She probably thought him a coward or, worse, an imbecile. He’d left her after they’d made love, without so much as a good night, and spent the night on his pallet. He was an ass. But those eyes, watching him as she kissed his chest, watching him as she asked about Spinner’s Falls. God. She’d had no idea what she’d married. Perhaps it was best that he’d left so ungraciously. Better not to give her hope of something more when he didn’t have it in him to be anything more.
And now he didn’t even make sense in his own mind. He looked up to see Matthew Horn’s town house, glad that he could escape these maudlin musings.
Jasper dismounted Belle and handed the reins to a boy, then leapt up the front steps. A minute later, he was prowling Horn’s library, waiting for him to come down from wherever he was.
He’d just bent to peer at a large and dusty volume when Horn’s voice came from the door. “Looking for some light reading?”
“Just wondering why anyone would want a history of copper mining.” Jasper straightened and grinned.
Horn made a wry face. “My pater’s. Not that it did him any good. The mine he picked to invest in failed.” He strolled into the room and flung himself into a large chair, looping his leg over the arm. “The Horns are not exactly known for their financial sense.”
Jasper grimaced sympathetically. “Bad luck, that.”
Horn shrugged. “Want some tea? Seems early for whiskey.”
“No. Thank you.” Jasper wandered to a framed map of the world and tried to make out where Italy was.
“Come about Spinner’s Falls again, have you?” Horn asked.
“Mmm-hmm,” Jasper agreed without turning. Was it possible Italy wasn’t on the map at all? “Have you heard about what happened to Hasselthorpe?”
“Shot in Hyde Park. They’re calling it an assassination attempt.”
“Yes. And right after Hasselthorpe agreed to think about helping me.”
There was a brief silence, broken by Horn’s incredulous laugh. “You can’t think the two are related?”
Jasper shrugged. He wasn’t sure, of course, but the whole thing was a very strange coincidence.
“I still think you ought let Spinner’s Falls go,” Horn said quietly.
Jasper didn’t reply. If he was capable of letting this go, he would.
Horn sighed. “Well, I’ve been thinking about it.”
Jasper turned and glanced at Horn. “Have you?”
Horn waved a vague hand. “Here and there. What I don’t understand is why someone would betray the regiment. What would be the point? Especially if it was one of us who was captured. Seems like a good way to get yourself killed.”
Jasper blew out a breath. “Don’t think he meant to be captured—the traitor, that is. Probably thought to lie low and avoid the fighting.”
“Every one of us that was captured fought and fought well.”
“Aye, you’re right.” Jasper turned back to the map.
“Then what possible reason to betray the regiment and get us all killed? I think you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick, old man. There wasn’t any traitor. Spinner’s Falls was just bad luck, plain and simple.”
“Perhaps.” Jasper leaned so close to the map that his nose nearly touched the parchment. “But I can think of one very good reason someone might betray us.”
“What?”
“Money.” Jasper gave up on the map entirely. “The French had made it known that they’d pay good money for information.”
“A spy?” Matthew’s dark eyebrows shot up. He didn’t look particularly convinced.
“Why not?”
“Because I and anyone else who was there would tear the bloody bastard limb from limb, that’s why,” Matthew replied. He jumped up from his chair as if he couldn’t stay still anymore.
“All the more reason to make sure no one found out,” Jasper said softly.
Matthew was looking out the window now and merely shrugged.
“Look, I have no more love of the idea than you,” Jasper said. “But if we were betrayed, if they all died from one man’s greed, if we marched through that forest and endured . . .” He stopped, unable to say the rest.
Jasper closed his eyes, but in the blackness, he still saw the glowing stick pressing into flesh, still smelled the stench of burned human skin. He opened his eyes. Matthew was watching him without expression.
“We need—I need—to find him and bring him to justice. Make him pay for his sins,” Jasper said.
“What about Hasselthorpe? Have you seen him since the shooting?”
“He refuses to see me. I sent a message this morning asking for an interview, and he sent it back saying he intends to retire to his country estate to recover.”
“Damn.”
“Quite.” Jasper brooded over the map again.
“You need to speak to Alistair Munroe,” Horn said from behind him.
Jasper turned. “You think he’s the traitor?”
“No.” Matthew shook his head. “But he was there. He might remember something we haven’t.”
“I’ve tried writing him.” Jasper grimaced in frustration. “He doesn’t write back.”
Matthew looked at him steadily. “Then you’ll just have to travel to Scotland, won’t you?”
MELISANDE SAW HER husband for the first time that day at dinner. She’d actually begun to wonder if he was avoiding her, if something was the matter, but he seemed perfectly normal now as he forked up peas and joked with the footmen.
“How was your day?” Vale asked her carelessly.
Really, he could be a most aggravating man at times. “I took luncheon with your mother.”
“Did you?” He gestured to the footman for more wine.
“Mmm-hmm. She served stuffed artichokes and cold sliced ham.”
He shuddered. “Artichokes. I never know how to eat them.”
“You scrape the leaf against your teeth. Quite easy.”
“And leaves. Who thinks to eat leaves?” he asked, apparently rhetorically. “I wouldn’t. Probably some woman discovered artichokes.”
“The Romans ate them.”
“A Roman woman, then. She probably served up a plate of leaves to her husband and said, ‘Here you are, dear, eat hearty.’”
Melisande found herself smiling at Vale’s depiction of the fictional Roman wife and her unfortunate husband. “In any case, the artichokes your mother served were very good.”