To Seduce a Sinner (Legend of the Four Soldiers #2)(67)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

They reached the terrace’s second level, where Munroe stopped and stared at the view. In the distance was a river, to the right a copse. It was beautiful country. The deerhound that had been following them sighed and lay down beside Munroe.

“Was that what you came for?” Munroe asked idly. “To seek my forgiveness?”

“No,” Jasper said, then hesitated, thinking about his confession to Melisande last night. “Well, perhaps. But it isn’t the only reason.”

Munroe looked at him. “Oh?”

So Jasper told him. About Samuel Hartley and the damning letter. About Dick Thornton laughing in Newgate Prison. About Thornton’s accusation that the traitor was one of the men captured. And finally about Lord Hasselthorpe’s near assassination just after Jasper had talked to him.

Munroe listened to the whole story silently and attentively, and at the end, he shook his head and said, “Pure nonsense.”

“You don’t believe that there was a traitor and that we were betrayed?”

“Oh, that I believe readily enough. How else to explain why such a large party of Wyandot Indian warriors were waiting to ambush us on that trail? No, what I don’t believe is that the traitor was one of the men captured. Which of us could do that? Do you think it was me?”

“No,” Jasper said, and it was true. He’d never thought that Munroe was the traitor.

“That leaves you, Horn, and Growe, unless you think one of the dead men did it. Can you imagine any of them, dead or alive, betraying us?”

“No. But dammit.” Jasper tilted his face toward the sun. “Someone betrayed us. Someone told the French and their Indian allies that we would be there.”

“Agreed, but you only have the word of a half-mad murderer that it was one of the captives. Give it up, man. Thornton was toying with you.”

“I can’t give it up,” Jasper said. “Can’t give it up, can’t forget it.”

Munroe sighed. “Look at it from another angle. Why would any of us do such a thing?”

“Betray us all, you mean?”

“Aye, that. There must be a reason. Sympathy for the French cause?”

Jasper shook his head.

“Reynaud St. Aubyn did have a French mother,” Munroe said dispassionately.

“Don’t be an idiot. Reynaud’s dead. He was killed almost as soon as we made that wretched village. Besides, he was a loyal Englishman and the best man I ever knew.”

Munroe held up a hand. “You’re the one pursuing this, not I.”

“Yes, I am and I can think of another reason for betrayal—money.” Jas‹yalhisper turned and looked significantly at the castle. He didn’t truly think Munroe a traitor, but the allegation against Reynaud had irked him.

Munroe followed his gaze and laughed, his voice rusty with disuse. “Think you if I’d sold us all to the French that my castle would be in such disrepair?”

“You might have the money tucked away.”

“What money I have I’ve inherited or made. It’s my own. If someone did it for money, they were probably in debt or richer for it now. How are your finances? You used to like the cards.”

“I told Hartley and I’ll tell you—I paid off the gambling debts I had back then long ago.”

“With what?”

“My inheritance. And my lawyers have the papers to prove it, if you must know.”

Munroe shrugged and began walking again. “Have you looked into Horn’s finances?”

Jasper fell in beside him. “He lives with his mother in a town house.”

“There were rumors that his father had lost money in a stock scheme.”

“Really?” Jasper looked at the other man. “The town house is in Lincoln Inns Field.”

“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?”