To Seduce a Sinner (9 page)

Somewhere a clock chimed the nine o’clock hour. Mouse stood and stretched, yawning until his pink tongue curled. With a twinge of disappointment, Melisande gave up waiting and went to the hall. Sprat was standing there, staring rather vacantly at the ceiling, although he brought his gaze hastily down when he saw her.

“Please bring me my breakfast,” Melisande said, and went back to the breakfast room to wait. Had Vale already left the house, or did he always sleep this late?

After a solitary meal shared with Mouse, Melisande turned her mind to other matters. She sent for the cook and found an elegant yellow and white sitting room to plan the week’s meals.

The cook was a small, wiry woman, her face thin and lined with concern, her graying black hair scraped back into a tight knot at the crown of her head. She perched on the edge of her seat, leaning forward and nodding rapidly as Melisande spoke to her. Cook didn’t smile—her face didn’t seem to know how—but the tight purse of her mouth relaxed as Melisande praised the tasty coddled eggs and hot chocolate. In fact, Melisande was just feeling that she’d established a nice understanding with the woman when a loud commotion interrupted their discussion. Both women looked up. Melisande realized that she could hear barking at the center of raised male voices.

Oh, dear.
She smiled politely at the cook. “If you will excuse me?”

She rose and walked unhurriedly to the breakfast room where she found the makings of a pantomime drama. Sprat stood gaping, Oaks’s beautiful white wig was askew, and he was talking rapidly, but unfortunately in a voice that couldn’t be heard. Meanwhile, her husband of only one day was waving his arms and shouting as if impersonating a particularly angry windmill. The object of his ire stood resolute only inches from Lord Vale’s toes, barking and growling.

“Where did this mongrel come from?” Vale was demanding. “Who let it in? Can’t a man have breakfast without having to defend his bacon from vermin?”

“Mouse,” Melisande said quietly, but it was loud enough for the terrier. With one last triumphant
arf!
Mouse came trotting over to sit on her slippers and pant.

“Do you know this mongrel?” Lord Vale asked, wild-eyed. “Where did it come from?”

Oaks was straightening his wig, muttering under his breath, while Sprat stood on one leg.

Melisande’s eyes narrowed. Really! After making her wait an hour. “Mouse is my dog.”

Lord Vale blinked, and she couldn’t help noticing that even confused and out of sorts, his blue eyes were startling in their beauty.
He lay on me last night,
she thought, feeling the heat pool low in her belly.
His body became one with mine. He is my husband at last.

“But it ate my bacon.”

Melisande looked down at Mouse, who panted up at her adoringly, his mouth curvedrea mouth as if in a grin. “He.”

Lord Vale ran a hand through his hair, dislodging his tie. “What?”

“He,”
Melisande enunciated clearly, then smiled. “Sir Mouse is a gentleman dog. And he’s particularly found of bacon, so really you ought not to tempt him with it.”

She snapped her fingers and sailed from the breakfast room, Mouse on her heels.

“GENTLEMAN DOG?”
Jasper stared at the door where his new wife had just swanned from the room. She’d looked remarkably elegant for a woman being followed by a foul little beast. “Gentleman dog? Have you ever heard of a gentleman dog?” he appealed to the males remaining in the room.

His footman—a tall, lanky fellow with a name like a nursery rhyme that Jasper couldn’t remember at the moment—scratched under his wig. “My lady seemed right fond of that dog.”

Oaks had put himself together by now, and he cast a rather fishy eye on his master. “The viscountess had specific instructions for the animal when she broke her fast an hour ago, my lord.”

Which was when it finally dawned on Jasper that he might’ve been an ass. He winced. To be fair, he’d never been particularly quick in the morning. But even for him, shouting at his new wife on the day after their marriage was a bit beyond the pale.

“I shall instruct Cook to make another breakfast for you, my lord,” Oaks said.

“No.” Jasper sighed. “I’m no longer hungry.” He stared meditatively at the door a minute more before deciding that he hadn’t the eloquence at the moment to apologize to his wife. Some might call him a coward, but discretion was the better part of valor when it came to women. “Have my horse brought ’round.”

