The Scarlet Thief Read Online Free PDF Page A

you ever feel trapped? Stuck in a life not of your choosing but which has wrapped itself around you so tightly that you can never get out. I know I do.’
    Jack kept quiet. Molly could have been expressing his own feelings. He knew exactly what it was to feel trapped. It had taken him years to pluck up the courage to leave his mother and take the Queen’s shilling. All in an attempt to better himself, to find a life far away from the one into which he had been born.
    ‘So are you going to take me away? Like one of those knights in those stories my mam told me when I was a girl.’
    Jack laughed at the image. ‘I’m no knight in shining armour. I can’t even ride a bloody horse.’
    ‘But will you? Will you take me away? I’d follow you anywhere if it meant leaving this behind.’
    ‘If I ever get the chance, I will.’ Jack pulled Molly tight against him. ‘I promise.’
    ‘You wanted to see me, sir?’
    ‘I did indeed. Give me a moment.’
    Sloames turned back to his desk, his attention focused on a thick pile of documents. The thick, creamy parchment looked official and Jack did his best to peer past his officer’s shoulder and read the neat, copperplate writing.
    It was a fortnight since the momentous news that the battalion was to be posted had broken. Two weeks for the battalion’s mood to go from high excitement to sombre contemplation as the reality of moving to the far reaches of the empire left the redcoats wondering what their new future would be like. After so long on garrison duties, they had put down strong ties with the local community, ties that would be brutally severed when the battalion marched through the barrack gates for the last time.
    The spring sunshine spread across the desk. It warmed the dreary room, the soft yellow light meandering over the stained, peeling wallpaper that had once been deep red but now looked blotchy and discoloured. Sloames had obviously been working on these papers for some time; his fingers were stained with blue ink. With a flourish, he scratched his name on the uppermost paper and threw his steel pen to one side. The rickety chair he used at his desk creaked loudly as he twisted round to face his orderly once again
    ‘There, it is done.’ Sloames stood, brandishing the paper he had just signed, waving it imperiously under Jack’s nose. Sloames seemed well satisfied with his work; he smiled widely and brushed his wayward hair from his face, oblivious of the inky streak he left on his forehead.
    Dressed in civilian clothes and with the warm sunlight playing on the red and yellows in his brightly coloured waistcoat, Sloames looked much younger than he did when encased in the scarlet shell of an officer.
    ‘It, sir?’
    ‘It, my dear Lark, is our ticket out of here. This beautiful missive is the final document that confirms that I am to purchase a captaincy in the King’s Royal Fusiliers! Fusiliers, Lark! We are to be fusiliers!’
    ‘Us, sir?’
    ‘Of course. I told you I couldn’t do without your services. We shall face this new adventure together. I shan’t know a soul in the new regiment so it will good to have a familiar face around.’
    Jack took a moment to digest Sloames’s sudden announcement. He felt an absurd surge of pride that Sloames had made the effort to arrange to take him.
    ‘I shall have to go to London for a few days to finalise the affair with the agent handling the transaction. I’ve hired a coach and driver to collect us tomorrow morning.’
    ‘Very good, sir. I’ll start preparing your things.’
    ‘That is not all.’ Sloames brushed past his servant, the small sitting room not allowing for easy movement when two people occupied it. ‘Have you heard of the events unravelling in the East?’
    ‘A little. Something about the Russians and the Ottomans.’
    ‘You have it exactly. For too long, Tsar Nicolas has been trying to exert pressure on the Ottomans with an eye to increasing Russian influence on their southern borders. Ever