The Last Gamble

by Mary Nichols

  ‘Quietly!’ Duncan exclaimed. ‘She is incapable of doing anything quietly. She flaunts herself and her…’ He paused, realising there were ladies present, and corrected himself. ‘…chamberlain all over Europe and then expects to come back as soon as the old King dies and be acclaimed Queen.’

  ‘I can see where your sympathies lie,’ the lawyer said with a smile. ‘But then, if I am not mistaken, the uniform you wear is that of the Prince of Wales’s Own Hussars.’

  ‘It is, sir.’

  ‘How long have you been serving His Majesty?’

  ‘I joined as an ensign in 1808 when I was eighteen.’

  ‘Then you have seen some service?’

  ‘I had the honour to serve under Wellington—Wellesley as he was then—throughout the Peninsula Campaign, and again at Waterloo when I was one of His Lordship’s aides.’

  ‘I believe that battle took a heavy toll of His Lordship’s staff.’

  ‘Indeed, it did. I was fortunate to have only minor wounds which soon healed.’

  ‘You know Old Hooknose?’ Ned asked, suddenly impressed.

  ‘Yes.’ Duncan smiled down at him. ‘He eats little boys for breakfast.’

  The boy laughed. ‘You’re gammoning me.’

  ‘You did not consider resigning your commission at the end of hostilities?’ the lawyer asked.

  ‘No.’ It was a question he had been asked before and unable to explain, he gave his usual answer. ‘It seemed to me that there was still work I could do. I entered Paris with the triumphant army and when Wellington arrived there as Ambassador, I was appointed one of his aides. I have lately been in Vienna, working in a minor capacity for the Congress.’

  ‘A notable career, captain.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I have heard that nothing can touch Vienna for social gaiety,’ the painted lady put in. ‘You must find yourself mingling frequently with the haute monde.’

  ‘There are a great many balls and receptions, plays and operas, which it has been my duty to attend, ma’am, but I have no great love of pretentiousness. I am a simple man.’

  ‘You are unmarried?’ she queried, arching her brows and fluttering her lashes in a way which made Helen smile.

  ‘Yes.’ He gave no indication of having noticed the coyness.

  ‘I thought so.’ The lawyer smiled. ‘You have not yet been gentled by a woman’s touch. Too blunt by far. If you want something, you demand it. You must learn to tread more softly.’

  ‘Sir, I do not need instruction from you on how to behave. And I have not always found women gentling. In fact, the reverse. They are masters of harshness and many have a rapier wit.’

  ‘You must have been very unfortunate, Captain,’ Helen said. ‘We are not all unfeeling.’

  He was saved from answering by the sound of the guard’s horn, warning the next stage of their arrival, and two minutes later they drew up at at an inn where the horses were taken from their traces and substituted with fresh ones. A little over a minute later they were off again, with Ned giving his opinion of the new cattle. ‘Ain’t a patch on the other lot,’ he said. ‘Tame as mice. I could drive ’em m’self.’ Which comment set them all laughing as they continued along a good road through open country and then down the hill into St Albans. When they drew up at the Woolpack, Helen was relieved to find they would be allowed to leave the coach for a short while. Even though Ned was small, she had never felt so cramped in her life.

  ‘There will be an hour’s stop on account of a repair to one of the traces,’ the guard called as they descended. ‘Plenty of time for a good meal for those going on. We leave again at four o’clock.’

  Helen, trying to find her land legs, stood with her hand on the boy’s shoulder, and looked about her. St Albans seemed to be a bustling little town with several inns strung down the length of its long main street.

  ‘Where does your brother live?’ she asked him.

  ‘Off Dagnall Lane, miss.’

  ‘Do you know where it is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’ She turned to the Captain, who had just got down beside them. ‘Do you know where Dagnall Lane is, Captain?’

  ‘No, but I imagine the ostler does.’ He called the man over. ‘Can you direct this young shaver to Dagnall Lane?’

