“Eliza, mignon,” she crooned as she presented one powdered cheek in all the appearance of affection; “how hagged you look this evening, to be sure! The years, they have never sat lightly upon you, bien sûr! You have been fatigued, sans doute, by your visit to Surrey last evening — it was a great deal too good of you to solace my exile!”

We had indeed ventured into Surrey last night, despite all my doubts regarding Sunday travel, to enjoy an evening of music at the d’Entraigues abode. The old Count spoke nothing but French, and I understood but a fraction of the communication, tho’ Henry admirably held up his end, and declared the gentleman to be a man of parts and considerable information. The son, young Count Julien, who appears everything an Exquisite of the ton should be, with his excellent tailoring, his disordered locks, his shining boots, and his quantity of fobs and seals, delighted us with his superior performance upon the pianoforte.

The Comtesse had deigned to sing.

Taken all together, I should rather endure a full two hours of her ladyship’s airs in the Italian than a few moments of her conversation; and as she and Eliza put their heads together, I considered instead how the Theatre Royal might serve in a novel: the comings and goings of great personages, a lady’s chance encounter with an Unknown; or the appearance of a Rogue, for example, who might interpret the slight nothings and subtle displays of the ton with an understanding far more penetrating than my own …

It was impossible to be in London at the height of the Season without reverting in thought to Lord Harold Trowbridge. That late denizen of Brooks’s Club, that consummate sportsman and intimate of princes, should certainly have graced one of these lofty boxes, and been in close converse even now with Lord Castlereagh, perhaps, however little he liked that Tory gentleman’s conduct of war. He should have profited by the play’s interval in dallying with a lady, or shown himself one of Harriette Wilson’s favourites, his sleek frame displayed to advantage against the marble columns of the tier. But would he, in truth, have noticed Jane?

The question arose with a pang. At five-and-thirty I cannot pretend to any beauty now. My evening dress of blue, the beaded band encircling my forehead, the flower tucked into my hair — arranged with all the genius Eliza’s French maid could command — is yet nothing to draw the eye. One must be possessed of extraordinary looks or a great deal of money to figure in London. Had his lordship lived, he might have called at No. 64 Sloane Street, as he condescended to do in Bath and Southampton — and left his card as my Willoughby does for Marianne — but in the Greater World Lord Harold’s notice may have been denied to me.

I like to think, however, that he would have approved of my book. It was always an object with Lord Harold that I should write.

“Blue-deviled, Jane?” my brother Henry enquired gently as he reappeared in the box. “We have been leading you quite the dance these past few weeks. I daresay you’re wishing yourself back in Hampshire!”

“Not at all,” I replied, banishing my ghost with effort. “You know me too well for a frivolous character, Henry, to imagine me ungrateful when such divine absurdities are laid at my feet! What writer worthy of the name should prefer the confined and unvarying circle of the country to this? Only observe Eliza’s French count, old d’Entraigues, paying court before Mr. George Canning — and he no longer Foreign Minister, with favours to bestow. Observe Lady Castlereagh endeavouring to ignore the fact that Beau Brummell and the Ponsonbys prefer Harriette Wilson’s box to hers! But tell me— who is that woman with the aquiline nose and jewelled tiara, quite alone in the seat opposite? She cannot tear her regard from Lord Castlereagh. I should consider her excessively rude, did I not imagine her to be a princess of the blood royal, and thus beyond all censure.”

“A princess indeed,” my brother replied with a careless gesture of his quizzing-glass, “but not of the Hanoverian line. You have detected a Russian noblewoman, my dear — the Princess Evgenia Tscholikova. She is resident in London nearly a year, and may be claimed as one of our neighbours — for she has taken a house in Hans Place, hard by Sloane Street.”

“A princess, rusticating in the oblivion of Hans Place!” I declared. “I should rather have expected Berkeley Square, or Brook Street at the very least.”

“Her means, no doubt, are unequal to her station.”

“But why does she gaze at Lord Castlereagh so earnestly? His lady certainly does not notice the Princess; and the gentleman is deep in conversation with another.”

“That is like Evgenia,” broke in the Comtesse d’Entraigues, with a disparaging glance at me over her bare shoulder. “The Princess will always be playing the tragic actress, non? A man has only to spurn her, to become the most ardent object of her soul.”

Eliza rapped her friend’s knuckles with a furled fan. “You will shock my sister, Anne. Do not be letting your tongue run away with you, I beg.”

“But surely you have seen the papers, Eliza?” The Comtesse’s voice was immoderately loud; several heads turned. “It is everywhere in the Morning Post, if one has eyes to see and the mind to understand. The Princess’s letters to Castlereagh — most importunate and disgusting, the very abasement of a woman in the throes of love — were sold to the Post but a few days ago. The editors would disguise the principals in the affair, of course — as ‘Lord C—,’ and ‘the Princess T—,’ but the truth is known among the ton. Evgenia has disgraced herself and his lordship. Lord Castlereagh has only to conduct himself as usual, to silence the impertinent; but I wonder that she dares to show her face.”

The malice behind the words was sharp and pitiless; a worse enemy than the Comtesse d’Entraigues I should not like to encounter, and of a sudden my sympathy went out to the Russian noblewoman, who alone among the Great at the Theatre Royal was lapped in a chilly solitude, no friend to support her. I, too, had read the salacious excerpts in the Morning Post, but lacking all familiarity with the ton, had no ability to put a name or face to the initials. My cheeks flushed with consciousness as I recalled a part of the correspondence. My limbs burn with the desire to lie once more entangled in your own … There is nothing I would not sacrifice, would not risk, for the touch of your lips on my bare skin … I can hardly write for anguish, I tremble at the slightest glimpse of you in publick, my dear one, desperate to have you alone … However abandoned the prose, it was vile to consider of it strewn before the publick eye.

“What I desire to learn,” I said indignantly, “is who should undertake to traffick in a lady’s intimate correspondence?”

“Her maid, perhaps — if the girl was turned off without a character,” suggested Eliza.

“But Castlereagh was the recipient of the letters,”

Henry objected, “which must point to a culprit in his lordship’s household.”

“Unless he returned the Princess’s correspondence,” I offered.

“I will lay odds on it that she sold them herself,” the Comtesse d’Entraigues pronounced viciously. “She would enjoy the fame, however black.”

“You are acquainted with the lady, I apprehend.”

“Twenty years, at least. She has the habit of inserting herself in my affairs; I will not deny that I abhor the very sight of her.” The Comtesse rose abruptly, smoothed out her silk gown, and said, “Eliza, I will wait upon you in Sloane Street tomorrow. Do not fail me.”

Eliza bowed her head in acknowledgement, and the Comtesse swept away — the curtain being about to rise on the second act, and all further conversation being impossible in the presence of Sarah Siddons, and the blood that stained her hands.

BY THE MORNING I HAD ENTIRELY FORGOT RUSSIAN princesses and French countesses, their affairs of the heart or their implacable hatreds — for it was Tuesday, the twenty-third of April, and thus the very date determined by Eliza nearly two weeks before, for an evening of musical entertainment, the professional performers to include a player upon the harp, one upon the pianoforte, and a succession of glees, to be sung by Miss Davis and her accompanists. The evening was intended as a sort of tribute to Mr.