I thrust the brandy away and reeled backwards, choking and spluttering. “Murderer!” I cried. “That man would have killed me! He is in league with Madame!”
“Lord Harold was your salvation, Jane,” Sir William said gently, as he hastened to my side. “He overpowered that woman with not a moment to spare. For I fear we should have arrived too late.”
“Trowbridge was closeted in my chambers, divulging much that you should know, when I received your note,” Mr. Cranley added. “He understood your danger immediately, and flew to your side while I went for Sir William. We deemed it best that a man of the King's Bench be present to receive Madame's confession — did we arrive in time to catch her in another act of murder.”
“I do not understand,” I said, in my strange new voice; “if Lord Harold is become a friend, why has he endeavoured so long to send the Countess to the gallows? Why lie, as he so clearly did, before the Royal Gallery Bar?”
Mr. Cranley gazed across my head at Sir William, and Sir William at Lord Harold. “She shall have to be told, my lord,” the magistrate said. And so the man I had thought a rogue pulled a chair close to my bedside.
“My dear Miss Austen,” Harold Trowbridge began, “I told you once that I was a dark angel, and you a light one. But I should better have said that we both used our wits to similar ends — only I bend mine to deceive, and you to illuminate.”
I raised myself to my elbows in protest. “You claim now to have no interest in the Countess's property? Or in the fortuitous death of her husband?”
“In her property, I remain as desperately interested as ever,” he replied, with amusement in the heavily-lidded eyes, “but for reasons that shall soon be made plain; and as for the late Earl, it has been many years since I have thought of Frederick as anything but a friend. I did not kill Lord Scargrave, Miss Austen; indeed, I should more easily have killed myself. For it was the Earl who directed my every movement.”
I confess to a confusion of the senses at this revelation. “You must speak more plainly, Lord Harold.”
He sighed deeply, betraying for the first time some emotion other than languor, and fixed his eyes upon my own. “A second son — even the second son of a duke — must have a profession, Miss Austen; and I have made mine what the French call espionage.”
“You are a spy,” I breathed.
“If you will. I work only for those whose sacred reputations forbid all mention of their names; I serve the Crown from time to time; and always I go where the law may not — or will not.” Trowbridge paused a moment for reflection, as if choosing his words to suit his audience.
“These many months past — for almost a year; indeed — I have been in the Earl's employ,” he resumed, “for the purpose of divining the true nature of his wife's financial difficulties. Frederick, Lord Scargrave, had long been a friend of her father, John Collins; and at that gentleman's death, he received a sealed letter from his solicitors, begging him to look after John Collins's only child. Isobel came to the Earl at her arrival in England; he was immediately enchanted with her beauty; and his duty to a late friend soon became the necessity of a man in love.
“In very little time he learned of Isobel's financial difficulties; and in her innocence of business, she told him much that caused suspicion in him. Frederick believed her to be the victim of duplicity within her own family, but could not determine how it was done; and I may plainly state that he also feared for her life, and thought to protect her most by offering marriage and himself as a champion for her cause. The late Earl would not see that he alone should prove the greatest threat to her enemies, though I made the point on several occasions; Frederick was possessed of much strength and resolve, and foolishly could not believe himself likely to fall victim to anyone.
“At the Earl's direction and with his funds, I purchased Crosswinds’ debt, then held in various hands about the Continent, and approached the Countess in the guise of her chief creditor, pressuring her to make over the property in my name in order to cancel her heavy obligation. It was the Earl's hope that my appearance should force her true enemies into the clear, and expose their purpose; and to my great chagrin, he was correct. I was summoned by him to Scargrave on the night of the ball; I made an obvious advance upon the Countess, in the hearing of her family and friends — and that night, her main protector was foully murdered.”
“Can it be possible?” I said, turning to Sir William.
My old friend answered me with a single look. “It can, and is,” he said grimly. “Lord Harold has papers in his possession signed by the Earl, vouchsafing his purpose and the means placed at his disposal; and furthermore, he has all the notes representing the Barbadoes debt — from which the Countess is now, happily, freed.”
“It was these matters, among others, that we discussed in my chambers tonight,” Mr. Cranley said.
“I only returned from France a few days ago, and thus was incapable of halting the proceedings in the Royal Gallery,”’ said Lord Harold. “But I felt it necessary to explain my elliptical speech at the Bar this afternoon. I could not — even under oath — betray the delicate progress of snaring Madame Delahoussaye in a noose of her own making; nor could I unjustly consign the Countess and Lord Scargrave to the gallows.” The thin mouth creased in an unwonted smile. “You placed me in a devilish position, Miss Austen; but it is no less than I have come to expect from you. You are indeed a worthy adversary.”
I had not quite forgiven such a man. “I should have preferred us to work in concert, my lord,” I said tartly, fingering my bruised throat. “Was that so impossible?”
“Not without exposing you to extreme danger, such as you have only just escaped,” he returned, glancing at Madame. The lady could only appear ridiculous at this point, despite her murderous hands; her costume was torn, her wig discarded, and a quantity of false cobwebs fluttered about her face. In her eyes, however I read still her talent for evil.
Even Harold Trowbridge was sobered by a look in Ma-dame's direction. He turned back to his tale with obvious relief. “I remained at Scargrave long enough to ascertain that it was Madame Delahoussaye who harboured the chief interest in Crosswinds — and as its trustee, this was not altogether remarkable. I lacked proof of her malevolence, however, until the day before I left — having pressured the Countess into signing a worthless paper, as a final nasty flourish with which to make my exit. For my true purpose had been satisfied the previous evening, when Madame had approached me with a provocative proposition.”
There was the sound of a throat clearing in the corner, and with a profound venom, the bound woman spat. A pustule of phlegm landed on the floor just short of Lord Harold; with infinite grace and irony, he smeared it to nothing with his boot.
“She told me that however much I preyed upon the Countess, I should never obtain the property I sought without her own consent — and a handsome fee. From her elliptical questions regarding my motives, I perceived that Madame believed that it was the port I wanted — until that moment, I had not known the port was so valuable — for reasons of my own; but I little understood then that she, too, had designs upon the port, of a far more destructive nature, and on behalf of a far deadlier client. I knew nothing of the true nature of her schemes, and thought only that she wished to extort a princely sum for her consent to the sale. Having considered her demands — which were enormously high — I was to wait upon her in London after the holiday.
“I left Scargrave the next day, and consulted my brother — who, despite his fatuous appearance, is a man of probity and sense much valued at the Ministry of War — and it was Bertie's view that I should accompany him on a mission he had only then received, of parlaying with his French counterpart regarding the disposition of the French Navy. While in the country, I should endeavour to learn what I could about deep-water ports in the West Indies; and so I agreed.