Bernard Cornwell - Gallows Thief

'Father won't mind,' Eleanor said, 'at least I don't think he will mind.'

'But your mother will?'

'She does! When I told her my feelings last night she insisted I ought to visit Doctor Harriman. Have you heard of him? Of course you haven't. He is an expert, Mama tells me, in feminine hysteria and it is considered a great honour to be examined by him. But I don't need him! I'm not hysterical, I am merely, inconveniently, in love with you, and if your damned father had not killed himself then you and I would be married by now. I do envy men.'

'Why?'

'They can swear and no one lifts an eyebrow.'

'Swear, my dear,' Sandman said.

Eleanor did, then laughed. 'That felt very good. Oh dear, one day we shall be married and I shall swear too much and you will get bored with me.' She sniffed, then sighed as she tasted the ice. 'That is real paradise,' she said, prodding the ice with the long silver spoon, 'and I swear nothing at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers can rival it. Poor Rider. You shouldn't even think of marrying me. You should tip your hat at Caroline Standish.'

'Caroline Standish? I've not heard of her.' He tasted the ice and it was, as Eleanor had said, pure paradise.

'Caroline Standish is perhaps the richest heiress in England, Rider, and a very pretty girl she is too, but you should be warned that she is a Methodist. Golden hair, damn her, a truly lovely face and probably thirty thousand a year? But the drawback is that you cannot drink ardent spirits in her presence, neither smoke, nor blaspheme, nor take snuff, nor really enjoy yourself in any way. Her father made his money in the potteries, but they now live in London and worship at that vulgar little chapel in Spring Gardens. I'm sure you could attract her eye.'

'I'm sure I could,' Sandman said with a smile.

'And I'm confident she will approve of cricket,' Eleanor said, 'so long as you don't play it on the Sabbath. Do you still indulge in cricket, Rider?'

'Not as often as Alexander would like.'

'They say that Lord Frederick Beauclerk earns six hundred a year gambling on cricket. Could you do that?'

'I'm a better batsman than him,' Sandman said truthfully enough. Lord Frederick, a friend of Lord Alexander's and, like him, an aristocrat in holy orders, was the secretary of the Marylebone Cricket Club that played at Thomas Lord's ground. 'But I'm a worse gambler,' Sandman went on. 'Besides, Beauclerk wagers money he can afford to lose, and I don't have such funds.'

'Then marry the pious Miss Standish,' Eleanor said. 'Mind you, there is the small inconvenience that she is already betrothed, but there are rumours that she's not altogether persuaded that the future Duke of Ripon is nearly as godly as he pretends. He goes to the Spring Gardens chapel, but only, one suspects, so that he can pluck her golden feathers once he has married her.'

'The future Duke of Ripon?' Sandman asked.

'He has his own title, of course, but I can't remember it. Mother would know it.'

Sandman went very still. 'Ripon?'

'A cathedral city in Yorkshire, Rider.'

'The Marquess of Skavadale,' Sandman said, 'is the title carried by the heir to the Dukedom of Ripon.'

'That's him! Well done!' Eleanor frowned at him. 'Have I said something wrong?'

'Skavadale isn't godly at all,' Sandman said, and he remembered the Earl of Avebury describing how his wife had blackmailed young men about town. Had Skavadale been blackmailed by the Countess? Skavadale was famously short of money and his father's estates were evidently mortgaged to the hilt, yet Skavadale had managed to become betrothed to the wealthiest heiress in England and if he had been ploughing the Countess of Avebury's furrow she would surely have found him a ripe target for blackmail. His family might have lost most of its fortune, but there would be some funds left and there would be porcelain, silver and paintings that could be sold; more than enough to keep the Countess content.

'You're mystifying me,' Eleanor complained.

'I think the Marquess of Skavadale is my murderer,' Sandman said, 'either him or one of his friends.' If Sandman had been forced to put money on the murderer's identity he would have chosen Lord Robin Holloway rather than the Marquess, but he was quite certain it was one of them.

'So you don't need to know what Lizzie discovered?' Eleanor asked, disappointed.

'Your maid? Of course I want to know. I need to know.'

'Meg wasn't very popular with the other servants. They thought she was a witch.'

'She looks like one,' Sandman said.

'You've already found her?' Eleanor asked, excited.

'No, I saw a portrait.'

'Everyone seems to sit these days,' Eleanor said.

'This portrait.' Sandman pulled the drawing from inside his coat and showed it to Eleanor.

'Rider, you don't think she's the pig-faced woman, do you?' Eleanor asked. 'No, she can't be, she has no whiskers.' She sighed. 'Poor girl, to be so ugly.' She stared at the drawing for a long while, then rolled it up and pushed it back to Sandman. 'What was I saying? Oh yes, Lizzie discovered that Meg was carried away from the Countess's town house by a carriage, a very smart carriage that was either black or dark blue, and with a strange coat-of-arms painted on its door. It wasn't a complete coat-of-arms, just a shield showing a red field decorated with a golden angel.' Eleanor crumbled a brandy snap. 'I asked Hammond if he knew of that shield and he became very refined. "A field gules, Miss Forrest," he insisted to me, "with an angel or", but astonishingly he didn't know who it belonged to and consequently he was most upset.'

Sandman smiled at the thought of Sir Henry Forrest's butler being unable to identify a coat-of-arms. 'He shouldn't feel upset,' Sandman said, 'because I doubt the College of Arms issued that device. It's the badge of the Seraphim Club.'

Eleanor grimaced, remembering what Sandman had told her and her father earlier in the week, though in truth Sandman had not revealed all he knew about the Seraphim. 'And the Marquess of Skavadale,' she said quietly, 'is a member of the Seraphim Club?'

'He is,' Sandman confirmed.

She frowned. 'So he's your murderer? It's that easy?'

'The members of the Seraphim Club,' Sandman said, 'consider themselves beyond the law. They believe their rank, their money and their privilege will keep them safe. And quite possibly they're right, unless I can find Meg.'

'If Meg lives,' Eleanor said quietly.

'If Meg lives,' Sandman agreed.

Eleanor stared at Sandman and her eyes seemed bright and big. 'I feel rather selfish now,' she said.

'Why?'

'Worrying about my small problems when you have a murderer to find.'

'Your problems are small?' Sandman asked with a smile.

Eleanor did not return the smile. 'I am not willing, Rider,' she said, 'to give you up. I tried.'

He knew how much effort it had taken for her to say those words and so he reached for her hand and kissed her fingers. 'I have never given you up,' he said, 'and next week I shall talk to your father again.'

'And if he says no?' She clutched his fingers.

'Then we shall go to Scotland,' Sandman said. 'We shall go to Scotland.'

Eleanor held tight to his hand. She smiled. 'Rider? My prudent, well-behaved, honourable Rider? You would elope?'

He returned the smile. 'Of late, my dear,' he said, 'I have been thinking about that afternoon and evening I spent on the ridge at Waterloo and I remember making a decision there, and it's a decision I am constantly in danger of forgetting. If I survived that day, I promised myself, then I would not die with regrets. I would not die with wishes, dreams and desires unfulfilled. So yes, if your father refuses to let us marry, then I shall take you to Scotland and let the devil take the hindmost.'