’t open. They joined the rest of her body in total and complete exhaustion. “Do it, then,” she rasped. “Just do it.”

“Look, I’m sorry about this, but it’s your own fault.” The voice was calmer now, only tinged with irritation.

Elizabeth braced herself for whatever came next—hands around her throat, a knife, a pistol ball? What did it matter? Her muscles felt disconnected and refused to react. Rage deserted her suddenly, left her empty, spent. She was just too tired to care anymore. Let him do his worst. Everyone else had.

If only her voice would work, she could curse him. One parting shot: See you in hell, you bastard! No, she wouldn’t go there. She’d already paid for all her sins. Surely.

Thoughts scattered as she grasped for something pleasant to distract her from whatever pain might ensue. His words now were seductive, scary, threatening, luring her back from every comforting scene she tried to picture. Couldn’t the wretch just be quiet and get on with it? Her muzzy mind couldn’t grasp the content of what he said, but she sensed exasperation in his tone. Was the idiot trying to talk her to death?

His muttering ceased as he tugged her this way and that, rustling and yanking at the bedcovers. Then there was a peaceful stillness, broken only by the sound of pouring water. Her limbs lay weighted, lifeless. Her eyelids felt too heavy to open. The odor of sickness faded.

A cool cloth was swiped across her face and neck. Ah, that felt good, brought memories of Mother. Good memories to die with. “Mama,” she whispered, hoping her mother would be waiting to welcome her. Her father, too.

“No, I’m not Mama. Here, drink this,” the voice ordered, gruff and impatient. “I said drink!”

She drank. Poison, then. Of course. He was a doctor. She welcomed the creeping oblivion, weary of fighting a useless battle she couldn’t begin to win or even understand. The weeks of sleeplessness and watchfulness had only delayed the inevitable. Death in a water glass. Ironic.

Her last thought contained relief and a little regret. She ought to have married old Purvis Hilfinger when she was sixteen. She’d be in Northumberland right now, raising babies and counting sheep. Ah, counting sheep…one, two, three…

Neil started to cover her. He ought to undress her so she would be more comfortable, at least get her out of that pinching corset. God only knew how long she had worn the damned thing—all day before, probably, and certainly throughout the night. ‘Twas a wonder she could breathe at all.

He placed his hand lightly on her chest Breathing was too shallow and she looked pallid as a corpse. A bad reaction to the chloroform? Nonsense, the queen herself had used it. He’d employed it on hundreds of patients without any ill effects.

But none of them were women, his conscience reminded him. Maybe he’d used too much and for too long a time. What did he know of delicate constitutions such as Miss Marleigh’s or even of female medicine in general? Nothing outside the medical texts and an occasional treatise on feminine complaints. There’d been cadavers in med school, of course, and as an intern he’d observed indigent patients. But Neil could count his actual female patients on the fingers of one hand. Hardy trulls every one—camp followers he’d treated for the grippe or diseases better left unnamed.

Military medicine was virtually all he knew. Battlefield surgery, dysentery, saddle sores, the odd appendectomy. What if, in his desperation to protect Terry, he’d done real injury to this fragile girl? Suppose she died right here in his bed?

Neil shook himself. Where the hell had he put his objectivity? Her functions had simply slowed because of the drug and her constrictive underpinnings. Stupid to react like some cork-brained first-termer who’d never attended a bedside before. You’ve given her a stimulant, now take off the damned corset and see if she improves!

Still he hesitated. She was no willing paramour who wanted him to see her naked, but a helpless woman he’d rendered unconscious. This was wrong, all of it. After taking the oath to preserve health and life, he’d purposely put someone at risk.

Hell, he always got too involved with his patients, but how could he help it? The responsibility for another’s life was daunting, too much like playing God without a rule book or the proper power to pull it off. As with Jon.

If only he had thought this out first and found another way to prevent her meeting with Terry. Neil cursed himself for reverting to that inborn proclivity to act on impulse. He thought he’d had that conquered years ago.

“I’ll make it up to you, you know. Anything you want” Anything but let you wed Terry, he added silently, reason returning.

