she means.'
At Jenny's designation of his wife, Hoare found himself inexplicably touched.
'And I'm writing a story about him!' the child continued.
Miss Austen's eyes widened, and she squatted down on the floor, so-Hoare supposed-as to see Jenny eye to eye. 'Writing stories is a wonderful experience, isn't it? I write them myself, you know. May I give you a piece of advice about your writing?'
Jenny nodded.
'Put your eyes into it, and your heart, and your soul. Will you do that for me?'
Jenny nodded.
Just then, young Harry Prickett's form hove into sight. He had accompanied his new captain to the ball, on account, it seemed, of his close acquaintance with Hoare himself. Since he looked somewhat at loose ends, and since Hoare knew all too well what a seven-year-old boy at loose ends can accomplish, he went over to him. Miss Austen excused herself to Jenny and followed. A short inconsequential chat ensued.
'But Mr. Prickett,' Miss Austen said at last, 'I am being neglectful. Have you been introduced to Miss Jenny Hoare?'
That very young gentleman looked ready to burst into bawdy laughter, but before he could do so, thereby running the risk of being called out by his host, remembered where he was and simply said, 'No, ma'am!'
'Then permit me to do so, sir. Pray come with me. Excuse me, Captain Hoare.' Reaching down, she permitted Mr. Prickett the younger to take her arm. Amused, Hoare watched her steer him easily across the ballroom to where Jenny stood amid a bevy of other unescorted females.
'Miss Jenny?' Miss Austen's clear voice carried easily from the other side of the room, and Hoare listened intently.
'Ma'am?' Jenny gave her bob.
'Permit me to present the son of a very old friend of myself and your parents: Mr. Harry Prickett, of HMS…' She awaited the prompt; it was at hand.
'Impetuous, ma'am, thirty-eight,' came the treble voice. 'Captain Prothero.'
'Thank you. Of Impetuous.'
The lad made his leg, the lass her curtsey, and they rose to eye each other, each waiting to see what would happen next.
'Charmed, Mr. Prickett,' the lass said at last. 'I believe you were once of considerable assistance to Mr… to my new father.'
'I hope so, Miss Hoare.' For once, Hoare could hear, the boy was not speaking in exclamations. 'Your new father?'
'Oh, yes, Mr. Prickett! My old father was quite different! Shall I tell you about him?'
And the two were off. Later, out of the corner of his eye, Hoare saw that his daughter was brushing some trivial atom of lint from Mr. Prickett's buttoned jacket. With this instinctive grooming gesture, Hoare realized, she was laying claim to him in a manner that was gently but pointedly proprietary. To all the world, Miss Jenny had marked out Harry Prickett as hers.
Hoare still had an apology to make. He wove his way through the dancers to where Miss Austen still stood, unclaimed and solitary among the other returned empties, 'dowding it alone,' as she had described herself on that memorable evening when he had first met his Eleanor.
'I have done you a disservice in my mind, Miss Austen,' he whispered.
She turned to him in surprise. 'Why, sir, how is that?'
'I had come to believe you more hard-hearted than one might have wished. Now, having seen the unpretentious courtesy with which you introduced those two children, I happily change my opinion. You are a kind soul, after all.'
The lady looked away in embarrassment. On her slightly faded face, her blush made her no more beautiful.
'Between us, sir,' she said, 'we have much to account for to each other. Will you be so kind as to escort me outside for a moment, where we may speak undisturbed?'
Outside, in the fragrance of the spring evening, Miss Austen stood straight and stared Hoare in the face.
'I, too, have a confession to make, Mr. Hoare, and I wish to make it here and now.' Her voice shook slightly. 'I was mistaken in my judgment, and you were, at least partially, in the right.'
'I?'
'I beg pardon, sir. I was using the second-person pronoun in its plural sense. I meant you and my dear Eleanor.
'From our first meeting, in the Graves's drawing room,' she went on, 'I allowed myself to convince myself that you were no more than the latest in the gaggle of unscrupulous adventurers who had chosen Eleanor-a married woman and a good wife-as their innocent target and were prepared to go to any lengths to achieve their goal. Among them I included the late Edouard Moreau, whom we all knew as 'Edward Morrow,' and Sir Thomas Frobisher. Now, I was certain, I must add you to the number of those against whom I must do my best to protect her.
'It was hardly helpful to my cause, sir, when I began to detect in her a degree of fondness toward yourself that ill became a lady in her position. Not only a wife, but the wife of a gentleman and a cripple.
'In due course, I have learned once again that, no matter how a person may strive to divert one of Eros's arrows from a target he has selected, one never, never succeeds.'
'I-' Hoare began, but she raised her hand.
'Let me have my say, sir, I beg. It hardly improved matters,' she said sternly, 'that gossip reached my ears, first of your involvement with Mrs. Katerina Hay-a new widow as well, like Eleanor! — and then the Prettyman woman. You can imagine my distress.'
'I had nothing to do with Selene Prettyman,' Hoare whispered in protest, 'more than our mutual involvement in scotching Spurrier's plans.'
'Such an involvement was close enough to cause talk, I assure you,' she replied with a return to the asperity that Hoare had been accustomed to hearing in her tones when addressing him.
'In fact,' he went on musingly, as if he had not heard her, 'I continue to wonder why she did so. I remain perplexed at the true purpose of her game. Was she working for Goldthwait, do you suppose, or for Sir Hugh Abercrombie?'
'Perhaps she did not know,' Miss Austen said. 'But, considering what I know of her character, she was most likely to be most interested in maintaining her relationship with the Duke of Cumberland. In feathering her own nest, in short.'
Hoare-or at least, so he hoped-suppressed his surprise that Miss Austen was aware that any relationship whatsoever existed between Selene Prettyman and that authentic royal duke, let alone referring to it in conversation with a member of the opposite sex. While Mrs. Prettyman had made no secret to him of her position as Cumberland's mistress, and while Admiral Hardcastle had known of it, it was hardly a subject for open conversation between a single lady of a certain age, such as Miss Austen, and any gentleman.
He smiled. 'In any case, she was-and is-far too high a target for me, even had I been so inclined.'
But the lady was not prepared to let her prey off the hook as easily as that, and switched to her alternative bait.
'You give me no such assurance, I note, in the case of Mrs. Katerina Hay.'
And he could not. Within days of her bereavement, the widow of Vantage's murdered captain had, indeed, seduced him. There was little he could say. He rolled over and exposed his belly.
'Have mercy, Miss Austen,' he whispered. 'At the time in question, I hardly knew Eleanor.'
'That has nothing to do with the case, as you well know, my dear sir,' she said with another smile. 'It is history now, however… or at least I will assume it to be so, unless I should learn anything to the contrary.'
Hoare wondered whether Miss Austen's smile was genuine, or concealed a threat that, as far as she was concerned, any betrayal of his wife, her bosom friend, would meet with her severest displeasure. Well, he had lived for some time past, and he supposed he could do so again. Besides, nothing was further from Hoare's mind than betraying the sturdy woman whom he found himself loving more, day by day.
'In any case,' the lady said, 'I confess myself to have been mistaken from the outset. I could not ask for a
