Beth entered a low-ceilinged room where a dim light was provided by a rancid tallow candle that smoked unpleasantly as the door closed. The cottage was a far cry from the luxury of Tremoille House, possessing three rather rickety wooden chairs, a table with one leg supported on a brick, and a shelf bearing some chipped crockery, pots and pans, a pair of iron candlesticks, a tinderbox, and Jake’s shaving things. Opposite a tiny fireplace there was a ladder to the loft, where everyone slept. The rain dashed against the window, and every now and then a drop fell down the chimney to patter on the crumpled newspaper, sticks and stolen coal that were placed in readiness for a fire.
Rosalind was on her chair by the fireplace, and her face had assumed the surliness she kept for Beth. She was a pretty girl, with long straight silver-blonde hair, and large forget-me-not eyes set above high cheekbones. Her figure was slender, and her small, upturned breasts had pronounced nipples that showed through her worn lilac cotton dress. Given good clothes and a better start in life she could have been elegant, but as a blacksmith’s dissatisfied daughter she was thin, ragged and sullen. ‘Hello, Rosalind,’ Beth said.
The girl got up and spoke with a deliberately broad Gloucestershire accent. ‘I’ve done the lessons you left me.’ She took a battered notebook from the mantelshelf and dropped it on the table as if it were a dead rat.
‘The lessons your father asked me to leave for you,’ Beth corrected, unwilling to take the blame for trying to educate Rosalind Mannacott. She placed the pheasant on the table before taking the basket up to the loft to hide the pouch under the straw where she and Jake slept. The rain tamped noisily on the roof just above her head, but even so she feared the chink of coins would carry to Rosalind’s sharp ears. Then she took off her wet clothes to hang them on the rafter hooks, next to the fashionable togs she’d worn on leaving Tremoille House.
The clothes were still immaculate. She hadn’t worn them since, because they made her look as if she were in one world, when in fact she was now in another. It had been money well spent when she used a little of her meagre purse to acquire ragged garments and a battered valise in which to hide her former glory. Glimpsing her poverty-stricken reflection in a puddle had been a dreadful moment, so awful that she sat on the edge of a horse trough in tears. That was when Jake found her. He’d been so kind and concerned – genuinely so – and offered her a roof over her head in exchange for lessons in reading and writing for his daughter. But teaching Rosalind was a thankless task, leaving Beth feeling she wasn’t earning her keep; so she became Jake’s lover.
Beth touched the cream muslin gown sprigged with pale rose pink flowers, and the exquisitely stitched rose velvet spencer. On a little shelf nearby were the matching velvet reticule, emerald green gloves and a pretty straw bonnet. Her white silk stockings were tucked into the black patent shoes that rested on top of a rafter. It all looked as if she’d just disrobed, and the quality was such that it would fetch a pretty penny in Gloucester, but Jake wouldn’t let her sell anything. He wanted her to keep this small portion of her former life. But even though he’d always been kind and loving, tonight she was going to desert him. It wouldn’t be an entirely selfish desertion, because she’d decided to leave him half the guineas. Only that way could she salve her conscience regarding the man who’d saved her and given her his love.
A draught of cool, damp air beneath the eaves made her shiver and, as her nipples tightened, her thoughts became more sensuous and fanciful, but it wasn’t Jake who came to mind, it was Sir Guy Valmer. She had been very conscious of his worldly, almost feline appeal. He was sophisticated and dangerously handsome, and the enigma in his remarkable grey eyes promised things – pleasures – of which she as yet knew nothing. His hair, so richly coloured and curling, was thick and soft in a way that invited ruffling by female fingertips, and his lips promised kisses that would melt the soul. She touched her breasts and closed her eyes, recalling all she’d noticed about him, even his habit of toying with the shirt frill at his cuff. He had awakened something primitive that she hadn’t known before, a need to cross the chasm between dutiful caresses and fierce desire. What would it be like to lie with him? To have him inside her? To possess him just for a few minutes? To kiss his mouth, his throat, his chest, all of him? Yes, all of him. She wanted to bury her face in the tangle of hair at his loins, and breathe in the scent of him, wanted to take the source of his masculinity in her mouth and— Shocked by the path her desires were taking, her eyes flew open again. She had never even thought of kissing that part of Jake, yet mere kisses were the very least of her cravings for Sir Guy Valmer! What was the matter with her? He frightened her so she hadn’t been able to escape from him quickly enough, and yet now she dreamed of being sexually intimate with him. It wasn’t just a dream, but a physical lust that hunted through her flesh like hunger through the starving. She drew a deep breath, determined never to think such shameful things again. Much good would it do her anyway, because although the former Beth Tremoille might have been able to reach out to him without fear of rejection, he’d been disgusted by the Beth Tremoille of Fiddler’s Court.