Nonsense, he thought. What unmitigated foolishness. She’s just a hardheaded adventuress with a nose full of chloroform who needs a bit of care to bring her around So get on with it.

Bending over her, Neil released the row of tiny buttons on her bodice and stripped her as efficiently as he had all the battle victims he’d tended.

The breathing improved immediately, Neil noticed with relief. Her skin color looked better, too. Peaches and cream, soft, silken…beautiful. He forced his gaze away from her breasts, embarrassed at his lack of decorum, guilty at the way his body reacted to the sight of her. He cursed the impulse to touch her.

Stalking across the room, he snatched one of his old linen shirts out of the wardrobe. It smelled of cedar and starch, but not unpleasantly. She’d certainly prefer this to his rummaging through her valise for a night rail. The weathered case looked ready to explode at a touch. He didn’t think he could deal with a scattered sea of her frilly furbelows.

When he’d dressed her and neatly tucked her in, he bundled her soiled clothing along with the sheets he’d removed and stowed them outside in the hall. Then he pulled the bedroom draperies shut and sat down to wait. Exhausted as she was, it might be awhile before the mild stimulant kicked in and she woke again.

What the devil would he do with her then? Several things hopped to mind. His lecherous thoughts had dissipated a bit, only to return now with hurricane force. Neil suspected that was going to happen with disturbing frequency as long as he kept her here, his guilt notwithstanding.

The delicate little piece looked like a tuckered-out child lying there. This feeling of tenderness toward Elizabeth Mar-leigh bothered him. It was undeserved on her part, and maddening on his. But she seemed so vulnerable. Her cap of red-gold curls framed such an angelic face, barely free of its baby roundness. This one was no infant, though, and most assuredly no angel. He’d do well to remember that and keep his sympathy—and his hands—to himself.

Why had she embarked on such a wanton life? he wondered. If she had controlled her baser nature, there would have been no impediment to her wedding his nephew—a beautiful, wealthy heiress for a fine, fledgling earl. The Marleigh name was one of England’s oldest and most respected. That is, until she had destroyed it with those foolish escapades of hers.

Neil passed his thumb over the watch Jon had left him, rubbing it like a talisman, renewing his promise to keep Terry safe. He looked down at, the case and the glint of gold mocked him, made him think of the Marleigh woman’s gilded curls.

She had ruined herself, but, by God, she wouldn’t ruin Terry! If hiding her here was the only way to prevent the marriage, so be it. Perhaps when the lad found her missing at their appointed rendezvous, he’d become disenchanted and give up thoughts of marriage. He might search for her, of course. Probably would, given Terry’s tenacious nature. But he would never look here.

Bearsden had stood vacant since Neil’s maternal grandparents died. He felt no sentimental attachment to the place and should have sold it long ago. Still, for some twisted reason, he’d kept it cared for, and even visited occasionally. He doubted Terry knew the property existed.

How would Lady Marleigh explain to her young lover an absence of a week or so from town? Yes, this ought to work. If Neil could just keep her here in the country awhile, word would get around that she had struck up with another paramour.

No one would take her seriously even if she told exactly what had happened. Who would believe it if she named him as her abductor? A respected physician stealing away with the likes of her? Neil could hardly believe it himself. Or countenance the fact that he’d really done it. Leaning his head to one side and clasping his hands across his middle, he allowed himself to doze….

Neil awakened with a start, almost falling out of the wing chair. The patter of hurried footsteps on the bare floor of the hallway brought him to his feet, running. He tore out of the room and down the hall, catching her at the top of the stairs. Clamping his arms around her, he forced her forward against the banister.

She landed a backward kick to his knee that almost sent them both plunging headfirst over the rail. Neil tumbled her to the floor facedown, clutching her this way and that, struggling to subdue clawing hands and kicking feet.

Lord, she was strong! It was like trying to stuff a wildcat into a sack. His fingers closed over hers, squeezing them into fists while he threw one leg over both of hers. She finally went limp, her back heaving against his chest. Neil relaxed his hold and started to speak. She leaned forward and bit the back of his hand.

