To Seduce a Sinner (28 page)

“An expensive part of London for a man with no inheritance.”

“He has the money to tour Italy and Greece,” Jasper mused.

“And France.”

“What?” Jasper stopped.

It took a moment for Munroe to realize he’d paused. He turned from several paces ahead. “Matthew Horn was in Paris this last fall.”

“How can you know this?”

Munroe cocked his head, turning his good eye toward Jasper. “I may be a recluse, but I’m in correspondence with naturalists in England and the Continent. I received a letter from a French botanist this winter. In it he described a dinner party he went to in Paris. It was attended by a young Englishman called Horn who had been in the Colonies. I think this must be our Matthew Horn, don’t you?”

“It’s possible.” Jasper shook his head. “What would he be doing in Paris?”

“Seeing the sights?”

Jasper arched a brow. “When we are enemies with the French?”

Munroe shrugged. “Some would see my correspondence with my French colleague as subversive.”

Jasper sighed, feeling weary. “It’s a mare’s nest. I know I’m chasing possibilities that are vague at best, but I can’t forget the massacre. Can you?”

Munroe smiled bitterly. “With the memories engraved on my face? No, I can never forget.”

Jasper tilted his face to the breeze. “Why don’t you come visit us, my lady wife and me, in London?”‹Lon"><

“Children cry when they see me, Vale.” Munroe stated it as an unemotional fact.

“Do you even go to Edinburgh now?”

“No. I go nowhere.”

“You’ve imprisoned yourself in your castle.”

“You make it sound like a tragedy on the stage.” Munroe’s mouth twisted. “It’s not. I’ve accepted my fate. I have my books, my studies, and my writing. I am . . . content.”

Jasper looked at the other man skeptically. Content to live in a big drafty castle with only a dog and a surly manservant for company?

Munroe must’ve known that Jasper would argue the point. He turned back toward the mansion. “Come. We haven’t broken our fast, and no doubt your wife waits for you inside.”

He strode ahead.

Jasper cursed and followed. Munroe wasn’t ready to leave his safe nest, and until the stubborn Scot was ready, there was no use arguing. Jasper only hoped that Munroe would budge in this lifetime.

“THAT MAN IS
sorely in need of a housekeeper,” Melisande said as their carriage drove away from Sir Alistair’s castle. Suchlike’s head was already nodding in the corner.

Vale shot an amused look at her. “You didn’t approve of his linens, my heart?”

She pinched her lips together. “The musty linens, the dust on every surface, the nearly empty larder, and that horrible, horrible manservant. No, I certainly did not approve.”

Vale laughed. “Well, we’ll stay on clean sheets tonight. Aunt Esther said she was eager to see us on our return trip. I think she wants to hear gossip about Munroe.”

“No doubt.”

Melisande took out her embroidery and sorted through her silks, looking for a shade of lemon yellow. She thought she must have a few strands left, and it was the perfect shade to highlight the lion’s mane.

She glanced at Suchlike to make sure the maid was asleep. “Did Sir Alistair tell you what you wanted to know?”

“In a way.” He stared out the window, and she waited, carefully threading her needle. “Someone betrayed us at Spinner’s Falls, and I’ve been trying to discover the man.”

She frowned a little as she placed the first stitch—no small feat in a bumping carriage. “Did you think Sir Alistair was the man?”

“No, but I thought he might help me figure out who was.”

“And did he?”

“I don’t know.”

The words should’ve held disappointment, but Jasper seemed cheerful enough. Melisande smiled to herself as she worked the lion’s mane. Perhaps Sir Alistair had given him some peace.

“Blancmange,” she sai‹man lid a few minutes later.

He looked at her. “What?”

“You once asked me what my favorite food is. Do you remember?”

He nodded.

“Well, it’s blancmange. We had it every year at Christmas when I was a girl. Cook colored it pink and decorated it with almonds. I was the youngest, so I had the smallest dish, but it was wonderfully creamy and delicious. I looked forward to it every year.”

“We can have pink blancmange every night for supper,” Vale said.

Melisande shook her head, trying not to smile at his impulsive offer. “No, that would spoil the specialness of it. Only at Christmas.”

A happy thrill went through her to be planning a Christmas with him. There would be many Christmases with him, she thought. She couldn’t think of a more wonderful prospect.

“Only at Christmas, then,” Vale was saying across from her. He was solemn, as if settling a business contract. “But I insist that you have an entire bowl for yourself.”

She snorted and found herself smiling. “What would I do with a whole bowl of blancmange?”

“You could make a pig of yourself,” he said, perfectly seriously. “Eat the entire thing at once if you like. Or you can hoard it, just looking at it and thinking how good it will be, how creamy and sweet—”

“Nonsense.”

