To Taste Temptation (Legend of the Four Soldiers #1)

They were in the East End stews. The crumbling buildings were packed so closely together that sometimes only a walkway wide enough for a man separated them. They’d have to make the rest of the journey on foot.

Sam raised his eyebrows politely. “You can stay behind in the carriage if you’re afraid.”

The other man snorted.

The door opened and a footman set the step. The servant watched them with a knitted brow as they descended. “Shall I come with you, my lord? ’Tisn’t safe hereabouts.”

“We’ll be fine.” Vale clapped the man on the shoulder. “Stay and guard the carriage until our return.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sam led the way down a dark alley.

“He’s right,” Vale said behind him. “Do we really need to visit Ned Allen?”

Sam shrugged. “I don’t have many others to question. There weren’t a lot of survivors, as you know. And Allen was an officer.”

“Hardly any survivors at all,” Vale muttered. There was a splash and he swore.

Sam hid a grin.

“What happened to your lieutenant? Horn, wasn’t it?”

“Matthew Horn. He’s traveling the continent, last I heard.”

“And the naturalist?”

“Munroe?” Vale’s voice was casual, yet Sam knew he’d somehow won the other man’s complete attention.

They entered a tiny courtyard, and Sam cast a swift glance around. The buildings here looked like they’d been erected hastily after the great fire and were already in the process of decaying. They leaned ominously into the small courtyard, which, judging from the smell, was also the local privy.

“The man who survived with you,” Sam said. There had been a civilian naturalist attached to the 28th, a quiet Scotsman who had been one of the men taken captive by the Wyandot.

“Alistair Munroe’s up in Scotland, last I heard. He has a great drafty castle and doesn’t go out much.”

“Because of his wounds?” Sam asked softly. They ducked into the alley that led to the house Allen had a room in. Vale hadn’t answered. Sam looked back.

Vale’s eyes held demons, and Sam had the uneasy feeling that they might mirror his own. “You saw what those savages did to him. Would you want to go out with scars like that?”

Sam looked away. It had taken almost a fortnight for the rescue party to track the Wyandot Indians back to their camp, and in that time, the captured soldiers had been tortured. Munroe’s wounds had been particularly gruesome. His hands...Sam pushed the thought aside and kept walking, keeping a keen eye on the doorways and shadows they passed. “No.”

Vale nodded. “I haven’t seen him in years.”

“Still,” Sam said. “We ought to write him a letter.”

“I’ve tried. He never writes back.” Vale quickened his steps until he was breathing down Sam’s neck. “Who are you watching for?”

Sam glanced at him. “I was followed the other day.”

“Really?” Vale sounded cheerful. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” And that fact disturbed him.

“You must’ve stirred something—or someone—up. Who had you been to see?”

Sam stopped beside a low lintel. “Ned Allen lives through here.”

Vale merely looked at him and raised his shaggy eyebrows.

“I’d talked to three soldiers,” Sam said impatiently. “Barrows and Douglas—”

“Don’t remember them.”

“You wouldn’t. They were just foot soldiers and probably spent most of the massacre cowering under one of the supply wagons. They didn’t seem to know anything. The third soldier was a pioneer in the army—”

“One of the fellows who cleared trees and such to make way for the marching column.”

“Yes.” Sam grimaced. “He described how he used his ax to decapitate one of the attacking Indians. He was quite proud of himself. He didn’t tell me much beyond that. And I’d tried to talk to Allen, but he was too drunk the first time I tracked him down. I doubt either Allen or the pioneer sent my follower.”

Vale smiled. “Interesting.”

“If you say so.” Sam ducked to enter the building. Inside, it was cold and dark. He made his way mostly by feel and memory.

Behind him, Vale swore.

“All right back there?” Sam drawled.

“Fine. Enjoying the quaint scenery,” the viscount shot back.

Sam grinned. They climbed a series of stairs, and then he led the way to Allen’s room. It was much as it had been before—smelly and small. Ned Allen lay in a corner, reduced to a bundle of rags.

Sam sighed and approached the man. The smell grew worse as he neared.

“Good God,” Vale muttered as he followed. He toed Allen. “Stinking drunk.”

“I don’t think so.” Sam hunkered by the prone man and rolled him to his back. The man turned all of apiece, as if he were made of wood. A knife stuck out of his chest, the handle made of white bone. “He’s dead.”

Vale crouched beside him and stared. “Damn me.”

“No doubt.” Sam rose swiftly and wiped his hands against his breeches.

The room was suddenly too small, too close, too smelly. He turned, stumbling, and nearly ran from the room. He tumbled ungracefully down the stairs and out into the light. Even this grimy courtyard was better than the death room upstairs. Sam took deep breaths, trying to still the rolling nausea in his belly, aware as he made his way back into the narrow alleyway that Vale clattered behind him.

“He could’ve been killed by anyone, living in this cesspit,” the viscount panted.

“Maybe.” Sam felt a grudging gratitude that the other man didn’t mention his ignoble retreat. “Or perhaps I was followed here before. The man who was trailing me had a bone-handled knife.”