“Ow! Damn you, stop! Stop it! I’ll thrash—”

She bit harder. He clamped his own teeth over a mouthful of her curls and yanked her head back sharply. She let go of his hand with an ear-piercing screech. Neil rolled sideways and landed on top of her, their hands imprisoned beneath her and her face pressed to the hardwood floor. “Be still or I’ll throttle you, you wildcat!”

All the life seemed to drain out of her once more and she stopped breathing. Silence reigned for a full minute. He frowned down at her. Was this another trick to throw him off guard? The one eye he could see didn’t blink, but stared at the wall. Tears poured out in a steady stream, but she didn’t sob. Didn’t move. He could feel the rapid beat of her heart under their joined hands.

“Will you fight if I let you up?” he asked.

No answer.

“I won’t hurt you.”

She still said nothing, just stared at the baseboard, weeping silently.

“I promise I won’t hurt you.”

He gave up waiting for an answer and moved off of her. She sucked in a deep breath and shuddered, making no move to rise. The shirt he’d put on her had become wound around her waist, so her lower body was bare. Neil froze at the sight of her pert little buttocks. He fought the sudden stirring in his groin.

Fury at his unwanted arousal made him gruffer than he meant to be. He yanked at the tail of the shirt to cover her. “Get up!”

Slowly she pulled herself to her knees and stared at him, wide-eyed and tense. Her lower lip trembled and the tears continued to freshen and fall.

The sight undid him completely. He caught her to him and held her as he would a frightened child, smoothing her soft curls and pressing her face against his chest. “Don’t cry. Please don’t.” Gently, he lifted her, carrying her back to the bed.

She made no attempt to get away, no move at all, as he settled onto the edge of the mattress beside her. Still, her eyes never left his, and he hadn’t yet seen her blink.

“All I want to do is talk to you,” he explained, keeping his voice soft and using his best doctor-patient tone. “That’s it—lie back and take a deep breath. Another. It’s all over now.” He stroked her wet cheeks with the back of his fingers.

“Get it over with,” she whispered. “I don’t want to…dread it anymore.”

“What?” he asked, still soothing her with his hands, patting, caressing. “What shall I do?”

“Kill me,” she squeaked. Her chin lifted and her eyes narrowed in a brief show of bravado.

“Don’t be absurd!” He grunted in disbelief, shaking his head. “Surely you don’t think…? I have no intention…I’m certainly not going to kill you. What gave you that idea?”

She wore the look of young men after their first battle-uncertain that they had survived it and already dreading the next one. “You said you’d do anything! And even before that I knew it was you who… The boat, the knife and the chocolate…” Her voice dwindled on a defeated sigh.

“What the devil are you talking about?” She must be in shock. God, he hadn’t meant to frighten her this badly. She really believed he wanted her dead for some reason. Well, he remembered, he had implied…no, had actually threatened her.

This was really getting out of hand. No one, even someone like her, deserved to feel such fear.

“I don’t want you to die,” he said earnestly, hoping to ease her mind, convince her. Ought he to use her Christian name? Patients always responded better to the familiarity. “Do you understand me, Elizabeth? You are in no danger. I just don’t want you to marry my nephew. That’s the only reason I brought you hens—simply to get you away from Terry. That’s all, I swear.”

She didn’t believe him. He could see her disbelief and virtually smell her fear. The poor thing still expected a death blow at any moment.

“Look, you little dimwit, if I wanted you dead, you’d never have awakened. Don’t you see? I could have done you in a hundred times over, dumped you somewhere and dusted my hands of it. You needn’t be afraid, Elizabeth. I do not want you dead.”

For a long minute she studied his face intently, biting her lips and breathing hard. She shifted uncomfortably and straightened her back. When she finally spoke, her words were soft. “Would you…leave me alone then? Please?”

He understood immediately. She had been abed all night and most of the morning without relieving herself. She looked somewhat calmer now, sane enough to trust to herself for a while.

Hopefully.

Neil glanced at the room’s only window, which he knew from experience was impossible to coax open. Should she break it, there was a thirty-foot drop beneath. One who clung to life so tenaciously was hardly suicidal enough to jump.

“Certainly. We can talk downstairs. There are towels on the stand, water in the pitcher, and the necessary room’s in there.” Neil waved as he stood up. “Your bag’s in the wardrobe. Why don’t you dress and come down to the study when you feel up to it? The door will be open. If you need to rest awhile, it’s all right. I won’t disturb you.”

