“Ah, Conte, ” she said as she achieved the head of the stairs, “they are all waiting for you. How distinguished you look, in the Order of the Regent!”
The man to whom she spoke was tall and blackhaired, with the olive skin of Iberia; a thin, whipcord figure exquisitely dressed, with a sword swinging at his side. A broad scarlet riband crossed his breast, and from it hung what appeared to be a gold and enamel medal: the Order of the Regent, she had called it, by which she signified the vanished Regent of Portugal now resident in Brazil.
Hand on his sword-hilt, he clicked his heels together and bowed deeply. “You are the brightest flower in the English garden,” he said with considerable effort.
“Your command of our tongue certainly increases.” Sophia’s tone was playful. “Miss Austen, may I have the honour of presenting the Conte da SilvaMoreira to your acquaintance?”
Silva-Moreira. Silva. A common enough handle, by all accounts, in that part of the world, Frank had said. Sophia had spoken in English, rather than her accustomed Portuguese — and again I heard my brother: He may have been an Iberian — but I’ll swear the fellow spoke nothing but French!
“The Conte is a very old friend of myself and Mrs. Fitzherbert, with whom he has been staying in Brighton since his removal from Oporto. Conte, Miss Austen.”
I made my courtesy, and the black-haired Count clicked his heels again. He bent over my hand, his lips grazing my glove, and his eyes swept my figure indolently. Then his gaze returned, arrested, to the pulse at my throat.
Under the weight of his look, I felt the crucifix burning there, as though each throb of my heart burnished it the brighter. My hand nearly strayed to cover it, but the Count’s dark eyes flicked up to mine — and the spell was broken.
“Miss Austen?” he said. “There is an English sea captain by that name.”
“There are two, Conte — both my brothers. Have you happened to meet with one of them?” On the St. Alban’s, perhaps, off Vimeiro?
“I have not had that pleasure. I merely heard of Captain Austen from. . friends.” His eyes strayed once more to my throat. “That is a most beautiful crucifix you wear, madam. May I examine it?”
He employed the tone of a man who is never refused anything; his fingers were already reaching towards my neck.
A great, tall man wrapped up in a black cloak, Flora had said, nose as sharp as a blade, and eyes that glittered dark like a serpent’s. Was it he? The man Sophia Challoner called mon seigneur? The man I had blundered against in the dark of the subterranean passage, only yesterday? The man who had stolen Mr. Hawkins’s boat?
He had been staying at Netley Lodge, after all, since Monday.
“How did you come by this?” he demanded sharply.
“It was pressed upon me by a friend.”
“Curious! On the obverse, it bears the family seal of my house!”
“Indeed? I cannot imagine how that could be so.”
“Can you not?”
“If you will excuse us, Conte,” said Sophia firmly, “we shall not be a moment.”
She clasped my hand and led me towards her dressing room. I felt the Count’s eyes follow me the length of the corridor, and shuddered.
“He is an imposing figure of a man, Sophia — too imposing, perhaps.”
“He ought to be. He was reared to rule estates as vast as a kingdom, and may command a quarter part of the wealth of Portugal, my dear. For all his power and fortune, Ernesto knows but little of the world, however; only the gravest necessity would drive him from his native land — and into the arms of the English Crown. But such is the goad of war.”
“—Into the arms of the Crown?” I repeated, perplexed.
“Indeed. The Conte has sought the aid of Maria Fitzherbert not merely from the ancient friendship between her family and his — but because of her influence with the Prince, and by extension, the Whig Party! Without the support of some part of the Government — without assurances that English troops will not desert the Peninsula, and consign its peoples to the French — the Conte’s future will be bleak, indeed. He remains here in Southampton only a day — long enough to engage a ship for his eventual return to Oporto. Tomorrow he posts to London, to meet with the Prince at Carlton House.”
She offered the recital as though it were of no great moment; from her air she had not an idea of the speech’s effect upon myself. That Sophia Challoner should disparage the French — that she should welcome to her household a man determined to win the English to the cause of war in the Peninsula — was so at variance with my ideas of the lady, that I was entirely confounded.