Rosalind moved around downstairs, and Beth hurriedly donned her second dress, a poor garment of faded brown wool, and then dragged her wooden comb through her damp, tangled hair. From the top of the ladder she watched as Rosalind inspected the pheasant. The girl looked up as Beth descended again. ‘Where did you get this? Gamekeeper turned poacher, eh?’ she sneered.
Beth was in no mood. ‘No doubt you’ll be eager enough when the stew’s ready.’ The girl flounced back toward her chair, but Beth tossed the pheasant on to the seat. ‘Oh, no, you’re going to do your share of work. Pluck the wretched thing.’
Rosalind clearly longed to hurl the pheasant back, but thought better of it and began to tug out the feathers savagely. Beth used the tinderbox to coax a fire in the hearth, and then drew water from the well in the rainswept yard and suspended a pot above the new flames. When the pheasant was gutted and ready she quartered it with a small axe Jake had made, and into the pot it went, together with the onion, carrot and few potatoes Rosalind had stolen in the market the day before. Beth was making the nourishing stew for Jake and Rosalind; she herself would no longer be here to sample it. Tonight they’d make do with dry bread and stale cracked Single Gloucester cheese. It would be tasty enough toasted.
Her tasks finished for the moment, she decided to break the silence with Rosalind. ‘Did you get wet coming back from the tavern?’ she asked, but her amiability fell on stony ground.
‘There’s no way of coming back dry when it’s pissing down.’
‘Why do you always have to be so bitter? And so foul-mouthed? I’ve been teaching you how to speak properly, so I know you can do better.’
‘You’re a fancy Tremoille, so you swank around with your nose in the air. Me? I’m a nobody who’ll never amount to much, so why try to bully me into your snob ways? In the tavern I serve others just like me, not fine lords, so don’t try to make me what I’m not!’
‘I teach you because it’s what your father wants,’ Beth reminded her.
‘And what does he know? Nothing!’
‘He knows that he wants a better life for you, Rosalind. You’re a pretty girl and have brains. It wouldn’t take much effort for you to make a good enough marriage to put all this behind you.’ Beth indicated the shabby cottage.
‘Silk purses don’t come from sow’s ears,’ Rosalind replied.
‘Well, if you want to remain a sow’s ear, just continue the way you are.’
Before Rosalind could think of a suitably stinging reply, familiar steps were heard in the court. They both turned as the door opened in a flurry of rain, and Jake bowed his head to come in. He brought the smell of the forge on his wet clothes as he went to sniff the stew pot. ‘What’s this? We’ve got meat to sup?’
‘I found a fresh-dead pheasant,’ Beth replied. ‘But it won’t be ready until tomorrow. I’m afraid it’s toasted bread and cheese tonight.’
He grinned, and took off his old cloak to shake raindrops over the floor. At forty, he was still remarkably youthful, a giant of a man whose light-brown hair didn’t have a single strand of grey. His brown eyes twinkled as he drew a bottle of cheap brandy from his coat pocket and set it on the table. ‘This fell off a passing wagon, so we’ll live well for a few hours, eh, Bethie.’ He took two cups from the hooks above the stone sink. ‘The liquor will turn bread and cheese into a king’s banquet, and leave us with a nice glow, eh?’
Rosalind pouted. ‘And what about me?’ she demanded.
‘No liquor for you, Rozzie, you’re too young.’
‘Not too young to work in a tavern!’ Belligerence entered her voice.
Beth quickly diverted his attention. ‘I wonder if it’s quiet in town now? When I came back the militia dispersed a mob firing the bakery in Cathedral Lane.’
‘How come you saw something like that?’ The bottle paused over the second cup. ‘Your way home from Tremoille House doesn’t take you up into town.’
She coloured with unnecessary guilt. ‘I – I was lucky enough to have a carriage stop for me.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, I’d fainted by the roadside, and—’
He was appalled. ‘Fainted? Oh, Bethie!’
‘It was hot, I was hungry, and I ran to try to get to the woods for shelter from the storm.’
