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 memsahibs, and what about the Hulberts?’
‘Who are the Hulberts?’ asked Harry.
‘Some terrible dragon of a woman who is an old friend of Mama’s,’ said Rose. ‘What if I take a fancy to some gentleman shortly after this supposed engagement?’
‘Then you terminate the engagement early,’ said Harry cheerfully. ‘Your parents won’t mind so long as you have someone, anyone, to marry.’
Rose was beginning to find all this humiliating. Harry could at least have shown a little warmth instead of looking at her as if she were nothing more than another case.
‘I’m sure I can think of something else,’ she said stiffly. ‘Goodbye, Captain Cathcart.’
‘No, stay,’ he said quickly. ‘I have hurt your feelings by being so detached about it all.’ He suddenly smiled at her, that smile of his which softened the harsh lines of his handsome face. ‘And it would serve your purpose, would it not?’
‘May I say something, sir?’ interposed Becket, who was standing behind Harry’s chair.
‘By all means, Becket. Pray be seated.’
Becket sat down next to Daisy. ‘Lady Rose,’ he said, ‘I gather you have led a particularly restricted life of late. Were you engaged to my master, you would have more freedom. Captain Cathcart works hard, but I am sure he would be prepared to attend social events with you. You would not be the target any more of men you did not like, nor would you be so closely guarded by your parents. I think it is a very good idea.’
‘Oh, very well,’ said Rose ungraciously. ‘When do you plan to approach my parents?’
‘Late tomorrow morning.’
‘I do not think for a moment you will have any success,’ said Rose, ‘but thank you for trying. Daisy, are you ready?’
‘Well, I think it downright noble of him,’ said Daisy on the road back. ‘You would be able to help him with his detecting like you once wanted to.’
‘I have had enough of horrors and frights to last me a lifetime,’ snapped Rose, huffily thinking that Captain Cathcart might have said something like how honoured he was, or that he would do anything in the world to help her.
To Rose’s relief, after stopping the hansom on the far corner of the square and walking the rest of the way on foot, they were able to slip in unnoticed.
She finally fell asleep that night torn between worrying thoughts that her parents might not accept the captain’s proposal and being uneasily afraid that they might.
The following morning, the earl looked up from his newspaper as Brum, the butler, entered the morning-room and said Captain Cathcart had called.
‘What does that man want now?’ demanded the countess. ‘You didn’t send for him, did you?’
‘No, but I’d better see him. Useful chap. Put him in the study, Brum.’
‘Very good, my lord.’
The earl entered his study and blinked at the vision that was Captain Harry Cathcart. The captain was wearing an impeccably tailored morning suit. His thick black hair with only a trace of grey at the temples was brushed and pomaded until it shone.
‘Ah, Cathcart,’ said the earl. ‘What’s amiss?’
‘I am glad to say that nothing is amiss,’ said Harry pleasantly. ‘I have come to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.’
