In the hours that followed I acquired a fund of respect for Maria Fitzherbert. Despite the weakness she had lately shown at the prospect of a duel, tonight no horror or pain could disturb her, no sight of gore cause her to blanch. While Frank took a horse from the stables and flew like the wind to a surgeon in Hound, she saw his lordship laid on a sopha in the drawing-room, regardless of the blood, and tore open his shirt herself.

“This is very grave,” she observed calmly. “Poor man — he is not as young as he was. . Miss Austen, there is a closet in the hall near the kitchen. You will find a quantity of linen stored there. Pray bring a dozen napkins, and commence tearing them into strips. We can do little until the blade is drawn.”

I did as she bade, and fetched water from the steward. Lord Harold had fainted again in quitting the gig, but he stirred a little under Mrs. Fitzherbert’s hands.

“This is not the first time, you understand, that I have ministered to a gentleman’s wounds,” she observed. “The Prince once affected to mortify himself, early in our acquaintance, when I was adamant against the connexion — he slashed himself with a letter knife, and I was summoned to his bedside at midnight by the news that he was dying. Not even the most determined of lovers should drive steel into bone, however. Who did this thing?”

“His valet. A man by the name of Orlando.”

“Ah, yes — the murderer of that poor girl.” She said this as though there had never been the slightest doubt; and I suppose, in being an intimate at the Lodge, she should hesitate to believe any of her friends the culprit. “James — Mr. Ord — told me how it was, at the inquest. The valet ran, I think?”

“His lordship has been grossly deceived. It is probable that Orlando has been in the service of the French — that he is responsible for violent actions among the dockyards—”

She raised one brow. “But I thought it was Sophia that Lord Harold suspected? She chuckled over the notion a good deal.”

“Sophia was aware of his suspicion?”

“There is very little that escapes that lady’s notice. She told me not long ago that the French had placed a cuckoo in Lord Harold’s nest: the valet had better have hanged in Oporto. What has become of him?”

“We left him for dead, among the Abbey ruins.”

Lord Harold’s eyes flicked open at this, and he stared full into Maria Fitzherbert’s face. “I tried, Maria. . tried to prevent... Ord speaking...”

“Hush, Harry,” she murmured.

“He is safe, now. Portsmouth. Forgive inquest... wronged you...”

She pressed her fingers against his lips, and shook her head. He passed once more into unconsciousness. His pallor was dreadful, and his limbs cold. A bubble of fear rose in my breast, and I bit my finger to thwart a sob.

“You love him very much, do you not?” she said.

“A pity. He was always a desperate character. I have known him quite a long time, you see.”

She wrung out a linen wad in a basin of hot water; it flushed a dangerous red.

“Desperate, perhaps — but honourable withal.”

“Exactly so,” she agreed calmly. “His lordship’s voice was among the loudest that counseled the Prince to throw me off — he could not condone illegal marriage, and indeed, I could not condone it myself — but I never held his opinions against him. They could not prevent our being friends. Lord Harold is ever the gentleman in his address; mere politics could not turn him a cad.”

Sophia Challoner should certainly have protested at this. I remembered how she had viewed him: as a man who employed a blackmailer for valet, and profited from the spoils. Certainly Orlando had penned the threatening letter for Flora Bastable — and had learned what he could of Sophia from the girl — but with Lord Harold’s knowledge? Was it for this the Rogue begged forgiveness?

“Mrs. Fitzherbert — if Mrs. Challoner was not a spy, and her frankness with regard to her own affairs is everywhere celebrated — what possible cause could her maid find for blackmail?”

The Prince’s wife sank back against her seat, and stared at me limpidly. “Did you believe it was Sophia she thought to touch, with that frippery tale of secrets? You may rest easy, my dear. The maid’s object — and the valet’s, if it comes to that — was always me.”

A pounding at the front door forestalled what she might have said. It was Frank, with the surgeon.

• • •

We were banished from the room while they worked over him. As the door closed upon the scene, I caught a glimpse of the surgeon and his tool: an iron tong, akin to the sort used for pulling teeth, poised above the blade in Lord Harold’s shoulder. Then I heard a gruff voice — “Hold him, now — hold him steady—” and the agonised groan of a man in mortal pain.

Mrs. Fitzherbert placed her arm about my shoulders and murmured, “Brandy, I think.”

She drew me aside into the dining parlour, where a decanter stood upon a sideboard. “It is well you found the Lodge inhabited this evening. We intend to quit this place on the morrow.”

I drank little of the liquid she gave me, and summoned what composure I could. My thoughts might fly to the man on the sopha, but my tongue could yet utter commonplaces. “Mrs. Challoner left for London in good spirits, I hope?”

“She stayed only for the receipt of the note you sent. The knowledge that James — Mr. Ord — was secure in his passage, was everything to her; and the Conte da Silva was equally happy to learn that Monsignor should achieve the Americas without further delay. We are all of us in your debt.”

“My brother’s, perhaps — but not mine.” Guilt, powerful guilt, over the false pretences under which I had pursued Sophia Challoner’s friendship surged again in my heart.

“Indeed, I may say that I only remained at Netley another night — extraordinary conduct, in the absence of the Lodge’s mistress — to be certain that Mr. Ord was sped on his way.”

It seemed, then, as the lady stood before the gilt mirror in Sophia Challoner’s dining-room, that she desired to impart a confidence; but the drawingroom door burst open, and Frank reappeared.

“The wound is stitched, but continues seeping,” he informed us brusquely; “the surgeon believes there is not much time.”

“You mean—?” I set down my glass of brandy unsteadily. “But cannot we send for Dr. Jarvey? Or take him directly in the gig to East Street now?”

“No, Jane. He is too weak; if the wound does not kill him, movement will.” Frank’s gaze was merciless.

“He is asking for you. Both of you.”

I gazed at Maria Fitzherbert, but she declined to take precedence. I may say that I ran to him. He was propped a little on a pillow, and his eyes — though heavy-lidded — were yet alert. A clean bandage stretched from collarbone to ribs; but a dark aureole of blood had already blossomed there. He held out his hand, and I seized it in my fingers. Maria Fitzherbert sank down in a chair.

“Maria,” he said.

“Yes, Harry?”

“Your son is... safe... no word of the truth—”

“How long have you known?” she demanded quietly.

He shook his head. “Guessed. He has the look... of the Prince — twenty years ago. .”

Twenty years ago, when Maria Fitzherbert had been happy at Kempshott Park. Understanding fell upon me like a dash of cold water.

She rose abruptly and walked away from us, to stand by the window seat where I had observed her working fringe — as placid, I had thought then, as a cow. What sacrifices this woman had endured! Two husbands and a son in the grave — all the scorching calumny of public comment over her liaison with the Prince — the loss of reputation — and then the most painful ordeal: the royal child sent out into the world, there raised by virtual strangers.

“Remembered how you admired Archbishop Carroll,” Lord Harold said wearily. “Found out that Ord’s family emigrated on the same ship to the Americas that Carroll took. Your work of course. Understood then. Does Ord know?”