  ‘It’s that way.’ The man pointed. ‘On the other side of the market place.’

  ‘Come on,’ she said to Ned. ‘I’ll see you safely home.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ Duncan said. ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘Why not?’ she demanded, angry at his rudeness. ‘I brought him this far. I feel responsible for his safe arrival.’

  ‘You will get lost, and how do you know the brother will be there? How do you know there is a brother at all?’

  ‘Of course there is. Ned said so, didn’t he?’

  ‘Are you always so trusting?’

  ‘I have no reason not to be.’ She turned to the boy. ‘Come, Ned, we are wasting time and I must be back in time to board the coach.’

  ‘No.’ Duncan reached out and held her arm. ‘You’ll be set upon, robbed, worse…’

  ‘Fustian!’ She shrugged his hand off and turned to the ostler. ‘I shall be back within the hour. Tell the coachman to expect me.’ And with that she took Ned’s hand and led him in the direction the ostler had pointed.

  They had not taken many steps before she became aware that the Captain was walking half a step behind them. She ignored him for several minutes, thinking he was on some errand of his own, but when he turned whenever she did and crossed the road when she did, she was forced to the conclusion he was following her. ‘Captain, I do not know what you think you are doing, but I wish you would not dog my heels.’

  ‘Then I shall have to walk beside you,’ he said, taking his place beside her and matching his pace to hers.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To Dagnall Lane, where else?

  ‘I do not need an escort.’

  ‘You may not think so, but I assure you that you do.’

  ‘You will miss your dinner.’

  ‘And so will you.’

  She stopped on the edge of the market place. It was packed with people buying and selling every conceivable commodity: chickens, goats, butter, cheese, vegetables, fruit, cooking pots, garden rakes, bonnets and yards of cloth. They were all pushing and shoving and shouting. A blind fiddler and a one-legged man with a penny whistle added to the din.

  She took a deep breath and plunged into the throng, grabbing Ned’s hand all the tighter, though whether it was to make sure he followed or to give herself courage she did not know. A moment later she felt the Captain’s hand under her elbow and felt reassured, though she would not, for a moment, have admitted it.

  He led her through the crowd, ignoring the importuning of the traders and beggars, until they emerged into a quiet street on the other side. ‘Now which way?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. We had better enquire again.’

  Having asked a passer-by, they set off again and soon found themselves in a maze of narrow streets, each more dismal than the last. Helen was glad that the Captain was with her. It took several more stops for directions before they stopped at the door of a dingy little house and knocked at the door. ‘Let us hope your brother is at home, Ned,’ Duncan said. ‘I have no wish to track him down all over town if he is not.’

  The door opened and a man in his middle twenties stood facing them. He was dressed only in breeches; the top half of him was completely bare except for a mat of hair which covered his chest and disappeared into his navel. Helen gave a gasp of shock.

  ‘I’ll deal with this,’ Duncan told her. ‘Wait for me at the end of the street. And do not speak to any strangers.’ Without waiting for her to reply, he pushed Ned ahead of him into the house and the door was shut.

  Helen, shaken to the core, did as she was told, knowing that she had been very foolish to insist on coming. And to think that she had been prepared to come alo
ne! What would she have done, faced with that half-naked man, if the Captain had not been there? And she was lost; they had taken so many turns that she did not think she could find her way back to the inn alone. Her journey had hardly begun and already she had proved her inadequacy.

  She was never more thankful to see the Captain striding towards her a few minutes later and they walked in silence back to the Wheatsheaf. Here she was in for another shock, because the coach was on the point of leaving without them and the guard was at that very moment taking her trunk from the boot.

  She ran forward to remonstrate. ‘Please put it back, I am here now and ready to go.’

  ‘So are we. You don’t seem to understand, miss, that coaches have schedules. People expect them to be on time. You made us late leaving Barnet and now you think you can hold us up again. Who do you think you are? Giving orders like a nob…’ There was more in like vein until the Captain pressed a guinea into his hand and he agreed to return the trunk to the boot, even though it meant re-arranging everything, just when he had it loaded to his satisfaction.

