Free Sharpe's Regiment by Bernard Cornwell

walked into the alley.
    ‘Where’s he going?’ Isabella asked.
    ‘Christ knows.’ The big Sergeant shrugged. ‘Back to the woman he was with last night, I suppose.’
    ‘He said he was walking!’ Isabella said indignantly.
    Harper laughed. He turned to the crowd, bowed to them and, like a monstrous pied piper, led his public towards the taproom where they could buy him drink and listen to the tales, the loving, long, splendidly-told tales of an Irish soldier.
     
    Anne, the Dowager Countess Camoynes, listened for a few moments to the orchestra playing in the great marbled hall where, this evening, an Earl entertained a few close friends. The friends, numbering some four or five hundred, were vastly impressed by the Earl’s largesse. He had built, in his garden, a mock waterfall that led to a plethora of small pools in which, lit by paper lanterns, jewels gleamed. The guests could fish for the jewels with small, ivory handled nets. The Prince Regent, who had fished for half an hour, had declared the entertainment to be capital.
    Lady Camoynes, sheathed in purple silk, fanned her face with a lace fan. She smiled at acquaintances, then went to the open air to stand on the garden steps. More than most guests here she needed to fish in the fake pools for the emeralds and rubies that glinted beneath the small golden fish, but she dared not do it for fear of the hidden laughter. All society knew of her debts, and all wondered how she clung onto the perquisites of her rank like the carriage and liveried servants. It was rumoured, in the fashionable houses of the quality, that she must be exchanging her slim body for a bare income, and she could do nothing to fight the rumours for she was too poor to afford that pride and, besides, there was truth in the sniggering whispers.
    She sipped from a glass of champagne and watched the Prince Regent make his stately progress about the tables set on the lawn’s edge. He was dressed this night in a coat of silver cloth, edged with gold lace. Lady Camoynes thought with malicious delight of the people of England who, in their good sense, hated this Royal family with its mad King and fat, gaudy, wastrel Princes.
    ‘My dear Anne.’ She turned. Lord Fenner stood behind her on the steps of the house. He watched the Prince, then put a pinch of snuff on the back of his hand. ‘I have to thank you.’
    ‘For what, Simon?’
    Lord Fenner stepped down to her level. He sniffed the powdered tobacco into his hooked nose, arched his eyebrows as he fought the sneeze, then snapped the box shut. ‘For your little tete-à-tete with Major Sharpe. I trust it was as satisfying to you as it was to me.’ He smiled maliciously. Lady Camoynes said nothing. Her green eyes looked at the waterfall, ignoring Lord Fenner, who laughed. ‘I trust you didn’t bed him.’ She was amused at his jealousy. Lord Fenner had once asked Anne Camoynes to marry him, she had refused, and he had retaliated by buying her dead husband’s debts. Still she had refused to be his wife, even though his hold over her forced her to his bed. Now familiarity had bred contempt in Fenner. He no longer wanted her in marriage, just in thrall. ‘Well, Anne? Did you bed your peasant hero?’
    ‘Don’t be absurd.’
    ‘I just worry what strange pox he might have fetched from Spain. I think you owe me an answer, Anne. Is he poxed?’
    ‘I would have no way of knowing.’ She stared at the laughing people who dipped their nets into the jewelled pools.
    ‘If I find I need a physician’s services I shall charge it to your account.’ Fenner laughed and pushed the snuffbox into a pocket of his waistcoat. ‘But thank you for your note.’
    Lady Camoynes had written, in the early afternoon, that Sharpe intended to search for the Second Battalion. She sensed how important this matter was to Fenner and she suddenly wondered how she could turn that concern to her own profit. She looked at Fenner. ‘What are you going to do with Major