“Ooh, miss,” she said, with a look of mingled terror and awe, “there’s a gentleman here as is that grand. He’s been waiting on you above a half-hour.”

“In the sitting-room, Mary?”

“Yes, miss. In the Reverend’s chair.”

I hastened upstairs to my visitor’s relief, and found none other than Lord Harold Trowbridge, standing erect and silent before the window, his back turned to the room. My poor father gazed at him helplessly, while my mother — in full flood upon the subject of actors and their pugilism — ran on unabated.

“Sir!” I burst out. “This is indeed an honour!”

He turned, one eyebrow raised, and bowed. “Miss Austen. The honour is entirely mine.”

The gravity of his tone might have impressed me less, had it not been wed to an equal command of countenance. Lord Harold was in no mood for civilities or folly — and I determined upon the removal of my mother from the room as swiftly as convention might allow.

“Jane, my dear,” my father said, “your mother and I have been expecting you this half-hour, as we assured Lord Harold. What can have occasioned so protracted an absence?”

“Only a Pump Room acquaintance of Eliza’s, Father,” I replied, my eyes on the Gentleman Rogue. “And a general buzz of gossip concerning a new arrival. The Earl of Swithin has come to Bath. Only fancy!”

“The Earl of Swithin? And what is the Earl of Swithin to us, pray? Come, come, Mrs. Austen.” My father rose slowly from a stiff-backed chair at some remove from the fire—not his usual seat. “If we are to have a whiff of air before Cook sets the dinner bell to ringing, we must away!”

“I am certain we have not time enough,” my mother objected, “and that I shall catch a chill. Moreover, the gloom is not prepossessing. We shall stumble over ourselves, in attempting the pavement.”

“That is always the way with December, my dear, but I must have my exercise. Mr. Bowen is most insistent.”

At this, my mother submitted, for my father’s health has been indifferent of late, to our great anxiety, and the surgeon — Mr. Bowen — is punctilious on the matter of a daily airing.

Lord Harold bowed to them both, and I heard the sitting-room door click behind them with palpable relief.

“These are comfortable lodgings,” he said, with a glance about the room.

“Indeed. Although a trifle damp — in the kitchen and offices particularly.”[32]

“You have been here how long?”

“A few months only — since our return from Lyme.”

“Ah, yes. Lyme.” The barest suggestion of a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “It is in my power to inform you, Miss Austen, that our friends reached America in safety. They have taken up residence in the state of New York.”

A rush of feeling welled suddenly within me, and as swiftly died away. Geoffrey Sidmouth and his cousins might as well be on the moon, for any likelihood I should ever have of seeing them again.[33]

“That is excellent news, indeed,” I managed, and felt my cheeks to burn.

“But you cannot rejoice in it as you might,” Lord Harold said gently, “having occasion to regret the acquaintance — or perhaps, the gentleman. I comprehend.”

I averted my eyes in some embarrassment. “Will you not sit down, sir?”

“No — I thank you. I have been sitting already too long today.”

“You journeyed from London.”

“As swiftly as a coach-and-four might carry me. I am arrived but a few hours.” He clasped his hands behind his back and turned from the window to the fire. Lord Harold might always have been called a well-made man — he is tall enough, with the leanness born of exercise, and a shrewdness of countenance that becomes the more engaging the longer one is acquainted with it. His silver locks are worn as negligently as the scar from a sabre cut that travels across one cheek, and though he commands fully five-and-forty years of age, the youthfulness of his demeanour has always cast the sum into doubt. But as I studied his lordship’s form, dark against the blazing hearth, I perceived a subtle transformation. If it were possible for a man to age a twelvemonth in but a quarter of that time, then Lord Harold had assuredly done so.

Since our last meeting — on the rainswept Charmouth shingle of a September dawn — the Gentleman Rogue had acquired a weary set to his shoulders, and his aquiline features were drawn with something akin to pain. His lordship’s hooded grey eyes, though cold and unblinking when in contemplation of evil, were wont to brim with amusement as well; but now they seemed quite devoid of emotion altogether. These subtle changes might be ascribed, I supposed, to the distress occasioned by his nephew Kinsfell’s misadventures. There was a severity in Lord Harold’s looks, however, that called to mind the ascetic — or the penitent. It was as though his lordship nursed a private grief, or suffered from infinite regret. As I surveyed him thus, he reached for the irons and prodded viciously at the fire — a betrayal of the unease within. A restless distraction held him in its grip; the evident desire to be doing something. I must not presume upon his patience with trifling pleasantries; the greatest despatch was in order. I seated myself upon the settee.

“If you have spared an hour to pay this call, sir,” I began, “I can only assume it is with a view to learning what I might tell you of events in Laura Place last evening. But let me first offer my heartfelt expression of concern for your family, and the terrible misfortunes they have endured.”

A smile flickered briefly over the narrow face. “My thanks, Miss Austen. I have indeed come to your door in the hopes of learning something to my nephew’s advantage. I know you too well to fear that any part of this unfortunate affair is likely to have escaped your attention. But first — you must tell me. Is it true? Is Swithin indeed come to Bath?”

“I regret to say that I have not the pleasure of acquaintance with his lordship. But if he travels in style, with the device of a snarling tiger upon his ebony coach—”

“He does. You have seen him yourself?”

“I have seen a tall, well-made man with fair hair and a haughty expression on his noble brow, a gentleman of taste and a decided air of refinement, to whom every eye in the room is turned as a matter of course. He is accustomed, I should judge, to the power of doing as he likes; and employs it frequently.”

“That is the man,” Lord Harold said with satisfaction. “But how has Swithin learned so swiftly of our misfortune? And what does he mean by coming here? He abhors Bath. There is nothing to interest him in this quarter. Except—” The silver head bent slightly in thought, and after an instant, Lord Harold wheeled around. “He means to bring my niece to a stand.”

“Does he? And will he achieve it?”

“I cannot undertake to say. But there is no man like Swithin for forcing a point. My niece, Lady Desdemona, has gone so far as to reject him; she has thwarted his ambition; she has spit in his eye, and all the world has seen it. He is not the sort of man to take such behaviour lightly. He means to break her.”

The casual grimness of his tone caused my heart to sink.

“But you will not allow it!” I rejoined stoutly. “You must be seen to object.”

“I object to everything that appears as undue influence over those I hold most dear. Rest assured, Miss Austen — I would not have Mona thrown away.” He settled himself in my father’s chair and gazed broodingly into the flames. “Now let us have the entire history. Tell me all you know.”

And so I launched into the neatest summary of the Duchess’s rout that I could manage, a summary entirely free of conjecture or surmise. And when I had done, Lord Harold was silent for several moments together.