“That is why I extended an invitation to this soiree to Lord Harold Trowbridge — that insolent rake we encountered in Mrs. Lacey’s pastry shop on Saturday,” she continued easily. “He had the presumption to call here the following day, and could not be got rid of for full two hours! I detest the man — but I know him to wield great influence in Whitehall, and I thought it necessary for the Conte to make his acquaintance. Maria might do much with the Prince; but Lord Harold is vital to the persuasion of the Whig Great.”
“Is he?” I said wonderingly. “I did not know that one could be a. . what did you call him? a rake- hell ?... and yet command the respect of members of the Government.”
Sophia threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, my poor, dear Jane!” she cried. “Have your brothers never taught you the way of the world?”
The droll look of a cynic sat well on her beautiful countenance — but I could not credit the change. She had shown a depth of passion — a hatred in respect of Lord Harold — that could hardly be so easily done away with, merely for the sake of policy. I suspected duplicity, on one hand or the other; but looked diffident, as though her words had shamed me.
“I will not teaze you any longer.” She smoothed an errant wisp of hair, her eyes on her own reflection.
“Lord Harold may go to the Devil — provided he serve my interests first. But that is not why I carried you away with me, Jane. Pray attend to this.”
Now she would bring forth a selection from her wardrobe — or offer a ravishing jewel for my delectation, I thought. But instead, she opened the drawer of her dressing table, and drew forth a letter, its seal already broken.
“What do you make of that?”
I opened the page slowly, afraid of I knew not what — that it was penned in Lord Harold’s hand?
That it contained a declaration of ardent love? But I could not recognise the fist. The note was dated Monday — the thirty-first of October.
Mrs. Challoner:
If you wish to hear something to your advantage, be at the Abbey ruins at dusk on Thursday. I know your secret; ignore this at your peril.
There was no signature.
“How very odd,” I said softly.
“That is a note that smacks of blackmail, Jane. It appeared on my doorstep Monday morning.”
“But what does it mean?” I enquired with a puzzled frown. “And from whence did it come?”
“If I were forced to offer a guess — I should say that my late serving-maid, Flora, had penned it; though I confess I cannot speak to her hand.”
The writing was fluid and without hesitation, though from the appearance of several blots, it appeared to have been written on an unstable surface — the back of a jolting cart, perhaps? Flora had certainly suggested, in our conversation amidst the ruins, that she might pursue such a course; but I would not disclose so much to Sophia Challoner. She did not need to know that I had met with the girl on Sunday, while overlooking the Lodge.
“But why should your maid attempt extortion? What can this girl profess to know of your affairs?”
She shrugged. “Nothing I should not publish to all the world. She is gravely mistaken if she believes me likely to pay for her silence. I must assume she suffers a grievance, for having been turned off without a character — but in truth, Jane, she was a wretched servant.”
“I am sure of it — your opinion could not err in such m
atters,” I returned with complaisance. “But how shall you answer such a letter, Sophia?”
“I shall meet the scheming wench tomorrow at dusk. Should you like to bear me company?”
“Take Mr. Ord,” I advised. “You do not know, after all, whom you may encounter — and a gentleman of parts should be of infinite use, in so lonely a place, and at such an hour.”
A clatter in the hallway below — and my companion turned hastily from her mirror. “That will be Lord Harold, or I miss my mark. Come, Jane — let me make you better acquainted with the most despicable man in the Kingdom!”
Chapter 21
A Deadly Challenge
2 November 1808, cont.
They played at faro on Mrs. Challoner’s enamelled table, with the faces of the thirteen cards painted on its surface: Sophia as dealer, Lord Harold the bettor. As she drew each card from her box, he wagered a sum as to its face; and as she displayed it, he must react with neither pleasure nor pain — but rather as a man in acceptance of his Fate. The game was well-suited to their varying tempers — Lord Harold should keep a mental register of every card that fell, and might, with time, wager successfully as to the nature of those that remained — while Mrs. Challoner stood in the guise of Fortune’s handmaiden: powerless to affect the hand she dealt, but determinant of success or failure all the same. He had appeared this evening at Netley Lodge with his usual careless grace; claimed acquaintance with Maria Fitzherbert in a cool but affectionate tone that was returned with polite indifference; bowed correctly to the Conte da Silva-Moreira, who would have drawn him apart immediately if he could — but that Lord Harold was determined, I saw, to take notice of me.
