To Seduce a Sinner (22 page)

“Here now, there’s no need to carry on like this.” Mr. Pynch’s deep voice came from beside the fireplace where he was smoking his nightly pipe.

At first Sally thought he was admonishing her, but he was clearly addressing Bitsy, the scullery maid.

“Scotland isn’t as bad as all that,” the valet said.

“Have you been to Scotland, then, Mr. Pynch?” Sally asked. Perhaps if he’d journeyed there and back and survived, it wouldn’t be so terrible.

“No,” Mr. Pynch said, dashing her hopes. “But I’ve known Scotsmen in the army, and they’re just the same as us, saving for the fact that they speak funny.”

“Oh.”

Sally looked down at her beef soup, made from the bones left over from the roast Cook had prepared for their master and mistress. It was a very good soup. Sally had been enjoying it until just a couple of minutes ago. But now her stomach made a little unpleasant turn at the sight of the grease floating on top. Knowing a Scotsman and traveling to Scotland were two entirely different things, and Sally was almost angry with Mr. Pynch for not knowing the difference. His Scotsmen were probably tamed from their time in the army. There was no way to know what a Scotsman was like on his home ground, so to speak. Perhaps they had a liking for short blond girls from London. Perhaps she’d be kidnapped from her bed and used in horrible ways—or worse.

“Now, see here, my girl.” Mr. Pynch’s voice was very near.

Sally looked up to find that the valet had taken the seat opposite her at the table. The kitchen servants had gone back to work while she brooded. Bitsy was snuffling over the pan of dishes she washed. No one paid any mind to the valet and the lady’s maid at the far end of the long kitchen table.

Mr. Pynch’s eyes were bright and intent on her. Sally had never noticed before what a lovely shade of green they were.

The valet put his elbows on the table, his long, white clay pipe in one hand. “There’s nothing to fear in Scotland. It’s just a place like any other.”

Sally stirred her spoon about in her bowl of cooling soup. “I’ve never been farther than Greenwich in my life.”

“No? Where were you born then?”

“Seven Dials,” she said, and then peered up at him to see if he’d sneer at the knowledge she’d been raised in such a hellhole.

But he merely nodded his head and sucked on the end of his pipe, blowing fragrant smoke to the side so it wouldn’t get in her eyes. “And do you have family there still?”

“Just my pa.” She wrinkled her nose and confessed, “Leastwise, he used to live there. I haven’t seen him in years, so that might not be true anymore.”

“Bad sort was your pa?”

“Not too bad.” She traced the rim of her soup bowl with a finger. “He didn’t beat me much, and he fed me when he could. But I had to get out of there. It was like I couldn’t breathe.”

She looked at him to see if he understood.

He nodded, pulling on his pipe again. “And your mam?”

“Died when I was born.” The soup smelled good again, and she took a spoonful. “No brothers or sisters either. Leastwise none that I know of.”

He nodded and seemed quite content to watch her eat the soup as he smoked his pipe. Around them, the kitchen and downstairs servants scurried about, doing their jobs, but this was a time of rest for Sally and Mr. Pynch.

She ate half her soup and then looked up at him. “Where are you from, then, Mr. Pynch?”

“Oh, a ways off. I was born in Cornwall.”

“Really?” She stared curiously at him. Cornwall seemed nearly as foreign as Scotland. “But you don’t have an accent.”

He shrugged. “My people are fisher folk. I got the wandering urge, and when the army men came to town with their drums and ribbons and flash uniforms, I took the king’s shilling fast enough.” One corner of his mouth curved in a funny sort of half-smile. “Didn’t take me long to find out there’s more to His Majesty’s army than pretty uniforms.”

“How old were you?”

“Fifteen.”

Sally looked down at her soup, trying to imagine big, bald Mr. Pynch as a lanky fifteen-year-old. She couldn’t do it. He was too much a man now to have ever been a child. “Do you still have family in Cornwall?”

He nodded. “My mother and a half-dozen brothers and sisters. My father died when I was in the Colonies. Didn’t know about it until I returned to England two years later. Mam said she paid for a letter to be written and sent to me, but I never got one.”

“That must’ve been sad, coming home to find your father dead for two years.”

He shrugged. “That’s the way of the world, lass. Nothing a man can do but go on.”

“I suppose so.” She frowned a little, thinking of wild highland Scotsmen with beards that covered their faces.