  Helen could do nothing but thank the Captain once again, before going to board the coach. He stopped her with a hand on her arm. ‘A minute, ma’am.’

  She turned to him in surprise. ‘We have no time, we must get in or I shall be in trouble again.’

  He smiled. ‘No, a guinea will buy us another minute or two and I must speak to you privately.’

  ‘Captain, I have thanked you for your escort and your intervention, what else is there to say?’

  ‘I have something for you. If you do not let me give it to you privately, then I shall be obliged to conduct the business in the coach. I am sure you will not want that.’ When she hesitated, he added, ‘Come, we will sit over there where we can be seen by everyone. You should know by now you have nothing to fear from me.’

  Reluctantly she allowed herself to be escorted to a bench outside the window of the inn, where they sat down. ‘Captain, I do not like mysteries…’ she began.

  He smiled, carefully removed his shako and tipped it upside down in her lap. She found herself looking down at a lady’s purse, a watch and a diamond clip. Instinctively she put her hand to her throat where the brooch had been fastened, but she knew already it was not there and that the one glinting in her lap was hers. And so were the watch and the purse. Almost every penny she possessed was in that purse, which had been attached to the waist of her dress on a drawstring. She had thought it safe, hidden as it was under her mantle. ‘They are mine!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you take them?’

  ‘Now why should I do that?’

  ‘To teach me a lesson?’

  ‘I had no need to do that, Miss… Look here, what is your name?’

  After a moment’s hesitation, she said, ‘Sadler. I am Miss Sadler.’ Her father had been a well-known figure and the Captain would have heard of him and the shameful manner of his death, even if he did not know him personally, and she did not relish having her real situation made public. Daisy’s surname would do her very well.

  ‘Miss Sadler,’ he said slowly, savouring the name on his tongue but not daring to ask her Christian name. ‘I guessed the boy would try something of the sort, so before I left him with his brother, who was not exactly overjoyed to see him, I might add, I pretended to help him off with his coat. Ragged though it appeared it had a very strong inside pocket. I relieved him of these items and glad he was to hand them over and not be taken to the magistrate.’

  ‘It seems, Captain, that I am once again in your debt. I can only offer my grateful thanks.’

  He smiled. ‘You know, it was very foolish of you to keep all your money in one place and one so accessible too. I should hide it away, if I were you.’

  ‘How do you know it’s all the money I have?’ she demanded, finding herself on the defensive and taking refuge in anger, which was not at all like her and she could not understand it. ‘I have ample funds in my trunk. This is simply my travelling money.’

  ‘And speaking of travelling, I cannot understand what you are doing travelling unaccompanied in the first place. Run away, have you?’

  ‘That is not your business, Captain. Now, I think we should rejoin the coach. And please do not concern yourself about me.’ She stood up and began to walk towards the coach, her chin jutting.

  He followed. ‘Do you think I am the kind of man who can sit back and watch a silly chit get herself into a pickle and not be concerned? There are many on the road who would not be so scrupulous; they would rob you blind. Do you not know the risks?’

  ‘Risks or not, I have no alternative, Captain.’

  He was about to ask her why because her shoulders had drooped a little and her voice had softened, but the guard was calling impatiently for them to take their seats or be left behind, and he did not say it. On reflection he was glad; she might have assumed he cared what happened to her and he certainly did not want her to think that. Women were the very devil! He climbed up beside her and they were off again, rattling through the main street and out again onto the open road.

  The farmer and the painted woman had completed their journeys and now they were travelling with a nondescript-looking man of perhaps thirty who had a hacking cough, and a young mother and her baby. The baby evidently did not like the swaying of the coach and cried incessantly.

