To Taste Temptation (Legend of the Four Soldiers #1)(76)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

He swung around to see Vale staring bemusedly at O’Hare the footman. “Who the hell are you?”

O’Hare gave a bow, sketchy enough to almost be insolent. “Both Miss Hartley and Lady Emeline got into Mr. Thornton’s carriage.” He looked past Vale to catch Sam’s eye. “I didn’t like the way he stood so close to Miss Hartley, sir. I think something was wrong.”

Sam didn’t bother asking why O’Hare hadn’t stopped Thornton. In this country, a servant could be turned off without reference—or worse—for such an act. “Do you have any idea where they were headed?”

“Aye, sir. Princess Wharf in Wapping. I heard Mr. Thornton give the direction to the coachman.”

Vale looked bewildered. “Wapping? Why would Thornton take them to a wharf?”

“Wharves mean ships.”

Vale’s eyebrows shot up. “You think he means to kidnap them?”

“God only knows,” Sam replied. “But we haven’t time to stand about debating the point. Come on, we’ll take your carriage.”

“Hold on, there.” Vale grabbed his arm. “What’s the hurry? How do I know that you’re not hiding Emmie here? Or—”

Sam twisted his arm downward, breaking away from the other man. “Because Thornton is the traitor, and he must somehow know that I’ve found him out.”

Vale’s shaggy eyebrows snapped together. “But—”

“I’ve told you, we haven’t the time,” Sam growled. “O’Hare, do you want to help with this?”

The boy didn’t even hesitate. “Yes, sir!”

“Come on.” Sam was out the door and running down the steps without stopping for Vale’s consent. He’d take the waiting carriage even if the other man insisted on staying behind and debating all the possibilities.

But as he made the carriage, he found Vale beside him. “Princess Wharf, Wapping,” the viscount called to his coachman. “Fast as you can.”

All three men piled into the carriage.

“Now,” Vale said as he settled across from Sam and O’Hare. “Tell me.”

Sam had his eyes on the window. Thornton’s carriage had left long ago, but foolishly he still strained to catch sight of it. “MacDonald took Thornton’s place during or shortly after Spinner’s Falls.”

“You have proof?”

“That a soldier we knew six years ago across the ocean is impersonating a different, dead soldier? No, I don’t. He’s probably killed any proof there was.”

O’Hare shifted beside Sam. The young man hadn’t spoken since they entered the carriage, but his face was worried. The carriage slowed to a roll. Shouts came from the street ahead.

Sam barely kept himself from pounding on the carriage’s roof. He turned to O’Hare. “There were two redheaded soldiers, you see. One was Thornton; one was MacDonald. No one paid attention to them until MacDonald was put in chains and brought back for trial.”

“What had he done, then?” the footman asked.

Sam looked at Vale.

Who pursed his lips and nodded once. “Raped and murdered a woman.”

O’Hare’s face whitened.

“I can understand how MacDonald could’ve switched identities with Thornton in the chaos after Spinner’s Falls, but what of when he came home to England? Surely Thornton had family?”

“A wife.” Sam shook his head. “And she died soon after he came home.”

“Ah.” Vale nodded thoughtfully.

“But what does he want with the ladies now?” O’Hare burst out.

“I don’t know,” Sam muttered. Was Thornton insane? If his guesses were right, the man had murdered two women that they knew of. What would such a man do with the women of a man he considered his enemy?

“Extortion,” Vale said. “Perhaps he hopes to keep you from speaking, Hartley, by holding Rebecca and Emeline hostage.”

Sam closed his eyes at the thought, trying to keep down the voices inside that urged him to move rather than think. “Thornton is smarter than that.”

Vale shrugged. “Even the smartest man can panic.”

A man like Thornton would kill if he panicked.

“How far is it?” Sam asked.

Jasper was staring out the window, too, now. “Wapping? Past the Tower of London.”

Sam sucked in a breath. They were still on the fashionable west side of London. The Tower was a mile or more away, and the carriage wasn’t moving fast.

“I just remembered something,” Jasper muttered.

Sam looked at him.

The other man’s face had drained of color. “When we saw Thornton in your garden, after we went into your house for tea, he boasted to me about a large shipment he was preparing for the British army.”

“Where was it bound?”

Jasper swallowed, then replied, “India.”

Sam felt his heart stop in his chest. If Thornton got Emeline and Rebecca on a ship bound for India…

The carriage slowed and then came to a complete stop. Sam looked out the window. A brewer’s cart was stopped in the middle of the road, one of its great wheels broken from the axle. He didn’t even wait for the inevitable shouting to begin. He opened the carriage door.

“Where are you going?” Vale cried.

“I’m faster on foot,” Sam replied. “You continue in the carriage. Perhaps you’ll beat me there.”

And he swung down and began running.

Chapter Nineteen

At the sight of Iron Heart’s white-hot heart, Princess Solace gave a cry of despair. His agony was too terrible for her to bear. She ran forward and with her own hands threw a bucket of water upon him, intending to ease his pain. But, alas, although the flames were doused, it is well known what happens when metal suddenly cools.

Iron Heart’s heart cracked with a loud SNAP….

—from Iron Heart

The gun was pressed firmly into Rebecca’s rib cage and didn’t move a whit even when the carriage bumped and swung around corners. Emeline bit her lip. To either side of her, two great brutes, Mr. Thornton’s creatures, sat, effectively boxing her in. She and Rebecca had never even seen the men until they were inside the carriage. Not that it would’ve mattered. Mr. Thornton had shoved his nasty gun into Rebecca and ordered them both outside and into his carriage, and Emeline hadn’t liked to call his bluff at the time. The peril of having Rebecca die before her eyes had seemed all too imminent.