“My lord.” Oaks bowed and whispered from the room. Amazing how lightly the man moved on his feet.

The young footman still stood in the breakfast room. He looked as if he wanted to say something.

Jasper sighed. He hadn’t even had his tea before the dog had spoiled his meal. “Yes?”

“Should I tell her ladyship that you’re off?” the fellow asked, and Jasper felt like a cad. Even the footman knew better than he how to behave with a wife.

“Yes, do.” And then he avoided his footman’s eyes and strode from the room.

A little more than half an hour later, Jasper was riding through the crowded streets of London, headed to a town house in Lincoln Inns Fields. The sun was out again, and the populace seemed determined to enjoy the fair weather, even at this early hour. Street venders were stationed at strategic corners, bawling their wares, fashionable ladies strolled arm in arm, and carriages lumbered by like ships in full sail.

Six months ago, when he and Sam Hartley had questioned survivors of the Spinner’s Falls massacre, they hadn’t been able to contact every soldier. Many had gone missing. Many were old men, crippled and reduced to begging and thieving. They lived their lives on the edge—the possibility that they might fall off and disappear at any moment wh=" any moas a real one. Or perhaps the danger was simply fading into oblivion, not so much dying as ceasing to live. In any case, many had been impossible to locate.

Then there were the survivors like Sir Alistair Munroe. Munroe hadn’t actually been a soldier in the 28th but a naturalist attached to the regiment and charged with discovering and recording the animal and plant life for His Majesty. Of course, when the regiment had been attacked at Spinner’s Falls, the hostile Indians hadn’t made a distinction between soldier and civilian. Munroe had been in the group captured with Jasper and suffered the same fate as those who’d been eventually ransomed. Jasper shuddered at the thought as he halted his mare, letting a team of shouting sedan-chair bearers past. Not everyone who had been captured and force-marched through the dark and mosquito-infested woods of America had come back alive. And those who had survived were not the same men as they’d been before. Sometimes Jasper thought he’d left a piece of his soul in those dark woods. . . .

He shook the thought away and guided Belle into the wide, fashionable square of Lincoln Inns Field. The house he rode to was a tall elegant redbrick with white trim around the windows and door. He dismounted and handed the reins to a waiting boy before mounting the steps and knocking. A few minutes later, the butler showed him into a study.

“Vale!” Matthew Horn rose from behind a large desk and held out his hand. “ ’Tis the day after your wedding. I hadn’t thought to see you so soon.”

Jasper took the other man’s hand. Horn wore a white wig and had the pale skin of a redheaded man. His cheeks often had reddened patches from the wind or his razor, and no doubt he’d be ruddy by the time he was fifty. His jaw and cheekbones were heavy and angular as if to balance his pretty complexion. In contrast, his eyes were light blue and warm, with laugh lines crinkling the corners, though he hadn’t yet seen his thirtieth birthday.

“I am a blackguard to leave my lady wife so soon.” Jasper dropped Horn’s hand and stepped back. “But the matter is pressing, I fear.”

“Please. Sit.”

Jasper flicked the skirts of his coat aside and lowered himself into the chair opposite Horn’s desk. “How is your mother?”

Horn cast his eyes to the ceiling as if he could see into his mother’s bedroom in the floor above. “She is bedridden, I fear, but her spirits are bright. I take tea with her every afternoon if I can, and she always wants to know the latest gossip.”

Jasper smiled.

“You mentioned Spinner’s Falls at the Eddings musicale,” Horn said.

“Yes. Do you remember Sam Hartley? Corporal Hartley? He was a Colonial attached to our regiment to guide us to Fort Edward.”

“Yes?”

“He came to London last September.”

“When I was touring Italy.” Horn leaned back in his chair to pull a bell cord. “I’m sorry to’ve missed him.”

Jasper nodded. “He came to see me. He showed me a letter that had come into his hands.”

“What sort of letter?”

“It detailed the march of the 28th Regiment of Foot from Quebec to Fort Edward, including the route we would take and the exact time we’d be at Spinner’s Falls.”