“Ah, and it is — Miss Austen, I think? Of Mrs. Lacey’s pastry shop? You are in excellent looks this evening, ma’am. I confess that it has been a long while since I have seen such a daring hat.”
He pressed my hand to his lips, raised a satiric brow, and allowed his attention to be claimed by others — but the rallying tone, and the attempt at intimacy, had not been lost upon Sophia Challoner. She came to me not five minutes later and said, in an undertone, “Do you not believe me, now, Jane, when I say that the fellow is lost to all claims of respectability? He shall be offering you carte blanche next, if you are not on your guard.”[23]
All conversation was soon at an end, however, for Sophia Challoner opened her instrument, and commenced to play a dashing air while Mr. Ord sang. The American possessed a rich, full voice that paired admirably with the pianoforte — and I thought how well Sophia and her swain appeared together: the dark head and the bright, the cultivated beauty and the fresh-faced youth. Were they, despite the disparity in their ages, equal in attachment? I witnessed no peculiar mark of regard — no look of adoration or lingering touch. It was a puzzlement. I almost wished them to be lovers, so that they might not be joined by conspiracy alone.
“Her performance is admirable,” said Lord Harold in my ear, “but I cannot approve her taste. What do you think, Jane?”
He had moved between my chair and the wall.
Beyond me stood the Conte da Silva, his gaze trained on the fair proficient, while Mrs. Fitzherbert had retired to her fringe in the window seat, and must be well beyond the range of hearing.
“I think that you run the risk, my lord, of alerting Mrs. Challoner’s senses. She mistrusts your notice of me, and is determined to thwart it.”
“Sophia — jealous? All the better!” he murmured provocatively. “I enjoy considering you the object of that woman’s envy, Jane. You deserve a little envy. Your dress becomes you as nothing has these four years, at least.”
“My lord—”
I felt too exposed in the room, under the gaze of those assembled; but I apprehended that it was exactly this degree of risk his lordship enjoyed.
“Are you not desirous of learning my progress in London?”
“I cannot believe there is wisdom in such a subject.”
“Jane, Jane — you were never faint of heart! But I make you uncomfortable. And Sophia detects a disturbance in her ranks; she shall end her song presently. I have time enough for this: Beyond the power of imagining — to the shock and dismay of her intimate friends — Mrs. Fitzherbert has lost the Prince’s favour. He now pursues another: the Lady Hertford, whose husband rules the Seymour clan. It would seem that in pleading Lord Hertford’s indulgence, in the matter of Minney Seymour, His Royal Highness fell in love with Hertford’s wife. Poor Maria has won a daughter — but lost her Prince.”
His speech was done, as well as his provocation; but he had left me much to consider. If Mrs. Fitzherbert had been spurned once again — if, in the autumn of her life, she were abandoned a second time by the man to whom she had sacrificed every notion of honour and reputation — might she not have cause for vengeance? Our assumptions of her fidelity to the Prince must be routed. And that meant—
— That she might lend her entire support to a Catholic plot, without the slightest qualm.
I studied the pink and guileless countenance of the middle-aged woman bent over her fringe, and felt both doubt and immense pity. What must it be, to be born with the burden of beauty, and pursued to the ends of the earth by the Great — only so long as one remained young?
It was after Sophia’s song had ended that I fell prey to her rapacity for whist-players, a table being made up of Mr. Ord, Mrs. Fitzherbert, the Conte da Silva, and myself. I am no lover of cards, and detest the waste of an evening spent in such a pursuit, when the hours might better pass in conversation or music — but I understood that Sophia Challoner pursued a double purpose, in arranging her drawing-room thus: she might satisfy Mrs. Fitzherbert’s desire for placid amusement, and engross Lord Harold entirely to herself, the better to further the Conte da Silva’s interest with that gentleman.
