he might have sounded unfeeling. ‘Of course, I would not let her to go any Tom, Dick or Harry…Oh, I beg your pardon, Portman.’
‘Granted.’
‘I would wish to know she would be dealt fairly with, not kept short of pin money or treated like a skivvy,’ Max went on. ‘She is, after all, a lady. Our family can trace its lineage back to Tudor times.’
‘Dowry?’ Ash asked, ignoring the kick Harry gave him under the table.
‘Alas! There you have me.’
Ash chuckled. ‘Not much of a bargain, then. How do you propose to bring this marriage about? Advertise her for sale?’
‘That’s a thought,’ Max admitted.
‘How can you be so callous?’ Harry burst out, forgetting his usual languid air. ‘She is your sister and a lady; surely she deserves your protection.’
Max looked startled by this outburst from a man who had the reputation of indolence and a studied lack of finer feelings, except when they were his own. ‘Naturally she does and until she marries she shall have it, but she would be happier married, of that I am certain.’
‘We should like to meet the lady, should we not, Harry?’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Harry said brusquely, wondering how much longer the waiter was going to be fetching the dice. The whole conversation was becoming offensive.
‘You?’ Benedict queried, addressing Ashley. ‘I thought you were content to remain a bachelor.’
‘So I am. I was thinking of someone else.’
Max laughed. ‘A man-matchmaker—whoever heard of such a thing?’
‘I would not go so far as to say that,’ Ash said.
‘I should think not!’ Harry put in. ‘I beg you to forget it.’
But Ash had the bit between his teeth and was not about to let go. ‘It cannot hurt to meet the lady. Socially, of course. She need not know.’ He turned back to Max. ‘Where and when could this be done?’
‘She is in mourning and not going out in society, but she likes to walk in Green Park of an afternoon. If you care to be there, we could come across each other by chance and I could make her known to you.’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow afternoon. Shall we say two o’ clock?’
‘Capital! We will meet you at the gate and take a stroll together.’ Harry’s kick was even more vicious than the previous one and drew a cry of ‘ouch’ from Ash, which he hastily covered with a cough.
‘Where has the pesky waiter got to with those dice?’ Harry grumbled, looking about him.
‘I have changed my mind,’ Max said. ‘I will not wait, if you will excuse me.’ He left the table and strode away. He was quickly followed by Benedict, who was glad to escape without writing out a voucher. Harry noted it, but decided not to pursue him.
As soon as they were out of earshot, he turned to Ashley. ‘Just what are you playing at, Ash? If you think I will stoop to buying a wife, you are grossly mistaken. I will not go.’
‘It seems to me that you will be doing each other a favour. She cannot want to live with that coxcomb of a brother. You could provide her with a comfortable home and she could provide the heir you need without disturbing your sensibilities.’
‘I wish I had not told you anything about my wife,’ Harry said. ‘I beg you to refrain from mentioning the matter again.’ He beckoned to a waiter and asked him to send out for chairs to convey them home: Ash to his bachelor apartments in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Harry to Portman House in Berkeley Square.
Ash laughed. ‘Twas but a thought, but I’ve a mind to take a stroll in the park tomorrow afternoon for amusement’s sake. I will call for you. You may come or not, as you please.’
Harry did not please and he went home to a lonely dinner of sirloin of beef, partridge, capon and fruit tartlets and two whole bottles of Rhenish wine. He had friends a-plenty and enough work to keep him occupied and could always find diversions, but Ash had unsettled him and he found himself admitting that he was sometimes lonely. He began to wonder what Chalmers’s sister was like. An antidote, he did not doubt, outspoken if her brother was to be believed, and if she was as healthy as he maintained, she was probably big and muscular. Mannish was a word that came to mind.
Impatient with himself, he went to his chamber, where he threw off his wig, changed from his finery into a brown stuff coat, fustian breeches, wool stockings, which had once been decorated with vivid red clocks, but were now faded to a dusky pink, and a black waistcoat, so old and worn it was turning green. Jack Sylvester, his valet, declined to help him don this strange attire, and busied himself tidying away the discarded garments, and then watched as his master tied a spotted neckerchief about his neck, put on a tousled scratch wig and set a three-cornered hat on it. Then he rubbed brown make-up over his face and hands and filled his beautifully manicured nails with it. Lastly he pulled on a down-at-heel pair of shoes. ‘I am going out, Jack. I do not know when I shall be back, but you do not need to wait up for me.’
He did not hear Jack’s reply, but he could guess it, and clattered down the stairs and said the same thing to the footman, locking the front door behind him and putting the key into his pocket against his return. Then he strode out for the Nag’s Head. Harry Portman, the mincing macaroni, had become Gus Housman, an altogether more shady character, one that Sir Ashley Saunders would hardly recognise.
Chapter Two
‘Mr O’Keefe, never heard of him.’
The man standing in the tap room of the Nag’s Head, his portly middle wrapped in a greasy apron which covered his equally greasy breeches, looked at Rosamund with a mixture of contempt and admiration. Contempt because she was so obviously a lady in spite of her shabby clothes and he had no time for those who considered themselves a cut above the likes of him, and admiration for the fact that she dared to venture inside his premises at all. And unaccompanied at that. But if she thought he would risk life and limb to tell her where Mick O’Keefe could be found, then she was way out.
‘Then what about the Barnstaple Mining Company?’ Rosamund persisted. ‘I believe it sometimes does business here.’
He laughed raucously. ‘Mining, lady? Where’s the mine about here? Under the cobbles, is it? I could do with one o’ them. Mayhap I could mine myself a little gold and I wouldn’t have to stand here answering tomfool questions.’
‘Gold,’ she said, her breath catching in her throat. ‘Why did you say gold?’
‘Well, ain’t that what everyone wants?’ he countered, thinking quickly. ‘A pot o’ gold to make me rich enough to get outa here?’
‘Oh, so the Barnstaple Mining Company is not a gold-mining company.’
He shrugged. ‘How should I know? I never heard of it. Get you gone, lady, before some of my customers start getting inquisitive. Rough lot some of em.’
She looked about her. The low-ceilinged, dingy room had been empty