‘Who stopped?’
‘A gentlemen who’d bought a horse from my stepmother. His name is Sir Guy Valmer, and he’s lodging at the Crown. He didn’t know who I was.’
Jake’s eyes darkened. ‘And what did he want for his charity?’
‘Nothing. Oh, no, Jake, don’t think that, because I can tell you here and now that I stank far too much for him.’
‘I know you wouldn’t lie to me about such things, Bethie,’ he conceded. ‘Forgive me, I still can’t quite believe I’ve got you.’ He pushed a cup toward her. ‘Here, take a draught of this, it’ll do you good.’
Her guilty conscience increased, and she was quite relieved when he reverted to her earlier question. ‘As to the trouble in town, all I know is what I was told by a fellow I passed on the road. He said there’d been a curfew set after a riot over bread prices, and that I’d best get home as quickly as I could, or the militia would nab me.’ He sighed sadly. ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to. Damned unjust, that’s what it is. Landlords and all the grand folks looking after their own interests as always, and leaving the rest of us poor sods to starve. They’ll rue it one day, Bethie, there’ll come a revolution in England like happened in France, unless they watch out in London. We peasants are good enough to fight for our country, but not good enough to get our fair share of the bounty.’ He took the bottle and sat in his chair. ‘I trudged to Whitton today for a couple of hours’ work. Damn me, it’s humiliating, Bethie. Standing around like a great girl, in case a mean-gizzard called Carter might need some help. Carter. Bloody ugly bugger he was, with an ugly disposition to match. I could have stuck his poker up his arse as soon as look at him.’ Jake ran his hand through his hair. ‘And all I could think of was how I’d like to buy a half-share of the village forge at Frampney. Twenty guineas are what I need, but I might as well whistle at the moon. Anyway, I’m this late because I went to Frampney to take a look. It belongs to a farrier named Matty Brown; his wife is called Phoebe. A straight couple, no nasty sides. I liked them both, and they liked me. They’re getting on now, and Matty needs someone younger for the harder work. It would suit me down to the ground, suit us all down to the ground.’ He drew a very long breath. ‘By all the saints, Bethie, getting into that forge would be a neat thing. A very neat thing. And Rozzie wouldn’t have to work at that damned tavern, or get groped about by that cock fool, Ned Barker.’
Beth nodded. In this one thing she sympathized with Rosalind. Ned Barker was unspeakable, yet his mother was always proudly hinting that he had a lord for a father. No one believed her, because Ned was a lout through and through, and convinced he was God’s gift to womankind. His attentions to Rosalind were bad enough for Jake to have already set about him one dark night. There was a violent side to Jake, especially where his daughter’s well-being and chastity were concerned. Well, Ned wouldn’t paw Rosalind again, because by this time tomorrow Jake would possess enough money to buy into that forge in Frampney and get a nice little cottage in the village. He and Rosalind would have a new life in the country, with food for their bellies and a roof that didn’t leak. She sipped the brandy, which was so fiery that she began to cough.
Jake laughed. ‘A scorching mouthful, eh?’ He drained his cup and poured a little more. ‘You know, while I was working today, two fine lordlings came in with a dandy high-stepping nag. I had blisters on my feet, rags on my back, and a belly groaning like God knows what, and they whined on about the low price they were getting for their corn. God above, Bethie, there was no comparison between them and me. They see a poorhouse as something to walk past with a dainty nosegay, but for me, unless I get full work soon, the poorhouse is too damn close for comfort.’
At Tremoille House that same evening, Jane finished the glass of dry sherry she’d been enjoying in her private apartment, and smoothed the silver-blue taffeta gown she hadn’t worn for well over a year. She was leaving widowhood behind, so rubies glowed at her throat, and there was a jewelled aigrette in her beautifully pinned hair. Thomas had called and was waiting for her in the drawing-room. She glanced a final time at the copy of Lithgow’s Journal. It was risky to accept Thomas, but she couldn’t bear to let him slip through her fingers now. With a sigh, she left the apartment to go downstairs.
