He finished the ale. The orchestra was playing a waltz. What life could he have with Jane Gibbons? Or with any woman? What would he do with himself if there was no war? He had become so hardened by it, so craving of its excitement, so sure of himself within its achievements, what would he do with twenty-four hours a day? Even with the money of the diamonds, what would he do? Plough? Grub up new land? Breed cows? Or would he, and he dimly saw the possibility though he dreaded it, stay in the army to insist that it must never change from the machine that had defeated Napoleon? He would have a servant to clean his uniform, a horse to parade on, and a fund of memories with which to bore and awe young officers. The soldiers of Britain's army, he reflected, were not there out of choice, but of necessity. It was an army of failures, bonded by victory, and, unlike their conscripted French counterparts, most had no life to go back to, no home to return to when the war was done. The army was home, the regiment was family, and Lord Fenner threatened both.

'You are a fool. The voice came from behind him, from beyond the angle of the pool's parapet. He stood and turned. She watched him. She was masked with a cheap black mask, but there was no hiding her piled red hair that was held with pearl clips. She wore, on this warm August night, a dress of lilac silk that clung to her body in a fashionable sheath. A shawl of dark lace was over her bare shoulders. He remembered, from the night when he had met her at Carlton House, that she was beautiful, and oddly the cheap black mask only enhanced that beauty. He half bowed, clumsy and unsure of himself.

'Ma'am.

'You've been looking very grim. Had you realised your own foolishness? She put her fan into her other hand and offered her elbow. 'Walk with me.

They went down one of the gravel walks that was edged with the intricate box hedges, and Sharpe saw how the men eyed her body and looked enviously at him. Two of the watchmen who guarded Vauxhall were dragging a feebly protesting drunk towards the gate and one of them, perhaps an old soldier, grinned at Sharpe and sketched a salute.

She walked slowly, her head high, her voice amused. 'They'll think I'm your whore, Major. He did not know what to say, and she laughed mockingly at him. 'Wives don't dress like this.

They don't?

'This is how you attract a husband, Major, but once he has married you he begs you not to dress like it again. With arrogant aplomb she swept a child from her path with her fan. 'Just as a man falling in love with an actress begs her to leave the stage, even though her profession was exactly what attracted him to her in the first place. You have been, she went on in the same bored voice, 'excessively foolish.

'Foolish?

'You go to the Horse Guards, even though you had been ordered back to Spain, and you behave with childish mystery. The Horse Guards, not being foolish, sent for Sir William Lawford, knowing he had been your Colonel, and you, in your innocence, tell him everything. Do you think we might sit here? They serve a smuggled champagne which is bearable, and fortunately too expensive for the rabble to afford.

They had come to a place where, beneath lamps hung in the branches of great oaks, tables of white-painted iron were set before a small restaurant. An aproned waiter took her order and obligingly moved the nearest tables away so they would not be overheard.

She had her back to the restaurant and to the people who walked past its small garden. She took off her mask, and her green eyes stared at him with apparent scorn. ‘Take your shako off, Major. You look like a groom waiting on me.

He put it on the table to which, in a moment, the waiter brought the champagne, some bread, and one of the strange jellied-meat loaves like the one Jane Gibbons had given him just the night before. Now it seemed like a month before. 'What is it?

She smiled at his ignorance. 'A galantine. Aren't you curious how I should know your business so well?

'Yes, Ma'am. He poured the champagne. He wished suddenly that he had a cigar.

She sighed, perhaps because he had not asked her directly how she knew so much, and cut into the galantine. 'You are also a lucky fool. Sir William is an ambitious man. He chose not to speak with the Horse Guards, but with Lord Fenner. Do try the galantine, Major. It might not be ration beef, she said the last two words with a sneer, 'but it won't slay you.

'Lord Fenner? Sharpe could not believe that a man he thought a friend had gone to his enemy. 'He went to Lord Fenner?

'Who will make a small bargain with Sir William. She laughed at Sharpe's expression. 'Fenner, Major Sharpe, has patronage. He can give Sir William a small pourboire. Don't you know how these things work?

'A pourboire? He stumbled over the unfamiliar word.

'A small reward, alley-cat. She sipped her champagne and her green-eyes searched his expression. 'You look like an alley-cat, a very handsome one.

Sharpe was groping for meaning in her words, for sense. He could only translate what she had said so far as desperate failure.

She nibbled at the bread. 'Sir William wants to avoid a scandal. He won't get you your Battalion. That's what you want, isn't it? He nodded, and her green eyes seemed to mock him. 'He doesn't want you hurt, but he'll protect the government first. She smiled at Sharpe. 'You do understand me, Major? Sir William wishes you no harm.

But Sharpe was still trying to make sense of Lawford going straight to Lord Fenner. 'Why did he go to him?

She smiled at the alarm in his voice. 'To feather his nest, of course. She said the vulgarism brutally. 'Lawford wants higher office and he has a most expensive wife. Or perhaps he wants a peerage? Above all he wants the scandal hidden so that he stays in office. The evidence will be destroyed, Major and no one will ever know, except for you. She pointed a knife at him. 'You're the embarrassment. They tried to kill you once, but they can't do that again. I would guess, Major, that they'll send you to a remote Canadian garrison? Or perhaps you'll be given the command of a penal settlement in Australia. I imagine you'd like Australia. She had decided not to mention that Sharpe was to be given his own Rifle Battalion. He might, she thought, accept such an offer and then she would lose a man who could help her.

Sharpe frowned. 'But Lawford promised. .

'Lawford promised nothing! She said it sharply. 'He's a politician, Major. He'd like to give you what you want, but not at his own expense.

'How do you know all this? Sharpe was astonished by her. He presumed she was like the Marquesa; a subtle, pretty woman fascinated by the ways of power.

Lady Camoynes leaned back in her uncomfortable iron chair. Behind her, in the restaurant, a string quartet played. She stared at the Rifleman, and she resented the fact that he was so handsome and so base-born. 'I just know.

'How?

She would not reply. She wanted to tell him, because she liked him, but the truth was too hurtful. The truth had given her hatred, a hatred that had brought her here.

She would have liked to tell this Rifleman about the monstrous debt her husband's death had left owing to Lord Fenner, a debt she paid in Fenner's bed, a debt of humiliation. She had listened this night at the library door, listened shamelessly, for she was a woman who knew that all knowledge is power. She would hurt Lord Fenner if she could, and if to hurt him she must keep from Sharpe the knowledge that he was to be offered promotion and a Battalion of Green Jackets, then she would do it. She would destroy Fenner, and with him the debt, so that her small son, who had inherited the Earldom of Camoynes, would not inherit the great debt too.

She would have liked to tell Sharpe all this, but her habits of secrecy were too strong and her fear of his pity too great, so instead she stared defiantly at him. 'I know it all, Major. I know about Foulness, about Sir Henry, about Girdfilth or whatever he's called. I met him once, grovelling in Fenner's house. He's going to marry Simmerson's niece, which seems very suitable. She can't be much of a catch, though I suppose she'll inherit his money. She raised her eyebrows. 'Have I said something?