“Or you can eat but one spoonful every evening. One spoonful, and me sitting across the table looking on with envy.”

“Won’t you have your own bowl of blancmange as well?”

“No. That’s why yours will be so special.” He leaned back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest, looking well pleased with himself. “Yes, indeed. I pledge an entire bowl of pink blancmange to you every Christmas. Never let it be said that I am not a generous husband.”

Melisande rolled her eyes at his foolery, but she smiled as well. She was looking forward to her first Christmas with Jasper.

They made good time that day and were at Aunt Esther’s house well before supper time.

In fact, as their carriage rolled to a stop in front of the Edinburgh town house, Aunt Esther was seeing off another couple she’d no doubt had for tea. It took a moment to recognize Timothy and his wife. Melisande watched him, her first love. There had been a time when the mere sight of his handsome face had made her catch her breath. It had taken her years to recover from losing Timothy. Now the pain of his loss was muted and somehow apart from her, as if the broken engagement had happened to some other young, naive girl. She looked at him, and all she could think was,
Thank goodness.
Thank goodness she’d escaped marrying him.

Beside her, Vale muttered something under his breath, and then he was bounding from the carriage.

“Aunt Esther!” he cried, seemingly oblivious to the o‹ivi bother couple. He strode toward her, and somehow, someway, bumped against Timothy Holden. The shorter man staggered, and Vale went to help him. But Vale must’ve knocked against Timothy again, because he landed on his rear in the muddy street.

“Oh, dear,” Melisande muttered to no one in particular, and scrambled from the carriage before her husband killed her former lover with his “kindness.” Mouse jumped down as well and ran to bark at the fallen man.

Before she could get there, Vale had offered his hand to help Timothy up. Timothy, the blind idiot, took it, and Melisande nearly covered her eyes. Vale pulled a trifle too hard, and Timothy popped off the ground like a cork and staggered against Vale. Vale leaned his head close to the other man, and Timothy’s face suddenly went an ashy gray. He leapt back from Vale and, declining any further help, hurried his wife into their carriage.

Mouse gave one last self-satisfied bark, happy to have chased him off.

Vale bent and petted the dog, muttering something to Mouse that made his tail wag.

Melisande breathed a sigh of relief and strolled to the two males. “What did you say to Timothy?”

Vale straightened and turned entirely too-innocent eyes on her. “What?”

“Jasper!”

“Oh, all right, but it wasn’t much. I requested that he not visit my aunt.”

“Requested?”

A satisfied smile was playing about his mouth. “I don’t think we’ll be seeing Mr. Timothy Holden or his wife here again.”

She sighed, secretly pleased at his concern for her feelings. “Was that entirely necessary?”

He took her arm and replied softly, “Oh, yes, my heart, oh, yes.”

Then he was leading her toward Aunt Esther and calling, “We have returned, Aunt, and we bring news of the reclusive Sir Alistair!”

The wind fluttered her skirts as she walked. Vale had gone to speak with Mr. Horn this morning, probably about Spinner’s Falls. Melisande frowned a little at the thought. She’d hoped that after talking to Sir Alistair, he’d give up the chase, perhaps find some peace. But he was just as intent as ever. Most of the ride back to London he’d theorized and plotted and told and retold her his ideas of who the traitor might be. Melisande had sat and worked her embroidery, but inside, her heart was sinking. What was the likelihood that Vale could discover the man after all these years? And if he couldn’t find the traitor, what then? Would he spend the rest of his life in a fruitless search?

A shout interrupted her gloomy thoughts. She looked up in time to see Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s little boy, Jamie, embracing Mouse. The dog licked the child’s face enthusiastically. Evidently he remembered Jamie. His sister carefully bent to pat Mouse’s head as well.

“Good day,” Mrs. Fitzwilliam called. She had been standing a little apart from her children. Now she strolled over. “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”

Melisande smiled. “Yes, it is.”

They stood side by side, watching the children and the dog for a bit.

Mrs. Fitzwilliam heaved a sigh. “I ought to get Jamie a dog. He begs for one most piteously. But His Grace can’t abide animals. They make him sneeze, and he says they’re dirty.”

Melisande was a little surprised at the casual mention of the other woman’s protector, but she tried to hide it. “Dogs are rather dirty sometimes.”

“Mmm. I expect so, but then so are boys.” Mrs. Fitzwilliam wrinkled her nose, which only made her lovely face more adorable. “And, really, it’s not as if he visits us very much anymore. Hardly once a month in the last year. I expect he has gotten himself another woman, like an Ottoman sultan. They keep ladies like sheep in a herd—the Ottomans, I mean. I believe they call it a
harem.”