He was dressed for the evening, but didn’t look particularly at ease, having always preferred to slouch around in hunting pink. A paunchy fifty-two, he had never been handsome: his forehead was too broad, his eyebrows too bushy, his cheeks almost hollow, and his wiry iron-grey hair had receded to a monk’s tonsure. Height wasn’t in his favour either, because he was barely an inch taller than her. He was inconsiderate, testy and generally lacking in charm, and yet she remained his adoring slave. The Worcester bordello where they’d met had served gentlemen with a penchant for young girls. She’d been fourteen, and his title and money were more than enough to impress her, but then he deserted her for the dull, blue-blooded Diana, a fact that in her darker moments Jane still resented. There was no hint of any of this in her greeting. ‘Thomas, how good it is to see you again,’ she said warmly, her hands outstretched as she approached him.
‘My dear.’ He kissed her cheek and approved of the abandonment of her weeds, but she knew something was distracting him. She ushered him to one of the most comfortable chairs. Like the rest of Tremoille House, the drawing-room was all that was Tudor, with jewel-bright tapestries on the oak panelling and three cartwheel chandeliers suspended from the elaborate plasterwork of the ceiling. The large carved stone fireplace, big enough to stand in, still bore traces of its original decorative paintwork, especially the blue lion of the Valmers, and the furniture might have been used by one of the Tudor monarchs. When Thomas was seated, he took out a cigar and lit it from a candlestick on the small table at his elbow. ‘Well, Jane, you won’t have heard the news.’
‘News?’ She went to pour two glasses of Esmond’s finest cognac.
‘That the expected battle has taken place and Bonaparte is trounced?’
Her lips parted. ‘I haven’t heard anything like that. That a battle was about to be fought, yes, but not the outcome.’ She handed him a glass.
‘Hardly anyone knows. I met an old acquaintance who told me the banker Rothschild received the intelligence from Brussels by, well, by pigeon. It seems they not only fly home, but can bring messages too. So I’m told, anyway.’ He sipped the cognac and smacked his lips loudly.
Jane sat down. ‘Are you sure someone isn’t pulling your leg?’
‘No, I’m not sure, but I feel it’s all the truth.’
‘If so, what is Rothschild doing about it?’ she asked, ‘Buying? Selling?’
‘He’s too wily a fox to let that out. Damn it all, I don’t know what to do, Jane. I could make a fortune, or lose it.’ He leaned his head back.
‘Certainly not.’ He looked at her as if she’d lost her wits.
She changed the subject. ‘How is Rowan?’
‘My son and heir is a mystery to me. I haven’t understood him since he was sent down from Oxford for indulging in prizefighting, among other low things. How Diana and I produced him, I cannot begin to guess.’
Jane had always suspected the saintly Diana of breaking the Seventh Commandment, but could hardly say as much. ‘He’s young yet,’ she said reassuringly, ‘and as I recall, his father was not dissimilar in his youth.’
He was disparaging. ‘The boy’s twenty, damn it. At his age I knew control; he apparently has none. But looking at him, one can’t imagine he’s a hell hound.’
‘I’m so sorry, Thomas, for I know you had such high expectations of him.’ She spoke soothingly and with implied admiration, knowing it rarely did any harm to flatter a man’s vanity. It was easy to slip back into her old whorehouse skills.
He drew on the cigar. ‘You’re still a harlot, Jane, with the added attraction of also being a rich and desirable widow.’
She wished he’d show less avarice and more affection. Why did she love him so much? The heart was a thing of mystery. ‘Are you sure even now that you want this old whore as your wife?’ she enquired a little acidly.
‘You surely didn’t expect me to make you Lady Welland all those years ago? Damn it, your tail was for hire at that damned bagnio!’
‘Esmond married me,’ she observed.
‘Tremoille was an eccentric libertine who enjoyed being shocking, although I notice even he took care to bury your past. He preferred to hug himself with secret laughter when he saw society accepting you to its bosom.’
‘Whereas you preferred to break my heart,’ she answered reproachfully.
‘Be fair! I’d have been thought a fool.’
‘So you married a fool instead,’ she said.
‘Don’t speak of Diana like that.’
‘I’ll speak of her as I choose, Thomas. She was a fool from the day she was born until the day she shuffled her mortal coil. Ah, but let us not forget that she was also too well-bred to say boo to a goose, which made her perfect for you.’
‘I warn you, Jane—’
‘You can’t order me yet, Thomas. I’m a free agent, not the gullible little doxy who was dazzled by your title as she ministered to your cock.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘My, my, how refined you are.’
‘And how you used to like it.’
‘Maybe I did.’
‘Is that past tense too? I’m sure you’d still like it now.’
‘You’re hardly a young girl.’
