He hadn’t thought to find her back at Girdings.

To be honest, he hadn’t thought about her at all. Cultivating family ties hadn’t been high on his list of objectives in returning to Girdings. Coming back to Girdings had been no more than a necessary evil, a means to an end.

Next to him, Tommy sunk his chin as deeply into his collar as it would go, which made him look like a disgruntled turtle. “Feather beds,” he muttered. “Mulled wine. A fire. Remind me why we’re here again?”

It required only one word. “Staines.”

“Oh. Right.” Tommy sunk his head even deeper into his collar. “If he has any sense, he won’t be out here, either.”

“Sense isn’t something he’s known for.”

Tommy wrinkled his brow, the only bit of him still visible over his collar. “Who’s the less sensible — he for being out here, or we for following him?” When Robert didn’t answer him, his tone turned serious. Swiping wool out of the way of his mouth, he said very carefully, “Rob — are you sure this is a good idea?”

Since that wasn’t a question Rob wanted to examine too closely, he countered it with one of his own. As he had learned from Colonel Arbuthnot, a good offensive was always the best approach when one was on weak territory. “Do you have a better one?”

Tommy looked wistfully back along the alleyway to the great house behind him, the windows ablaze with light. “This is a nice little place you have here. We could just forget about this whole revenge thing, have some mulled wine, enjoy the holiday . . .”

Robert’s spine stiffened beneath layers of wool. “It’s not about revenge. It’s about justice.”

“I take it that’s a no to the mulled wine, then.”

“Don’t you want to see justice served?”

“General Wellesley — ”

“ — has other things to worry about.” When Robert had tried to voice his suspicions to the General’s aides, he had been laughed out of the mess.

But, then, what commander wanted to hear that one of his own officers had betrayed him? In the flush of victory after Assaye, no one had wanted to talk about what might have gone wrong.