A smile of triumphant astringency settled on her broad face as she read it. “What have they to say?” Avedon asked. “Just as we supposed,” she answered, her bosom swelling with importance. “There was no Captain Percy killed at Ciudad Rodrigo. There was no Percy there as an officer at all. George Wesley knew them all, and there was no one there by that name. He does not even recall any noncommissioned Percy, and if the husband was only an enlisted man, you know, he was nobody.” Avedon set down his cup with a blank look on his face. “It’s impossible,” he said. “There was an unmarried chap named Percy from Dorset in the Light Dragoons. He left his sweetheart at home and spoke of her often. George was there; he would know. And anyway, he says nothing about that Percy being killed. She is a liar, as we always suspected. She heard of the Percys somehow— perhaps she is from the area, but she is not at all who she says she is. And I greatly fear, Adrian, that she has got Morton under her spell.”
What do You think about The Waltzing Widow/Smith (1991)?
