Beatrice looked up with an apologetic smile on her face, but it died when she saw the man she’d run into. “Lord Hasselthorpe!”
The peer looked ghastly. His face was blanched a greenish white, and it shone with sweat. He’d been staring at the closed doors to the Lords, but at her voice, he turned to her and his eyes seemed to focus and then grow cold.
“Lady Blanchard.”
“TO THE TRUE Earl of Blanchard!” Vale cried, not a little inebriated, as he held up a foaming tankard of ale.
“Blanchard! Blanchard!” Munroe, Hartley, and most of the rest of the rather seedy tavern they sat in cheered. Vale had stood the entire small, smoky room drinks twice already.
They were at a booth in the corner, the table scarred and pitted from numerous previous patrons. The barmaid was buxom and pretty and had at first obviously held high hopes for them. Now, however, after a half hour of concentrated effort, she’d turned her ample charms on a table of sailors sitting nearby. Reynaud couldn’t help but think how different her seduction of Vale would’ve ended seven years ago.
“I thank you. I thank you all.” Reynaud was on only his second pint despite Vale’s urging to drink more. He still had a niggling fear of not being completely alert—perhaps a leftover from his years of captivity. “Without your help today, gentlemen, this would’ve been a far more difficult endeavor. Therefore, to Munroe, who so ably diverted a certain duke and requested the presence of another gentleman of importance at Westminster.”
“Huzzah!” shouted the tavern customers, most of whom had no idea what was being said. Even the barmaid waved her cloth.
Munroe merely smiled and inclined his head.
Reynaud turned to Vale. “To Jasper, who gave the deciding vote to pass Mr. Wheaton’s veteran’s bill!”
“Huzzah!”
Vale actually blushed, the color running high over his hangdog face. Of course, that might’ve been the ale as well.
“And to Hartley, who delayed the main opposition to the bill!”
Hartley also inclined his head to the cheers of the crowd, though his eyes were still grave. He waited until the surrounding tavern regulars had quieted and turned back to their own affairs and then said, “There’s something you all ought to know about Hasselthorpe.”
“What’s that?” Suddenly Vale didn’t look drunk at all.
“He denies telling Munroe that the traitor’s mother was French.”
Where another man might sputter into protestations, Munroe merely raised his eyebrows. “Indeed.”
“Why would he lie about such a thing?” Reynaud set down his tankard of ale, wishing he’d not drunk even that. They were close to something here; he could feel it.
“Perhaps it was his first statement that was the lie,” Hartley said softly.
“What d’you mean?” Vale asked.
“When he told Munroe that the traitor’s mother was French, Reynaud was still thought dead. Hasselthorpe risked nothing by throwing suspicion on him. Further, he knew that there was a good chance that Munroe would never reveal his information—the news would be too harrowing for Vale to take. Why stir up trouble when the man who might be the traitor is dead?”
Munroe nodded. “That’s true. I nearly never told Vale. But I began to think that the truth, even if bitter, was better than lies.”
“And a good thing you did, too,” Hartley said. “Because when Reynaud returned, Hasselthorpe was then backed into a corner. Should he continue his lie and implicate a now-live man? Or should he call Munroe the liar? Either way, he needed to draw suspicion away from himself fast.”
“Then you think Hasselthorpe is the true traitor,” Reynaud said quietly. “Why?”
“Think of it.” Hartley leaned forward. “When Vale went to question Hasselthorpe, the man was shot—but not fatally. A glancing wound, as I understand it. He then left London altogether and sequestered himself at his estate near Portsmouth. When Munroe questioned him, he told a lie that prevented further interrogation. And remember this: Hasselthorpe’s older brother was Thomas Maddock—Lieutenant Maddock of the Twenty-eighth of Foot.”
“You think he killed so many to get the title?” Vale frowned.
Hartley shrugged. “It’s certainly a reason to betray the regiment. Isn’t that something we’ve been searching for all along—a motive to betray the Twenty-eighth? I asked around—Hasselthorpe was the younger brother. He came into the title shortly after Maddock’s death. In fact, Maddock died after their father had passed away, but he seemed to’ve never heard the news that his father was dead. He was killed at Spinner’s Falls before it could reach him.”
“This is all well and good,” Munroe cut in, his broken voice grating. “We’ve established why Hasselthorpe might’ve betrayed the regiment, but I still don’t see how he could’ve done the deed. Only the officers who marched with the Twenty-eighth knew our destination. It was kept secret precisely so we wouldn’t be ambushed.”
Reynaud stirred. “Only the officers of the Twenty-eighth—and the superiors who ordered them on their route.”
“What are you thinking?” Vale turned to him eagerly.