“Do you play at faro, sir?” she had enquired with mocking sweetness.
“You know that I do. Would you consent to deal me a hand?”
They had then established themselves at the cunning table near the fire; and I found that my eyes strayed too often from my own cards, to observe the battle of wits they waged, to offer my partner Mr. Ord much success. This was entirely as it should be, for Mrs. Fitzherbert and the Conte were allowed to carry all before them — a result they appeared to enjoy.
“Have you lived all your life in Southampton, Miss Austen?” Maria Fitzherbert enquired as she set down her trump.
“But a year and a half, ma’am — though Hampshire has always been my county. I was born in the town of Steventon, some miles to the north.”
“Then I have spent several years in your part of the world!” she cried, with the first evidence of animation I had seen. “I stayed on numerous occasions at Kempshott Park.”
“And how did you find the neighbourhood of Basingstoke?”
“Decidedly agreeable. It is a good market town, and as a staging post for London, must offer every convenience to one of itinerant habits. It is nearly twenty years since I was staying there — but I recall that the local hunt was rather fine, and the society in general not unpleasing.”
The Prince of Wales had leased Kempshott Park for some years in the late 1780s, or the early 1790s; I had been too young a girl to recollect much of the household, but my elder brother, James, had been wont to ride to hounds with the Prince’s party. I doubted, however, that Mrs. Fitzherbert had seen anything of James. That she could refer with equanimity, to a place she had occupied under the most dubious of circumstances, confirmed my belief that she was impervious to the weight of scandal.
“I knew the house in Lord Dorchester’s time,” I returned, “and attended many a ball there, in my youth. It is a lovely place.”
“I was very happy at Kempshott.” Her eyes lifted thoughtfully — not to meet my own, but to regard Mr. Ord, who was bent over his cards. Her gaze rested on his golden head, and an involuntary sigh escaped her.
“Youth, and its memories, are precious — are they not, Miss Austen?”
Did she thi
nk of the Prince, and the beauty of his youth? Prince Florizel, he had been called — one of the most engaging young gentlemen of the last age. Half the ladies of the ton had harboured a tendre for him — but at six-and-forty years of age, he was very much dissipated, now.
Mr. Ord chanced to look up — chanced to meet the benevolent countenance trained upon him — and smiled at Mrs. Fitzherbert. “You are forever young in the eyes of those who admire you, madam.”
Something tugged at my heart — some look or word whose meaning I could not decipher — and then the moment passed. A cry broke from the faro table beside us, and Lord Harold thrust back his chair in triumph.
He stood over Sophia Challoner, his narrowed eyes gleaming. An expression of fury and challenge darkened the lady’s face, and for an instant I almost believed she might tip the table and its contents — cards, bills, a dish of sugared almonds — onto the floor at his feet. Her parted lips trembled as though to hurl abuse at his head; but Lord Harold straightened, and stepped away from the table.
“My God, Sophia, how you hate to lose!”
“You saw the cards. Admit it! You cheated in my house! As you once cheated Raoul of life!”
The colour drained from Lord Harold’s countenance. “Madam,” he said stiffly, “in deference to your sex I may not answer that charge; but were you a man, I should toss my glove in your face!”
Mr. Ord rose from his seat. “Then toss it in mine, sir! I stand behind Mrs. Challoner’s words!”
“Do you, pup?” He bared his teeth in a painful grin; and I saw the mastery pride held over him. He would not hesitate to challenge the American — to meet him with pistols at dawn — and the outcome must be desperate. Lord Harold’s reputation as a marksman was fearful; but I had seen Mr. Ord spur his black mount, and guessed at the passions his gentle exterior must hide. I found that I had risen as well, and stood swaying by the whist table; the Conte da Silva was very still, his black eyes glittering as they moved from one man to the other.
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