Fortune's Soldier

She was quite the most beautiful girl he had ever seen."I want to marry you, Captain Webbe Weston," she said, falling on one knee before him. "Will you accept my proposal?"He laughed, cracking forward in a guffaw. "Get up at once," he said."No, I will not. John Joseph, will you marry me?""No, Lady Horatia," answered the owner of Sutton Place, "I most certainly will not."So began one of the greatest love stories of the nineteenth that of Lady Horatia Waldegrave, daughter of the sixth Earl Waldegrave, and Captain John Joseph Webbe Weston, soldier of fortune for the Austrian Emperor and heir to the curse of Sutton Place.The last of the Westons, sad Melior Mary, has been dead for many years, but the curse laid by Queen Edith in 1048 is as strong as ever, drawing not only John Joseph and Horatia into its web, but also Major John Wardlaw - Jackdaw - the limping spy descended from the magic house of FitzHoward.