“Why’s that?”
“It. . it involves Anne.”
“Yet it will come out eventually, whatever it is.”
Miss Austen drew a troubled breath and nodded, obviously choosing her words with care. “Some years ago, when Anne was just seventeen, she formed an attachment to a certain hussar cornet. The man himself was also quite young-only a year or so older, I believe-and utterly penniless.”
“But very dashing in his regimentals?”
“Devastatingly so, I’m afraid.”
“Her father objected to the match?”
“What father would not? She was so very young. Even my cousin Eliza agreed that to allow a girl to attach herself at such a young age to a man with nothing but himself to recommend him would be folly.”
“So what happened?”
“The young man’s suit was denied. Fortunately for all concerned, his regiment was sent abroad not long afterward, and that was the end of it-or so everyone supposed. It was assumed by all who knew her that Anne had forgotten him-indeed, she lately seemed to be on the verge of contracting a promising alliance. But then, a month or so ago, the young man reappeared in London-a captain now, but still virtually penniless, I’m afraid.”
“He’s sold out?”
“Oh, no. He was badly wounded in the Peninsula and has been sent home to recuperate further.”
“I take it Mr. Preston was still not inclined to favor such a match?”
She shook her head. “If anything, I’d say he was more opposed to it than ever before.”
“And Miss Anne Preston?”
Jane Austen began to pick at her snarled thread. “I’m afraid I can’t speak for another woman’s heart.”
Sebastian studied her carefully bowed head. “I still don’t precisely understand how your brother came to fall into a quarrel with Preston last night.”
Miss Austen kept her attention on her work. “Now that Eliza’s illness has confined her to her rooms, Anne comes nearly every day to sit and read to her or, when my cousin feels up to it, simply to talk. It was during one of Anne’s recent visits that Eliza confided that she’d decided she made a mistake six years ago in counseling Stanley Preston to refuse the young man’s offer, and that she regrets having played a part in denying Anne the happiness she might otherwise have found with someone she loved.”
“I take it Anne was unwise enough to repeat her friend’s words to her father?”
“Yes. And since he couldn’t confront poor Eliza about it, he shouted at Henry instead.”
Sebastian thought he understood now why Jane Austen had mentioned Stanley Preston’s quarrelsome tendency as one of his less admirable traits. “What is the name of this unsuitable young man?”
“Wyeth. Captain Hugh Wyeth.”
“And where might I find Captain Wyeth?”
“I believe he has taken a room in the vicinity of the Life Guards barracks. But I’m afraid I can’t give you his precise direction.”
“Do you know his regiment?”
“No; I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” said Sebastian, pushing to his feet. “You’ve been very helpful.”
“Perhaps my brother will be able to tell you more when he returns to town,” she said, rising with him, her expression one of earnest concern.
“Hopefully,” said Sebastian. Although when he looked into those dark, intelligent eyes, he couldn’t shake the conviction that this self-contained, quietly watchful woman actually knew considerably more than she’d been willing to divulge.
Sebastian spent the better part of the next hour making inquiries about Captain Hugh Wyeth at the various inns and taverns in the lanes and courts around the Life Guards barracks in Knightsbridge. But when the bells of the city’s church towers began to chime six, he abandoned the search and turned his horses toward home.
“Ye thinkin’ this hussar cap’n might be the one done for the cove at Bloody Bridge?” asked Tom as they rounded the corner onto Brook Street.
“I’d say he’s certainly a likely suspect.” The heavy cloud cover had already robbed most of the light from the day, so that the reflected glow of the newly lit streetlamps spilled like liquid gold across the dark, wet pavement. Sebastian guided his horses around a dowager’s cabriole drawn up at the front steps of a nearby town house. And then, for reasons he could not have explained, he was suddenly, intensely aware of the solid length of the leather reins running through his hands, of the throbbing of the sparrows coming in to roost on the housetops above, and of the scattered drops of cold rain blown by a gust of wind against his face as he lifted his head to study the jagged line of roofs looming above.
“What?” asked Tom, watching him.
“Something doesn’t feel right,” he said, reining in hard just as an unseen force knocked the top hat from his head, and a rifle shot cracked from somewhere in the gathering gloom.
Chapter 12
“Get down,” Sebastian shouted at Tom.
“’Oly ’ell,” yelped the tiger, tumbling from his perch as Sebastian fought to bring the squealing, plunging pair under control. Then, rather than duck for cover down the nearest area steps, the boy leapt to the frantic horses’ heads.
“God damn it!” swore Sebastian. “Are you trying to get yourself shot? Get out of here!”
“Easy lads, easy,” crooned the tiger.
The whirl of a watchman’s rattle sounded over the horses’ frightened snorts and pounding hooves. “I say, I say,” blustered an aging, fleshy man in a bulky greatcoat as he trotted up, his lantern swaying wildly, one arm thrust straight above his head as he spun his wooden rattle furiously round and round. “Was that a shot? That was a shot, yes?”
“That was a shot,” said Sebastian.
More people were spilling into the street-slack-faced butlers and elegant gentlemen in tails and one grimly determined footman brandishing a blunderbuss.
“Merciful heavens,” said the watchman, swallowing hard. “Whoever heard of such a thing? In Brook Street, of all places! Where did it come from?” He turned in a slow circle with his lantern held high, as if its feeble light might somehow illuminate the would-be assassin.
Sebastian finally brought his frightened horses to a stand. “It came from the roof of that row of houses. But I suspect the shooter is long gone by now.”
“Look at this!” said a skinny youth in silken breeches as he held up Sebastian’s beaver hat with one white-gloved finger thrust through a neat hole in the crown. “That was close!”
“’Oly ’ell,” whispered Tom again, his hand sliding slowly down the nearest horse’s quivering hide.
Sebastian could hear Simon’s colicky wails even before he reached number forty-one Brook Street.
“At it again, is he?” said Sebastian, handing Morey his hat and driving coat.
A harassed expression drifted across the majordomo’s normally carefully controlled countenance. At close range, the child’s screams were painful. “I’m afraid so, my lord.” He laid the driving coat over one arm, then froze when he got a better look at the elegant, high-crowned beaver hat in his hands. “Is that a bullet hole, my lord?”
Sebastian yanked off his driving gloves. “It is. And it was a new hat too. Calhoun is going to be devastated.” He glanced up as another howl drifted down from above. “How long has he been at it?”
“A good while, I’m afraid. He started early this evening.”
“Well, at least we know there’s nothing wrong with his lungs,” said Sebastian, taking the stairs to the nursery two at a time.
He was halfway to the third floor when he met Claire Bisette on her way down to make a fresh bottle of sweetened dill and fennel water. Hero might have refused to employ a wet nurse, but she’d welcomed Claire into their household with relief. An impoverished French émigrée in her early thirties, Claire was both older and considerably better educated than the young, ignorant country girls who typically served as nursemaids.