“You are a banker, Henry.” I looked Eliza's way, and was treated to a rolling of the eyes at her husband's stupidity. “You must be acquainted with certain gentlemen of finance — those entrusted with the concerns of each in this household. I am confident that Sir William Reynolds intends to call Fitzroy Payne's banker to the Bar, in order to show that the new Earl is desperately in need of funds. But others intimate with Scargrave might be equally pressed.”
“Almost certainly,” my brother said thoughtfully. “Do you but give me their names, Jane, and I shall make discreet enquiries about the Club.” He rose, still in thought, and went in search of his greatcoat.
“And now, my dear,” Eliza said, when the drawing-room door had closed behind my brother, “Henry is off to business, and you and I are at leisure. What scheme have you devised for our amusement today?” Her long-sleeved velvet dress, of a rich red hue and trimmed in matching bugle beads, was equally suited to a visit to Wilborough House or a turn through Hyde Park in an open carriage, where she might nod to all her acquaintance. I surveyed her gown, and longed to seize the opportunity of my time in London to stroll with my sister Eliza among the shops; but I reminded myself that Isobel was all too deprived of similar delights, and that I must be about the business of her salvation.
“Eliza,” I replied, “I should be very much surprised if you were not acquainted with someone attached to the Royal Horse Guards.”
“The Blues? But of course.” She fluttered a hand endowed, this morning, with a shockingly great ruby. “Colonel Buchanan is terribly fond of me, you know — and thought he should have had me, did he not already possess a wife.”
“We must renew your acquaintance,” I told her; smiling.
Eliza returned my good humour, so much at my brother's expense. “It needs no renewing, I assure you,” she confided. “I spoke with the Colonel only last week, at Mrs. Fitzhugh's.”
“Then you must call upon him today,” I declared, “and carry me with you. He has a person in his regiment of whom I should dearly love to know more.”
“LIEUTENANT THOMAS HEARST? — COLONEL BUCHANAN said, turning with the sherry decanter in one hand and my glass in the other; “what possible interest, my dear Comtesse de Feuillide, could you have in such a scapegrace?”
We were established in the cosy sitting-room of the Horse Guards’ commander, in the shadow of Buckingham Palace, and surrounded on every side by leather-bound books, sabres in sheaths upon the wall, and some very good oils of horseflesh the Colonel had ridden in battle. He had swiftly set aside some matters pertaining to his men, in order to receive us without delay; and so my faith in Eliza was as eve rewarded.
The cavalryman offered me a glass with a short nod, and turned to fetch Eliza's. Colonel Buchanan was, as his name suggests, a Scot. With his bandy legs and greying red hair, he reminded me for all the world of the old cock at Steventon, who ran crowing about the farmyard with such importance that Cook soon lost patience and put him in the soup kettle. But I feared I should be overcome with mirth, did I pursue the comparison; and so drank my sherry with head demurely bent.
“I have heard such conflicting tales about the Lieutenant,” Eliza said, sipping at her glass, her eyes sparkling, “and of late he has been much talked of in connexion with a friend of my dear Miss Austen's. Discretion forbids me from saying more. But when Jane told me of her fears for her friend, I thought immediately of you!” She fluttered her eyelashes in Colonel Buchanan's direction. “For no one should be more forthright — no one be less likely to stand on ceremony in such a delicate matter — than my dear Colonel Buchanan.”
The Colonel was not too much of a soldier to dislike a little flattery. He grunted and threw himself into a chair, his booted legs extended before him and one hand thrust into his uniform jacket. With a glance for Eliza, he tossed back the contents of his sherry glass and set it on the table with a decided ring.
“So Tom Hearst has learned to prey upon young ladies of society, has he?” the cavalryman said. “That is no more than I should expect of him.”
“My dear Colonel — my dear William” — this, with a laying of Eliza's dark lashes against her creamy cheek — ”if you knew of anything that should counsel against a marriage — if such a union should in your eyes be imprudent — I know you would not hesitate to trust Miss Austen with your full confidence.”
The Colonel met my eyes and hesitated, wondering, I surmised, whether I was myself the lady whose heart Tom Hearst had entangled. Had I been, I should certainly have quailed; for Buchanan's disapproval was written in his hard blue eyes, and his hand rested lightly, out of habit, along the sheathed length of his sabre. A man not to be trifled with — as Eliza was certainly trifling now, did he but know it. I shuddered to consider the duplicity we had employed, here and at Wilborough House, these several days past; but remembered my Isobel, and the judicial proceedings to take place in but four days, and stifled my scruples.
“He is not well thought of among his company, that much is certain,” Colonel Buchanan said finally, his eyes still on mine.
“And does this arise from envy, or just cause?” Eliza asked, with some spirit.
“It arises, my dear Countess, from a tendency to wager his fortune too freely and too often, with the result that he leaves debts behind him wherever he goes.”
“Bah!” Eliza dismissed the Colonel's words as though he were a callow schoolboy. “That is the story of officers — and never more so than among the fashionable Horse Guards.” She was goading the Colonel into fuller information, I knew, and in this aim she readily succeeded.
“I should hope that we are none of us in the straits of Lieutenant Hearst,” the cavalryman said stiffly, “or His Majesty must look to others for protection.”
“The Lieutenant's outward appearance suggests no such trouble,” Eliza said serenely, laying her trap.
“That he has survived this long is a credit to his arrogance,” the Colonel burst out, with an eye for me. “But believe, my dear Countess, that Hearst's affairs are in a dreadful state. He had appealed to his cousin — one Viscount Payne, whom I understand is now imprisoned—for relief, and been denied. It is everywhere acknowledged that he bears a considerable grudge against that gentleman as a result. But where one relative failed, he soon had hopes of another: he was recently known to have assured his creditors that he should amply satisfy their claims upon the death of his uncle, the late Earl of Scargrave, from whom he had expectations of some fortune.”
A chill of dread moved up my backbone. “His uncle is recently deceased,” I said.
The Colonel turned to assess my countenance shrewdly. “So I had heard, along with all of London. The Lieutenant is known to you, Miss Austen?”
“Some few weeks only. We were lately intimates of Scargrave Manor — where the young lady whom he has entangled, and upon whose behalf we have sought your counsel, was also a guest.”
“Scargrave Manor! Another unfortunate mark against the young man. We have all heard what occurred there.”
“Lieutenant Hearst can hardly be blamed for the coincidence of family, Colonel Buchanan,” I said. “It is his boyhood home, and he might stay there with impunity, however many of the inmates meet with untimely ends.”
“He might, but that coincidence plays too strong a part in that gentleman's fortunes,” the Colonel said harshly. “Did not the Crown already hold captive the parties responsible, I might believe him capable even of murder.”
I exchanged a glance with Eliza; these were heavy words, indeed.
“My dear Colonel,” Eliza murmured, leaning towards him intimately, “your hints are very dark and very vague. Pray tell us plainly what reason you may know against this marriage, and have done.”