“Lass.” Mr. Pynch had stretched out his arm and tapped her hand with one large, blunt-nailed finger. “There won’t be anything to fear in Scotland. But if there is, I’ll keep you safe.”

And Sally could only stare dumbly into Mr. Pynch’s steady green eyes, the thought of him keeping her safe warming her belly.

W
HEN HE STILL
hadn’t come to her rooms by midnight, Melisande went looking for Vale. Perhaps he’d simply gone to his own bed, not deigning to visit her that night, but she didn’t think so. She hadn’t heard any voices from his room next door. How the man got enough sleep when he stayed up until all hours and then left the house before she rose was a curiosity. Perhaps he didn’t need sleep at all.

In any case, she was tired of waiting for him to come to her. So she left her room—still in a shambles from Suchlike’s hurried packing—and went out in the hall to search for Jasper. He wasn’t in the library or any of the sitting rooms, and finally she was forced to inquire of Oaks if he knew where her husband was. Then she hoped that her cheeks didn’t flame in embarrassment when she learned that he’d gone out without a word to her.

She felt like kicking something, but since gentlewomen did no such thing, she merely thanked Oaks and ascended the stairs again. Why was he doing this? Asking her to accompany him to Scotland, then avoiding her? Had he even thought about a days-long carriage ride with her? Or would he spend the journey atop the carriage with the luggage? It was so strange. First he would pursue her for days, and then he would suddenly disappear, just when she thought they were drawing closer.

Melisande exhaled heavily as she came to her own bedroom door, but then she hesitated. Vale’s door was right next to hers. Really, the temptation was too great. She strode to her husband’s door and opened it. The room was empty, although Mr. Pynch’s work was obvious: Rows of shirts, waistcoats, and neck clothes were laid out on the bed in preparation for packing. Melisande shut the door gently behind her.

She wandered to the bed and touched a fingertip to the dark red coverlet. He would sprawl here at night, his long limbs spread wide. Did he sleep on his back, or on his belly, his tousled head half shoved beneath a pillow? Somehow she imagined him sleeping in the nude, although for all she knew, he had a drawerful of nightshirts. It was such an intimate thing, sleeping with another person. One’s shields were all thrown down in sleep, leaving one vulnerable, almost childlike. She wished desperately that he would share her bed. Stay the night and let himself be at his most vulnerable with her.

She sighed and turned from the bed. On his dresser he had a framed miniature portrait of his mother. A few brown hairs were caught in the bristles of his brush. One was almost red. She took her handkerchief from her sleeve and carefully folded the hairs inside before tucking it away again.

She went to the bedside table and glanced at the book sitting there—a history of the English kings—then went to the window and looked out. His view was nearly the same as hers: the back of the garden. She glanced around the room, frustrated. There were far more things lying about—clothing, books, odd bits of string, a pinecone, broken pens, a penknife, and ink—but nothing that told her very much about her husband. How silly to sneak in here, thinking she might find out more about Jasper. She shook her head at her own folly, and then her gaze fell on the dressing room door. A dressing room would hardly hold more intimate stuff than what she’d seen, but she’d already come this far.

Melisande turned the handle of the door. Inside was another dresser, various racks for holding clothes, a narrow cot, and in the corner, against the wall, a thin pallet and blanket. Melisande cocked her head. Odd. Why both a cot and a pallet? Mr. Pynch needed only one, surely. And why a pallet? Vale struck her as a generous employer. Why such a mean bed for his faithful valet?

She stepped into the narrow room, went around the cot, and bent to look at the pallet. A single candle stood nearby in a holder very much covered in old, burnt wax, and a book lay half under the carelessly tossed blanket. She looked from the pallet t cm t veo the cot. Actually, the cot didn’t look as if anyone slept there at all—the mattress was bare. Melisande pulled the blanket back from the pallet to read the title of the book. It was a book of poems by John Donne. She stared at it a moment, thinking what an odd choice of reading matter for a valet, when she noticed the hair on the pillow. It was dark brown, almost red.

Behind her, someone cleared his throat.

Melisande whirled and saw Mr. Pynch, his eyebrows raised. “May I help you find something, my lady?”

“No.” Melisande hid trembling hands in her skirts, very glad that it wasn’t Vale who’d discovered her. Although being caught by the valet rummaging through her husband’s things was embarrassing enough. She tilted her chin and sailed to the door of the bedroom.

