“Good God, I’d forgotten that incident.”
“I haven’t,” Reynaud muttered. “She had a big bruiser for a pimp.”
“Yes, well, her argument was with the fact that I refused to pay triple her price when her pimp showed up, not with my bed skills,” Vale pointed out. “Even at seventeen, I could’ve shown you a trick or two—”
“Jasper,” Reynaud growled in warning.
Vale hid a grin in his glass and then sobered as he lowered it. “Who were the assassins?”
Reynaud threw himself into a chair. “Three ruffians, not very skilled at it, I think. They were led by a man with a pronounced walleye.”
“Indeed?” Vale tilted back his head to stare at the ceiling. “Did he have any other interesting characteristics that might make him recognizable?”
“Tall, quick, knew how to use a knife.” Reynaud shrugged. “Not much else, I’m afraid.”
“The color of his hair?”
“Brown.”
“Ah.” Vale considered for a moment. “I’ll send another letter to Munroe. We need him here.”
Reynaud frowned. “You think the attack on me is somehow related to what happened seven years ago?”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Look here.” Vale sat forward in his chair, no longer the lazy aristocrat but a man of intense intelligence. “I’d thought we’d hit a dead end in finding the Spinner’s Falls traitor. And then you arrive home, and in the space of little more than a week, two attempts have been made against your life. This is extraordinary!”
“Glad to bring you some joy,” Reynaud muttered.
Vale ignored the sarcasm. “I’m more convinced than ever that you have important information that will either expose the traitor or make him vulnerable in some way.”
“Then you’ve entirely cast off the idea that St. Aubyn was behind the attacks?” Reynaud had already come to this conclusion, but he wanted to hear Vale’s thoughts.
The other man shook his head. “Blanchard is a pompous blowhard, but he has enough brains not to make an attempt against your life. Besides, I know you dislike the man, but he’s never struck me as so thoroughly lacking in morals as to hire an assassin.”
Reynaud scowled. “That’s—”
“Besides, why would Blanchard risk killing you when you gave the gossips such lovely fodder the other night?”
Reynaud swung to glare at his friend.
“I sympathize.” Vale shrugged. “But you must admit your antics on the dance floor did nothing to help your cause.”
“We’re talking about Blanchard—”
Vale waved a hand, interrupting him. “Blanchard’s not the point. We’re getting closer to the Spinner’s Falls traitor. How I’m not sure, but we must be, judging by these attacks on you. If we can get Munroe down here and put our heads together, maybe we can figure this thing out, once and for all.”
“Very well,” Reynaud said slowly. “But perhaps we should send a messenger. A rider would get to Scotland before the mail. Or would you rather go yourself?”
“We’ll send a messenger with a letter.” Vale jumped up and went to rummage in a desk as if intending to write the letter that very moment. “As it happens, I don’t want to leave London at the moment.”
Reynaud looked at him inquiringly and was astonished to see a flush climbing his old friend’s cheeks.
“My wife is, ah, expecting the sixth Viscount Vale,” the other man muttered. “Or perhaps merely an honorable miss—not that I care a whit in either case. I just want a babe with all its toes and not looking too much like its pater.”
Reynaud grinned. “Congratulations, man!”
“Yes, well.” Vale cleared his throat. “She’s a bit nervous about the whole thing, so we’re keeping the matter quiet while we can. You understand?”
“Of course.” Reynaud frowned. Melisande looked healthy enough, but so many things could go wrong in a pregnancy.
“And in the meantime,” Vale said as if happy to drop the subject, “while we wait for Munroe, I think it prudent to make some inquiries regarding your attackers. London is an enormous place, but there can’t be that many walleyed assassins for hire.”
“Thank you,” Reynaud said, and for the first time in many, many, years, he felt like a friend had his back.
Now if he could only keep Beatrice safe.
“TELL ME A story,” Beatrice said. She was in bed—the fourth day of lying abed to “rest”—and she was bored beyond reason. She wore a comfortable day dress and sat up against her pillows, but she was definitely confined to her bed.
“What sort of story?” Lord Hope said rather distractedly. He was in a chair by the bed, supposedly to keep her company, but he had a stack of papers from his solicitors, and he was reading them instead.
“You could tell me about the first time you made love to a woman,” she said conversationally.
There was a pause during which she was certain that he hadn’t heard her, and then he looked up. His black eyes were gleaming, and now she knew he had heard her. “You’re still recovering, so I think we might want to save that particular story for another time.”
“How disappointing,” she said, looking down demurely.
He cleared his throat. “Perhaps something else might amuse you.”
“Such as?”
He shrugged. “Would you like to hear about army life? Or what Vale and I did in the schoolroom?”
She cocked her head. “I’d love to hear about those stories sometime. But now I’m wondering about your time with the Indians.”
He looked back at his papers, a small frown between his brows. “I’ve already told you: I was captured and made a slave. There isn’t much else to talk about.”
