The Major and the Pickpocket

by Lucy Ashford

‘Ah, Tassie,’ he said in a chilling voice, his hands on his hips. ‘I was going to invite you to come in, but I see that you have anticipated my request. I wonder why?’ He turned to old Jacob and said, levelly, ‘Thank you for that useful information, Jacob. Would you leave us alone now, please? I have something I wish to discuss with Tassie.’

  He shut the door firmly after the old retainer. Then he turned to Tassie. They were alone. She faced him bravely, though her spirits had sunk to the darkest depths. Oh, why, why hadn’t she told him about the paintings, straight away? Yet—he couldn’t accuse her, Tassie, of stealing them, surely? And he didn’t even know that Georgie Jay and her friends had been staying close by. Did he?

  She should have known him better by now.

  He was angry, and, more than that, clearly dismayed. He said, ‘Oh, Tassie. I had hoped—nay, I believed—that you and I were starting to trust one another. But I was wrong. I must admit that I find it most difficult to know how to proceed at all in such circumstances.’

  She faced up to him with clenched hands held tightly at her sides. Bright spots of colour burned on her cheeks. She said, in a shaking voice, ‘God’s teeth, so you accuse me of stealing paintings now, do you, Marcus? Well, that is novel at least! Much good would they do me. And where would I hide them, pray? Under my bed? Inside Edward’s cage?’

  His expression did not change. ‘A good try, Tassie. But perhaps I should warn you, before you make yet more of a spectacle of yourself, that I am aware of the little rendezvous you had a while ago with your vagabond friends.’

  The colour drained abruptly from her face. ‘You—you knew that Georgie Jay and the others were here?’ she faltered, aghast.

  ‘Indeed.’ His voice was quite cold now. ‘Having been suspicious of your urgent desire, all that particular day, to leave the house on your own, I kept watch on you. I observed your—rather unorthodox—exit from your chamber and decided to follow you, in case you were getting yourself into trouble.’ His grey eyes suddenly hardened almost to black. ‘If I’d known what you really planned, Tassie, I’d have pulled you from your horse’s back before you even left the stable yard.’

  ‘I planned nothing!’ cried Tassie desperately. ‘Nothing, I tell you! Georgie Jay and the others—they were worried about me—they’d followed me, all the way from London, to see that I was all right! That was all!’

  ‘That was all? Can you really swear to me that they weren’t asking you about the Hall and its treasures?’

  Tassie’s shoulders slumped. Billy. He had made a stupid jest about stealing from the Hall…Tilting her chin up to face him, her face white with misery, she breathed, ‘All right, so the valuables at the Hall might have been mentioned—just in passing! But my friends would never steal like that, especially when I told them not to!’

  Marcus’s expression grew harder. ‘Perhaps your influence isn’t as great as you think. After all, the pictures are missing, aren’t they?’

  Marcus was, in fact, bitterly disappointed at this latest turn of events. He’d known that Tassie was a rogue when it suited her, but he’d thought that she and he had a special kind of trust. Even now, he wanted desperately to believe that she knew nothing of the theft, that she had given her rapscallion friends no secret advice on how to enter the Hall.

  Then she confounded him yet again by declaring vehemently, ‘But the pictures were already missing, Marcus! I used to wander round by myself, and I noticed it days before my friends arrived at Hockton. It’s true, I swear!’

  The disbelief was etched clearly now on every feature of his face. ‘God’s blood, girl, but you wriggle like an eel in a trap. Why, then, in heaven’s name, did you not tell me so, straight away? Can you not see that it is of less than any use to tell me this now?’

  ‘I meant to tell you,’ she faltered. ‘Truly, Marcus! Only—while you were locking up that night, and I was waiting for you in the darkness, Lemuel came creeping up to me, with a message; and I was so surprised to hear that my friends were nearby that I quite forgot about the pictures…’

  Her voice trailed away as Marcus walked over to the fireplace. He whipped round to face her, his arm resting on the mantel, his long fingers drumming impatiently on the stone shelf. ‘Oh, I see,’ he said. ‘And when your friends talked about the rich pickings to be had at the Hall, you still didn’t think to tell me about the pictures you’d noticed were missing?’

