Page 7 of The Soldier's Scoundrel
“Oh, then you’ll know my cousin, Sir Lionel Derry.” It was as simple as that, rifling through the names in his mind until he found a man of the right age and experience. When Wraxhall nodded, Oliver stuck out his hand. “I’m Rivington.”
“Wraxhall.” The other man grasped the hand Oliver offered.
“Mind if I sit?” He gestured to his leg.
“Oh, bad luck. Army?”
“Yes, a musket ball in the back of the knee. You?” Oliver suddenly realized that he didn’t know whether this man had been a soldier. He was still getting used to the idea that the men he had fought alongside were to be found at tea parties and coffee houses and other places that didn’t have death and destruction as their primary goal.
“No,” the fellow said, a trace of embarrassment flickering across his face. If they had been on the battlefield, Oliver would have instantly pegged him as the sort of nervous fellow who needed constant reassurance. A decent enough chap, most likely, if a bit soft around the edges. He was a younger son, like Oliver himself, but unlike Oliver he had not been required to enter into a career. Instead, he had apparently married money. Oliver had heard people describe the army as the making of a man. As if it were a bad thing to go through life not knowing what a pile of bodies looked like, not knowing what it felt like to watch the life slip out of a fellow who had been sharing one’s brandy a few hours earlier.
He felt a surge of protectiveness toward Wraxhall. The man was innocent in a way that Oliver never again would be, and it seemed all the more galling that this was a life that Turner could upend at any moment.
Jack had taken his notes from the interview with Mrs. Wraxhall and copied them onto the little cards he used to organize his thoughts. Obviously he didn’t have nearly enough information yet, but it was never too soon to start looking for answers.
There was a knock at the door. “Come in, if that’s you, Sarah.”
She entered and looked disapprovingly down at his notes. He hastily swept them into a tidy stack to spare her the sight. He had never asked if her distaste for this process was due to the distaste she had for all aspects of his work, or if it was because seeing him pore over his cards reminded her too much of their mother. And it was hardly the sort of thing he could ask her.
“Betsy’s made soup and I have a loaf of bread if you want to come upstairs,” she offered. She issued this invitation every evening Jack was home, as if they hadn’t been taking their supper together for the past couple of years. But they spent a good deal of time walking on eggshells around each other. She had worked so hard to become respectable. Jack’s presence had to be an unwanted reminder of their unsavory beginnings.
“I’d love to,” Jack said, as he always did. He snuffed his candle and followed Sarah upstairs to her own set of rooms.
“What did you think of this afternoon’s client?” Jack asked after they had both sat down with bowls of soup and thick slices of bread. He had come to his own conclusions but wanted to hear if Sarah had reached the same ones.
“Her dress was costly,” she said without hesitation. She must have known this question was coming—Jack wasn’t fool enough to have a fashionable dressmaker as a sister without taking advantage of her knowledge whenever it could be useful. “And not versatile. Her pelisse and gown were trimmed with the same shade of Pomona green as her hat, gloves and boots. Each of those articles could only be worn as part of the ensemble, or not at all.”
“You’d say she has a fair bit of money, then?”
“Whoever pays her dressmaker’s bills certainly does. Any woman who saw the lady would know she was well off, but there was nothing too vulgar or showy about what she was wearing.”
Jack nodded. Sarah’s observations verified his own thoughts.
“But it wasn’t flattering, no matter what she spent on it,” Sarah went on, gesturing with a piece of bread. “She didn’t look well. The color was all wrong and the skirt was too narrow. A girl with that complexion has no business going anywhere near Pomona green. Emerald green, perhaps, but Pomona green? Certainly not,” she sniffed. “I’m surprised Madame Thomas—because I’m certain she’s the modiste who was responsible for that getup—didn’t steer her towards something more becoming. But some ladies will dress in whatever the fashion plates show them.” She took a sip of soup before continuing. “Sometimes I think fashion magazines are run by revolutionaries just to make the aristocracy look stupid.”
He suppressed a grin. From Sarah’s mouth this comment was not praise. She was a staunch monarchist and a firm believer in the social hierarchy. Jack, however, had no such faith in social order; the idea of La Belle Assemblée being run by a cabal of anarchists gave him fond feelings for that periodical.
“Pomona green, indeed,” Sarah went on, obviously impassioned about the topic. “But there’s no pulling certain ladies away from fashion. Her maid ought to have made an effort, though.”
“Did you see the maid?”
“No, the lady came on her own.” Another moue of disapproval from Sarah.
“She said her maid is Molly Wilkins.”
“No!” Sarah dropped her bread and reared back in astonishment.
“Calling herself Mary now.”
“Well, that explains the Pomona green, I suppose. The lady is lucky to have clean clothes at all if Molly Wilkins is attending her. Lord. I’d think a lady with that kind of money would pay for a proper lady’s maid, not a jumped-up urchin like Molly Wilkins.”
“Perhaps she doesn’t know any better. Or doesn’t have anyone to tell her who she ought to be employing.”
Sarah looked at him sharply. “Spit it out, then.”
“Just wondering where she got her money from. Wasn’t born to it, if she’s hiring the likes of Molly Wilkins.”
“I don’t know,” Sarah said slowly. “She could be a merchant’s daughter.”
