Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Ghosts of Netley

He was gone before I had time to draw breath: and that swiftly I was left alone, in the shattered ruins of Netley, with the man I loved near dying. Careless of the blood, I sank down beside him and pressed both my hands against the sodden linen, muttering a desperate plea to any God that might still linger in that hallowed place.

Frank whipped the horses into a frenzy and we rattled downhill to the Lodge in a style Sophia Challoner might have approved. Few lights shone in the windows of the comfortable stone house; no torches burned in the courtyard. Was it possible that but a servant remained, and all the fires were doused? Hysteria rose in my breast. Without help, Lord Harold should surely die.

Frank drew up before the door, secured the reins, and sprang down from his seat. Never had I so admired the decision and authority of my brother, as now; I understood what he must be, striding his quarterdeck with a French frigate off the bow. Lord Harold rested insensible upon my lap; I could not move for the weight. Frank pounded at the door and cried Halloo! The noise roused the man in my arms, and he opened his eyes.

I could barely see his face through the darkness.

“Lie still,” I said. “Guard your strength. You will need it.”

“Jane—” he whispered. “On the wall. . Orlando. Not. . the Jesuit—”

“I know. Hush .”

“The knife” — his fingers feebly sought his wound — “he killed that girl, and Dixon—”

The massive oak door swung open to reveal José Luis, the Portuguese steward, a candle raised in one hand.

Behind him stood Maria Fitzherbert.

“Thank God!” I cried out in relief.

“Your pardon, ma’am, for the imposition,” my brother said hurriedly — he had never, after all, made Mrs. Fitzherbert’s acquaintance, and was not the sort to recognise a royal mistress—“but we have a wounded man in grave need of assistance.”

“Lord Harold Trowbridge,” I added urgently.

“He requires a surgeon.”

“Help his lordship into the house, Zé,” Mrs. Fitzherbert ordered in her tranquil voice. “I shall see to the boiling water.”

In the hours that followed I acquired a fund of respect for Maria Fitzherbert. Despite the weakness she had lately shown at the prospect of a duel, tonight no horror or pain could disturb her, no sight of gore cause her to blanch. While Frank took a horse from the stables and flew like the wind to a surgeon in Hound, she saw his lordship laid on a sopha in the drawing-room, regardless of the blood, and tore open his shirt herself.

“This is very grave,” she observed calmly. “Poor man — he is not as young as he was. . Miss Austen, there is a closet in the hall near the kitchen. You will find a quantity of linen stored there. Pray bring a dozen napkins, and commence tearing them into strips. We can do little until the blade is drawn.”

I did as she bade, and fetched water from the steward. Lord Harold had fainted again in quitting the gig, but he stirred a little under Mrs. Fitzherbert’s hands.

“This is not the first time, you understand, that I have ministered to a gentleman’s wounds,” she observed. “The Prince once affected to mortify himself, early in our acquaintance, when I was adamant against the connexion — he slashed himself with a letter knife, and I was summoned to his bedside at midnight by the news that he was dying. Not even the most determined of lovers should drive steel into bone, however. Who did this thing?”

“His valet. A man by the name of Orlando.”

“Ah, yes — the murderer of that poor girl.” She said this as though there had never been the slightest doubt; and I suppose, in being an intimate at the Lodge, she should hesitate to believe any of her friends the culprit. “James — Mr. Ord — told me how it was, at the inquest. The valet ran, I think?”

“His lordship has been grossly deceived. It is probable that Orlando has been in the service of the French — that he is responsible for violent actions among the dockyards—”

She raised one brow. “But I thought it was Sophia that Lord Harold suspected? She chuckled over the notion a good deal.”

“Sophia was aware of his suspicion?”

“There is very little that escapes that lady’s notice. She told me not long ago that the French had placed a cuckoo in Lord Harold’s nest: the valet had better have hanged in Oporto. What has become of him?”

“We left him for dead, among the Abbey ruins.”

Lord Harold’s eyes flicked open at this, and he stared full into Maria Fitzherbert’s face. “I tried, Maria. . tried to prevent... Ord speaking...”

“Hush, Harry,” she murmured.

“He is safe, now. Portsmouth. Forgive inquest... wronged you...”

She pressed her fingers against his lips, and shook her head. He passed once more into unconsciousness. His pallor was dreadful, and his limbs cold. A bubble of fear rose in my breast, and I bit my finger to thwart a sob.

“You love him very much, do you not?” she said.

“A pity. He was always a desperate character. I have known him quite a long time, you see.”

She wrung out a linen wad in a basin of hot water; it flushed a dangerous red.

“Desperate, perhaps — but honourable withal.”

“Exactly so,” she agreed calmly. “His lordship’s voice was among the loudest that counseled the Prince to throw me off — he could not condone illegal marriage, and indeed, I could not condone it myself — but I never held his opinions against him. They could not prevent our being friends. Lord Harold is ever the gentleman in his address; mere politics could not turn him a cad.”

Sophia Challoner should certainly have protested at this. I remembered how she had viewed him: as a man who employed a blackmailer for valet, and profited from the spoils. Certainly Orlando had penned the threatening letter for Flora Bastable — and had learned what he could of Sophia from the girl — but with Lord Harold’s knowledge ? Was it for this the Rogue begged forgiveness?

“Mrs. Fitzherbert — if Mrs. Challoner was not a spy, and her frankness with regard to her own affairs is everywhere celebrated — what possible cause could her maid find for blackmail?”

The Prince’s wife sank back against her seat, and stared at me limpidly. “Did you believe it was Sophia she thought to touch, with that frippery tale of secrets? You may rest easy, my dear. The maid’s object — and the valet’s, if it comes to that — was always me .”

A pounding at the front door forestalled what she might have said. It was Frank, with the surgeon.

• • •

We were banished from the room while they worked over him. As the door closed upon the scene, I caught a glimpse of the surgeon and his tool: an iron tong, akin to the sort used for pulling teeth, poised above the blade in Lord Harold’s shoulder. Then I heard a gruff voice — “Hold him, now — hold him steady—” and the agonised groan of a man in mortal pain.

Mrs. Fitzherbert placed her arm about my shoulders and murmured, “Brandy, I think.”

She drew me aside into the dining parlour, where a decanter stood upon a sideboard. “It is well you found the Lodge inhabited this evening. We intend to quit this place on the morrow.”

I drank little of the liquid she gave me, and summoned what composure I could. My thoughts might fly to the man on the sopha, but my tongue could yet utter commonplaces. “Mrs. Challoner left for London in good spirits, I hope?”

“She stayed only for the receipt of the note you sent. The knowledge that James — Mr. Ord — was secure in his passage, was everything to her; and the Conte da Silva was equally happy to learn that Monsignor should achieve the Americas without further delay. We are all of us in your debt.”