  ‘I—I saw that it was probably too late to tell you anyway. And it wasn’t them who stole from Lornings, I would swear to you on my honour!’

  ‘Honour among thieves,’ Marcus declared flatly. ‘Please spare me your romantic cliches. I hope for your sake as well as theirs, Tassie, that your friends have gone a long way away. Dear God, and there was I beginning to think that I could trust you.’

  ‘I think you’ve forgotten where we’ve started from, Marcus!’ Tassie threw back. ‘I thought you picked me off the streets because you had already decided that I was a—liar, and a cheat, and a rogue!’

  The chill wind blew threateningly against the casement, sending smatterings of sleet against the glass.

  ‘I didn’t expect you to cheat me,’ said Marcus, and Tassie stepped back as if he’d struck her.

  Just then Hal came in, looking distracted. He said, ‘I’m all ready to leave, Marcus. Perhaps you’ll arrange for my bags to be sent on after me?’

  Marcus said tersely, ‘Hold awhile, Hal. I rather think I might be coming with you.’

  Hal looked puzzled, and his eyes flickered over to Tassie, whom he’d only just noticed standing in the corner. ‘But—shouldn’t you stay with Tassie? After all, there’s so little time now until your plan is to be set in motion…’

  ‘That’s exactly it. You see, I’m not at all sure now that our plan should proceed.’

  Tassie stepped forward. ‘In truth, neither am I,’ she said, white-lipped. ‘If you don’t trust me, Marcus, then say so, and I, too, will leave this house—for good!’

  And, as Hal watched in astonishment, she marched, head held high, from the room.

  Chapter Twelve

  Marcus departed for London with Hal, later that very afternoon. From her room, Tassie watched them go riding down the wide drive between the trees with their collars turned up against the bitter north-east wind. At least Marcus had listened again, with a little more patience, to her continued insistence that her friends would not, could not have stolen the pictures; though whether he believed her or not she could not tell. ‘I’ll take up the matter with the Gloucestershire constables, and in London, too,’ he said curtly. ‘It’s likely that whoever stole them will try to pass them on at one of the city auction houses. And I’ll arrange for a couple of local men to keep watch on the Hall from now on.’

  ‘So you’re not setting up a hue and cry for my friends?’

  He hesitated. ‘I would need to have evidence first. Fortunately all the truly valuable works were locked away when Roderick moved out of the Hall; the stolen paintings were not of great worth.’

  That, at any rate, was something she should be grateful for. But there was nothing for her to be grateful about in the way he had then told her, curtly and coldly, that while he was in London he would meet his lawyers to see if there was any other way to stop Lornings going to Sebastian in September. Tassie said in a low voice, ‘I will still play my part in your scheme, Marcus.’

  He lifted his shoulders in a shrug, and his eyes were bleak. ‘No one is fool enough to gamble with a letter promising him an estate the value of Lornings. Not even Sebastian.’

  Tassie was desperate. ‘But we discussed it. I’ll let him think he can win! I can do it, Marcus, I know I can!’

  ‘For Sir Roderick, Tassie?’

  ‘For Sir Roderick, yes!’ Her words were steady, but her heart was in wretched turmoil.

  ‘I need time to reconsider it all,’ he said flatly. He was already dressed in his long riding coat, ready for the first stage of his journey on horseback with Hal. ‘But I trust you with this muc
h, Tassie: to say nothing of our bargain to Sir Roderick, to keep him company, and to continue to treat him with the true kindness—I say this in all honesty—that I’ve always seen you display towards him. Will you promise?’

  She’d gazed up at him. ‘I promise, Marcus,’ she said, her cheeks very pale. ‘Though what value you can place on my word, I cannot imagine, since you do not believe me about the paintings.’

  ‘I trust you, but not your friends.’

  ‘Then,’ she breathed, ‘you are making a bad mistake, since I would trust them with my life!’

  The two men left shortly afterwards. Marcus did not once turn to look back at the house. Tassie watched him go with a desperately aching heart. ‘Fie,’ she scolded herself softly, ‘are you mad, girl? You knew you could never have his love.’

  She thought about Georgie Jay and the others. She was tempted to leave this place for good, and besides, they needed warning, about the pictures, but soon night would be falling. And she’d given her word to Marcus that she would stay with Sir Roderick, who was fretting openly about Marcus’s abrupt departure.

