Chapter Six
“THIS IS PERFECT, you see,” said Byron to Jane as they sat together in the breakfast parlor, waiting for Beaumont to arrive.
There was a simple supper laid out, only meat and carrots and some dinner rolls, and they would be serving themselves, for no servants were there with them.
“I can stay here, with Beaumont, and then I can come and call upon you each day, and we can go out into town and speak to people and get to the bottom of what happened to Miss Seward.”
“Oh,” said Jane. “You think this is going to take several days, do you?”
“I don’t know,” said Byron. “It could. I obviously couldn’t stay with you, and after what happened in town, I wouldn’t feel comfortable staying at an inn—also, inns are rather expensive, don’t you find that? And so, here, with Beaumont, everything is much more tidy.”
“Well,” said Jane, “you don’t really need my help, though, not with this. You were going to go and ask questions on your own, clear your name on your own, were you not?”
“You don’t wish to help?” he said. He thought about it. “No, why would you, after all?”
“It’s not that I don’t wish to, it’s that I shouldn’t,” she said, looking around the parlor.
“I don’t entirely know how it is that I’ve ended up here.
I simply went on a walk, and then I got pulled into this entire scheme.
This is not how I live my life, my lord.
I have things planned out and executed. I don’t simply flit into people’s houses and get myself invited to dinner. ”
“I see,” he said.
She sighed. “Oh, this is neither here nor there. How do you know this man?”
“School chums,” said Byron.
“And you were obviously quite close,” said Jane.
“Oh, indeed.” Byron chuckled to himself.
“And so I doubt you do think he murdered Miss Seward.”
“Well, I can’t say for sure,” said Byron.
“You don’t vouch for his character?”
“No, of course not, and he wouldn’t vouch for mine either. We are not that way with each other. We have both seen each other do all manner of things that might be considered untoward,” said Byron.
“Yes, I suppose that would be the case when it comes to you,” said Jane.
“But I shall handle all of that,” said Byron. “Let me question him.”
Jane sighed. “I simply am not sure why I am even here.”
Byron considered this. “Perhaps I can see that. But you’ve already accepted the invitation to dinner, so you might as well stay.”
She supposed he was correct about that.
Byron looked to the doorway. “What is keeping Beaumont, I wonder?”
“What about you?” said Jane. “Isn’t anyone expecting you to be somewhere else? Can you just turn up here in Hampshire for days without any consequence?”
“Clearly,” said Byron.
“But that woman you brought here. She’s not expecting you?”
Byron shrugged eloquently. “I can’t say for sure about that. She’s probably beside herself, wondering why it is that I am not following her about, composing sonnets about the backs of her heels.”
“Don’t you like her?” said Jane.
Byron looked abashed. “Yes, apologies, that was unkind, I suppose. Odd thing with women, you know. At first, they meet me, and they are ever so closed off towards me, and I find this to be some sort of challenge that I must chip away at, and when I do…”
“When you do, what?”
“Well, I don’t know, once they aren’t so closed off, I suppose I’ve won. What is there to do with them at that point?”
Jane blinked at him.
“I just hope that you, Miss Jane, stay entirely this hostile towards me, forever and ever. It’s the only way I can maintain my affection, do you see that?”
Jane’s eyes widened. “Well, you hardly think of me in the same category as Lady Caroline, of course.”
Byron thought about that. “I suppose there are different categories you both might fit in, but I have to say that I don’t understand what you mean.”
“I mean only that she is the sort of woman you would pursue, whereas I am very old and very poor and very uninteresting to you in that way.”
Byron smirked. “I see.”
Jane felt a blush rising on her cheeks. “Not that I am interested in you in that way. You’re a child.”
“Yes, I suppose, to your perspective, I am.”
“You can’t be more than six and twenty.”
“Four and twenty,” he said, giving her an insouciant grin, gazing at her in a way that men did not, as a general rule, gaze at her.
“Stop that,” she said.
“All right,” he said and kept grinning at her.
She turned her attention to the door. “Where is Beaumont?”
“I have to say that I’ve never wasted my time on a woman who didn’t seem to know her own charms,” said Byron. “I never thought I’d find it the least bit enticing, but perhaps—”
“I would never,” said Jane sharply.
He laughed, delighted.
She was very much blushing now. “And you would never either.”
At this moment, Beaumont appeared in the doorway. “Apologies for the delay,” he said. “I was detained by speaking with my wife. She is not the least bit pleased that I have guests at a time like this, but I asked her what I was supposed to do, turn you both out into the street?”
