The Prince claimed immediately to have had conversations with the dying mother, in which she made over the care of her child to Mrs. Fitzherbert; he used his influence with every member of the Seymour clan; made over a fortune for the girl’s use, once she should be of age — and when the case was brought to the House of Lords two years since, His Royal Highness shamelessly manipulated the votes of his cronies to require a judgement in Mrs. Fitzherbert’s favour. Some part of the Seymour family was said to be outraged: not least that the child was to be raised by a Catholic, and subject to the polluted atmosphere of the Prince of Wales. But having seen the blooming girl and her adoptive mother, I could not think Minney Seymour so very unhappy. The child had never, one must remember, known her true parents — and could hardly be expected to rush from all the comforts of a royal household in Brighton, to the arms of her unknown relations.
“I am very glad that you are come,” Sophia said in my ear. “Would you oblige me — before the rest of the guests are assembled — in walking into my dressing room for a little conversation? For I should dearly like to consult you.”
“Of course,” I said in surprise.
With a glittering smile at Mr. Ord, who now stood in a becoming attitude near Mrs. Fitzherbert’s seat, she swept out of the room and led me swiftly up the stairs. I could not imagine the source of such urgency — had she commissioned a gown of whose style she was in doubt, and required a second opinion?
“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.