But then she hesitated and looked back at the valet. “You’ve served my husband for many years, haven’t you, Mr. Pynch?”

“Aye, my lady.”

“Has he always slept so little?”

The big bald man picked up one of the neck cloths from the bed and carefully refolded it. “Aye, since I’ve known him, my lady.”

“Do you know why?”

“Some men don’t need as much sleep,” the valet said.

She only looked at him.

He replaced the neck cloth and finally looked at her. He sighed as if she’d pressed him. “Some soldiers don’t sleep as well as they ought. Lord Vale . . . well, he likes company. Especially during the hours it’s dark.”

“He’s afraid of the dark?”

He straightened and his frown was quite ferocious. “I received a ball to the leg in the war.”

Melisande blinked, startled at the change of subject. “I’m sorry.”

The valet waved away her sympathy. “It’s nothing. Only bothers me when it rains sometimes. But when I got it, that ball took me down. We were in battle, and I was lying there, with a Frenchie standing over me about to stick me with his bayonet when Lord Vale came charging. There was a stand of Frenchies with rifles raised between him and me, but that didn’t stop him. They fired on him, and how he didn’t fall, I don’t know, but he wore a grin the entire time. Cut them down, too, my lady. Wasn’t one standing when he was done.”

Melisande drew a shuddering breath. “I see.”

“I decided right then and there, my lady,” Mr. Pynch said, “that I’d follow Lord Vale into hell itself, should he tell me to.”

“Thank you for telling me this, Mr. Pynch,” Melisande said. She opened the door. “Please inform Lord Vale that I shall be ready to travel at eight o’clock in the morning.”

Mr. Pynch bowed. “Yes, my lady.”

Melisande nodded and left, but she couldn’t help a lingering thought. The entire time Mr. Pynch had told her his story, he’d stood as che’oddif guarding the little dressing room.

Melisande looked out the window. They appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. Blue-green hills rolled away into the distance, demarcated by hedges and drystone walls. The light was beginning to fade.

“Shouldn’t we have stopped by now?” she asked her husband.

Vale lounged on the opposite seat, his legs canted diagonally across the carriage so that his feet were almost touching hers. His eyes were shut, but he answered her immediately, confirming her suspicion that he hadn’t been asleep at all.

“You’re correct. We should’ve stopped in Birkham, but the coachman says the inn was closed. He’s taken us off the main road to find the next inn, but I suspect he may’ve lost his way.”

Vale opened one eye and peered out the window, not looking at all anxious that dark was falling and they appeared to be lost.

“Definitely gone off the main way,” he said. “Unless the inn’s in the middle of a cow pasture.”

Melisande heaved a sigh and began to put away the fairy tale she’d been translating. She was almost done now, the strange fairy tale unfolding beneath her pen. It was about a soldier who’d been turned into a funny little man. A funny little man who was nevertheless very brave. He didn’t seem a normal hero for a fairy tale, but then again, none of the fairy-tale heroes in Emeline’s book were exactly normal. The translation would have to wait for tomorrow in any case. It was too dark to see properly now.

“Can’t we turn back?” she asked Vale as she closed her writing case. “A derelict inn is better shelter th f="4an abandoned hills.”

“An excellent point, dear wife, but I’m afraid it will be dark before we can return to Birkham anyway. Better to press on.”

He closed his eyes again, which was very frustrating.

Melisande gazed out the window for a bit, worrying her lip. She glanced at her still-sleeping maid and lowered her voice. “I promised Suchlike we wouldn’t travel after dark. She’s never left London before, you know.”

“Then she’ll learn lots on this trip,” her husband said without opening his eyes. “Never fear. The coachman and footmen are armed.”

“Humph.” Melisande folded her arms. “How well do you know Mr. Munroe?”

She’d already spent the previous two days trying to find out what Vale needed to speak to the man about. He merely changed the subject when she asked him questions. Now she tried a different tack.

“Sir Alistair Munroe,” he murmured.

He must’ve felt her exasperated look, because although his eyes never opened, he smiled. “Knighted for service to the crown. He wrote a book describing the plants and animals of the New World. More than plants and animals, actually. Fishes and birds and insects as well. It’s a massive, portfolio-sized thing, but the engravings are quite lovely. Hand-colored and based on his own sketches. It impressed King George enough that he had Munroe to tea—or so I’ve heard.”