Melisande could feel herself blushing, and she looked down at her toes.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Fitzwilliam said. “I’ve embarrassed you, haven’t I? I’m always saying the wrong thing, especially when I’m nervous. His Grace used to say that I should always keep my lips firmly together, because it spoiled the illusion when I opened them.”

“What illusion?”

“Of perfection.”

Melisande blinked. “What an awful thing to say.”

Mrs. Fitzwilliam cocked her head to the side, as if considering. “It is, isn’t it? I didn’t realize it at the time, I think. I was very much in awe of him when we first met. But then I was very young too. Only seventeen.”

Melisande truly wished she could ask the other woman how she had beco“ow seme the Duke of Lister’s mistress, but she was afraid of the answer.

Instead, she said, “Did you love him?”

Mrs. Fitzwilliam laughed. She had a lovely, light laugh, but it was tinged with sadness. “Does one love the sun? It’s there, and it provides us with heat and light, but can one truly love it?”

Melisande was silent because any answer she gave would only add to the other woman’s sadness.

“I think one must be equals to love,” Mrs. Fitzwilliam mused. “Equal on some fundamental level. I don’t mean in wealth or even status. I know of women who truly love their protectors and men who love the women they keep. But they are equal on a . . . a spiritual level, if you see what I mean.”

“I think I do,” Melisande said slowly. “If the man or the woman holds all the emotional power, then they cannot truly love. I suppose one must lay oneself open to love. Let oneself be vulnerable.”

“I hadn’t thought of that, but I think you must be right. Love is essentially a surrender.” She shook her head. “It would take courage to surrender like that.”

Melisande nodded, looking at the ground.

“I’m not a very courageous woman,” Mrs. Fitzwilliam said softly. “In a way, every choice I’ve made in life has been out of fear.”

Melisande looked at her curiously. “Some would say that the life you’ve chosen takes a great deal of courage.”

“They don’t know me.” Mrs. Fitzwilliam shook her head. “To be guided by fear isn’t the life that I wished.”

“I’m sorry.”

Mrs. Fitzwilliam nodded. “I wish I was able to change.”

As do I,
Melisande thought. For a moment, they shared an odd rapport, just the two of them, respectable lady and kept mistress.

Then Jamie gave a shout, and they both looked over. He appeared to have fallen in some mud.

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Fitzwilliam murmured. “I had better take him home. I don’t know what my maid will say when she sees his clothes.”

She clapped her hands and called briskly to the children. They looked disappointed but began slowly walking over.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Fitzwilliam said.

Melisande raised her eyebrows. “For what?”

“For talking with me. I enjoyed our conversation.”

Melisande suddenly wondered how often Mrs. Fitzwilliam got to talk with other ladies. She was a kept woman and therefore beyond the pale with respectable ladies, but she was also the mistress of a duke, which would place her far above most anyone else. She stood in a rarefied and lonely sphere.

“I enjoyed it too,” Melisande said impulsively. “I wish we might talk more.”

<“%" 4%"font size="3">Mrs. Fitzwilliam smiled tremulously. “Perhaps we shall.”

Then she was gathering her children and bidding farewell, and Melisande was left with Mouse. She turned back the way she’d come. A carriage waited for her, and a footman trailed her discreetly behind. She thought about what she’d said to Mrs. Fitzwilliam, that true love demanded vulnerability. And she wondered if she had the courage to make herself that vulnerable once again.

“WAS MUNROE ABLE
to provide you with any new ideas of who the traitor could be?” Matthew Horn asked Jasper later that afternoon.

Jasper shrugged. They were riding through Hyde Park again, and he was restless. He wanted to nudge Belle into a gallop, ride until both he and the mare were sweating. He felt near the breaking point. As if he couldn’t push forward with his life until he found the traitor and moved on. God, how he wanted to move on.

Perhaps that was why his voice was sharp when he said, “Munroe said I should look at the money.”

“What?”

“The man who betrayed us was probably working for the French. Either he did so for political reasons or he was paid. Munroe pointed out I should look into the finances of the men who were captured.”

“Who would take money and then go through the hell of being captured?”

Jasper shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t intend to get caught. Maybe something went wrong with his plan.”

“No.” Horn shook his head. “No. This is ridiculous. If there was a French traitor, he’d make sure he wasn’t near Spinner’s Falls when the Indians ambushed us. He’d pretend illness or fall behind or simply desert.”

“What if he couldn’t? What if he was an officer? See here, only the officers knew where we marched—”

Horn snorted. “There were rumors among the men. You know how well secrets are kept in the army.”

“Granted,” Jasper said. “But if he was an officer, he would’ve had a hard time getting away. We’d already been decimated at Quebec, remember. Officers were in short supply.”

