“A pity,” murmured a voice at my back, “when you appear capable of so much more.”
I turned — and looked straight into the eyes of Lord Harold Trowbridge. His sardonic gaze passed over my countenance without the slightest hint of recognition.
“Mrs. Challoner,” he said with a graceful bow.
“And in Southampton, of all places! I rejoice to find you once more established on your native shore.”
Chapter 13
The Cut Direct
29 October 1808, cont.
“I am afraid, sir,” said Mrs. Challoner coldly, “that you have the advantage of me. I do not recollect that we have ever met.”
She picked up her gloves and rose from her chair, as though desirous of quitting the pastry shop on the instant.
Lord Harold did not give way; but neither did he importune her to recognise him. He merely stood square in her path to the door, with a faint smile of amusement on his lips.
“Now, now, Sophia,” he said softly. “Your cruelty is unwise. It goads me to indiscretion. My sense of honour must urge the revelation of exactly how well you knew me in Oporto — and I should not like to put this unknown lady” — with a polite nod in my direction — “to the blush.”
Her lips parted as though to hurl every kind of abuse at his head, and in an effort to play my part, I rose and murmured, “Perhaps I should leave you now, Mrs. Challoner. The modiste will be every moment wanting you, and I—”
“Stay,” she commanded, her black gaze fixed upon Lord Harold’s visage. “I recollect, now, the ... gentleman’s ... name. You are Lord Harold Trowbridge, are you not? Second son of the Fifth Duke of Wilborough? You spent a good deal of time in Portugal once, but ran off before the French could engage your fire. Allow me to introduce my friend, Miss Austen, to your acquaintance; and then pray have nothing more to do with her.”
“Charmed.” He bowed low, a twisted smile on his lips. “You are in excellent looks, Mrs. Challoner. The air of Hampshire agrees with you.”
“I have never felt better.” There was a challenge in the words, as though she tempted him to defy her; but whatever fierce emotion seethed behind the mask of her countenance, his lordship did not deign to notice it.
“And so you are set up in Netley Lodge?” he enquired genially. “Vastly pleasant, I’m sure, to possess a house on the seacoast. That part of the country is rather lonely, however; you will be sadly wanting for visitors. Perhaps I shall look in one day, just to see how you do, now that my business has brought me to Southampton.”
“Business?” She spat the word as though it were a curse. “What business has ever engaged your notice — except that which does not concern you?”
“We second sons are driven to trade,” he observed drily. “Our habits of expence — our want of fortune — we must all make our way in the world as best we can. Some marry advantageously; some game themselves into Newgate. I choose to invest my funds in the most profitable ventures I may find — and thus am concerned in the fate of a neat little Indiaman fresh out of Bombay. The Rose of Hindoostan put into port two days ago. I have descended upon the South in order to consult with her captain. It is a happy chance, is it not, that throws us together?”
“And like all such chances, swiftly fled.” She held out her hand with a brilliant smile. “Pray enjoy your interval in Southampton, my lord — but do not look to find me again in town. I expect a large party of friends within the week, and cannot hope to venture forth while they remain a charge on my time.”
“Indeed?” His lordship’s grey eyes glinted. He bent over her palm, then turned with deference to me. “Miss Austen — a distinct pleasure. You are not, by any chance, related to Mr. Henry Austen, of the Henrietta Street banking concern?”
“Why,” I said in apparent astonishment, “he is my brother, sir!”
“I am a little acquainted with him. An excellent fellow; and his wife is all that is charming. Good day to you!”
He left Mrs. Lacey’s establishment directly, and I observed that my companion’s eyes followed his figure as he made his brisk way down the street.
“Only fancy,” I observed, “that such a lofty-looking gentleman should be acquainted with my brother!”
“I should not be surprised to learn that Mr. Austen refuses even to acknowledge his lordship, when they happen to meet in the street,” she retorted bitterly. “Lord Harold Trowbridge is everywhere known as the Gentleman Rogue — and no selfrespecting member of the ton would deign to receive him. If it were not for his brother, the Duke of Wilborough, he should long since have been dropped by Society; but as it is—”
“What has he done, to earn such disapprobation?”
“What has he not done, you should better ask! Lord Harold has committed every conceivable kind of intrigue — seductions, duels, entanglements — the ruin of young women throughout the Continent; the destruction of happy families; the delusion of gamesters. Lord Harold is a rakehell of the worst order — and as to the men he chooses to keep about him! He has, in his employ, a valet who is criminal enough to have been hanged, had his lordship not bought off the Oporto justice.”
“But that is scandalous!” I cried in horror. “And you know this to be true?”
“I have met the valet in question, and am acquainted with his history from a source I should consider unimpeachable: the French officer charged with bringing the fellow to justice. The valet is a thief and an intriguer; a man as familiar with picklocks as he is with blackmail. He should steal a lady’s jewels one night, and pilfer her billets-doux the next — demanding the balance of her fortune, if not the gift of her favours, as the price of his silence. The number of my friends in Oporto who have been brought to the edge of despair by that cur’s salacious lies! I cannot begin to number the tales one might tell, of Orlando and his master!”
“You believe, then, that the valet is goaded on by Lord Harold?” I enquired, in tones of shock. “I am certain of it. My lord may cant and prattle of Bombay traders — but his fortune is ill-got, Miss Austen. The two of them collude in every sort of thievery, if one may credit the stories from the Peninsula. But I care nothing for the injuries of others — I have suffered too much myself at Lord Harold’s hands.”
I trained my voice to the deepest sympathy. “He is certainly a handsome gentleman, and might cause any amount of suffering. Did he toy with your affections?”
“From the first moment I saw him, I hated him,” she muttered, low. “He is the sort of man who will never be happy until he has the world entire in his thrall. Earlier I vowed that freedom is a lady’s greatest prize — but I tell you now, Miss Austen, that with such as Lord Harold, no woman could ever be at liberty. He should demand subjection to his will — and take absolute mastery to himself. A woman’s soul should never be her own, within that man’s orbit. His brand of dominance is of a sort I cannot endure.”
I had never considered Lord Harold in this light; to me, he was the paragon of understanding. He offered my intelligence the respect it demanded, and my feelings a wordless empathy. But perhaps, in the thrall of passion, he might behave as any man: with the cruel desire to exert his influence. I remembered, of a sudden, his words of yesterday: Have I ever attempted to exert that kind of power over you ? — Though I may often have been tempted?
Her voice broke through my thoughts. “But you will understand the reason for my violence of feeling when I say that he has destroyed every hope of happiness I once held in the world.”
“That is a heavy charge, indeed!”
“There was a gentleman in Oporto — Raoul, Comte de Trevigne — whom I might have consented to marry. He was killed not long before I quit the Peninsula forever. Indeed, his death is the chief reason I could no longer remain.”