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Chapter One

MAIDEN HILL, ENGLAND

NOVEMBER 1760

The dead od Apollo, ortaken human form and struck down from the heavens to be found by a ods rarely bled

Or died, for that lanced around the lonely lane leading from the town of Maiden Hill to the Craddock-Hayes house It appeared the same as it had been before she’d made her find: deserted, except for herself; herin the ditch The sky hung low and wintry gray The light had already begun to leak away, though it was not yet five o’clock Leafless trees lined the road, silent and chill

Lucy shivered and drew her wrap more closely about her shoulders The deadlines of his back were ht shoulder Beloere lean hips; ant, bony feet She blinked and returned her gaze to his face Even in death he was handsome His head, turned to the side, revealed a patrician profile: long nose, high bony cheeks, and a wideover his closed eye, was bisected by a scar Closely cropped pale hair grew flat to his skull, except where it wasabove his head, and on the index finger was the i should have been His killerselse Around the body the mud was scuffed, the imprint of a boot heel stamped deep beside the dead n of whoever had dumped him here like so much offal

Lucy felt silly tears prick at her eyes Soraded by his murderers, seemed a terrible insult to the man It was so unbearably sad Ninny, she chided herself She beca steadily closer Hastily, she swiped at the moisture on her cheeks

"First she visits the Joneses and all the little Joneses, snotty-nosed buggers Then we march up the hill to Old Woman Hardy--nasty biddy, don’t knohy she hasn’t been put to bed with a shovel yet And is that all? No, that’s not all by half Then, then she reat jars of jelly all the while"

Lucy suppressed the urge to roll her eyes Hedge, her ray hair His dusty coat and waistcoat were equally disreputable, and he’d chosen to highlight his bowlegs with scarlet-clocked stockings, no doubt Papa’s castoffs

He halted beside her "Oh, gah, not a deader!"

In his surprise, the little otten to stoop, but when she turned to him, his wiry body decayed before her eyes His back curved, the shoulder bearing the aeight of her now-e to the side listlessly As the pièce de résistance, Hedge took out a checkered cloth and laboriously wiped his forehead

Lucy ignored all this She’d seen the act hundreds, if not thousands, of times in her life "I don’t know that I would have described him as a deader, but he is indeed a corpse"

"Well, best not stand here gawping Let the dead rest in peace, I always say" Hedge made to sidle past her

She placed herself in his path "We can’t just leave him here"

"Why not? He was here before you trotted past Wouldn’t never have seen hih the common like I said"

"Nevertheless, we did find hiered back in patent disbelief "Carry hi bloke like that? Not unless you want me crippled for sure My back’s bad as it is, has been for twenty years I don’t complain, but still"

"Very well," Lucy conceded "We’ll have to get a cart"

"Why don’t we just leave him be?" the little e"

"He’s stabbed through the shoulder and all over bloody It’s not nice, that" Hedge screwed up his face until it resembled a rotted puh the shoulder or not, so I don’t think we can hold that against hie waved the handkerchief in front of his nose

Lucy didn’t mention that there hadn’t been any so fetch Bob Sray eyebrows drew together in imminent opposition

"Unless you would prefer to stay here with the body?"

Hedge’s brow cleared "No, mum You knows best, I’roaned

Lucy looked down in surprise

Beside her, Hedge jumped back and stated the obvious for both of thehty Christ! Thathere all this while, bickering with Hedge Lucy swept off her wrap and threw it across the man’s back "HandHedge a look She rarely used a sharp tone of voice,it all the more effective when she did employ it