Chapter Thirteen
Letty followed Reid across the cobblestones. The beggar looked up as they approached. He was a thin man, with leathery skin and a shaggy salt-and-pepper beard. “Spare a penny for an old soldier?”
Reid gave him a handful of coins.
“Lor’ bless me!” the man said, almost falling off the bench. “Thank ’ee, sir.”
“What regiment were you in?”
The man squinted up at him. “Twelfth Foot, sir.”
“Twelfth Foot? You’re a long way from home. East Anglia, isn’t it?”
“Come down ’ere to be with me sister.”
“She lives in Hampshire?”
“Used to. Dead a few years back.”
“Were you at Mallavelly?”
“That I were.”
Reid looked at Letty, a question in his eyes. She nodded; the beggar was telling the truth.
Reid glanced at the beggar, and at the bench, and then back at her. She read that q
