“I suspect you are right.” He let his gaze drift, again, around that fashionable, expensively furnished drawing room. “Tell me, does your brother’s opinion of Stanley Preston match your own?”
“Oh, Henry is far more charitable than I when it comes to the foibles and vanities of his fellow men. He really should have been a vicar, you know, rather than a banker.”
“So why did he quarrel with Preston at the Monster last night?”
She jerked ever so slightly, her thread snarling beneath her hands.
He said, “You do know, don’t you.” It was more of a statement than a question.
She rested the embroidery frame on her lap, her hands idle, her gaze meeting his. “It’s a difficult subject to speak of, I’m afraid.”
“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.