She still didn’t fully believe him. Neil dragged forth the practiced reassurance he doled out like laudanum to the wounded. “I promise you, you’re safe, Elizabeth. My word as a gentleman.” Ha! She’d surely credit that after his conduct up to this point.

“Will you let me go?” She sounded a bit stronger, he thought, but very doubtful.

“Of course I’ll let you go,” he answered patiently. In about a week, he purposely didn’t add.

Slowly he descended the stairs, lost in his thoughts. “Lord, what have I done?” he asked himself, rolling his eyes heavenward. “This is sheer madness.”

Here was a side of himself kept well buried since he was a child. It had emerged only once in the intervening years.

With Emma.

Recklessness and disregard for consequences had already ruined his life twice. How many lessons did one need?

First his mother had left him, unable to deal with the wild child his aged father had spoiled rotten. How well he recalled the last incident before his father died.

Neil had had the best of intentions. Listening for days to his mother bewail the fact that she needed a grand hunt scene painted for the dining room, he had sought to oblige. He knew exactly how, he’d thought, after weeks of watching a visiting artist capture his mother in oils. His own attempt on the wall above the buffet wasn’t bad for a five-year-old. She didn’t agree. After her screaming fit, Neil made hasty amends. Mother must be pleased.

“What takes paint away, Jed?” he had asked the footman.

“Bird shit,” the disgruntled man replied, busy scrubbing the nasty stuff off the lord’s glossy carriage.

Well, chickens were birds, Neil reasoned. He’d visited the henhouse and set to work on the unwanted picture that very afternoon. Now that he looked back, he wondered that Mother had stayed as long as she had.

Married at sixteen to a man three times her age, Norah Guest Bronwyn had probably whooped with delight when her husband expired six years later. Until she realized she was only a dowager countess, stranded in the country with her own little hellion and an eighteen-year-old stepson—the new earl—who loathed her.

Without a word of explanation, Norah had packed her things and Neil’s, deposited him at a second-rate boarding school and hared off to God knew where. He hadn’t seen her since. But later, as a man, he’d met dozens of women just like her.

As far as he knew they were all like her—flighty, shallow, feather-headed females set on taking all they could get at the least possible cost.

Even after he’d realized that, he still fell responsible for her desertion. If only he’d been well behaved. If he’d been quiet, agreeable and more circumspect, she might have taken him with her or stayed and at least tried to love him. She wasn’t all she should have been as a mother, but he knew the fault was mostly his own. He should have been different.

With that thought dominant, he’d reformed his whole personality by the time he was twelve. He grew determined to find affection somewhere, somehow, and hold on to it. His older brother had doted on him after he changed, delighted with Neil’s newfound maturity. Didn’t that prove the theory?

Thank God Jon had been too preoccupied with estate business to notice Neil’s relapse at the age of twenty.

He’d thought Emma different from his mother. Showed how green he was—green as a goddamned summer cabbage. The old impulsiveness had reared its ugly head, caused him to think he could behave irrationally, love without analyzing the thing to death and get away with it. Lo and behold, another gut punch.

Now here he was, dead center in another harebrained fiasco that reduced his former lapses to insignificance. Why hadn’t he considered the repercussions first?

This incident would forestall Terry’s marriage, all right, but at what cost? The poor girl was scared out of her wits. And Terry might believe every word she said when this was over even if no one else did. Why in God’s name hadn’t Neil stopped to think before he acted? Hindsight was hell. Would he never learn?

Neil lifted his second glass of brandy as she appeared in the door of the study, interrupting his tardy self-recriminations.

She wore an unbecoming, dark, broadcloth dress buttoned up to her chin, and carried her valise. Like a child dressed in nanny’s clothes, he thought. Her shadow-smudged eyes dwarfed her other features. She faced him with that chin up, however. Tentative though it was, she had found her courage somewhere.

“I’d like to go now,” she said in a small, insistent voice.

“No doubt,” Neil answered with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Sit down and have a bite to eat. Only biscuits and tea, but that should do you. How is your stomach? Still weak?”

