Dear God, she thought, this couldn’t work, and they truly were mad to even consider it.

“Take his feet, Lisa.”

Christiana glanced to her sisters as they moved to either end of the man on the floor. Eyes widening with alarm, she asked, “What are you doing?”

“We have to get him up to his room,” Suzette said sensibly. “You go make sure there is no one in the hall .”

“But—”

“Move,” Suzette grunted impatiently as she caught Dicky under the shoulders and hefted his upper body off the floor.

Christiana narrowed her eyes and propped her hands on her hips. “See here, miss, I may have had to take that kind of bossy nonsense from Dicky this last year, but that was only because he was my husband. I’ll not have you ordering me around like a servant in his place now he’s dead.”

Lisa had just grabbed Dicky’s feet, but dropped them to the floor with a thud and hurried to her side to pat her arm soothingly. “Now Chrissy, I don’t think Suzie meant anything by it. We’re all just a little overexcited at the moment.”

Christiana rolled her eyes. Lisa always had been the peacekeeper, forever trying to soothe hurt feelings and prevent the outbreak of battles. Shaking her head, she glanced to Dicky. He really was a good sized man, and was not going to be moved easily or quickly. “Well, we can’t take him like this.”

“What do you mean?” Suzette let Dicky’s upper body drop.

Christiana winced at the thud of his head hitting the wood, but explained patiently, “Even if there is no one in the hall now, someone could come out while we are carting him up the stairs. Then what would we say?”

Suzette frowned and peered down at Dicky with dislike. “Even dead the man is a pain.”

Christiana actually felt her mouth twitch with amusement and knew it must be hysteria. There was absolutely nothing funny about any of this. Her eyes slid over him again and then settled on the rug he half lay on and suddenly she knew what to do. “We shall roll him up in the rug and cart that upstairs. That way if anyone comes along they won’t see him.”

“How do we explain why we’re dragging a rug around?” Suzette asked doubtfully.

“We shall say the rose room is chilly at night and you, Suzie, are going to stay in it and we are hoping the rug will help keep it warm for the few nights you are here,” Christiana announced with satisfaction. It was nice to have an issue she could solve for once. It made a change from constantly banging her head against a wall trying to sort out how to fix her marriage.

“That may work,” Lisa said slowly.

“It will,” Christiana assured her. “Now come, help me roll him onto the rug.”

With the three of them working together it was a quick job getting him positioned on the end of the rug and then rolling him up in it.