  Helen sat gazing from the window, hardly aware of anything except the presence of the Captain sitting beside her and the fact that only her skirts and his pale blue pantaloons separated their thighs. Apart from her father, she had never been that close to a man before and his proximity was having a strange effect on her. Her limbs and face burned as if she had been standing too close to a fire and it was difficult to stop her hands plucking at her cloak in a kind of desperate attempt to put distance, if only inches, between them.

  There was no room to do so, she knew, and to draw attention to the fact would only embarrass her, not him. She had had enough of embarrassment. He had saved her from her own foolishness and but for him she would now be penniless, but instead of being well disposed towards him, she found herself resenting the obligation he had put her under.

  She had had no idea, when she started out, how difficult it was going to be to maintain her privacy, to keep up the pretence of being an ordinary young lady of limited means, used to looking after herself. Everyone, strangers until that day, seemed to expect introductions and confidences, particularly the Captain. Could he have some inkling of the truth? She decided he could not possibly know who she was and she was being over-sensitive.

  Pride comes before a fall, she scolded herself, and she had no cause to be proud. Having delivered her lecture to herself, she relaxed a little, telling herself that at least, sitting next to the Captain and not opposite him, she was not obliged to meet his eye. She smiled at the young mother who sat in the opposite corner and asked the child’s name.

  Duncan heard her speak and the baby’s mother answer, but he could not have said what they were talking about. He was immersed in speculation of his own about the girl at his side. Why should she be so reluctant to divulge her name? And why did she have no choice but to travel alone? Had she left home in disgrace? Whom was she mourning? She was quiet, a little sad, but she did not act like someone in the throes of unbearable grief.

  Perhaps he had been right all along and she was meeting her lover and going on to Gretna. But where was the object of her desire? Was he going to join the coach at some distant stage? Or was he already on it? He looked round. The lawyer had resumed his reading and the unexceptional newcomer hardly fitted the description of a lovelorn suitor. But what was that description? He knew from personal experience there was no accounting for women’s tastes. Perhaps it was the man with the cough after all and their attempts at polite conversation were simply a cover.

  ‘Would you prefer the window open?’ he heard her ask the man. ‘The fresh air…’

  ‘No, don’t do that,’ the mother said. ‘The baby
will catch a chill.’

  ‘Please do not trouble yourself on my account, ma’am,’ the man said, surfacing from the depths of his handkerchief. ‘I am perfectly used to my affliction.’

  I am not, Duncan thought; the cough was almost as irritating as the child’s continuous crying. Why couldn’t the mother shut it up?

  ‘Do you think your baby will be more comfortable if you face the way we are going?’ Helen asked. ‘We could change places.’

  ‘No,’ the Captain said, a little too sharply. ‘It would be unwise to try and change places in a moving coach. You will make it unstable; we might even go off the road.’

  ‘Oh, I am sorry,’ Helen said, chalking up one more reason for disliking the Captain, not because he was wrong but because he was right; the coachman was trying to make up for lost time and was galloping the horses to the next stage. ‘Then perhaps I can nurse little Emily for a while.’ She held out her arms. ‘Come, it will give you a rest.’

  The baby was handed over and Helen settled herself against the squabs, gently rocking the child, whose sobs soon faded into hiccoughs and a minute later stopped altogether and she slept, much to everyone’s relief.

  ‘Thank you,’ the mother whispered, smiling at her slumbering child, while addressing Helen. ‘You seem to have the right touch.’

  ‘Yes, I love children.’

  ‘You have children of your own?’

  ‘Goodness, no. I am unmarried.’

  ‘Oh, I am sorry, I thought…’ She looked in confusion from Helen to the Captain. ‘How far are you travelling?’

  ‘To Scotland.’

  Duncan had noticed the mistake and was amused by it, though he knew Miss Sadler would not be. She was too top-lofty by far, considering she was probably a governess or a nursery nurse, judging by the competent way she had soothed the child. But she did not behave like a servant at all and in his view was more used to giving orders than receiving them—her manner was a mixture of imperiousness and gentle concern for others.