Isobel frowned in thought. “I do not believe that he has. His current office, indeed, is of only recent conference. Frederick — my late husband — was Lord Lieutenant of the County [16], and appointed Sir William to the post a twelve-month ago. But, Jane, if the justice is so very well known to you, is it possible that he might be moved to consideration on my behalf?”

“Were I an utter unknown to Sir William, I should still look to him for consolation in time of trouble,” I replied without hesitation, “for any who seek justice may be sure to find it at his hands.”

“What would you have me do, Jane?” the Countess asked simply.

“We cannot stop the maid from sending a note as poisonous as this to the magistrate, and so I would advise that we anticipate her actions, and call Sir William to us without delay. It is within his province to halt such evil rumour before it may do further harm — or to investigate the case for just cause, if any there might be.”

“Jane! Can you think it?”

“Of you, my dear, never.” I folded the maid's note and offered it to her. “But of others? Anything may be possible in this world, where the fortunes of men are at stake; and the Earl's fortune, you will own, was considerable.”

“But only Fitzroy Payne may benefit by it,” she argued, crumpling the betraying letter in her hand; “and for Fitzroy to act with violence is unthinkable.”

“Isobel,” I said gently, “I fear you have not told me all where that gentleman is concerned.”

Silence and an averted look were my reward, but a flush had begun to overtake the paleness of my friend's complexion.

“If you fall in with my plan of apprising Sir William of the nature of this letter, he will undoubtedly enquire as to the maid's meaning,” I observed.

Isobel reached for my hand, her face stricken. “Jane, Jane — you must protect me! It is too much. The pain of Frederick's death — this horrible letter — and now, to expose Fitzroy so dreadfully — I cannot bear it!”

“If I am to help you, my dear,” I said, kneeling at her feet, “I must know where I am. You must tell me what you can, Isobel, for everything may be of the greatest importance.”

“You fear for me, Jane?”

“I fear for us all.”

14 December 1802, cont.

“YOU WILL HAVE OBSERVED HIS REGARD FOR ME.”

Isobel had abandoned her chaise and was standing before the grate, her hand on the mantel and her lovely eyes fixed upon my face. In the fine dressing gown of Valenciennes lace, her dark red hair burnished by the light of the fire, she was magnificent. How could Fitzroy Payne help but adore her?

“There is a measure of warmth in Fitzroy Payne's manner beyond what a man might accord his aunt by marriage,” I replied carefully.

“Even an aunt four years his junior?” Her laugh was bitter. “Can ever a family have been so discordantly arranged!”

“You understood the Earl's age when you married him, Isobel. A man twenty-six years your senior must be allowed to have acquired a nephew or two along the way.”

“But such a nephew as Fitzroy? The paragon of men?” She began to turn back and forth before the fire, her arms wrapped protectively across her breast, her aspect tortured. “The man I might have encountered sooner, Jane — and having met, married as I should have married, for love and not simply the security of means?”

“I had not known you accepted the Earl from mercenary motives, Isobel.” I confess I was shocked; but our conversation regarding the married state, in the little alcove the night of the ball, returned forcibly to my mind.

“But then you cannot have understood the state of my father's affairs at his death,” the Countess said, wheeling to face me. “You will recall that he passed from this life but a year before my arrival in England. In truth, his fortunes were sadly reduced. The plantations at Cross-winds — my childhood home — have suffered numerous reverses, due in part to the poor price of coffee, in part to disease among the bushes, and not least owing to unrest among the slaves who work the estate. Lord Harold Trowbridge's shadow has been thrust upon this house because our holdings are at their final extremity.”

“You have recent intelligence of the plantation's affairs?”

“I have it from Trowbridge himself. He is returned but six months from a survey of his West Indies investments, of which he hopes to make Crosswinds a part. He had not been in England a week when he obtruded painfully on my notice.”

“But what can be his power over you, Isobel, that he chose not to exert over your father?”

“Lord Harold is my principal creditor, Jane. He has bought up all my father's debts, at a considerable discount, and has chosen now to call in loans of some thirty years’ duration — at an exorbitant rate of interest,” my friend said, wringing her hands in despair. “I have no recourse, so Trowbridge tells me, but to hand him the land in exchange for a discharge of my father's debt.”

“I had no notion that your affairs were in such a state.”

“How could you?” Isobel said, with some distress. “It is a fact I would not have broadly known. But the fear of losing Crosswinds has directed my endeavours since my father's death. My determination to remove to England two years ago was formed with the primary purpose of finding a suitable husband — a man of solidity and fortune who could revive my faltering affairs. I believed I had found him in dear Frederick.” Isobel gazed up at her late husband's portrait, her face suffused with tenderness.

“That he knew of my troubles when he married me, Jane, I may freely own,” she continued, with a look for me. “I would not join my poor fortune to one such as his without revealing all. Lord Scargrave bore me such great love”—at this, she suffered an emotion that impeded her speech for an instant—”that he was willing to undertake my cause without a second thought. All that it was in his power to do, he would do; even to the extent of entertaining Trowbridge the very night of our bridal ball.”

“And you, Isobel? Did you bear him equal love?”

“I thought that what I felt might be called by that name,” my friend replied faintly, her hand going to her throat. “Perhaps I deluded myself from a wish to obtain that security he so nobly offered. Oh, how to explain the man that was my husband, Jane?” She sank once more to her chaise, her attitude all despondency.

“He seemed a respectable gentleman,” I observed.

“Jane! Jane! Such coldness for poor Frederick!” Isobel's eyes filled with tears. “Lord Scargrave was not young, as you saw, except in his vivacity of spirit and the energy he brought to each of his dearest projects. He was a man of great warmth and good humour; yet could betray the iron of his ancestors when pressed. I admired Frederick, I respected him, I felt towards him a depth of gratitude I could not help but express — I esteemed him, Jane, as a daughter might esteem a father. Indeed, I wonder ofttimes if it was not a second father I sought when I threw myself upon the marriage market.”

“But love, Isobel?” I persisted.

She was silent, reflecting, her eyes upon the flames. Of a sudden she shivered, and I hastened to draw her lap robe over her. “You must not get a chill, my dear; for we have had too much of violent illness.”

The Countess smiled sadly and shook her head. “It is not the cold that would carry me off, dear Jane, but an enormity of regret.”

“For your husband?”

“And myself,” she replied softly, her eyes finding mine. “I had not known love as a girl. Silly flirtations I had by the score, of course — one could not help it. But the day I married the Earl I knew what it was to feel a deeper emotion, and God help me, it was not for the man I married.”