  ‘What took him away so suddenly?’ he said again and again as they played piquet while the wind howled outside. ‘When will he be back?’

  Tassie tried to sound reassuring, even though her heart ached so sorely at Marcus’s name. ‘He’ll be back soon,’ she soothed. ‘Dear Sir Roderick, do not let me see your hand, pray! I shall wipe you out within minutes!’

  Sir Roderick chuckled, temporarily diverted. ‘That, my sweet girl, is inevitable anyway. I am a poor hand at cards compared to you.’ His elderly face crumpled suddenly. ‘What possessed me, to play so deeply, to lose so much at the gambling tables? Oh, what a fool I am. A half-witted old fool.’

  Tassie touched his hand quickly. ‘No, you’re not, Sir Roderick! You are too kind, too honest, that is all!’

  ‘Admittedly I am not the first, nor the last, to lose a fortune in such a stupid way,’ he said heavily. ‘But the worst of it is that my stupidity has cost my godson both Lornings and Philippa; it was always his dream to marry her, but of course her parents will not allow her to marry a man with no prospects.’

  Tassie shivered, in spite of the fire blazing in the hearth. ‘Philippa should stand up for what she wants,’ she breathed. ‘If she loves him only for his inheritance, then her love is not worth much. Is it?’

  But Sir Roderick did not hear her, for her words were drowned out by the rattling of sleet at the window panes. Tassie, pulling herself together, said in an effort at calmness, ‘These people you played with in London, Sir Roderick. If they were known swindlers, as Marcus suspects, then surely your debts to them cannot be enforced?’

  ‘That is what Marcus wondered—but how can we prove they were sharpers? Sebastian Corbridge has my signature on that letter acknowledging my terrible debts; there is no going against that.’

  Tassie’s heart went out to the elderly man in his distress. ‘Marcus will think of something,’ she said with an effort. ‘Truly he will. You must trust him.’

  Sir Roderick’s face softened. ‘Aye. Marcus will save Lornings for me if anyone can.’

  For himself, you mean, thought Tassie sadly as she shuffled the pack. His inheritance is all he’s interested in.

  ‘Such an honourable and devoted godson,’ went on Sir Roderick, his faded blue eyes alight with pride and love. ‘He will go to any trouble. Why, only a few nights ago he was telling me of a discussion he had in town with a rich London banker, Sir Thomas Fortescue. There was some possibility of a plan for Sir Thomas to buy Lornings from me, thus giving me enough money to pay off my debt to Sebastian, yet with the proviso that I should be allowed to live in Lornings until my death…’

  That was when the cards began slipping unnoticed from Tassie’s hands. She leaned forwards slowly. ‘But—that means that after your death, Lornings and everything in it would not go to Marcus, but to this Sir Thomas.’

  ‘Exactly, my dear,’ said Sir Roderick, nodding. ‘I told Marcus that on no account must he go ahead with such a scheme and lose all chance of his inheritance. But he said he doesn’t care about himself, and that anything is better than seeing me turned out of Lornings.’

  Tassie was speechless. Had she really been so wrong in her judgement of Marcus? Was it possible that he was, after all, doing this for his godfather and not for himself?

  She gathered the cards up and re-dealt them with unaccustomed slowness. It scarcely mattered now anyway. If she had misjudged his motives, then he had made an even worse error by accusing her and her friends of stealing. And it was too late, far too late, to do anything about it.

  Over the next few days, the weather grew ugly, with a steady wind driving in from the north-east, and brief snow squalls that hinted at worse to come. Every morning, the fields and hedgerows were rimed with unseasonable frost, and the water in the troughs and pails of the courtyard was black with ice. Waiting for Marcus’s return with a sense of doom in her heart, Tassie, in breeches and boots and a long coat that Will the farmer’s son had lent her, helped Jacob every morning to carry the sacks of oats out to the horses, her breath steaming in the bitter air. Will was busy with the lambing ewes, trying to bring them down to the farmstead before they gave birth. In the distance Lornings Hall looked, if anything, lovelier than ever, with its multitude of windows glittering like diamonds in the setting sun, and its crenellated towers encrusted with sparkling frost. Tassie gazed at it from her bedroom window, but felt no desire to visit Lornings now. After all, she thought bitterly, in spite of the watch he’d had set on the place, Marcus might still accuse her and her friends of stealing.

