Colonel Brandon's Diary by Amanda Grange

crushed by such a marriage, her health and happiness destroyed?’
    ‘Why go to all the trouble of courting a stranger when Eliza was right here?’
    ‘Did you have no feelings for her? No tenderness? No pity? You had known her all her life. Did you have nothing inside you that said, “No, I will not do this. Not to Eliza”? ’
    He looked at me as though I was speaking a language that was unknown to him and then said, ‘No. Not at all.’
    ‘How could you! How could you do it?’
    He took a drink.
    ‘How you do rant on! Anyone would think I forced her to marry me at gunpoint. She knew what I was, and yet she married me anyway. She deserved what she got.’
    ‘If you were not my brother, I would call you out,’ I said, shaking with rage.
    ‘If you were not my brother, I would throw you out,’ he returned.
    ‘You are welcome to try.’
    He reached out his hand to the bell.
    ‘Ah, I see,’ I said scathingly. ‘You mean you would have someone else throw me out.’
    ‘Of course. That is why I have servants. To do the things I cannot, or will not, do myself.’
    I mastered my emotion, for it was doing nothing but hurting me and amusing him.
    ‘Then tell me this, and I will go,’ I said. ‘Where is she now?’
    He shrugged.
    ‘I have no idea.’
    ‘But you must have. You must write to her from time to time — ’ He laughed in derision. ‘At the very least you must have an address to which you send her allowance.’
    ‘I did, to begin with, but no longer. She made her allowance over to someone else several months ago.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘She sold it, or gave it away.’
    I was horrified.
    ‘And you allowed this?’ I demanded.
    ‘It was her money. She had a perfect right to give it to anyone she pleased,’ he said calmly.
    ‘But why should she do such a thing? She must have been coerced.’
    ‘If she was coerced, it was by necessity. She was always extravagant. I have no doubt that she lived above her income and then, when her debtors pressed her, she had to have money quickly and so she sold her allowance.’
    ‘She will not have received a tenth of its value, and without an allowance, how is she to live?’ I asked.
    ‘I have no idea,’ he said carelessly, getting up to pour himself another drink.
    ‘And you do not care,’ I said. ‘Have you no compassion in you at all? She was your wife, Harry. Your wife !’
    ‘And she betrayed me,’ he said, with the first hint of emotion I had heard in his voice. He had no sympathy for her, but he had plenty for himself.
    ‘Because of your cruelty,’ I said.
    ‘Cruelty! I gave her everything,’ he snapped.
    ‘Everything? You gave her love, friendship, affection?’
    He laughed at me.
    ‘I gave her something better than that. I gave her a town house and plenty of clothes.’
    ‘Eliza could not live without love,’ I said.
    ‘Love? Is that what you call it?’ he asked derisively. ‘Her seducers gave it another name.’
    I could bear it no longer.
    ‘You have no idea where she is?’ I asked him.
    ‘None at all.’
    ‘Then give me the last address you have for her, and I will conduct my own enquiries.’
    ‘I cannot remember it.’
    I was not going to leave without finding what I had come for, and so, angry and impatient, I picked him up by his coat and said, ‘Then you had better think harder.’
    He knew it right enough, and, seeing I was serious, he gave it to me, and then I took my leave of him. I stayed only long enough to speak to the servants and call on the tenants who remembered me, and then I set out for town.
     
     
    Monday 16 December
    The rain continues. London is awash with it. The pavements are dirty and the roads are muddy. I was almost knocked down by a brewer’s cart as I went out this morning, and I only narrowly avoided a rearing horse. I returned to my club where, to my surprise and great joy, I saw Leyton, sitting by the window and looking the same as he had done last time I saw him, apart from a new