But Sharpe was still trying to make sense of Lawford going straight to Lord Fenner. 'Why did he go to him?
She smiled at the alarm in his voice. 'To feather his nest, of course. She said the vulgarism brutally. 'Lawford wants higher office and he has a most expensive wife. Or perhaps he wants a peerage? Above all he wants the scandal hidden so that he stays in office. The evidence will be destroyed, Major and no one will ever know, except for you. She pointed a knife at him. 'You're the embarrassment. They tried to kill you once, but they can't do that again. I would guess, Major, that they'll send you to a remote Canadian garrison? Or perhaps you'll be given the command of a penal settlement in Australia. I imagine you'd like Australia. She had decided not to mention that Sharpe was to be given his own Rifle Battalion. He might, she thought, accept such an offer and then she would lose a man who could help her.
Sharpe frowned. 'But Lawford promised. .
'Lawford promised nothing! She said it sharply. 'He's a politician, Major. He'd like to give you what you want, but not at his own expense.
'How do you know all this? Sharpe was astonished by her. He presumed she was like the Marquesa; a subtle, pretty woman fascinated by the ways of power.
Lady Camoynes leaned back in her uncomfortable iron chair. Behind her, in the restaurant, a string quartet played. She stared at the Rifleman, and she resented the fact that he was so handsome and so base-born. 'I just know.
'How?
She would not reply. She wanted to tell him, because she liked him, but the truth was too hurtful. The truth had given her hatred, a hatred that had brought her here.
She would have liked to tell this Rifleman about the monstrous debt her husband's death had left owing to Lord Fenner, a debt she paid in Fenner's bed, a debt of humiliation. She had listened this night at the library door, listened shamelessly, for she was a woman who knew that all knowledge is power. She would hurt Lord Fenner if she could, and if to hurt him she must keep from Sharpe the knowledge that he was to be offered promotion and a Battalion of Green Jackets, then she would do it. She would destroy Fenner, and with him the debt, so that her small son, who had inherited the Earldom of Camoynes, would not inherit the great debt too.
She would have liked to tell Sharpe all this, but her habits of secrecy were too strong and her fear of his pity too great, so instead she stared defiantly at him. 'I know it all, Major. I know about Foulness, about Sir Henry, about Girdfilth or whatever he's called. I met him once, grovelling in Fenner's house. He's going to marry Simmerson's niece, which seems very suitable. She can't be much of a catch, though I suppose she'll inherit his money. She raised her eyebrows. 'Have I said something?
'No, Ma'am. Sharpe had blushed at the mention of Jane. He stared at the table top. 'No.
She still looked curiously at him, then shrugged. 'Let us just say, Major, that I am here because I wish to destroy Lord Fenner. I want him clawed into little fragments and you, alley cat, can do it for me.
'How? He was thinking of Jane Gibbons and her soft, lively beauty bedded with Girdwood.
She gestured at the champagne and he poured more into her glass. He had hardly touched his own. She smiled. 'You want your men?
'Yes.
'Nothing else?
'I want the auctions stopped. I want Girdwood punished.
'Then I'll do it for you. With pleasure. But you have to bring me one thing, Major, and soon. He looked at her, saying nothing, and her green eyes stared into his. 'There must be proof, Major. Accounts, letters, anything on paper. Bring them to me.
He was about to say that he did not know where to find them, but the words sounded feeble in his head so he checked them. Lawford had also wanted proof, yet now Lord Fenner was alerted and doubtless would be taking precautions against the discovery of any such proof.
She leaned closer to him. To the people who walked past the small embowered restaurant garden it seemed as if they were a pair of handsome lovers; an officer and his lady. 'I will promise you, Major, that I will give you what you want.
'I don't even know who you are.
'I'm called Lady Camoynes. The Dowager Countess Camoynes. She seemed to offer the name as a token of her trustworthiness. 'Bring me that proof, and you can ask for anything you want of the Horse Guards. They'll give you an army to keep you quiet. You want a Rifle Battalion of your own? They'll give it to you.
He smiled at the thought. 'Where do I find you?
'You don't. Take the proof to the Rose. I'll send a servant every day to see if you have it.
He would have to go back to Foulness, and swiftly. If proof existed, it was there. He shrugged. 'You know about it, I do, isn't our word enough?
She closed her eyes as if in exasperation. 'I am a woman, and you're no one, alley-cat, no one. She opened her eyes. 'They are politicians and men of standing. She said it mockingly. 'Whom will they believe?
'Won't they already have destroyed the proof?
'Not yet. Lord Fenner will do nothing until he's met Sir William again. You have one day, when they think you're doing nothing. After tomorrow night? She shrugged. 'They'll destroy the proof, Major, and in three days time there'll be no men at Foulness. They'll march them away, they'll scatter them in a hundred depots and garrisons! It will never have happened, and if you claim that it did they'll call you a fool and strip your commission away.
She leaned back and sipped her champagne. Sharpe said nothing. He had thought it would all be so simple, that he would reveal what he had discovered and that an outraged army would thank him, give him what he wanted, and then, before going back in triumph to Spain, he would visit the big brick house on the marshes and demand to see Jane Gibbons. Instead, everything he had discovered would be hidden and denied, and he would be treated as an embarrassment and a fool.
She finished her champagne, stood up and the waiter scuttled through the tables as she laced the mask back onto her face. Sharpe paid the man and followed Lady Camoynes back into the Gardens.
She walked towards the central pavilion, stalking, imperious and beautiful, in the centre of one of the walkways. 'You will have to do what is necessary swiftly, Major.
'Indeed, my Lady.
'You'll leave tonight?
'In the morning. He was planning already, knowing that he must remove more than just paperwork from Foulness.
'Good. She steered him by the arm towards a dark gap in the box hedges. 'These are not pleasure gardens for nothing, alley-cat, and tonight, for reasons that are none of your business, I need a real man. Find us somewhere private.
He smiled, and led her into the tangle of box where, long ago, he had learned his earliest lessons of fieldcraft. Tonight he would lie with her beneath the leaves, and in the morning, as a full Major of His Britannic Majesty's army, he would return to Foulness. He had thought, by escaping over the marshes, that his task had been completed, but this woman, who clawed at him and loved him as though this was her last night on earth, had told him that the fight had just begun.
CHAPTER 14
'Property of a widow, sir. The owner of the livery stables wiped his palms on his leather apron, spat tobacco juice at a cat that sunned itself on his cobbles, then ran a hand along the springs of the carriage. 'I grant you it ain't clean, Major, but in very nice trim! New axles! New splinter-bar I put on myself. Take you anywhere! He slapped one of the iron-rimmed wheels. 'Tell you the truth, Major, I was thinking of using it for myself.
'I need it for a week.
'Horses too?
'And groom and driver.
The owner, a portly, bald man with knowing eyes, looked again at Sharpe's new uniform, as if gauging what it cost, then shook his head as though what he was about to say pained him greatly. 'Of course I can give you a special price, Major, always like to help the military, I do, but it ain't cheap! I mean hiring a four-horse carriage, Major? It ain't a sedan chair!