The Mercenary Major Read Free

back of the chair. As he swung the cape about his shoulders, his inner voice spoke again. Casually he reached down to retrieve his shako, concentrating on the sensation. He was not being watched. Under cover of the shako’s brim as he adjusted the headgear, he scanned the faces of the crowd just as he would study hostile ground. The only men left in the tavern were gathered around Hengrave, and one of them was not what he appeared to be. Hengrave was being watched.
    Jack hesitated, feeling caught between his ties to two friends. Bertram took a couple of wobbly steps toward the door.
    “Go,” said Gilling. “Stay with your aunt.”
     
    The spy had positioned himself well. He could see the door, and yet he was close enough to the singing sergeant to pass the man a cup of ale when his throat grew dry. At the exact moment the major left the Swan, the spy turned a friendly smile on the singer and raised a tankard to his outstretched hand. The sergeant would tell him everything he needed to know. He would be very clever. He would use all his arts, and he would trap the proud major as he had already trapped George Bertram. And he would see them hang.
     

**** 2 ****
    J ack had to admire the energy of the butler who led him up the grand curving staircase. The man set a pace worthy of a seasoned rifleman on a mountain trail. In a minute they reached the threshold of a pretty high-ceilinged room as fresh and delicate as the room at the Swan had been stale and coarse.
    “Major Jack Amberly,” the butler announced in ringing tones.
    The butler’s eagerness to present him allowed Jack only a quick, general impression of wealth— columns, for God’s sake —before his eyes met the light-blue ones of his hostess, startlingly familiar though he had never seen them before.
    Run, Jack , urged the voice in his head, and he hesitated as he had not earlier at the door of the Swan. Nonsense , his reason replied, firmly dismissing the voice of instinct he had so long lived by. What danger could there be in his aunt’s drawing room? He crossed the threshold.
    Letitia Faverton observed her nephew’s approach and checked the impulse to run to him and, with more difficulty, the desire to envelop him in a great hug. She had not waited so long, nor prepared so carefully, only to drive him away by appearing over-glad at their first meeting. Now that she had at last lured Jack to London, she must remain patient. How fine he was. His clear, light eyes and dark good looks reminded her of both Helen and Tom. But how much a man he was and not the boy she had pictured. Her guest’s silent scrutiny of her own person recalled her to her duties as hostess.
    “Oh, dear,” she said, “you are not quite what I expected.” She rose and offered both of her hands in greeting. “You will think me quite without sense, Jack, but you see,” she confided, “I half-expected a boy of twelve.”
    Jack took the hands she offered him, unsure what gesture would be considered appropriate to greet this relative who had claimed him but with whom he was so little acquainted. He had made it a rule to avoid women of her class ever since laughing, black- eyed Felicidad had introduced him to women of a different sort.
    “Of course,” his aunt continued, “I did expect the uniform, but not the beard and mustache.”
    Jack found himself grinning at her. “Well, Lady Letitia,” he began. She opened her mouth as if she meant to say something but seemed to bite back her intended remark. “If I am not what you expected,” Jack continued, “then neither are you what I looked for. I thought that an aunt must be old and gray and . . .” He paused. How frank could one be with a real lady? he wondered. “Ample,” he concluded, daring to reveal all his thoughts. The merry laughter that answered this admission warmed him.
    “Do sit down, Jack,” his aunt invited, withdrawing her hands from his. Jack eyed an elegant chocolate silk sofa. He was sure Lady Letitia’s