Melisande thought about this naturalist who’d been to tea with the king. “He must’ve spent many years in the Colonies to have enough material to write a book. Was he with your regiment the entire time?”

“No. He moved around from regiment to regiment, according to where they were marching. He was only with the 28th three months or so,” Vale said. “He joined us just before we marched to Quebec.”

He sounded sleepy, which made Melisande suspicious. Twice now he’d conveniently fallen asleep when she was questioning him.

“Did you talk to him when he was with your regiment? What is he like?”

Vale switched his crossed legs without opening his eyes. “Oh, very Scots. Taciturn and not much for long speeches. He had a wicked sense of humor, though. I do remember that. Very dry.”

He was silent a bit, and Melisande watched the hills turn purple in the fading light.

Vale finally said dreamily, “I remember he had a big trunk, leather-bound with brass. He’d had it specially made. Inside were dozens of compartments, all lined in felt, very clever. He had boxes and glass vials for various specimens, and different-sized presses for preserving leaves and flowers. He took it apart once, and you should’ve seen the hardened soldiers, some who’d been in the army decades and didn’t turn a hair at anything, standing and gawking at his trunk like little boys at the fair.”

“That must’ve been nice,” Melisande said softly.

“It was. It was.” He sounded far away in the gathering darkness.

“Perhaps he will show it to me when we visit.”

“He can’t,” he said from the gloom on the other side of the carriage. “It was destroyed when we were attacked by the Indians. Smashed to bits, all his specimens dragged out and scattered, completely ruined.”

“How awful! Poor man. It must’ve been terrible when he saw what had been done to his collection.”

There was silence from the other side of the carriage.

“Jasper?” She wished she could see his face.

“He never saw.” Vale’s voice came abruptly from the darkness. “His wounds . . . He never made it back to the scene of the massacre. I didn’t either. I only heard what had happened to his trunk months later.”

“I’m sorry.” Melisande gazed blindly out the black window. She wasn’t quite sure what she apologized for—the broken trunk, the lost artifacts, the massacre itself, or the fact that neither man survived entirely the same as before. “What’s he look like, Sir Alistair? Is he young? Old?”

“A bit older than me, perhaps.” Vale hesitated. “You should know—”

But she interrupted him, leaning forward. “Look.” She’d thought she’d seen movement outside the window.

A shot sounded, crashingly loud in the night air. Melisande flinched. Suchlike woke with a little scream, and Mouse jumped to his feet and barked.

A loud, hoarse voice came from without. “Stand and deliver!”

The carriage shuddered to a halt.

“Shit,” Vale said.

JASPER HAD BEEN
worried about this very thing since night had begun to fall. They were in prime territory for a highway robbery. He didn’t much mind the loss of his purse, but he was damned if he’d let anyone touch Melisande.

“What—?” she began, but he reached across and laid his hand gently over her mouth. She was a smart woman. She immediately held still. She drew Mouse into her lap and wrapped her hand around his muzzle.

The little lady’s maid had her fist stuffed into her mouth, her eyes wide and round. She didn’t make a sound, but Jasper pressed a finger across his own lips. Although he had no idea if the women could see him adequately in the dark carriage.

Why hadn’t the coachman tried to make a run for it? The answer came to Jasper even as he ran through his options. The coachman had already admitted he didn’t know the terrain well. He’d probably been afraid of overturning the carriage in the dark and killing them all.

“Come out o’ there,” a second man called.

So there were at least two, probably more. He had two footmen and two coachmen, along with two men on horses, one of them Pynch. Six men in all. But how many robbers?

“D’you hear me? Get out o’ there!” the second voice shouted. One would be holding a gun on the coachman to kee koacontp him from moving the carriage. Another would be covering the outriders. A third would be in charge of relieving them of any valuables—that is, if there were only three. If there were more—

“Dammit! Come out or I’m coming in, and I’ll be shooting when I do!”

Melisande’s maid moaned, low and fearful, Mouse struggled, but his dear wife held him firmly and was silent. A smart robber would start killing the servants outside one by one to force them to emerge. But this highwayman might just be stupid enough to—

The carriage door was flung open, and a man holding a pistol leaned into the carriage. Jasper grabbed his gun arm and pulled hard. The gun went off, shattering the opposite carriage window. The maid screamed. The robber half fell into the carriage. Jasper twisted the pistol away from him.