She studied him, aware that it would be polite to drop the subject. The story of how he was captured and brought to the Indian camp was harrowing. He obviously didn’t want to talk about his captivity. But she also knew—somehow, without logical explanation—that he was lying. There was more, much more, to his story. Seven whole years’ worth. The time during which he’d transformed from the laughing boy in the portrait to the hard man before her. She needed to hear how that had happened, and perhaps he needed in some way to tell her.
“Please?” she asked softly.
For a moment, she was sure he’d deny her. Then he flung the papers down. “Very well.”
“Thank you.”
He stared into space for a time. Then he blinked and said, “Yes, well. Gaho wanted me because she needed another hunter for her family. I should explain that some Indians have an interesting tradition. They take captives of war or raids and place them ceremonially in their family. So I took the position that a son would’ve filled in Gaho’s family.”
“Then she was your adoptive mother?”
“In theory only.” Reynaud’s mouth twisted. “I was, for all practical purposes, a slave.”
“Oh.” Again she thought that must’ve been a terrible blow to his pride—to go from being a viscount and an officer in His Majesty’s army to being regarded as a slave.
“She treated me well enough.” He was gazing sightlessly out her bedroom window. “Certainly better than we sometimes treat our prisoners of war. And, of course, I was glad not to’ve been executed. But, in the end, I was a slave, without control over my own life.”
For a moment he was quiet.
“What were your duties?” she asked.
“Hunting.” He looked at her, his mouth twisting. “I found out after a while that at one time the village had been much bigger, but the tribe had been decimated by disease some years before. Where once there had been many able-bodied men to provide meat during the winter, now there were only a handful. I went out with Gaho’s husband, another older man who we called Uncle, and Sastaretsi.”
She shivered. “That must’ve been awful—to have to hunt with the man who had intended to kill you.”
“I watched my back at all times.”
“And did you try to escape?”
He looked down at his papers. “I thought of escaping constantly. Every night as they bound my hands and staked me to the ground, I thought of ways I could unwork the knots. My fingernails grew back in, but I soon realized that I wouldn’t be able to survive for long on my own. Not in the dead of winter when meat was scarce and the whole village was in danger of starving. That country is vast and savage. The snow can reach as deep as a man’s chest. I was hundreds of miles into French-held territory.”
Beatrice shivered. “It sounds brutal.”
He nodded. “It was so cold that my eyelashes froze when we went hunting.”
“What did you hunt?”
“Whatever we could find,” he said. “Deer, raccoon, squirrels, bear—”
“Bear!” She wrinkled her nose. “You didn’t eat it, did you?”
He laughed. “It takes some getting used to, but, yes—”
The door opened, interrupting him. Quick came in with a tray of tea. “Here’s something for you, miss.” She set down the tray. “Oh, and a note for you, my lord.”
She handed a folded scrap of paper to Lord Hope.
Beatrice watched him as she took a dish of tea from Quick. Lord Hope knit his brows as he read, and then he crumpled the paper and threw it into the fire.
“Not bad news, I hope,” she said lightly.
“No. Nothing for you to worry about.” He got up from his chair. “In fact, you should be resting now. I’m off to see about some business.”
“I’ve been resting for four days,” she called to his broad back.
He merely smiled over his shoulder and shut the door behind him.
“I’m tired of lying abed,” she complained to Quick.
“Yes, miss, but Lord Hope says as you’re to stay there another day or so.”
“When did everyone start listening to him?” Beatrice muttered childishly.
But Quick considered the question solemnly. “I think ’twas when he took charge of Henry after he was wounded, miss. And then he seemed to know just what to do when you were hurt.” The maid shrugged. “I know he ’tisn’t officially the earl yet, miss, but it’s hard not to treat him that way.”
“He does seem to’ve fallen naturally into the role,” Beatrice murmured.
In the last week, Lord Hope had overseen her medical care. In addition, from what she could tell by the letters he read and the conversations she overheard with the servants, he seemed to be receiving reports from the various Blanchard estates and holdings. Reports that normally would go to her uncle.
She hadn’t seen Uncle Reggie since the morning after she’d been attacked, and now she wondered—rather guiltily—how he was getting on. No matter how Uncle Reggie protested, everything was changing about him. It must be hard for him. Harder still since he seemed to have the idea that she was only on Lord Hope’s side. If it were up to her, she’d be on both their sides… if only they’d let her.
Beatrice sighed. She was tired of lying abed, tired of only hearing about news and events instead of experiencing them. “I’m getting up.”
Quick looked alarmed. “Lord Hope said—”
“Lord Hope is not my master,” Beatrice said loftily, and threw back the covers. “Have the carriage brought round.”
Forty-five minutes later, she was rolling through London on the way to Jeremy’s house. She hadn’t seen him since the attack, and she was beginning to get rather worried. Lottie had sent a note every day and a lovely little bunch of flowers, but Beatrice had received no word from Jeremy. Had he even heard that she’d been hurt?