‘And you, sir, are a portly, middle-aged man, so let us not quibble.’
For once he saw the humour of it. ‘All right, you win. Maybe I did make the wrong decision all those years ago. I’ll never forget my amazement when I heard you’d become Mrs Tremoille, or that first time I saw you in society, dancing a ländler with the Duke of Beaufort. He had no idea his partner was a whore.’
‘And dear Diana had no idea about anything either,’ Jane replied slyly. ‘I so wanted to tell her about your taste for young girls. Tell me, did you indulge after me?’
‘Occasionally,’ he answered frankly, ‘but if you’re fishing to know if they were better than you, the answer is no. You were in a class of your own, Jane.’
‘I still am,’ she said softly.
Her change of tone wasn’t lost on him. ‘Oh, Jane, when you speak like that.’
‘Things stir?’
He put his glass and cigar aside and held her gaze. ‘You’ve always stirred me.’
‘It’s been a long time, Thomas.’
‘Claiming to be as good as ever is one thing, proving it quite another.’ He unfastened his white silk breeches.
She was dumbstruck, having expected no more than a little verbal flirting, but her powerful sensuality forbade her to overlook this sudden opportunity to satisfy her lust. And his. The desires she tried so hard to suppress were suddenly released as if through a sluice, her treacherous thighs quaked and her loins softened as if they were melting. She knew he wouldn’t produce a great throbbing weapon, because he had always needed working on before he stiffened enough to be useful, but she’d dreamed of this for so long that she didn’t care how small and shrivelled his tool was. Her blue gown whispered as she knelt before his chair and took him in her hand. He was warm, velvet soft, and yet to respond as she leaned forward to put her lips over the crinkled foreskin and slide her tongue inside against the hidden surface within. He grew and grew until the foreskin had pulled right back, exposing the most delicious of lollipops, or so she’d always likened it. She licked and nibbled gently, then enclosed it entirely with her mouth. Oh, how she loved the taste of a man, and the knowledge that she was in command of this most precious part of his anatomy. It was his lodestar; without it he’d be lost.
Ripples of excitement began to concentrate between her legs as she savoured him, rolling him around in her mouth and sliding her tongue over him. Oh, how she feasted upon him, her body undulating erotically as her pleasure intensified. She could feel herself drifting toward the edge of consciousness, before she sank weakly against him as wild contractions of desire overtook her. He arched as enjoyment consumed him too, but he made no attempt to reach out to her as he moaned and gasped. Then he came with a force that made him cry out, and she enjoyed such tremendous gratification that she could hardly breathe. For a long moment they remained together, and then he sighed. ‘By the powers, Jane, you are still as good as ever.’
‘This old dog has no new tricks to learn,’ she said, sitting back on her heels. Sexual satisfaction was so necessary to her that sometimes she thought she would go mad without it. She made a considerable effort to get up gracefully from the floor and return to her chair.
‘So, Jane, are we to share a marriage bed?’ he enquired, shoving his limp appendage unceremoniously back inside his breeches, and fastening them again.
‘I haven’t decided,’ she answered with misplaced coyness.
He disliked simpering. ‘Well, to be honest, my dear, I need reassurance that you’re still worth offering for.’
Her cocoon of sexual warmth shattered, admitting cold shivers that slid down her spine. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘Surely you aren’t about to play the callow boy and tell me I’ve just cheapened myself too much for your bed?’
‘Allow me more maturity than that. No, Jane, I must ask you some questions.’
‘Questions?’ From nowhere the ominous shadow of the missing will fell across her again, but she kept strict control of herself.
He nodded and reached for the cigar again. ‘I learned this morning of a second will that reinstated your stepdaughter and excluded you. Is there any truth in this?’
‘None whatsoever.’ Her fingers were crossed in the folds of her gown.
‘You swear it?’ he pressed.
‘Of course. Thomas, is your proposal solely based on acquisition?’
He gave a short laugh. ‘If you expect romance from me, you’ll be disappointed.’
‘I think I had already grasped that fact, Thomas.’
‘And you know nothing of the fire that killed the lawyer Beswick?’ he asked.
At that she rose coldly to her feet. ‘I do not care for the implication, sir!’
He waved her to sit down again. ‘Don’t be so damned prickly, woman, it’s a reasonable enough question.’
She remained standing. ‘Reasonable? I beg to differ. You should not lend your ears to tittle-tattle that was no doubt started by my hussy of a stepdaughter.’
