AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No.” Samuel laid his long fingertips against the back of a chair. “She sends her apologies and pleads a migraine.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Emeline gestured to a chair. “Please. Won’t you sit, Mr. Hartley?”
He inclined his head and sat. His hair was tightly braided in a military queue today, every strand contained and controlled, and the sight made her perversely want to take it apart. To let his hair stream round his shoulders and run her fingers through it until it pulled at his scalp.
The maids bustled in with tea at that moment, and Emeline was glad to take the chance to calm herself. She sat and oversaw the placement of the tea things and kept her eyes down, away from the wall and away from him. Just last night he’d kissed her in this very room. He’d pressed her against the wall beside the window, and he’d traced her lips with his tongue, and she’d bit him. She’d tasted his blood.
Her teaspoon clattered as Emeline’s hand trembled. She glanced up, right into Samuel’s dark stare. His face looked carved from stone.
She cleared her throat and glanced away. “Tea, Jasper?”
“Yes, please,” he replied cheerfully.
Was he completely oblivious to the undercurrents between her and Samuel? Or perhaps he was aware and chose not to notice. They had a very civilized understanding, after all. She didn’t expect him to live like a monk before marriage—or indeed afterward, if it came to that—and perhaps he was equally tolerant.
She handed the teacup to Jasper and asked without looking up, “Mr. Hartley?”
There was a silence. Jasper noisily stirred sugar into his tea—he had a horrible sweet tooth—and took a sip.
“Tea, Mr. Hartley?”
She stared at her fingers curled around the teapot handle until she couldn’t stand it any longer. Jasper must surely know something was wrong. She looked up.
Samuel still watched her. “Yes. I’d like some tea.” But that wasn’t what his deep voice said.
She shuddered, actually felt the tremor run through her, and knew she was embarrassingly hot. The teapot rattled against the cup as she poured. Abominable man! Did he want to humiliate her?
Meanwhile, Jasper had his dish of tea balanced precariously on one knee. He seemed to have forgotten it after a couple of sips, and now the cup sat, just waiting for a sudden movement to crash to the floor.
“Sam said something earlier about a Dick Thornton, Emmie,” he said. “I don’t recall a Thornton. ’Course with over four hundred men in the regiment originally, one didn’t know them all by name. Most by sight, but not by name.”
Samuel had placed his own cup on a side table next to his chair. “After Quebec, there were less than that.”
Emeline cleared her throat. “Mr. Thornton was a common soldier? I never would have guessed from meeting him the other day. His speech was quite clear.”
“Thornton was a private when we knew him in the war,” Samuel said. “He was great friends with another soldier, MacDonald—”
“The redheaded twins!” Jasper exclaimed. “Always together, always up to a bit of mischief.”
Samuel nodded. “That’s right.”
Emeline looked from one man to the other. They’d seemed to have made some strange male accord without any help from her. “You know this MacDonald as well?”
Jasper sat forward, nearly upsetting the cup of tea. “Damn me, now I remember. Bad business, that. Weren’t MacDonald and his friend Brown brought up on charges of murder and—ahem!” He cut off the rest of his sentence with a cough and an embarrassed glance at Emeline.
She raised her eyebrows. From the look the gentlemen exchanged, whatever the bad business was about, it must be horrible enough that they deemed it unsuitable for her ears. She sighed in frustration. Men were so silly sometimes.
“Did MacDonald survive the massacre?” Jasper asked.
Samuel shook his head. “No. Thornton said he saw MacDonald fall, and Brown must’ve died in the assault as well. We would’ve heard of his court-martial if he had survived.”
“But we don’t know for certain about Brown.”
“No.”
“We ought to ask Thornton, see if he knows,” Jasper mused.
Samuel elevated his eyebrows. “We?”
