Emeline wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want to discuss Jasper.”
“I must say, I’m outraged on Lord Vale’s behalf,” Melisande said without heat as she plunked a spoonful of sugar into her tea.
“I’m sure Jasper would be flattered if he only knew.” Emeline sat on the edge of a beautiful gold velvet chair. Her mind immediately reverted to her original theme. “It’s just that I ran across Mr. Hartley last night quite late. I was coming home from Emily Turner’s soiree—you were right; I never should have gone—”
“Told you.”
“Yes, and I’ve just said so.” Emeline bounced a little in her chair. Melisande could be so didactic sometimes. “Anyway, there he was, skulking in a quite suspicious manner in a dark alley.”
“Perhaps he makes his living as a footpad,” Melisande said. She was examining the tray of sweets that the maid had left them.
Emeline frowned. It was very hard sometimes to tell when her friend was jesting and when she was not. “I don’t think so.”
“How reassuring,” Melisande said, and chose a tiny pale yellow cake.
“Although he does seem to move very quietly,” Emeline mused, “which I would think would be most helpful if one was a footpad.”
Melisande had popped the cake into her mouth, and she merely raised her eyebrows now.
“But no. No.” Emeline shook her head decisively. “Mr. Hartley isn’t a footpad. So that leaves the question, What was he doing walking about so late?”
Melisande swallowed. “The most obvious answer is an assignation.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.” Emeline didn’t know why her friend’s suggestion so nettled her. It was, as she said, obvious. Emeline took a steadying breath. “I asked and he said most explicitly that he had not been to see a lady.”
Melisande coughed dryly. “You asked a gentleman if he was returning from a tryst with a female.”
Emeline blushed. “You always make things sound so awful.”
“I merely repeated your words.”
“It wasn’t like that at all. I made an inquiry; he replied most properly.”
“But, dearest, don’t you see that he would deny an assignation to you in any case?”
“He didn’t lie to me.” Emeline knew she spoke too vehemently. Her face and neck were hot. “He didn’t.”
Melisande looked at her with eyes that were suddenly weary. This was a sore point for her friend. Melisande was nearly eight and twenty and had never married, despite having a very respectable dowry. She’d been engaged once, nearly ten years ago, to a young aristocrat whom Emeline had never really liked. And her dislike had proven well founded. The cad had thrown Melisande over for a dashing titled widow, leaving Melisande with an unnaturally cynical view of gentlemen in general.
Yet, despite her own views, Melisande merely nodded now at Emeline’s rather silly assertion that a gentleman she hardly knew would tell her the truth about so private a matter.
Emeline smiled in gratitude. Brown or not, Melisande was the dearest friend imaginable.
“If he wasn’t returning from an assignation,” Melisande said thoughtfully, “then perhaps he’d been to a gaming hell. Did you ask him where he’d been?”
“He wouldn’t tell me, but I really don’t think it was anything as prosaic as a gaming hell.”
“Interesting.” Melisande stared out the window. The little sitting room was at the back of Emeline’s town house and overlooked the garden. “What does your aunt think of him?”
“You know Tante.” Emeline wrinkled her nose. “She is worried that his sister might not wear shoes.”
“Does she wear shoes?”
“Of course.”
“What a relief,” Melisande murmured. “Tell me, is your Mr. Hartley a tall gentleman with lovely brown hair, unpowdered and clubbed back?”
“Yes.” Emeline stood and moved to the window. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I believe he is doing something gentlemanly in his back garden.” Melisande nodded out the window.
Emeline looked and felt an odd little nervous jolt when she saw Mr. Hartley’s form just over the wall that divided the gardens. He was handling a very long gun.
At that moment, a small form catapulted down her own garden path, followed more slowly by a thin little man. Daniel had come out for his morning walk.
“What do you think he is about with that great gun?” Melisande asked idly.
Mr. Hartley had put down his gun again and now seemed to be peering into the barrel—a position that appeared inherently dangerous.
“Lord knows,” Emeline muttered. She had a great desire to abandon her very good friend and find some pretext to go into her garden. Wigeon! “Something masculine, no doubt.”
“Mmm. And Daniel out there so near to him.” Melisande looked at her over a cup of tea, her eyes amused. “A concerned mama might very well go out to see what her neighbor was doing.”
SAM WAS AWARE of the boy well before he actually saw him. The brick wall between the gardens was six feet tall, but the sounds of a boy could easily be heard—a skipping run in dry leaves, a panting cry to “come see!” and finally the scrabbling of boots on tree bark as the lad scrambled up a tree. There was a relative silence then, broken only by the sound of heavy breathing as the boy watched him.
Sam sat on a marble bench beneath the wall, his Kentucky rifle laid across his knees. He took a long piece of wire from his pocket and threaded it through the touchhole, working it back and forth to scrape out any corrosion. Then he blew into the tiny hole and sighted down the barrel.
The boy broke. “What are you doing?”
“Cleaning my gun.” Sam didn’t look up. Sometimes an animal was braver when it didn’t think the tracker was interested.
“I have a gun.” There was the sound of rustling leaves as the boy shifted.
“Oh?”
“Belonged to my uncle Reynaud.”
“Mmm.” Sam got up and stood the gun on its butt. He slid the ramrod out from under the barrel.
“M’man says I can’t touch it.”
“Ah.”
“Can I help you clean your gun?”
Sam paused at that and squinted up at the boy. Daniel lay on a branch two feet over his head, arms and legs dangling. He had a scratch on one cheek and a streak of dirt on his white shirt. His blond hair hung over his forehead, his blue eyes sparkling with excitement.