‘Beth? Maybe. I thought she’d left Gloucester, but apparently not.’
‘If she’s still here, she certainly doesn’t mix in good society.’
He was droll. ‘Hardly surprising when you made damned sure all decent doors were closed to her. By the time you’d finished with her character, she’d become a blend of Lucretia Borgia, Messalina and Delilah.’
‘Come to the point, Thomas. Are you withdrawing your proposal?’
‘If you’ve told me the truth, the proposal still stands. So what’s it to be? Do you wish to become Lady Welland?’
‘I thought I did, but now I’m not sure,’ she replied, too disturbed by the past moments to think clearly. She had always seen him for what he really was, a grasping bully who would never treat her well, but still her heart – and body – ruled her head.
He frowned. ‘Don’t forget I’m offering you a title.’
‘Nor do I forget that I will be your chattel,’ she answered, adding, ‘I’ve had a year of complete freedom, and the feeling is good.’
‘But are your lonely nights also good?’
Colour entered her cheeks. ‘Maybe they haven’t been lonely.’
His eyebrow quirked. ‘I hardly think even you would stoop to that lapdog butler. Come on, Jane, we’ll do well together.’ Provided I continue to have the rights to these estates, she thought. He took her silence for consent. ‘Then it’s agreed?’
She hesitated. ‘Yes, it’s agreed.’
‘Excellent! The sooner we’re wed, the sooner I can get out of Whitend.’
She was nonplussed. ‘Get out of Whitend? I don’t understand.’
‘It’s bloody damp there, what with the moat and standing between the river and the canal,’ he replied. ‘The one thing for which I really have to thank your late lamented husband is that he put a stop to the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal. Now it seems the canal is to be completed after all. It passes within a hundred yards of the house, Jane, and on an embankment too. Then I had a nightmare.’ He cleared his throat, discomfited by his own morbid fears. ‘A week ago I dreamed I drowned.’
‘Thomas, dreams are just dreams.’
‘You don’t understand. I dreamed of drowning in the house. There was water everywhere, as if the sea had reclaimed the vale.’ He shuddered.
She didn’t know what to say. There had been a time when he’d backed the canal scheme, seeing it as a fine way to increase his fortune. He also enjoyed sailing on the estuary, and acquired an interest in the Forest of Dean coal that was brought upriver to Gloucester. Now, because of a dream, he feared water?
He drained his glass and then drew a long breath. ‘You see, Jane, if the embankment were to be breached, or the Severn tide burst the riverbanks….’
‘Oh, Thomas,’ she chided, getting up to replenish his glass.
‘You may find it amusing, but we all have secret fears, do we not? Mine is a horrible and lingering death by drowning.’
‘Is that why you’re marrying me, to live up here?’ She managed a smile.
But he wasn’t amused. ‘It isn’t a matter for levity, Jane,’ he said gruffly.
‘You have lived at Whitend all your life, and your forebears for centuries. It will still be standing – and dry! – for generations to come. So, let’s forget about such things, and think of our betrothal instead. We are betrothed, aren’t we?’
He looked at her and pulled himself together. ‘Yes, and arrangements for the marriage itself can commence. I have a fancy for the cathedral.’
‘Wouldn’t it be more suitable to have a discreet wedding?’
‘No, damn it, I won’t skulk to the altar. I’ll make arrangements for it to proceed as soon as possible and as grandly as possible. I want all of Gloucestershire to be there, every knight, baronet, viscount and earl, with a duke or so to add class.’ He got up reluctantly. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better toddle off to Whitend.’ He looked expectantly at her, clearly hoping to share her bed for the night, but she was having none of it.
‘You’ve enjoyed enough of my hospitality for the tonight.’ There was a discreet tap at the door, and she turned irritably. ‘What is it, Bolton?’
The butler came in. ‘Madam, Joshua’s horse has been found riderless.’
The thousand guineas! Had Joshua stolen it? ‘Have someone ride to Mr Williamson’s residence in Eastington, to enquire whether or not Joshua delivered the money. Well, go on, you fool!’
Thomas raised an eyebrow as the door closed. ‘Who, pray, is Joshua?’
‘A trusted servant I sent to Gloucester with money for Williamson’s Bank.’
He found it amusing. ‘Trusted? The look on your face suggests you may have made an error of judgement. You need a husband to control your purse strings.’