“Don’t look,” he said to Melisande, and slammed the pistol grip down on the man’s temple, shattering the bone. He did it quickly again, three more times, vicious and hard, just to make sure the man was dead, then dropped the pistol. He hated handling guns.

From outside came a shout and then a gunshot.

“Damn. Get down,” he ordered Melisande and the girl. A bullet could blow right through the wood of the carriage. She didn’t protest and lay across her seat with the maid and the dog.

Running footsteps came nearer, and Jasper moved in front of the women, bracing himself.

“My lord!” Pynch’s broad face peered into the carriage door. “Are you safe, my lord? Are the women—?”

“Yes, I think so.” Jasper turned to Melisande, running his hands over her face and hair in the dark. “Are you all right, my dearest love?”

“Y-yes.” She straightened immediately, her back as straight as ever, and a pang tore at his heart. If ever she were hurt, if ever he could not protect her . . .

The maid was trembling violently. Melisande let go of the dog and pulled the girl into her arms, patting her back comfortingly. “It’s all right. Lord Vale and Mr. Pynch have kept us safe.”

Mouse jumped to the floor of the carriage and growled at the dead robber.

Pynch cleared his throat. “We’ve captured one of the highwaymen, my lord. The other galloped away.”

Jasper looked at him. Gunpowder blackened half of Pynch’s face. Jasper grinned. His valet had always been an excellent shot.

“Help me get this one out of the carriage,” he told Pynch. “Melisande, please stay here until we are sure it’s safe.”

She nodded bravely, her chin up. “Of course.”

And even though Pynch and the maid were watching, Jasper couldn’t help leaning over to kiss her hard. It had all happened so fast. If things had turned out a little differently, he might’ve lost her.

Jasper scrambled from the carriage, eager to meet the man who’d put his sweet wife in danger. First, though, he helped Pynch pull the kyncmbldead robber out of the carriage. He hoped Melisande hadn’t looked too closely. He’d crushed the robber’s cheekbone and temple.

Mouse jumped down from the carriage.

Jasper straightened. “Where is he?”

“Over here, my lord.” Pynch gestured to a tree by the side of the road where several footmen stood over a recumbent figure. Mouse trailed behind them, sniffing the ground.

Jasper nodded and asked as they walked to the group, “Anyone shot?”

“Bob the footman has a graze on his arm,” Pynch reported. “No one else was hit.”

“You’ve checked?” In the dark, with all the excitement, sometimes a man could be shot and not even know it.

But Pynch had been in the army as well. “Yes, my lord.”

Jasper nodded. “Good man. Have a footman light some more lanterns. Light drives away all manner of vermin.”

“Yes, my lord.” Pynch headed back to the carriage.

“And what have we here?” Jasper asked as he came on the group of footmen.

“One of the robbers, my lord,” Bob said.

He held a cloth against his upper right arm, but the pistol in his hand was steady and pointed at their prisoner. Pynch arrived with a lantern, and they all looked down at the robber. He wasn’t much more than a child, a boy not yet twenty, his chest bleeding profusely. Mouse sniffed the boy, then lost interest and urinated on the tree.

“He’s still alive?” Jasper asked.

“Just barely,” Pynch said impassively. It must’ve been his shot that had brought the boy off his horse, but Pynch didn’t show any pity.

Then again, this boy had held a gun on them. He could’ve shot Melisande. A horrible image of Melisande lying where the boy was rose up in Jasper’s mind. Melisande with her chest blown open. Melisande struggling to draw air into shattered lungs.

Jasper turned away. “Leave him.”

“No.”

He looked up and saw Melisande, standing outside the carriage despite his explicit orders to stay inside.

“Madam?”

She didn’t back down, though his tone was chilly. “Have him brought with us, Jasper.”

He stared at her, illuminated by lantern light, looking ethereal and fragile. Too fragile. He said gently, “He could’ve killed you, my heart.”

“But he didn’t.”

She might look fragile, but her core was made of iron.

He nodded, his gaze still fixed on her. “Wrap him in a blanket, Pynch, and take him up on your horse with you.”

Melisande frowned. “The carriage—”

“I won’t have him near you.”

She looked at him and must’ve seen she wasn’t getting her way in this. She nodded.

Jasper glanced at Pynch. “You can bandage his wound when we get to the inn. I don’t like lingering in this spot any longer than we have to.”