He spoke lightly, but the words were in earnest. Of a sudden, I recalled the green-cloaked sprite slipping through the crowd of townsfolk on the night of the fires. Had Orlando been lurking in Castle Square, in closest watch of my door, when the alarum first went up?
“Your solicitude — and Orlando’s care — is a considerable comfort. I collect that you have heard of Wednesday night’s conflagration?”
“Arson, throat-cutting, and the destruction of a sweetly-built vessel,” he replied. “The report was intriguing enough to be taken up by the London papers.”
“I looked into the ship with my nephews on Monday, at the invitation of Mr. Dixon, the shipwright.”
“Who lost his life but two days later! Did he appear uneasy, Jane? As though he feared disaster?”
“He seemed as complacent as any man who took pride in his work, and believed the world to do the same. Now the Itchen yard is a veritable ruin, my lord, and Dixon’s men amazed.”
“You have seen the place since the blaze?” he demanded.
“But yesterday morning. It stank of the pitch that was spread over the ship’s timbers.”
“Such work might be intended to suggest mischief among the lower orders — but Whitehall is not so sanguine. The Admiralty is afraid, Jane, that Wednesday’s murder is but the first assault in a wider campaign.”
I raised my brows. “The Peninsula’s most potent weapon?”
“I doubt that Sophia torched the seventy-four.”
“She has courage enough,” I mused, “but might abhor the blood and pitch such work should leave upon her clothes.”
Lord Harold’s eyes gleamed. “Jane, what is your opinion of the lady?”
“I quite liked her. She is all that is charming,” I replied frankly. “In Mrs. Challoner we may see the union of beauty, understanding, and good breeding; a creature of captivating manners, wide experience, and unfailing taste. Had you said nothing in her dispraise, I should have taken her straight to my heart. When she spoke so passionately of her beliefs — when she declared that this war must be stopped at any cost — I felt myself prey to a dangerous sympathy. She should find it easy to win hearts to her cause: she might persuade the Lord Himself against consigning her to Hell.”
“Well put. Having heard so much, I am thankful you spent no more than twenty-four hours in the lady’s company. But I should never suggest that Sophia was turned a murderer. I have an idea of her in the role of Cleopatra.”
“Reclined upon a couch, and toying flagrantly with the fate of nations?”
“You demonstrate a head for strategy, Jane — if you commanded the direction of Enemy forces, and could regard the affair at Itchen as but a trial of your strength, where next should you aim your Satanic imps?”
“At Portsmouth,” I told him steadily. It was the greatest naval dockyard along the Solent: the first port of call for every ship returning from the Channel station and our blockade of the French. Opposite Portsmouth Harbour lay Spithead, the deep-water anchorage where any number of His Majesty’s vessels awaited the Admiralty’s orders. Both should be an open invitation to the marauding French.
“But of course,” Lord Harold agreed. “You should aspire to ruin Portsmouth, and Deptford, and Woolwich and Chatham and Plymouth — His Majesty’s most trafficked yards. You might even strike at private shipwrights, such as Mr. Dixon, did you possess time and agents enough.”
“Is the English coast so riddled with traitors?”
“Possibly.” He regarded me intently. “In September, we carried off our victorious troops and some French prisoners from Vimeiro, as you know. By disposing our ships in convoys, we offered a tantalising form of safe passage through our own Channel blockade. It is possible, Jane, that we ferried enemy agents home in our own vessels: men who crept aboard under cover of night, and now await their orders in every Channel port.”
I rose and took a pensive turn about the room.
“And you believe it is Mrs. Challoner’s duty to despatch these agents on errands of mayhem?”
“I confess I do not know. How does she conduct herself?”
“Quietly. In the six days she has been in residence, she has devoted more time to her wardrobe than to affairs of state.”
“Have you observed her to communicate with anyone?”
I glanced at him then. “An American. He arrived by the London mail on Wednesday morning, and is putting up at the Vine. He rides a splendid black hack, and spends the better part of each day at Netley Lodge.”
“An American!” he repeated, in tones of astonishment. “Now that is an alliance I should not have anticipated. And yet — why not? Americans have long enjoyed the confidence of the French. They bear England little affection. Any attempt to wrest control of the seas from the Royal Navy should meet with American approval, as providing greater scope for their own vessels and commerce. By Jove, Jane — what you say must interest me greatly. An American!”
“He is very young, my lord — not above twenty. He is exceedingly handsome—”
“He would be,” muttered Lord Harold.
“—possesses good manners, appears to be of good family, and goes by the name of James Ord. The housemaid informed me that he was totally unknown to her mistress before Wednesday, when he appeared with a letter of introduction in hand.”
Lord Harold snapped his fingers, as though bidding Sophia Challoner to the Devil. “I must learn what I can of the fellow. The Admiralty may know something—”
I saw Mr. Ord now in memory, as he had appeared only last evening: the correct black coat, neither behind nor before the fashion; the delicate cut of feature in the laughing countenance; the warmth of the blue eyes as he gazed at Mrs. Challoner. He looked to be little more than a boy as he sat in her dining parlour, exclaiming over the excellence of his capon. And have you lived the whole of your life in England, Miss Austen? Then you are indeed fortunate. It is a comfort to know that not all of us are born to be wanderers.
Lord Harold broke in upon my thoughts. “Have you any notion what part of the Colonies — I beg your pardon, the United States — Mr. Ord hails from?”
“Baltimore. He has been making the grand tour, and arrived in London last week from a period at Liège.”
“Liège? Not Paris?”
“He may have travelled through the capital, my lord.”
“Liège is a town of unfrocked Jesuits and perpetual scholars — there can be little to interest a youth in such a place.”
“Mr. Ord is a student of philosophy.”
“Is he, by God?” Lord Harold’s eyes had narrowed; he commenced to pace feverishly about the room. “Philosophy — or revolution? What does he find to do at Netley Lodge?”
“During the brief period in which I observed him, he read a great deal — played at whist — composed a letter to home — sang Italian airs with Mrs. Challoner — accompanied the lady in her exercise—”
“They walk out together?” Lord Harold interrupted.
“I was in the house but a day, my lord. You cannot expect me to speak with authority.”
“But on the occasion you observed her?”
“—She walked with Mr. Ord to Netley Abbey.” Of a sudden a black-cloaked figure rose in my mind: motionless, vaguely forbidding, impossible to dismiss.
“They encountered a third person among the ruins — it seemed as though by design. I surveyed them from too great a distance to make much of the figure.”
“Did they, by Jove?” His lordship seemed much struck. “Pray describe the fellow.”
“He was cloaked and cowled in black — a monk returned from old.”
“The Cistercians wore white, my dear,” he corrected absently. “Still — what you say intrigues me. The man made an effort at disguise, and that must always be suspicious. You saw him meet Mrs. Challoner?”
“She curtseyed to him.”
“The Abbey ruins. Though excessively public in certain seasons, they must be quite deserted as autumn advances, and offer certain advantages as well: from that elevated position, one might observe the whole of the Solent. As the good monks divined so many years ago.”