Vale sighed. “Then Sergeant Allen must’ve known something.”

“Christ.” Sam stopped. “I should’ve come back sooner.”

Vale looked at him a moment and then tipped his head back to stare at the small patch of blue overhead. “There were so many.”

Sam stared. “What?”

“Do you remember Tommy Pace?”

A memory of a young lad—too young to have told the truth about his age—came to Sam. Freckled cheeks, dark hair, a small wiry frame.

“He used to pretend to shave,” Vale said dreamily. “Did you know that? He probably had all of three whiskers on his chin, and every morning he’d be stropping his razor, so proud.”

“He won the razor off Ted Barnes.”

“No.” Vale looked at him. “I didn’t know that.”

Sam nodded. “In a card game. It was part of the reason Tommy was so proud of the thing.”

Vale chuckled. “And Barnes had such a heavy beard. That’s irony for you.”

There was silence as they both contemplated this old gossip. A rodent scurried into the shadows near a doorway.

“And now they’re both dust in the ground,” Vale said softly, “along with all the rest.”

There was nothing to say to that, so Sam pivoted and resumed walking back to the carriage.

Vale strolled a little behind him. The alley wasn’t wide enough for two men to walk abreast.

“If they were betrayed, we’ll avenge them. All of them,” Vale said conversationally.

Sam nodded, keeping his eyes straight ahead.

“Where do we go now?” Vale asked.

“Dick Thornton. Perhaps he’s returned to his place of work. We need to question him.”

“Glad you agree.” The viscount whistled a few merry notes and then cut himself off. “Did you see MacDonald’s body, by the way?”

“No.” They rounded the corner, and the carriage came into view, the footmen and driver standing around it looking nervous. “I never went back. I was too busy running to Fort Edward and then guiding the detachment with the ransom. That was one of the things I wanted to ask Allen: who among the regiment survived?”

Vale nodded, probably busy with his own terrible memories as they made their way back to where the carriage waited.

The footmen looked relieved when they came into sight. Vale nodded to his men, and Sam entered the carriage and settled into the seat across from the viscount. The carriage lurched forward.

“Did I ever thank you?” Vale asked. He was watching out the window, apparently engrossed in the dismal neighborhood.

“Yes,” Sam lied. In fact, Vale had been in shock by the time the rescue party had ransomed the surviving officers at the Wyandot Indian camp. All of the captured men had run the gauntlet—a double line of whooping Indian men and women who had pummeled the victim as he ran by. Then, too, from what Sam heard, Vale had been made to watch St. Aubyn’s death and the torture of Munroe and the others. Vale had been in no condition to thank anyone when they’d eventually rescued him.

Vale was frowning now. “So we only have Thornton’s word that MacDonald is dead.”

Sam looked at him. “Yes.”

“Look here, if anyone had a reason to make sure the regiment never got to Fort Edward, it was MacDonald.” Vale sat forward. “The man was in chains as we marched.”

“He would’ve been hung at the fort,” Sam said. “Rape and murder. His court-martial would’ve been very short.”

MacDonald had been a nasty piece of work. He and another soldier named Brown had looted a French settler’s cabin, raping and killing the settler’s wife when she surprised them. Unfortunately for MacDonald and his companion, the French settler’s wife had turned out to be an Englishwoman—and the sister of a British colonel. Looting and rape were hanging offenses, but ones that some officers might turn a blind eye to, as long as they weren’t wholesale. The rape and murder of an Englishwoman was a crime that couldn’t be swept under the rug. There had been a hunt within the British army, and soon soldiers had come forward with the information that Brown had drunkenly boasted of the crime. Once under arrest, Brown had soon betrayed MacDonald, and both men had been marching in chains when the 28th Regiment of Foot had been attacked.

That thought made Sam grimace. “Brown might also be the traitor.”

Vale nodded. “MacDonald seemed to be the leader of that little gang, but you’re right; Brown had just as much reason to stop the march as MacDonald.”

“Or they might’ve been in it together.” Sam shook his head. “But in either case, how would they have known the route we’d take?”

Vale shrugged. “Wasn’t Brown friends with Allen?”

“Yes. They often shared their fire with Ned Allen.”

“And as an officer, Allen would’ve known the route.”

“He might’ve carried a message, if they’d bribed him.”

“Surely not to a Frenchie?” Vale’s eyebrows had shot up.

“No. But all they needed was an intermediary who could take a message to a neutral Indian, and as you know, there were plenty who either switched sides or dealt with both French and English.”

“If Allen talked to someone about the route the regiment took, it would certainly be a motive to kill him.”

Sam thought of the pathetic bag of bones they’d just found, and grimaced. “Yes, it would.”

Vale shook his head. “There’re holes to that theory, but in any case, we need to talk to Thornton again and determine what he remembers.”

Sam frowned. Thornton had made him uneasy from the first. “Do you think that’s wise? Bringing Thornton in on this? For all we know, he’s the traitor.”

“All the more reason to confide in him. If he thinks we trust him, he’s more likely to slip.” Vale touched his lips with a long, bony finger. Then he smiled, almost sweetly. “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”