Yes, Byron had a tendency to do this, didn’t he? Just arrive places and then people had to accommodate him. It was maddening. Jane didn’t like being brought into it as another accommodation.
Beaumont came in and sat down at the table with them. “I hope the food hasn’t gone cold. You two should have started without me, really. I should have sent word for someone to come in here and let you know not to wait. I’m terribly sorry.”
“We couldn’t begin without you, Thomas, don’t be ridiculous,” said Byron, who reached over to get the platter of meat and speared himself a large chunk. He deposited it on his plate and passed it to Beaumont.
For several moments, they occupied themselves only with passing around the food and filling their plates.
Jane found she was actually hungrier than she thought and began to tuck in with as much gusto as she thought appropriate in company.
“You probably don’t know why I’m here,” said Byron. “At first, I thought everyone would be abuzz with it, but I think I have miscalculated my celebrity here in the country. People know who I am, but it’s not quite as interesting to everyone as I might have thought it would be.”
“What are you going on about?” said Beaumont. “Of course I knew you were here. I saw you last night.”
Byron set down his fork. “What?”
“You mean to tell me you don’t remember that?” said Beaumont. “Really?”
“My memory of last night is a bit patchy,” said Byron. “I seem to have a number of holes in the sequence of what occurred. When did we see each other? Where? For how long?”
“I found you out in the street, entirely soused, having been thrown out of Annie’s tavern,” said Beaumont, laughing.
“Annie,” said Jane. “You call Miss Seward Annie?”
“Ah, yes, of course,” said Beaumont. “She and I were childhood playmates, you see, and it’s often difficult to shake old habits like that.”
“So, you found me on the street, thrown out of the tavern,” said Byron.
“Yes, we spoke for a bit of time, and I said you must come see me and how long were you staying and that I would be quite happy to have you under my roof if you were to be here for longer than the night, and then we parted ways, and you went off to wherever it was you were sleeping, promising to visit me today.”
“That was all that you saw of me?” said Byron.
“You really don’t remember this? Why have you come here to see me, then?”
“Well, I woke up in bed with ‘Annie’s’ corpse,” said Byron. “And everyone assumed I’d killed her.”
Beaumont dropped his fork with a clatter. “What?”
“Apologies if you didn’t know, Mr. Beaumont,” said Jane. “But Miss Seward has passed on.”
Beaumont put a hand to his chest. “How? What happened?”
“Well, that is what we don’t know entirely,” said Jane. “Lord Byron says that he didn’t do it—”
“And Miss Austen doesn’t believe me,” said Byron, glaring at her.
“You woke up with her?” said Beaumont, turning wide, round eyes on Byron. “So, you were with her last night.”
“Well, no!” said Byron. “I wasn’t. At least, not in that way.”
“Except you have a patchy memory, and you don’t even remember seeing Mr. Beaumont,” said Jane. “So, I don’t see how you can be sure of anything.”
“I am certain of that,” said Byron. “You have a feeling of knowing when something like that has happened. I am positive.”
“Positive?” said Beaumont.
“Yes,” said Byron. “But the way you’re reacting makes me think that the tavern wench we spoke to was right about you when she said that Miss Seward was connected with you in that way.”
Beaumont picked his fork back up and began to use it to cut carrots. “I’m a married man whose wife has just given birth.”
“And that is not an answer to the question,” said Byron.
Jane had thought he was going to finesse this a bit more when he insisted he be the one to put questions to Mr. Beaumont. However, Byron was simply being blunt about it all.
Well, what did it matter? Jane was going to eat her dinner and then go directly home and go to sleep and in the morning, she would give absolutely none of this another thought. Thus decided, she began to cut at her meat, resolving not to even bother listening to the conversation.
In this, however, she was unsuccessful. She listened to every word.
“This is hardly the sort of thing one discusses over dinner,” said Beaumont.
“This is not that kind of dinner, by your own admission. You said this was quite informal,” said Byron.
“If you’re worried about Miss Austen here, I should think you wouldn’t be.
Just looking at the two of us, you would form an opinion about which of us has more discretion than the other, I should think, and she would come out the clear winner. ”
“I suppose,” said Beaumont. “But she is a woman and women gossip—”
“No, not Miss Austen,” said Byron. “Truly, you may speak freely. It’s me, Thomas. You can tell me.”
Beaumont didn’t say anything for a while, seemingly thinking this over. “Frankly, I don’t know that you’re entirely trustworthy, George.”