Rose’s parents recovered from their initial fury to bask in the reflected glory of their daughter’s bravery. Invitations poured into the earl’s town house, every society hostess wanting to brag that she had managed to get the latest celebrity to attend her ball or dinner.
Rose became tired of relating the edited version she had told Kerridge over and over again.
Tristram seemed to be always at her side, saying loudly that he should have been there to protect her.
Rose came to the conclusion that nothing could make her want to marry such a boring man as Tristram. She decided she had better get rid of him. Everyone seemed to assume that an engagement was in the offing.
He was driving her in the park one day a few weeks later. Rose was in low spirits. Harry had not called or sent any message.
“I am thinking of joining the suffragette movement,” she said, unfurling her lace parasol to shield her face from the rays of the sun.
“Eh, what? You’re joking, of course.”
“Not in the slightest. If I marry, I would expect my husband to attend rallies with me.”
Tristram was so shocked and alarmed that he blurted out, “Any husband worth his salt would give you a good beating first.”
“Take me home now,” ordered Rose.
¦
The former Miss Jubbles, now the new Mrs Jones, left church that day on the arm of the baker. She had experienced savage pangs of jealousy when she read about the exploits of what she considered her ‘old rival’ in the newspapers. But now she felt simply proud to be a married lady.
She had inherited a comfortable sum of money on her mother’s death, and as Mr Jones drove her off in their new motor car under the admiring gaze of the neighbours, she felt she would burst with pride.
Her replacement, Ailsa Bridge, filed Harry’s cases, typed his letters and occasionally fortified herself with gin. She no longer kept a bottle in her desk drawer but had a flask of gin firmly anchored by one garter under her skirts.
¦
Harry was plucking up courage to try to call on Rose. It was only his duty, he told himself. He at last presented himself at the earl’s mansion to be told that Lady Rose was not at home. This he translated that she was not being allowed to see him.
¦
Rose was, in fact, upstairs in the drawing-room being confronted by her parents. “It’s no use your protesting, my girl,” the earl was saying. “It’s India for you. And don’t threaten me with that business of me stopping the king visiting. It would harm you as much as me, and that precious Captain Cathcart would go to prison. The season’s nearly at an end. You’ve led us all to think that you might accept Baker-Willis after all and then you tell us some story that he had threatened to beat you, which I don’t believe. Should have beaten you myself.
“I will arrange for you to sail at the end of the summer. You may take Levine with you, but you’ll be staying with the Hulberts, remember them?”
“I do. Mrs Hulbert is a cross, overbearing woman.”
“Enough of that. Need someone to keep an eye on you. Get yourself a nice officer. No adventurers, mind.”
¦
Inspector Judd said to his superior, “You never quite believed Lady Rose’s story, did you, sir?”
“No, I did not. Oh, yes, the Stockton woman did commit the murders, but I think either Lady Rose or Cathcart found the blackmailing stuff. I think they’re protecting Lord Alfred.”
“Why?”
“Because that young man had an affair with another man, I’m sure of that. I just
“But that should have been reported!”
“I let it go because we got our murderer and we’ve enough on our plate without hounding Lord Alfred. But I do think that somehow Lady Rose or Captain Cathcart decided to take the law into their own hands. I don’t like it. Let’s just hope Lady Rose settles down and gets married. I’m sure she’s the one who causes all the trouble. Women always do.”
The superintendent did not see the paradox in that in his dreams of the revolution, there were always beautiful women on the barricades beside him, armed to the teeth and waving the red flag.
¦
“What am I to do?” wailed Rose later that day. “I don’t want to go to India and sit in the heat while the memsahibs gossip about me.”
Daisy bit her thumb and looked at her sideways. “If I were you, I’d go to the captain for help.”
“What can he do?”
“I don’t know,” fretted Daisy. “But it’s his job to fix things for people.”
“How are we to get there? You know I am guarded.”
“Same as last time,” said Daisy cheerfully. “You’re in such disgrace that another disgrace won’t matter. Your parents are very wealthy. And yet they go on the whole time about the money they’ve wasted on you.”
“That is their way. They all go on like that. It’s a way of blackmailing their daughters into getting married during their first season. Most of the poor girls take anyone who offers.”
“Let’s just go,” said Daisy eagerly.
“I would rather slip out of the house when they do not know I have gone. Have we any engagement for this evening?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then after dinner, I will say they have upset me and I wish to go to my room and read. Then we will go out and get a hansom to take us to Water Street. What would I do without you, Daisy?”
¦
“I did call, you know,” said Harry when they were all settled in his front parlour. “I was told you were not at home. Are you feeling better, Lady Rose? Got over the shock?”
“I get a few nightmares,” said Rose.
Harry had the unkind thought that Lady Rose seemed to be quite up to saving herself. He felt he should have been the one to get the gun away from Angela Stockton.
“Miss Levine suggested I should come to you for advice, that being your job,” said Rose.
“Have you lost something? Servants been stealing from you?”
Daisy bristled. “Not with me around.”
“It’s just that my parents are now determined to ship me off to India. They have suggested that before and I always threatened to tell people about Father hiring you to deter the king from visiting.
“Well, that won’t work any more because they point out that if I did, you would be arrested. So I have come to ask you to think of something else.”
Harry sat silently for a long moment. Then he said, “The trouble is that I do not think they will ever give up until you are married.”
“I’ve got it!” Daisy clapped her hands, her eyes shining. “Why don’t you marry my lady, Captain Cathcart?”
“Don’t be cheeky, Daisy,” admonished Rose.
“Perhaps there is a way out,” said Harry slowly. “If I proposed marriage to you and suggested a long engagement, that would give you time. Then, after a year, you can break off the engagement, but during that year, as I shall be busy with my work, you will find time to find someone suitable.”
“My parents would never let me accept,” said Rose, a high colour on her cheeks. Did the captain need to look at her in that measuring way, as if she were nothing more than a business proposition?
“I think they would. I am of good family. I can afford to pay the no doubt horrendous marriage settlements that their lawyers will insist upon. I can be very persuasive. They will be anxious to see you settled.”
“You would need to look…affectionate,” said Rose.
“Oh, I can manage that.”
“Go on, Rose,” urged Daisy. “It’s him or India. Think of the heat, the flies, the boozy officers, the bitchy
