“I cannot undertake to say. He was hardly murdered for his purse, if that is what you would suggest, Miss Austen. For it was discovered upon his person.”

“I merely wondered how such a man — with reputation, wealth, and every consideration of good society — should have occasion for making enemies. For someone must have despised him enough to end his life. You were acquainted with the gentleman, my lady — surely you must have formed an opinion on the subject. What can Mr. Portal have done, to warrant his violent end?”

“I do not know,” Lady Desdemona replied. Her brow furrowed. “I have worried at the subject like a terrier at a bone. My acquaintance with Mr. Portal was hardly so intimate, as to permit me to form anything but the most cursory judgement of his character. He perpetually ran in a high flow of spirits; he was fond of company and of wine; he possessed energy enough for ten; and was rarely so nice in his sentiments or expression, as to render him the safest of companions. In short, he was boisterous and crude, and sadly wanting in tact.” She shook her head. “I could imagine him to offend any number of persons without the least intention of doing so, and forget the insult as readily as he ignored his engagements — which was repeatedly, I assure you.”

“Does want of tact, then, explain the gentleman’s scene with Lord Kinsfell?”

Her eyes slid away. “Of that I may say even less. For Kinny is chary of taking offence, particularly among his friends; and so I must believe the injury to have been a peculiar one. My brother was excessively grieved.”

“Mr. Portal does not seem an ideal lover for Miss Conyngham,” I mused. “I wonder what she saw in him to recommend his suit?”

“Was he to marry her, then? How come you to know of it?” A quickening of interest, and a faint blush to the lady’s cheeks. “I had not heard that rumour.”

“Nor had I. I speculate, that is all. Miss Conyngham was sadly shaken by Mr. Portal’s murder — and must have felt the loss quite deeply.”

“—Though not so deeply as to forgo her present performance,” Lady Desdemona retorted. “She would sacrifice everything to the goddess of success, I believe.”

“You do not esteem her.”

My companion shrugged. “I cannot claim any great knowledge of the lady. But I have observed, Miss Austen, that they who earn their bread in the performance of a role, have often difficulty in quitting the stage. They dissemble, as it were, in everything — and the truth of their characters is difficult to seize. I should never be certain whether Miss Conyngham were dying of grief at Mr. Portal’s loss — or if her feelings were quite the reverse.”

I had not looked for such penetration in a girl of eighteen; but she was, after all, Lord Harold’s niece.

“You do not endure a similar sense of ruin?” I enquired gently.

“My brother, indeed, is sadly circumstanced — but I can have no occasion for despair. Now Uncle is come, all shall soon be set to rights.”

I was prevented from pursuing this interesting line of intelligence, by a circumspect cough from the direction of the box’s door. Lady Desdemona’s head swung round, her grey eyes widened, and involuntarily, she seized my arm.

The cold blue glare of a fair-headed gentleman, arrayed in all the brilliance of fawn knee breeches and a bottle-green coat, met my interested gaze. The very Lord Swithin. He was a remarkable figure of a man — and yet the good looks of his countenance were undoubtedly marred by the arrogance that suffused them.

“Lady Desdemona.” He bowed with exquisite grace, but the hauteur of his glance might have guttered a candle-flame. “I am happy to see you. Your Grace—”

The Dowager Duchess awoke with a start, glanced about, and then held out her hand with all the appearance of cordiality. “Swithin! I declare! It is like your insolence to come to Bath at such a time. I could wish that all our acquaintance were as careless of convention.”

If he took the measure of her ambivalence, the Earl betrayed no sign. He bent low over the Dowager’s hand.

Eugenie patted the empty place beside her, with a look for Lady Desdemona, who sat stiffly upright in her chair. “Do sit, Lord Swithin, I beg. We have not talked this age.”

“I fear that the honour is beyond my power at present to indulge, Your Grace. A large party of friends awaits my attention.”

“Of ladies, you mean?” Lady Desdemona cried, and lifted her glass to peer about the theatre. “Now where is your box? I should dearly love to see the rogues’ gallery you’ve carried in your train.”

“You have quite failed to acquaint me with your friend, Mona,” said the Earl in a tone of quelling severity.

“And are you due any such civility, Lord Swithin? I am not entirely convinced. But since you shame me to the courtesy — Miss Austen, may I present the Earl of Swithin. Lord Swithin, Miss Austen.”

The gentleman bowed and clicked his heels. “You are visiting Bath, Miss Austen?”

“A visit of some duration, my lord,” I replied easily, “since it has been prolonged now these three years and more. You are only just arrived, I collect?”

“I am.”

“For the Christmas holiday?”

“I may, perhaps, remain so long. I cannot undertake to say.”

“You do not attempt a trial of the waters, then? For their effects cannot be felt, I am assured, in less than two months.”

My brilliant line of chatter had not so entirely engrossed my attention, that I failed to notice Lady Desdemona’s furious regard for the Earl, nor the intensity of his returning stare; and the evident unease of the Dowager Duchess, as she surveyed the pair, did little to soften my anxiety. All attempt at forestalling a dispute, however, was as naught; for rather than responding to my gentle interrogation, the Earl abruptly broke out with—

“What the devil do you mean, Lady Desdemona, by throwing yourself in the path of a common upstart, who must necessarily get himself killed in your grandmamma’s house, and involve us all in the very worst sort of scandal?”

“Scandal? Is that now to be laid at my door?” Lady Desdemona retorted indignantly. “And what, might I ask, were you thinking, my lord Swithin, when you threw down your glove at poor Easton’s feet not a month ago — and all for the impropriety of having named your mistress in my hearing!”

“Easton is a fool.” The Earl replied with contempt. “He observes me riding with a married woman in the park, and suggests the greatest calumny. When I consider the injury that poor pup visited on Mrs. Trevelyan — I should have killed him when the opportunity served. But such vengeance, even in an affair of honour, is beneath me. Having no desire to flee the country on Easton’s account, I barely winged the fellow at twenty paces.[49] And what of Easton, indeed? It is hardly Easton who has driven me to Bath! Your conduct and impropriety, madam, have so involved my reputation, that I am forced to require an explanation.”

“And I shall certainly never give it!” Lady Desdemona cried. Her face was pale with anger. “I cannot conceive how my private affairs should involve a gentleman so entirely a stranger to my interest and happiness as yourself. But if ever I require your opinion, sir, regarding the intimates of Laura Place, I shall not hesitate to solicit it.”

“You may attempt to brave this out, Mona,” the Earl retorted in a warning tone, “but you shall not do so by abusing your friends. You will require as many as you may command in the coming weeks. Do you remember that, when the faint among them desert you. I could do a vast deal for Kinsfell, did I choose. You would do well to remember that also.”

“Your concern for my brother quite overwhelms me, Lord Swithin,” Lady Desdemona observed with a sneer. “Had you formed no intention of profiting by the Marquis’s misfortune, I might almost have credited the sincerity of it.”