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‘These would need reworking.’ He touched the three heavy brooches in turn. ‘The stones are good, but the settings are quite out of fashion. These chains are heavy for the current taste, but saleable in some quarters.’ He let them run from one hand into the other. ‘The pin is a trifle ornate, but saleable.’ He lifted his loupe to his eye and studied the enamelled centre of the pin. ‘French. I would be interested in making you an offer, Mrs Tresilian.
‘None of this is jewellery for a young lady about to marry,’ he added, slanting a look at Julia. ‘I am sure it will be better converted to some other use.’
‘Marry?’ Julia said sharply. ‘What do you know of my circumstances, if you please?’
‘I have offended you.’ The accent was stronger now as he turned fully to face her, the dark eyes smiling, his sensual mouth serious. ‘No dealer would do business without making a few discreet enquiries about those he hopes to buy from. It helps judge provenance, the likely quality of a collection, that is all. No-one would have any idea that I was intending to do business with you.’
‘And the rumour is that I am about to marry?’ Julia resisted the urge to smile back into his eyes.
‘Yes, although who the lucky man is, now that is undecided by the gossips. The reverend gentleman? The widower? Or the rake?’
‘Rake?’ Mrs Tresilian said sharply. ‘Which rake?’
‘The gossip must simply be the result of Major Carlow giving Phillip a ride on his horse after the review, Mama,’ Julia said coolly. ‘People will talk so.’
‘Oh yes.’ Mrs Tresilian fanned herself, and Julia cast a suspicious look at Mr Hebden. Was he deliberately flustering Mama to take her mind off the price he was about to offer?
He met her look with one of limpid innocence. The man was a rogue. ‘Well, sir? Are you able to give us a price?’ she asked.
The amount he named was squarely in the middle of the range Julia had calculated. Less than she had hoped, more than she had feared. So, an honest rogue. ‘It is twenty guineas too little, sir.’
‘I can offer five more, ma’am.’
‘Fifteen, sir.’ She had to bite the inside of her lip so as not to smile. He really was outrageous with that wounded look.
‘Ten more, ma’am and that is the highest I can go.’
Julia glanced at her mother. ‘We accept, sir. Shall we go to the bank now?’
‘But of course.’ He put the items back into their cases and stacked them for her.
The walk to the bank was not a long one, and Mr Hebden made no attempt to carry the small valise with the jewel cases in it. Julia had been prepared to contest the point if he had offered, her suspicious nature envisioning him escaping with them once outside the house.
But the transaction passed off smoothly: the bank approved the guinea coins and transferred them to Mrs Tresilian’s account, and the three of them were outside again within half an hour.
‘Ladies. A pleasure to meet you.’ He raised his hat and was gone, vanishing into the crowd on the pavement like a fish slipping into the current of a river.
Julia raised her parasol. ‘Well, Mama. That was very satisfactory, do you not think?’
‘Perfectly, I—’
‘Miss Tresilian!’ Hal Carlow skidded to a halt in front of them from a flat-out run. ‘What the devil were you doing with that man?’
Chapter Nine
‘Major Carlow,’ Mrs Tresilian said in freezing tones. ‘What conceivable business is it of yours with whom we associate?’
‘Ma’am, I apologise.’ Hal was frowning in frustration as he craned to see where Hebden had gone. ‘But the man is known to me. He is dangerous.’ He glanced up to see they were standing beneath the bank’s engraved sign. ‘Have you done any business wi
th him?’
‘Well, really, Major—’
‘Yes,’ Julia cut across her mother’s indignant words. ‘We have just sold him some items of jewellery and have had the money he paid us checked by the bank before parting with them.’
‘Thank God for that.’ He jammed his shako back on his head. ‘Do you have an address for him?’
‘Of course,’ Mrs Carlow said, still thoroughly affronted. ‘I do not do business with someone off the street.’