She nodded and dropped the case to the floor with a thud. Carefully, she inched her way to the chair he indicated and sat on the edge of it, watching him warily.

“You really are quite safe, Elizabeth,” he said as he handed her a cup. “I may call you that, may I not? I truly mean you no harm.” How many times would he have to say it to get that look off her face? he wondered.

Her brow screwed into a charming little frown as she seemed to consider his words. “Very well. I’ve thought about it at length. I suppose you’d have done your worst by now if you really meant me to die.” Her voice grew stronger with every word. “But why did you frighten me so before? I could have expired of heart failure! And why all this? Why did you abduct me?”

Neil had a ridiculous urge to praise her for her recovery. Her anger was righteous, but he couldn’t let it sway him now.

“I told you that. Because you were eloping with Terry, and I’ll not have his future destroyed. I had to stop you somehow.”

“Eloping? Are you mad? Why would you think that?” Then she pressed her forehead with the heel of her hand. “Of course, the silly dolt told you he had proposed. What am I to do with him? He won’t hear a no.” The dark eyes hid under shadowed lids and she sighed. “He has a good heart, but he’s such a fool sometimes.”

“Well, I agree with you there,” Neil said with a short, bitter laugh. “He’s not the first young pup to sniff after a skirt and call it love.”

Her head came up with a jerk. “Love? Is that what he told you? Well, I suppose he would say that.” She smiled, and the sadness in her eyes surprised him. At least she didn’t gloat.

“I overheard you tell the innkeeper that your husband was expected. I figured that it was Terry,” he said, sipping his brandy thoughtfully.

“You assumed wrongly, Dr. Bronwyn. Making up that story was the only way I could avoid sharing the common room. I never had any intention of meeting your nephew at the inn or anywhere else. Terry’s simply the only friend I have, and he thinks he can save my good name if he combines it with his. Sweet idiot.”

“Naturally you would say that.” He took another sip, peering at her over the rim of the snifter.

“You don’t believe I refused his suit?” she asked, looking so troubled he almost believed her.

Neil regretted what he had to admit, but spoke nonetheless. “Let us say that I doubt you enough to insure that no wedding takes place. In order to guarantee it, I must ask you to accept my hospitality for a while—perhaps a week—until his, uh, ardor cools. I promise you’ll be perfectly safe.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “All right.”

He couldn’t hide his shock at her ready agreement. She displayed no slyness, no taunting and no further fear. Just “all right,” as though they were cementing a minor business deal? What did she think to gain? Her capitulation was too easy.

“I think I understand why you thought it necessary to do what you did,” she explained. “I can’t say I’ll ever forgive you, but what’s done is done. Staying here for a while will suit my purposes as well.” She nodded once. “Yes, I’ll stay.”

Then she smiled.

Oh God, that smile. So she would turn her charms on him now, would she? Now that she couldn’t have Terry? Neil beat back the thrill that shot through his soul. Not bloody likely would he succumb to her! Not if he were careful.

“You really will be safe here, you know. In every way,” he said. “Please understand, I have absolutely no designs on you.”

“Well,” she said with sad sarcasm and a roll of those lovely dark eyes, “won’t that be a novelty?”

Impudent chit. He wanted to wring her neck. “No doubt it will. The trout all jumping at your boat, are they? Can’t believe there’s one won’t bite your bait? Well, I’m no randy hatchling, young lady, and I’ve had more seasoned anglers than you toss hooks in my direction. Just believe me, I am off-limits!”

She laughed. The bloody tart laughed so hard she was spilling her tea. Hysterical hen wit!

When she had calmed a bit, she pressed a hand to her chest, gasping for breath. There were tears on her cheeks again, but they weren’t the product of fear. Well, maybe an after-product of some sort, he decided grudgingly. Relief now that she understood she was safe.

“I should have brought a net!” she said, and was off again, bending double in her chair, holding her sides with laughter.

“I fail to see the humor!” He drew indignant shoulders back, took a deep gulp of brandy and waited for her to subside.

It took awhile.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes with her serviette. “It’s just that you looked…” her lips compressed, holding back a further outburst “…like a carp.”