Horn pulled his horse to a halt. “So you will investigate the finances of every man who was there?”

“No, I—”

“Or will you just investigate the finances of the captives?”

Jasper looked at Horn. “Munroe told me something else as well.”

Horn blinked. “What?”

“He also said you were in Paris.”

“What?”

“He said he has a French friend who wrote that he met a man named Horn at a dinner party in Paris.”

“That’s preposterous,” Matthew exclaimed. His face had reddened, and his mouth was a grim horizontal line. “Horn is not such an uncommon name. It was another man.”

“Then you weren’t in Paris this last fall?”

“No.” Horn’s nostrils flared. “No, I was not in Paris. I toured Italy and Greece, as I’ve already told you.”

Jasper was silent.

Horn gripped his reins and leaned forward in the saddle, his body stiff with anger. “Are you questioning my honor, my very loyalty to my country? How dare you, sir? How dare you? Were you any other man, I would call you out this very minute.”

“Matthew . . . ,” Jasper began, but Horn wheeled his horse and cantered off.

Jasper watched him go. He’d insulted a man he’d considered a friend. Jasper rode back to his town house, grimly pondering what made him insult a man who’d never done him any harm. Horn was right: Munroe’s friend could very well be mistaken as to who he’d seen in Paris.

He reached home, his thoughts conflicted, and found that Melisande was still out, a fact that turned his mood even more black. He’d been looking forward to seeing her, he realized, and discussing the disastrous ride with Matthew Horn. He bit back a curse and stalked to his study.

He’d only time to pour himself a splash of brandy before Pynch knocked on the door and entered.

Jasper turned and scowled at his valet. “Did you find your man?”

“Aye, my lord,” Pynch said as he advanced into the room. “Mr. Horn’s butler was indeed the brother of a fellow soldier I served with.”

“Did he talk?”

“He did, my lord. Today is his half day off, and I met him in a tavern. I stood him several drinks as we reminisced about his brother. The man died at Quebec.”

Jasper nodded. Many had died at Quebec.

“After the fourth drink, Mr. Horn’s butler became loquacious, my lord, and I was able to turn the conversation to his master.”

Jasper gulped the brandy, no longer sure he wanted to hear what Pynch had to say. But he’d started these events in motion, had sent Pynch on the hunt as soon as they’d returned to London. It seemed cowardly to balk now.

He looked at Pynch, his loyal servant who’d nursed him through the worst of the drunken stupors and nightmares. Pynch had always served him well. He was a good man.

“What did he say?”

His valet looked at him, his green eyes steady and a little sad. “The butler said the Horn finances were quite distressed on Mr. Matthew Horn’s father’s death. His mother was forced to relieve most of the servants. There were whispers that she’d have to sell the town house. And then Mr. Horn returned from the war in the Colonies. The servants were rehired, a new carriage was bought, and Mrs. Horn wore new gowns—the first in six years.”

Jasper stared blindly into his empty glass. This wasn’t what he wanted. This wasn’t the relief he’d sought. “When did Mr. Horn’s father die?”

“The summer of 1758,” Pynch said.

The summer before Quebec fell. The summer before Spinner’s Falls.

“Thank you,” Jasper said.

Pynch hesitated. “There is always the possibility of an inheritance or some other perfectly innocent source of money.”

Jasper arched a skeptical eyebrow. “An inheritance the servants never heard about?” That was very unlikely. “Thank you.”

Pynch bowed and left the room.

Jasper topped off his glass of brandy and went to stare into the fire. Was this what he wanted? If Horn was the traitor, could he really turn him in to the authorities? He closed his eyes and sipped the brandy. He’d put these events in motion, and he was no longer sure he had any control over them.

When he looked up again, Melisande was standing in the doorway.

Jasper drained his glass. “My lovely wife. Where have you been?”

“I took a walk in Hyde Park.”

“Did you?” He crossed to the decanter and poured himself more brandy. “Out meeting demimondaines again?”

Melisande’s face grew cool. “Perhaps I should leave you by yourself.”

“No. No.” He smiled at her and raised his glass. “You know how I hate being alone. Besides, we must celebrate. I am close to accusing an old friend of treason.”

“You don’t sound pleased.”

“Au contraire. I am ecstatic.”

“Jasper . . .” She looked at her hands, clasped at her waist, as she gathered her words. “You seem obsessed with this hunt. With what happened at Spinner’s Falls. I worry that the hunt is harming you. Would it not be better to . . . to leave it be?”

He sipped the brandy, watching her. “Why would I do that? You know what happened at Spinner’s Falls. You know what this means to me.”

“I know that you seem caught by what happened, unable to move beyond it.”