Lord John and the Private Matter Read Online Free PDF Page A

did him to death, and ’tis the guilt of the knowledge causes her to spurn your coin? Show ’em your hands, Francie!”
    He reached down and seized the woman’s hands, jerking them up to display. The little finger of one hand was bandaged to a splint of wood; otherwise, her hands bore no marks save the scars of healed burns and the roughened knuckles of daily work—the hands of any housewife too poor to afford a drudge.
    “I do not suppose that Mrs. O’Connell beat her husband to death personally, no,” Grey replied, still polite. “But the question of conscience need not apply only to her own deeds, need it? It might also apply to deeds performed on her behalf—or at her behest.”
    “Not conscience.” The woman pulled her hands away from Scanlon with sudden violence, the wreck of her face quivering. Emotions shifted like sea currents beneath the blotched skin as she glanced from one man to the other.
    “I will tell ye why I spurn your gift, sirs. And that is not conscience, but pride.” The slit eyes rested on Grey, hard and bright as diamonds. “Or do you think a poor woman such as meself is not entitled to her pride?”
    “Pride in what?” Stubbs demanded. He looked pointedly again at her belly. “Adultery?”
    To Stubbs’s displeased surprise, she laughed.
    “Adultery, is it? Well, and if it is, I’m not the first to be after doing it. Tim O’Connell left me last year in the spring; took up with a doxy from the stews, he did, and took what money we had to buy her gauds. When he came here two days ago, ’twas the first time I’d seen him in near on a year. If it were not for Mr. Scanlon offerin’ me shelter and work, I should no doubt have become the whore ye think me.”
    “Better a whore to one man than to many, I suppose,” Grey said under his breath, putting a hand on Stubbs’s arm to prevent further intemperate remarks.
    “Still, madam,” he went on, raising his voice, “I do not quite see why you object to accepting a gift from your husband’s fellows to help bury him—if indeed you have no sense of guilt over his demise.”
    The woman drew herself up, crossing her arms beneath her bosom.
    “Will I take yon purse and use it to have fine words said over the stinkin’ corpse of the man? Or worse, light candles and buy Masses for a soul that’s flamin’ now in the pits of hell, if there is justice in the Lord? That I will not, sir!”
    Grey eyed her with interest—and a certain amount of admiration—then glanced at the apothecary, to see how he took this speech. Scanlon had dropped back a step; his eyes were fixed on the woman’s bruised face, a slight frown between the heavy brows.
    Grey settled the silver gorget that hung at his neck, then leaned forward and picked up the purse from the table, jingling it gently in his palm.
    “As you will, madam. Do you wish also to reject the pension to which you are entitled, as a sergeant’s widow?” Such a pension was little enough; but given the woman’s situation . . .
    She stood for a moment, undecided, then her head lifted again.
    “That, I’ll take,” she said, giving him a glittering look through one slitted eye. “I’ve earned it.”

Chapter 3
    O What a Tangled Web
We Weave
    There was nothing for it but report the matter. Finding someone to report to was more difficult; with the regiment refitting and furbishing for a new posting, there were constant comings and goings. The usual parade had been temporarily discontinued, and no one was where he ought to be. It was just past sunset of the following day when Grey eventually ran Quarry to earth, in the smoking room at the Beefsteak.
    “Were they telling the truth, d’ye think?” Quarry pursed his lips, and blew a thoughtful smoke ring. “Scanlon and the woman?”
    Grey shook his head, concentrating on getting his fresh cheroot to draw. Once it seemed well alight, he took it from his lips long enough to answer.
    “She was—mostly. He wasn’t.”
    Quarry’s brows lifted,