Neil squeezed his eyes shut and relaxed his mouth, knowing she was probably right. He squelched the urge to laugh with her. How in hell was he going to deal with the little tramp when she was so damned appealing? It was as though she erased every resolution he’d ever made to maintain his decorum. Even when she mocked him, he found her so enchanting he wanted to kiss her.

There was a reckless thought. He must remember what she was. “I know all about you, Lady Marleigh,” he said.

She sobered as though he had doused her with icy water. “So, you’ve heard it all, have you?”

“Oh, yes indeed. That orgy at Hammershill, the statue, the midnight swim, your…menage a trois. Have I missed anything? Do fill me in.” He begged to God she wouldn’t. Neil hated the snideness in his voice, but it grated on his soul to think of her cheap theatrics. How could she be so flagrant? Why did he have to picture her dancing naked, cavorting with another…no, two other men? Christ, he wanted to shake her!

“I guess that covers it rather well,” she said quietly, all traces of laughter gone, cut away by the knife of his sarcasm.

Neil heard the catch in her voice and hoped it meant she regretted those foolish actions. He hoped she cried from now until doomsday for all that could have been. For what he might have offered…. No! Not him. He’d never have offered her a damned thing! Nothing.

The front door knocker clacked loudly, echoing in the high-ceilinged foyer outside the study. “Stay here and eat your biscuits,” he ordered curtly. “And drink that tea.”

Who the hell would be calling on him here? The house had been closed for years, his presence a secret. Could be the care taker he paid to make a monthly check, he supposed. Neil pulled the study door shut as he strode to the front entrance.

The man who stood waiting frowned in greeting. “Hullo, Doc. I recalled your mentioning the house here once, and hoped I might find you. I’d looked everywhere else.”

Neil froze, subconsciously barring the way inside. Scotland Yard? Had someone reported his abducting the girl? Surely not this soon. No one had seen him but the innkeeper, and the man had no idea who he was! But what the hell was Mac-Linden doing here? They hadn’t even seen each other since Neil returned to London.

“Lindy? What do you want?” Then, with effort, he recovered himself and forced a laugh. “I’m sorry, old man. You quite took me by surprise. Come in, come in.” Neil stood aside to allow him entry. Guilt must have sapped his reason. It was absurd to think the authorities would send a friend to arrest him.

MacLinden curled the brim of the dapper bowler he was holding, turning the hat round and round. An uncharacteristically nervous gesture for Lindy, Neil thought.

As a rule, Trent MacLinden was the soul of composure. Even the blinding pain of his war wound hadn’t affected him this way. His eyes, a dark, mossy green in the weak lamplight, didn’t meet Neil’s. Even the ruddy mustache, shiny from a recent waxing, worked impatiently as Lindy raked his upper lip with his teeth.

Judging by their previous ease in each other’s company since serving together in the Crimea, it was a sure bet this was no social call. Something was definitely wrong.

“Didn’t mean to be rude, old son,” Neil apologized. “It’s just that the sight of the estimable Inspector MacLinden strikes fear in the hearts of us mere civilians. Congratulations on your promotion, by the way. I only heard of it when I arrived in town this week. You’re a real top peeler now! We should celebrate.”

“Thank you. I’m here in an official capacity, Doc. Could we perhaps sit down?” Lindy headed for the closed door of the study.

“In here.” Neil redirected him to the parlor across the hall. This had to be about some other business. There was no way Lindy could know about the woman. Not this soon.

He closed the door behind them with a prayer that Lady Marleigh had fallen asleep over her teacup. If she came bursting out of the study, hurling accusations, he’d just have to confess.

With a distracted sweep of his hands he yanked off the dust sheets covering two overstuffed chairs. Large as it was, the room smelted musty and airless. Neil felt trapped—by the age-grayed walls, by the impending disgrace, by his own reckless idiocy. What else could have brought Lindy here but the abduction?

Terry would hate him if the truth came out. And arrest was a real possibility.

Neil would receive a light sentence, probably—at least he hoped so. It was a first offense and he hadn’t harmed the girl. Not really.

He was so preoccupied forming his defense, he almost missed Lindy’s announcement.

“Terry’s dead, Neil.”