Free The Murder of Mary Russell by Laurie R. King Page A

purchase that lovely ring of yours. But you were right, it’s worth a great deal more than the ten guineas he was offering.”
    The young man peered down at the fellow, taking in the magnifying lens he carried. “Er, you’re a jeweller?”
    “That I am, young man. Though unfortunately, a jeweller without much cash just at the moment. The races, you know?” He gave a rueful chuckle. “Otherwise I’d have offered this young lady eighty guineas for that shiny bauble she’s got, and made a good bargain out of it. Well, I’ve missed my chance. I wish you luck, my dear.”
    He tipped his hat first to Clarissa, then to the couple, and walked on.
    The young man watched him go. When he turned back, his face wore a very different expression. Speculative, perhaps. One might even say it held a touch of greed.
    “Young lady,” he purred. “I hate to see you in distress. Perhaps I might help you out, and take that ring off your hands. Now, how much is it your mother needs for her operation?”
    Clarissa blinked up at him. The young man’s lack of reaction when “the jeweller” said
ten guineas
told her there was more than that in his note-case. How much more? “The doctor said it would be thirty-five pounds altogether,” she lamented. The eyes made a fractional retreat. “—but he said that if I could pay him twenty-five now, I could work the rest off over the coming year.”
    That speculation returned to his gaze.
    The girl rose, laying one hand on her beau’s manly arm. “Oh, Freddie, we could help this poor girl, and save a life! And…” Her voice drifted away in a blush, indicating that Freddie had not actually spoken for her hand yet. Strictly speaking, a ring was premature. However, was this not a minor point when balanced against seventy years of deep and abiding love?
    The girl’s blush deepened when Freddie reached into his breast pocket. Clarissa and her father were long gone by the time Monday morning came along, and a real jeweller told Freddie that the paste diamond in his hand was worth, at most, five shillings.

A s their success grew, as Clarissa matured, the Cheats became more sure, more complex, the partnership more seamless, their clothing more clearly of the upper classes—hers, at least. Her father never did look entirely comfortable in expensive clothing, even when his hands grew softer and he’d had his teeth attended to. Still, compared to visitors from Britain and Europe, rich Australians often had the hands of labourers, and Hudson had been in the country long enough to sound native. As their Cheats pushed up into Society, her accents and attitudes grew more assured, the amount of money each one brought in grew.
    They also spent much of every year travelling, despite James Hudson’s loathing of sea journeys. The very first year of their operations, 1867, they spent two weeks in Melbourne, nearly twice the size of Sydney, and found the change of scenery both a relief and a financial triumph. Alicia went along on some of these expeditions, but without making the younger Hudson girl a part of their Act—a thing neither of them even considered—it was not a success. Matters came to a head on Clarissa’s twelfth birthday. In May of 1868, her father pronounced it time they bought a house, a real house with a kitchen and a garden. They could have a dog, even. Wouldn’t Clarrie like that? Allie surely would.
    Twelve-year-old Clarissa Hudson stared at her father, and put her foot down—something she never did, since overt protest threatened to bring his hand.
    “Allie’s almost nine,” she said. “And you and I are always gone. She’s been ducking school, Papa. She’s up till all hours, and—”
    “She’s not going back up The Rocks to play with those prozzie brats, is she?”
    “No!” Her father’s horror of prostitution, enforced with profanity and violence, would have made her deny it even if Allie had moved in with one of their former neighbours. “Nothing like that, Papa.