“This is all well and good,” Munroe cut in, his broken voice grating. “We’ve established why Hasselthorpe might’ve betrayed the regiment, but I still don’t see how he could’ve done the deed. Only the officers who marched with the Twenty-eighth knew our destination. It was kept secret precisely so we wouldn’t be ambushed.”
Reynaud stirred. “Only the officers of the Twenty-eighth—and the superiors who ordered them on their route.”
“What are you thinking?” Vale turned to him eagerly.
“Hasselthorpe was an aide-de-camp to General Elmsworth at Quebec,” Reynaud said. “If Maddock didn’t tell him the route—they were brothers, after all—then it wouldn’t have been very hard to discover it. Elmsworth may’ve made him privy to it himself.”
“He would’ve had to get the information to the French,” Munroe pointed out.
Reynaud shrugged, pushing away his tankard of ale altogether. “He was in Quebec. Do you remember? It was swarming with the French troops we’d captured, French citizens, and Indians who’d supported both sides. It was chaos.”
“He could’ve done it easily,” Hartley said. “The question now is did he indeed do it? We have supposition and conjecture but no real facts.”
“Then we’ll have to find the facts,” Reynaud said grimly. “Agreed?”
The other men nodded. “Agreed,” they said in unison.
“To discovering the truth,” Vale said, and raised his tankard.
They all raised their tankards and knocked them together, solemnizing the toast.
Reynaud toasted the sentiment with the rest. He drained his tankard and slammed it down on the table. “And to seeing the traitor swing, goddamn his eyes.”
“Hear, hear!”
“Another round on me,” Reynaud called.
Vale leaned close, blasting Reynaud with the ale on his breath. “Shouldn’t a newly wedded man such as yourself go home?”
Reynaud scowled. “I’ll go home soon.”
Vale wagged his shaggy eyebrows. “Had a falling-out with the missus?”
“None of your goddamned business!” Reynaud hid his face in his tankard of ale, but when he lowered it, Vale was still staring at him rather blearily. And had it not been for the ale, Reynaud probably wouldn’t have said, “She thinks I don’t know how to care, if you must know.”
“Doesn’t she know you care for her?” Hartley asked from across the table.
Wonderful. Both he and Munroe had been listening in like a pair of gossiping biddies.
Munroe stirred. “She needs to know, man.”
“Go home,” Vale said solemnly. “Go home and tell her you love her.”
And for the very first time Reynaud began to think that Vale’s romantic advice might—just might—be correct.
Chapter Eighteen
Now, although Princess Serenity had married Longsword as a reward for saving her father, she had, in the many months she had lived with him, come to love her husband deeply. Hearing his terrible fate, she became quiet and withdrawn, contemplating silently what this news meant to her. And, after many long walks in the castle garden, she came to a decision: she would offer herself to the Goblin King in Longsword’s stead.
And so, on the night before Longsword was to return to the kingdom of the goblins, Princess Serenity drugged Longsword’s wine. As her husband slept, she kissed him tenderly and then set out to meet the Goblin King….
—from Longsword
Seven years of planning. Seven years of careful moves on a giant chessboard. Some of them so infinitesimally small that even his most intelligent enemies had been blind to their true meaning. Seven years that should have culminated in his becoming prime minister and the de facto leader of the most powerful country on earth. Seven years of patient waiting and secret lusting.
Seven years destroyed in one afternoon by one man—Reynaud St. Aubyn.
He’d seen the knowledge in Hartley’s eyes when he’d mentioned Thomas. Poor, poor Thomas. His brother had never been cut out for greatness. Why should Thomas have the title when it would serve him so much better? But now that old decision had come back to haunt him. Vale, Blanchard, Hartley, and Munroe. All in London at once, all putting their heads together. Hasselthorpe could read the writing on the wall. It was only a matter of time before they had him arrested.
All because St. Aubyn had returned home. He glared across the carriage at his enemy’s wife. Beatrice St. Aubyn, Countess of Blanchard now, née Corning. Little Beatrice Corning sat across from him bound and gagged. Her eyes were closed over the cloth tied across her mouth. Perhaps she slept, but he doubted it.
He’d never really paid much attention to her before, besides noting that she made a good hostess for her uncle’s political parties. She was pleasant enough to look at, he supposed, but she was no immortal beauty. Hardly the type a man might choose to die for.
He grunted and glanced out the window. The night was black with barely any moonlight, and he couldn’t make out where they might be. He let the curtain fall. However, he knew by the number of hours they’d traveled that they must be nearing his estate in Hampshire. He’d told Blanchard that he’d wait until dawn and he would; the boat he’d arranged to pick him up at Portsmouth wouldn’t come until eight. He could wait until dawn and no longer before fleeing to the prearranged rendezvous spot. First to France and then perhaps Prussia or even the East Indies. A man could change his name and start a new life in the more remote corners of the world. And with enough capital, he might even make his fortune again.
If he had enough capital. Damnably stupid—he could see that now—tying up most of his monies in investments. Oh, they were good investments, solid investments that would yield a healthy return, but that wasn’t much good to him at the moment, was it? He had a little cash, and he’d taken what jewelry Adriana had in the town house, but they weren’t all that much.
Not enough to start again as he meant to.
He eyed the girl across from him, measuring her worth. She was his last gamble, his last chance to take with him a small fortune. Of course he’d never risk his life, his fortune, for any woman, let alone this pale child, but that really wasn’t the gamble was it?
The real question was whether Blanchard had enough regard for his bride to ransom her for a small fortune… and lose his life as well.
IT WAS WELL after midnight by the time Reynaud returned home to Blanchard House. The celebration with Vale, Munroe, and Hartley had gone on for hours more and ended in a disreputable tavern that Vale swore brewed the best ale in London. So it was rather commendable that he saw the man lurking in the shadows by the stairs at all.