Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave - Stephanie Barron [94]
“Indeed, it is to be scheduled among the first items of the new session's business,” I ventured. “His Grace is not in residence?”
“Lord, no,” she replied. “He and Trowbridge have been over in Paris nearly a fortnight, about some wretched business with the West Indies trade. I begged off at the last moment—can't abide Buonaparte, you know, nor that slattern he calls his wife. Intelligence is not her strong suit, and her taste in clothes—”
“How adventurous of His Grace,” Eliza broke in. “Very few of his countrymen should risk a trip to France, when hostilities have been suspended so little time.”3
“I am of your opinion, and told the Duke the same. ‘If that upstart invades while you are away, my dear,’ I said to Bertie, ‘you shall be thrown in prison, and I shall retire to the country.’ Of what worth is a concession to trade with the French Indies, when the word of the dictator cannot be trusted? They should content themselves with trading among good English subjects alone. Buonaparte has tried to strangle the flow of British goods, but he shall not prevail while we hold our colonies in the Caribbean.”
“How refreshing to hear politics discussed by a lady,” Eliza murmured, with an ecstatic look; “and how I envy your husband's chance to visit once more that unhappy country! It will live forever in my memory as the most poignant, and beloved, epoch of my past.” She looked down at her gloves, and managed a tear; the Duchess was instantly all sympathy.
“How could I be so cruel as to remind you of such horrors! Forgive me, my dear—and you, too, Miss Austen.”
“And so Lord Harold went directly from Scargrave to Paris,” I said. “He cannot, then, have learned of the Countess's recent misfortune.”
“Indeed, not,” the Duchess said, “but I shall write to Bertie directly. Neither he nor Trowbridge would wish to miss the event, of such importance to the peerage.”
“I fear; Duchess, that we must leave you now,” Eliza said tearfully, as though overcome by bitter memories of the past; “but we have so enjoyed our little visit.” She rose in a manner that suffered no protest, extended her exquisitely gloved hand, and turned for the door, myself in her wake.
Behind us, the Duchess rang a bell, and at the door's silent opening, we were pleased to find a footman waiting to conduct us to the street. Without a guide, I am sure that even Eliza should have wandered lost about the corridors, surveyed by Wilborough ancestors scowling from their frames.
Once freed of the oppressive rooms, with their weight of conscious elegance, my cousin breathed a sigh of relief. “Poor Honoria is an unfortunate old frump,” Eliza said, mounting the carriage step in a swirl of green silk, “but she told us what we desired to learn.”
“And in exchange, we may expect her to trample Isobel's name in all the best houses,” I rejoined. “I must suppose it impossible that Lord Harold murdered the maid, however, as he was clearly abroad at the time; and so must look to others for the Countess's relief.”
“It is not beyond belief, you know, that Trowbridge dispatched a cutthroat in his employ,” Eliza mused, smoothing her shawl as the coachman shut the carriage door behind us. “A man of his power and means could do so from anywhere in the realm, at any moment.”
“Possible, but unlikely,” I said thoughtfully. “He should then have to trust to the man's secrecy until his own return from Paris, and trust is a quality quite foreign to Lord Harold's nature. I think 1 must consider others as more likely.” I turned to her with renewed concern. “Eliza, does the memory of France pain you so much?”
“I shall never cease thanking Fate for throwing France my way,” she said, as the carriage wheels began to roll. “By going to the guillotine, the Comte did more for my future than he can possibly have appreciated. He has saved me from many a bore in recent years,