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“Did you?” Samuel asked softly.
“At the time, no.” Mr. Thornton looked grim now. “But there were so many circumstances that had to align correctly for us to have been attacked at that point, and the fact that the Indians numbered so many”—he shook his head—“the thing must have been planned by someone.”
“That’s what it looks like,” Jasper finally spoke. “We had meant to ask you if you were certain that MacDonald and Brown were dead.”
“MacDonald?” For a moment, Mr. Thornton looked confused; then he glanced quickly at the ladies and nodded. “Oh, of course. I see where your thoughts lie, but I’m afraid both men were quite dead. I helped bury them.”
Emeline pursed her lips, wondering for a moment what the men weren’t saying about MacDonald. She’d have to ask Samuel later, in private.
“Damn,” Jasper muttered. “If it’d been MacDonald, it would’ve wrapped this up neatly. Nevertheless, we have a few more questions to make of you.”
“Perhaps we should adjourn inside,” Samuel said. He held his arm out to his sister, but Rebecca ignored it and took Mr. Thornton’s instead. Samuel’s lips thinned.
Emeline hated to see him hurt. She laid her hand on Samuel’s sleeve. “What a good idea. I’d enjoy some tea.”
Samuel glanced from her eyes to her hand and back again. His brows rose almost imperceptibly. She tilted her chin at him. But the others were moving toward the back of the town house now.
“I don’t know if I can be of any use,” Mr. Thornton was saying ahead of them. “The man you really ought to talk to is Corporal Craddock.”
“Why is that?” Samuel called to him.
Mr. Thornton looked over his shoulder. “He gathered the wounded after Spinner’s Falls, after you’d...Well, you’d run into the woods. I guess you could say he was the officer in charge.”
Emeline felt Samuel’s arm stiffen under her fingers, but he didn’t say anything.
Jasper seemed not to have noticed that Mr. Thornton had nearly called Samuel a coward to his face. “Is he here in town?”
“No. I believe he retired to the country after the war. I could be wrong, of course; one hears so many things. But I think he’s in Sussex, near Portsmouth.”
Emeline thought she hid it well, but Samuel must’ve felt her start nonetheless.
“What is it?” he murmured without taking his eyes from the path ahead.
She hesitated. She’d just sorted her stack of invitations this morning, trying to determine the social events that would be best to attend in the upcoming month.
He looked at her, his brows drawn. “Tell me.”
Really, what choice did she have? It was almost as if the Fates had arranged the trap, and she was the unlucky hare that had run straight into it. Was there any point in struggling at all?
“We’ve been invited to the Hasselthorpe estate in Sussex.”
“What’s this?” Jasper had halted and turned.
“Lord and Lady Hasselthorpe, dear. Remember? They invited us weeks ago, and their house isn’t far from Portsmouth.”
“Damn me, you’re right.” The furrows next to Jasper’s nose and mouth stretched into arcs as he grinned. “What a stroke of luck! We can all go to this house party and then call on Craddock. That is...” He looked worriedly at Mr. Thornton. Rebecca and Samuel were easily included in the invitation as friends of Emeline’s. A bootmaker—even a very rich one—was a different matter.
But Mr. Thornton grinned and winked. “Never fear, I can continue our inquiries here in London whilst you talk to Craddock.”
And like that, Emeline knew that it was all decided. Her breath seemed to grow short as if her chest were being squeezed. Oh, they would argue and discuss the details back and forth, and she would need to petition Lady Hasselthorpe for invitations for the Hartleys, but in the end, it would all work out. She would be attending a house party with Samuel.
She looked up, knowing that he was watching her, and as her eyes met his warm coffee-brown ones, she wondered, Did he know what went on at house parties?
Chapter Nine
Now, of all the things in the world that the king loved, he loved his daughter most of all. He so doted on her that whenever she asked for a thing, he did his utmost to see that she received it. Which is why, when Princess Solace begged the king for permission to marry her own guard, instead of being a trifle tetchy as most royal parents might, he simply sighed and nodded. And that is how Iron Heart came to marry the most beautiful maiden in the land and a princess to boot....
—from Iron Heart
