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Alec refused to relent. “He married her, and was very happy until word of your displeasure reached him. I don’t know what he wrote to you, but to me he expressed his deep regret. Not for marrying her—he loved her deeply—but for the fact that he hadn’t planned better and couldn't keep her in the comfort she deserved.”

“A hot-blooded foreigner. She did not deserve my son!”

“She was a Spanish grandee’s daughter, a lady from a good family, and used to a life of ease. She left it all to go on campaign with Will, and to the best of my knowledge she never regretted it.” Alec paused, but Lucey merely snorted. “Of course, we were in different divisions. I didn’t see Will much after Bonaparte escaped Elba and returned to Paris. Our paths crossed once or twice before Belgium, but never for more than a brief conversation. I was grieved to hear of his death.”

“Don’t you speak of his death!" There was real agony in Lucey’s cry.

“The last time I saw him was the night before the great battle at Waterloo. It was pouring rain and we had only a few moments, but he was very odd that night. He seemed quite certain of his impending death and made a few requests. I’d entirely forgotten it, in my. . . difficult situation, until today, when I read the journal of Sergeant Turner.”

Lucey jerked. The agony in his expression faded away at the mention of Turner’s name, replaced with a look of pure loathing. “Stop,” said Lucey viciously. “I’ll tell you. Here to seek the noble Sergeant Turner, are you? You may find him in hell. That—that offal betrayed my son and has held it over my head ever since. And don’t tell me to have a care for his family. If anything, they are better off without him! And if you plan to sully my son’s name, I shall pursue you to the end of my days. Who would believe a traitor, after all?”

“You will,” said Alec softly. “You know I speak the truth. Will needed funds after his marriage. Turner offered him a way to get them and in desperation, Will took it.” Lucey recoiled as if Alec had struck him. “And when Will died on the battlefield and I was blamed for his sins, Turner blackmailed you with a threat to expose the truth.”

For a long moment, Mr. Lucey stood with bowed head, one hand braced on the back of the chair, his body shaking with every breath. “You were dead,” he said heavily. “You were supposed to be dead.”

Alec said nothing. His family had not been dead, and Lucey knew exactly what he had done to them, neighbors he had once called friends.

“He was the lowest of men, utterly without honor. The thought of that beast using my son. . . ” Lucey’s knuckles were white where he gripped the chair.

“You paid him not to speak. You allowed my family and the entire country to think me a traitor.” Alec’s iron control of his temper was finally slipping. “Whatever Turner’s sins, what of yours, sir? What honor is there in supporting a lie and ruining my good name? My father’s name?”

“You were dead,” repeated Lucey. “He was my only son. I had no choice!”

“When did you kill him?” Alec meant the question to startle Lucey, even goad him into a confession. All his calm and restraint was under terrible strain.

Lucey, though, was unshaken. He raised his head in defiance. “He deserved to die. It was a boon to humanity, ridding the world of his sort. I make no apologies for it. Not only did he ruin my son, he held it over my head and he reveled in that power." He thrust a shaking finger at Alec. "He was a snake, a poisonous viper who preyed on the sorrows of others, and I only regret not killing him sooner.”

“Then why pay him at all?”

Lucey closed his eyes. “I was weak.” He glared up from under his brows. “I suppose now you’ll call down the authorities on me, for the death of that—that rapacious bastard.”

Quite unexpectedly, Alec felt a moment of pity for the old man. Lucey had ruined his own life with hatred and anger and now guilt. He’d chased away his only child, and been haunted ever since by the knowledge of what his son had been driven to by Lucey’s rejection.

“No,” he said quietly. “Not at the moment.” Once again, there was no proof. The journal would incriminate George Turner more than it would Lucey. Alec doubted Turner had ever used his name outright. “But you should have this.” He drew Will’s letter from his pocket and held it out.

The older man glared at it, then started as he recognized the handwriting. “Where did you get that?” His voice trembled as he reached out to take it.

“He asked me to deliver it, in the event of his death. It was sent home in my personal effects after Waterloo.”

He waited for the meaning to sink in. After a moment Lucey paled and looked up. “Then—no one has seen⁠—”

“I read it.”

It was a confession, in Will’s own hand, his final answer to the father who had beaten him as a boy and rejected him as a man. None of that absolved Will’s actions, but Alec couldn’t help but think Lucey deserved some blame as well. With this man for his father, Will must have seen no other choice. He had done his best to atone for his sin, by asking Alec to look after his wife and child, by laying out his actions to the one man who would never have believed it otherwise, and by sacrificing himself in a final moment of patriotism and honor.

Only because Alec had been so gravely wounded had the plan gone awry. The packet Will had asked him to deliver with the letter, which Alec had thought contained a will, actually held damning proof of the confession: letters from the French officer. When Alec was presumed dead, someone discovered them in his writing case, and no one noticed the letter tucked in his journal.

And George Turner, who must have kept Will’s letters to the officer, had seized his chance.

For a moment Alec thought of what would have happened if he hadn’t been lost on the battlefield. He would have returned home and delivered both letter and packet. He never would have been accused of treason, nor had to work for John Stafford. Turner might not have dared approach Lucey. Cressida might have never lived in Marston at all, nor asked Pickering for his aid, and then Alec would have never met her.

For the first time, he didn’t know which course he would preferr, could he have chosen. Innocence, without Cressida. . . or five years of guilt, but with Cressida at the end. There was no question that he had found more happiness with her than he’d ever expected in his life. Knowing what he had done, and what he had been accused of doing, she accepted him and trusted him and gave him her heart. Alec had never met another woman like her, and valued the depth of her faith and love as he could never have done before Waterloo.

“What happened to Turner?” he asked again. Cressida and her family deserved to know his fate, whatever the man had done.

“He came here late at night,” murmured Lucey. He was still staring hollow-eyed at the letter in his hands. “Months ago. He wanted money—always money. He set up house in Marston to torment me, to flaunt his presence in my face at every opportunity. He had papers, he said, in William’s hand. As this letter. . . ” He turned it over, handling it as gingerly as if it were made of spun glass. “Just as this letter. Papers he would sell me, one page at a time, and I paid him to conceal my son’s weakness.” His voice broke on the last word. “I sent Morris to try to find them, but he never could."

Alec remembered the man sneaking around Cressida's stable on that long-ago day when he’d first gone to see the Turners, and another small puzzle piece fell into place. Of course; it was Morris.