Shivering in my pale blue muslin — a shade unlikely to offend Lord Harold’s sensibilities — I peered through the darkness. A few candles glowed in the windows of a distant hamlet, faint stars against the mantle of sleeping countryside. Someone in a barn somewhere should be milking a cow, without the faintest notion that nearby, men were assembling to shoot each other.

“Honour!” I said bitterly. “How I detest it!”

“Pshaw, Jane — that’s a hum.” My brother went to the horse’s head; next to a ship, he loved best to have the management of a nag. “Without honour, society can have no just foundation; without honour, we should live as savages.”

“Murdering one another at random, you mean?”

He stared at me wordlessly.

At that moment, the sound of hoofbeats and iron wheels resounded upon the road. From the south, in the direction of the sea, came an open phaeton and a pair I should guess to be grey geldings; from the north, and the direction of the Itchen ferry, a heavy coach with its side lamps doused.

“Perhaps they shall run headlong into one another,” Frank observed cheerfully, “and settle the dispute by overturning. Do you mean to observe from the gig, Jane? Or shall I tie up the horse and give you my arm?”

How, I wondered, could Fly speak as though we were in attendance upon a mere race-meeting? As though nothing greater than a prize-fight were to be won? I rose from my seat and descended without his assistance, suddenly wild to have the madness done. As I set foot upon the ground, the Trowbridge equipage pulled up not ten feet from our position. Orlando jumped down from his footman’s perch and opened his master’s door.

He stepped out: a sharp silhouette in the rising dawn. Though he had commanded me to abandon mourning, he went, as ever, in black — the coat double-breasted, and buttoned high to the cravate, which was tied in the Jesuit style: a simple band folded once over the coat collar.

“My lord knows his business,” Frank murmured.

“In that coat he has given Ord a double set of buttons, and no division in front, to confuse the fellow should he attempt to aim for the heart. By Jove! But he is cool.”

“Jane,” Lord Harold said, and bowed low over my hand.

Frank’s brow came down at his lordship’s use of my given name — but he forbore to comment. The Rogue looked up, and said, “Will you do me the honour of introducing me to your friend?”

“My brother, sir. Lord Harold Trowbridge — Captain Francis Austen, of His Majesty’s ship St. Alban’s.”

“You were in Oporto, I think,” his lordship said.

“Off the coast of Merceira only. I cannot claim to have set foot on the Peninsula. May I wish you every hope of good fortune, my lord?”

They clasped hands, and then with one serious, parting look for me, Lord Harold moved to stand by his second, Orlando.

A horse’s whinny brought my head around, and there, in the gloaming, was Mrs. Challoner. She held the phaeton’s reins, and her mettlesome greys pawed the ground. Mr. Ord sat to the lady’s right; and behind the equipage, on horseback, rode the gentleman’s second — the Conte da Silva. Mrs. Fitzherbert, it seemed, had not deigned to witness an event whose mere idea had caused such profound misery.

“Miss Austen!” Sophia cried aloud in amazement.

“How come you to be here?”

“I begged her attendance,” Lord Harold said swiftly. “Miss Austen is, after all, a witness to Wednesday’s challenge — perhaps the only disinterested one. She has brought her brother, an officer of the Navy whose integrity must be unimpeachable, to set the marks.”

Frank started — he had not understood he was to be employed in the affair — and looked to me for explanation. “Do we await a doctor? Or are we to proceed without? The light will soon be too full for action, and the parties shall risk discovery.”

Mr. Ord rose from his place and bowed. He looked pale, but resolute. “I have no objection to proceeding.”

“Nor have I,” Lord Harold returned.

“We expect Dr. Jarvey from Southampton at every moment,” Sophia Challoner broke in, “but you may set the marks, Captain, in expectation of his appearance.”

“Very well.” Frank’s jaw was rigid, his eyes hard and unsmiling. “I should judge the proper alignment to be north-south, along the greater edge of the common, running parallel to the lane. Any glare from the rising sun shall thus be equally borne by the duellists. I shall set the first mark on the furthest southern extent of the flat part of the ground — and for the second mark, pace off thirty yards to the north. The gentlemen shall draw straws for their positions.”

I apprehended, of a sudden, that my brother had witnessed such affairs before. As second — or principal? Defender — or accused? Fly stepped forward, and we turned as one to observe his progress. For the first time that morning, our eyes fell full upon Butlock Common. Slanting yellow light from the east picked out the withered grass stems, silvered with frost; and in the very centre of the field, a pile of rubbish lay abandoned as if for firing.

Frank stopped and raised his hand to his brow. He peered into the sun — the slight slope of high ground, his quarterdeck, and the entire common his sea.

“My lord,” he said — and in that instant, I could not tell whether he addressed the man waiting quietly by his coach, or the God of Heaven above. But I, too, had seen the cloak of Prussian blue, and the simple poke bonnet tossed in the grass like an empty basket. I did not need the confirmation of Frank’s horrified gaze to apprehend the truth.

“It is a girl, Jane.”

And then — as though the lifeless thing were his own Mary — he rushed to her side.

Dr. Jarvey made short work of his examination, though he had been an age in arriving.

“The cords of the neck have been cleanly severed, and the corpse drained of blood. Life will have been extinct in a matter of seconds.”

James Ord, his countenance pale as death, walked slowly forward and fell on his knees near Flora Bastable. Had Orlando glimpsed the truth, a few nights past, when he saw the American enter the girl’s cottage? Had Ord loved Flora, despite the difference in their stations?

Ord raised his hand as though he might caress the dead cheek — and then, to my surprise, he made the sign of the cross over the body, and began to murmur in a tongue that could only be Latin. After an instant, both Sophia Challoner and the Conte da Silva knelt together behind him.

“Last Rites,” murmured Lord Harold. “But the girl is not Catholic, and Ord is no priest.”

The American did not falter in his speech until he had done. Then he rose, and turning first to assist Sophia Challoner to her feet, said abruptly to Lord Harold: “You are over-hasty, sir. Tho’ I am no priest, I have long been a student of the Catholic faith, and intend to enter the Society of Jesus in time.’’

I stared at the young man — the blond Adonis — and exclaimed: “You, intended for the Church! I cannot credit it! No Jesuit would challenge a gentleman to a duel!”

He smiled at me wryly. “Do you believe us incapable of defending our honour, ma’am? Or perhaps — that we possess none?”

We were all of us silent a moment in confusion, but Lord Harold surveyed James Ord’s face with interest. “You were raised, I understand, among the Carrolls of Maryland? Archbishop Carroll — also a member of the Society — is your patron in the Church, I collect?”

“He is, my lord. I have been acquainted with His Grace almost from infancy, my family having emigrated to America in the Archbishop’s ship.”

“And are you also acquainted, I wonder, with the Conte da Silva’s brother?” Lord Harold enquired silkily. “Monsignor Fernando da Silva-Moreira, of the Society of Jesus — late of Oporto?”[24]

The Conte da Silva started forward, his hand on his sword hilt. “What do you pretend to know of my brother?”