  She tried to turn her mind to her future, but for the moment she could not see the path ahead. How could she possibly have imagined that uncovering her past, and the mystery of the place called Wychwood, could be her way forward? No—those dark memories were better left buried.

  Could she be a governess, as Caro suggested, or a lady’s maid? That thought, at least, was almost enough to make her smile. Resolutely she picked up a pack of cards. ‘I will run a gaming salon instead,’ she declared, ‘and make my fortune, like the Lady Sallis Marcus is always talking about!’

  ‘Darling Marcus! Darling Marcus!’ Edward suddenly squawked, and her smile was gone. She let the cards fall, and covered her face with her hands.

  In London, the chill winds raked the streets, keeping people either indoors or wrapped warmly in furs inside their carriages. During the last few days Marcus had trodden the icy pavements with increasing despair. Sir Thomas Fortescue, the banker who had ventured an interest in purchasing Lornings, was having second thoughts about Marcus’s request that his godfather must be allowed to live freely on the estate for the rest of his lifetime.

  ‘Not sure about that, my boy,’ drawled Sir Thomas as Marcus sat with him in his club in St James’s. ‘Know I’m a youngster compared to Sir Roderick—forty-nine, you know—but my own health’s been none too good this last year. I’ve no fancy to pay over the odds for a place that I won’t have the chance to enjoy. No, no, Marcus. Sorry, but it’s just not on.’

  Marcus was staying with Hal and Caro in Portman Square. To leave London, he was informed, was impossible at the moment; the snow was moving in from the west country, and what with that and the half-frozen mud, even the mail coaches were unable to get through to the rural districts. Caro had recovered well from her illness, and Marcus suggested they attend the theatre, but that proved to be a mistake, because he found himself reminded vividly of the last time he’d seen a play, in Tassie’s vibrant company. He could not forget the look of rapt enchantment on her wide-eyed face as she gazed at the brightly lit stage, and the plot was lost to him as his thoughts were engulfed by memories.

  Damn, but he’d been bewitched by the minx, he told himself angrily. She’d grown up in the company of swindlers and thieves, and was a trickster herself—that, after all, was why he had hired her. And yet she had begun to tug at his heartstrings in a way he couldn’t igno
re. He wanted to watch over her, to protect her…

  Protect her? he chided himself. You want to bed her, that is all, and mayhap it would have been better if you had done so at the very beginning, to get rid of this damnable itch. But would that have worked? he asked himself silently. More likely he would have got even more deeply involved with the girl—impossibly deep…

  In spite of everything, he trusted her implicitly to stay with Sir Roderick, and to look after him. He hoped, how he hoped, that he had not been mistaken in that. And Philippa? Philippa, he’d learned, was out of town; but there was a note for him, delivered to Caro’s house. Dear Marcus. I will be staying with my parents in Caytham for the next four weeks, so I will be close to your godfather’s property. Please come to visit me…

  He folded it up in a harsh gesture. So she was in Gloucestershire. Why did she want him to visit? To make some rich new suitor jealous?

  Their box at the theatre received the attentions of several visitors during the interval. Amongst the more conspicuous of them was Lady Amanda Sallis, looking ravishing in a low-cut gown of apricot-and-cream striped silk.

  Marcus rose quickly to take her hand, aware of speculative eyes turning towards them. ‘Lady Sallis,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’

  Her blue eyes sparkled mischievously as she eyed Marcus’s attractive physique; but then she sighed a little and said, ‘Well. It is, on this occasion, more a matter of what I can do for you, Major Forrester. I need a word with you about Lord Sebastian Corbridge.’

  Marcus’s strong face tightened, and he drew Lady Sallis a little way from Hal and Caro, and their circle of visitors. ‘Does he still visit your salon, Lady Sallis?’

  ‘Oh, yes. None more regularly. And he is playing heavily, Marcus, getting deeper and deeper into debt.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I have heard that he is talking, rather rashly, of how much your godfather owes him, and is boasting of acquiring further credit from his moneylenders on the expectation of getting his hands on vast sums from the sale of Lornings in September.’