“Are you suggesting that I wished him dead, Miss Austen? Or, worse still, that in wishing him dead, I took measures to achieve my aim?” Mr. Sidmouth rose from his chair and crossed to where I sat, his powerful form overtaken by malevolence. I had an idea, of a sudden, what it should be to cross him in a matter of some importance to himself, and swallowed hard to overcome my fear.

“I suggest nothing,” I replied.

“Miss Jane Austen of Bath never speaks to little purpose.’ ‘He observed me narrowly. “You actually believe me capable of such foul conduct as Fielding suffered! Does my aspect betray me as so prone to violence, however just and warranted it might be? But no—” he said, wheeling about, “—it is unwise to enquire too closely of a lady whose aspect is so clouded with doubt. The answers should be too little to my liking.”

“Mr. Sidmouth—”

“Say nothing, Miss Austen, for good or ill,” he said harshly; “you cannot know the effect your words should have. I am too little master of my feelings in the present moment to meet either your contempt or your concern with the attention they deserve.”

And with that, he left me — in such a state of perturbation, that I barely disguised my sensibility before Seraphine, who returned some moments later intent upon a walk.

“I MUST TELL YOU, MISS AUSTEN, THAT GEOFFREY ESTEEMS YOU highly. It is his fondest wish that we should grow acquainted; and I am so desirous of company in my isolation, that I welcome his interest, and the benevolence it has inspired. You are very good to weary yourself in seeking the Grange.”

I studied Seraphine's beautiful profile curiously. She spoke so frankly of her retirement from society, as though it were a sentence imposed by a merciless court, that I adjudged her amenable to some gentle questioning.

“I cannot help asking, Mademoiselle — how come you to be here, so far from your home, and quite without friends?”

“Home is a mere channel away, Miss Austen, and Geoffrey the greatest friend I have ever known,” she replied quietly. “But I understand what you would ask. France might as well be at the ends of the earth, for all the hope I have of returning — hope or desire, both being equally extinguished by my sad history. I have been in England nearly a decade, having fled the horrors of the guillotine at the age of fifteen.”

“Your family suffered in the revolution?”

“Suffered!” Her lip curled expressively, and she turned to gaze out at the sea an instant, before resuming our pacing along the cliff's edge. “I saw my mother taken away in a cart, and my father; my three aunts, two of my uncles, and my eldest brother — all perished on the infernal machine.”

“Good God!” I cried.

“Words cannot express the blood-lust, the mad desire for revenge, the senseless hatred that compelled the people in those days. It was the sort of frenzy only rarely witnessed by rational beings — thank God.”

“But how came you to escape?”

She shrugged and averted her gaze. “My relations in England exerted their energies on our behalf — you should know that Mr. Sidmouth is the son of my mother's sister — and for once they were successful. We were smuggled out of the prison beneath a load of refuse, and borne swiftly to Boulogne, there to embark upon a ship bound for this coast; and here I have remained ever since, walking these cliffs that I might gaze towards France, and remember those who did not escape.”

“You speak in the plural, Mademoiselle,” I said tentatively. “Was there some other who escaped at your side?”

“My youngest brother, Philippe. He was but ten at the time.”

“A brother! How fortunate that you should be left with some prop in the midst of tragedy — some confidant in sorrow! But where is your brother now, Mademoiselle? Away at school, perhaps?”

To my surprise, she shrugged, the faintest of smiles overspreading her lips. “Philippe has returned to France. He is with Napoleon's army there.”

“With Buonaparte?” I could not disguise my incredulity. “But how is such a thing possible?”

“How might a victim of the revolution throw his strength and ardour behind its greatest opportunist, you mean?” Seraphine said, with a delicately-lifted eyebrow. “Well might you ask. My cousin and I have spent many long hours in contemplation of it.” She exhaled a gusty breath and drew the collar of her red cloak closer about her throat. “I cannot rightly say. I loved Philippe as almost a mother — I clung to his sturdy boyishness, his indomitable spirits — until the moment when he disappeared in the night, taking only a few belongings and leaving but a few words. Perhaps I never understood him — what it was to grow up as a dispossessed child, aware of his family's noble history, and the ruthlessness of its decline.”

“Women arc more accepting of the vagaries of Fate, perhaps,” I said thoughtfully. “We sit at home, and mourn in solitude, and find no outlet for our restless tides of vengeance. It should not be remarkable that a young man should wish to make his way in the world, and resurrect the glory of his name, by any means that offer. We cannot judge rightly, without standing awhile in his skin, and feeling all the burden of outraged youth.”

“But you forget, Miss Austen,” Seraphine replied. “I have stood there. I have felt the outrage. I have railed against the bitterness of Fortune, and shaken my fist at every sun that rises again to shine on the revolution's children, and I have hated Napoleon for his steady ascent. He climbs on the backs of the old aristocracy — who were cut down by men he has never disavowed, however little he formed a part of their schemes — and marries his generals to the orphaned daughters of the great. But I beg to hope, Miss Austen, that he will reach the height of power, only to discover that he has been ascending a scaffold— and that there is no escaping the noose”

I confess I was overwhelmed by the hardening of her tone and aspect; Seraphine seemed no longer an ethereal angel, but a woman clad in steel, and burnished by the sunlight thrown up from the sea.

“It would perhaps be justice,” I observed, “did Napoleon fall as swiftly as he has ascended; but I do not believe it likely. Many years of blood and hopelessness remain, I fear, before vengeance may be done.”

Seraphine turned a speculative eye upon my countenance. “That may be, Miss Austen; and then again, it may not. Time alone will tell.”

“Assuredly,” I said, in some confusion. For she spoke as though blessed with a more intimate knowledge of events than I should have credited in one so remote from their ordering.

We turned at the cliff's edge and walked on a few paces in silence, heads bowed against the fresh breeze off the sea. The pause in conversation afforded me the opportunity to recollect my true purpose in soliciting the mademoiselle's confidence — and for the space of several strides, I gathered my courage to speak. We could not labour on entirely in silence, however, without some end to our exercise being precipitated; and so I forced myself to broach a subject that could not but be distasteful to the lady.

“How calm the sea looks!”? observed, with a careless air. “Quite unlike the afternoon when Captain Fielding and I espied the smuggler's cutter abandon its cargo, not far off the end of the Cobb. On that occasion the seas were quite stiff, and the Navy ship that followed in pursuit made but poor progress, and came all too late behind.”

There was a delicate pause. Then, with what I judged to be an effort at composure, the mademoiselle enquired,

“You were well acquainted with Captain Fielding?”

‘Only a little. And you?”

“As you say — only a little,” she said, with a quick smile, that as quickly fled.

“He seems to have been everywhere acknowledged as possessing an admirable character.”