“What?” Horn’s eyes had narrowed, and suddenly Jasper could see that this man was no longer a boy. Had not been a boy for some time.

Jasper leaned forward. “We were betrayed, our position given to the French and their Indian allies. The regiment walked into a trap and was slaughtered at Spinner’s Falls.”

The door to Horn’s study opened, and the butler entered, a tall, thin fellow. “Sir?”

Horn blinked. “Ah . . . yes. Have Cook send up some tea.”

The butler bowed and retreated.

Horn waited until the door closed before speaking. “But who could’ve done this? The only ones who knew of our route were the guides and the officers.” He tapped his fingers on his desk. “You’re sure? Did you see this letter Hartley had? Perhaps he mistook it.”

But Jasper was already shaking his head. “I saw the letter; there is no mistake. We were betrayed. Hartley and I thought it was Dick Thornton.”

“You said that you’d talked to him before he was hung.”

“Yes.”

“And?”

Jasper inhaled deeply. “Thornton swore he wasn’t the traitor. He insinuated it was one of the men captured by the Indians.”

For a moment, Horn stared at him, his eyes widening; then abruptly he shook his head and laughed. “Why would you believe a murderer like Thornton?”

Jasper glanced at his hands, clasped together between his spread knees. He’d asked himself the same question many times. “Thornton knew he was going to die. He had no reason to lie to me.”

“Except the reason of a madman.”

Jasper nodded. “Even so . . . Thornton was a prisoner in chains when we marched. He was at the back of the line. I think he may’ve seen things, heard things the rest of us missed because we were busy leading the regiment.”

“And if you accept Thornton’s accusations as truth, where does that take you?”

Jasper watched him, not moving.

Horn spread his hands. “What? Do you think I betrayed us, Vale? Do you think I asked to be tortured until my voice was hoarse from screaming? You know the nightmares I suffered from. You know—”

“Hush,” Jasper said. “Stop. Of course I don’t think you—”

“Then who?” Horn looked at him, his eyes blazing through his tears. “Who among us would betray the entire regiment? Nate Growe? They cut off half his fingers. Munroe? They cut out only his eye; that’s little enough for what must’ve been a grand payment.”

“Matthew—”

“Then St. Aubyn? Oh, but he’s dead. Perhaps he miscalculated and got himself burned at the stake for his troubles. Or—”

“Shut it, damn you!” Jasper’s voice was low, but it was harsh enough to cut through Horn’s awful recitation. “I know. I know all that, damn it.”

Horn closed his eyes and said quietly, “Then you know none of us could have done it.”

“Someone did. Someone set a trap and walked four hundred men into an abattoir.”

Horn grimaced. “Shit.”

A maid entered then, bearing a laden tea tray. Both men were silent while she set it up on a corner of the desk. The door closed gently behind her when she left.

Jasper looked at his old friend, his comrade in arms so long ago.

Horn pushed a pile of papers to the side of his desk. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to help me find who betrayed us,” Jasper said. “And then help me kill him.”

IT WAS WELL
past the dinner hour when Lord Vale finally returned home. Melisande knew this because the large sitting room at the front of the house had a terribly ugly clock on the mantelpiece. Fat pink nymphs cavorted about the clock face in a manner that was no doubt meant to be erotic. Melisande snorted. How little the man who had designed that clock knew of true eroticism. At her feet, Mouse had sat up at the sound of Lord Vale’s arrival. Now he trotted to the door to sniff at the crack.

She pulled a silk thread carefully through her embroidery hoop, leaving behind a perfect French knot on the right side of the fabric. She was pleased at how steady her fingers were. Maybe with continued proximity to Vale, she’d overcome her terrible sensitivity to him. Lord knew that the anger that had built during the hours she had waited for him certainly helped in that regard. Oh, she still felt his presence, still longed for his company, but those feelings were presently masked with exasperation. She hadn’t seen him since breakfast, hadn’t received word that he wouldn’t be home for supper. Theirs might be a marriage of convenience, but that didn’t mean that simple courtesy must be thrown out the window.