The Mercenary Major Read Online Free PDF Page A

London as soon as this rain lets up and we’ve had our balloon ascension.” It was no more than he expected, a scheme to keep him in London and involve him in the world of the ton . He had known that was her object from their first meeting, but he had been sure of his resistance to her efforts.
    She said nothing. She was looking at the floor.
    “Damn. How could I pay Gilling?” he asked.
    She looked up, and had there been the least hint of self-congratulation in her eyes, he would have left her house that moment, but there was only an unselfconscious practical concern. “I would pay the corporal, of course, and the tailor.”
    “For how long?” Jack asked, picturing himself dressed in borrowed finery, going about among Lady Letitia’s friends.
    “Through Christmas,” she countered.
    “And Hengrave?”
    “Well, I don’t know, but suppose we invite him to stay here as your guest while he looks for employment. It should relieve his worries about funds.”
    “I should have let you rescue the elephant,” Jack said.
    Letty’s step was particularly light as she made her way up the great stair. Until Christmas . She had months now in which to win Jack back to the Favertons and find him a bride.
     
    The bathwater had become decidedly cool, too cool to allow Jack to linger another moment. Reluctantly he put his book aside. Lady Letitia’s library was another of the seductions his aunt was plying him with, and she had taken him to Lackington’s. But the books he read only confirmed what he had learned as an officer under Wellington— young Englishwomen measured the worth of potential husbands most carefully—a fact of life Lady Letitia seemed to dismiss. He stepped from the copper tub and, shivering, reached for the towel Gilling had laid out for him.
    He buried his face in the towel, thick and faintly scented, another luxury. He wrapped it around his waist and turned toward his bedroom to see what clothes Gilling had selected for him this day. His friend had had no hesitation about spending Lady Letitia’s money on tailors, and Jack had to admit that Gilling had a knack for choosing clothes. Letitia insisted Jack would now rival the loungers in the bow window at White’s, but Jack knew that remark for Spanish coin. He refused to allow his jackets to be so tight as to restrict movement, nor would he wear shirt points high enough to slice his earlobes when he tried to turn his head.
    At the door to his dressing room he found his path blocked by the corporal, a razor in one hand, a bowl of lather in the other.
    “Beard and mustache have to go, sir,” said Gilling.
    “No.” Jack stepped back involuntarily.
    Gilling stood patiently, shaving implements in hand, clearly unwilling to be denied. There was a solidity of person about the corporal that could make him appear as immovable as a boulder.
    “Now, sir, don’t be stubborn,” he said. “Think of our agreement. How am I to make my reputation as a gentleman’s gentleman unless I turn you out in proper style?”
    “That’s blackmail, Gilling,” Jack protested.
    “Got to show your face to the ladies, sir,” insisted Gilling, “or they won’t look twice.” He put the shaving things on the dressing table and pulled a chair up to it.
    “That girl in the gardens looked twice last night.” Jack dared to grin at his sober friend.
    “A minx! I’m sure you know her sort, sir,” said Gilling. “Weighing your purse she was, Bandit, not your charms.”
    “They will all weigh my purse, my friend, and you know it. The young ladies my aunt has in mind will calculate my worth as carefully as any poor girl selling herself in the streets.”
    “Now, sir, you’re a gentleman born—”
    “Not a gentleman bred, however. I’m the Bandit. Lady Letitia must see that a fine coat hardly makes me eligible for a match of her making.”
    Gilling gave Jack a solemn look. “Tell you what, sir,” he said quietly. “You let me shave you proper, and we’ll send the