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—