A Gentleman Far From Home, page 3
part #1 of Book Eleven Series
“I thought you and she would make a fine pair, but one season after another goes by, and you don’t make the match. When your father proposed to me, I wanted a special license and a six-month wedding journey. He was enthusiastic about both notions, though we limited the wedding journey to three months.”
By the end of which, my brother Arthur had already been on the way. She left that part unsaid.
“Hyperia and I have different views about the desirability of children.” Admitting even that much felt toweringly disloyal. “She is adamant about avoiding the dangers of childbed.”
Or so she claimed.
“Then why on earth would she give any Caldicott male leave to court her, much less one with a duty to the succession?”
Because at the time I’d proposed, I’d been incapable of… I’d been incapable. The match had made a crooked kind of sense under those circumstances, and Arthur had not pressured me to safeguard the ruddy succession.
Over a long progression of months, my manly humors had restored themselves. For the first time in human history, a fellow had cause for consternation rather than ebullient rejoicing when reunited with his animal spirits.
I sipped my tea and tried to exude calm dignity while my mother treated me to one of those inspections that inspired in adult men the inner quaking of dimwitted schoolboys. I resisted the urge to glance at the clock, help myself to tea cakes, or otherwise betray battle nerves.
“Young people,” the duchess muttered. “You criticize your elders for fussing and fretting, but I daresay the traits emerge early in life and to no good purpose. If you are not here to tell me of your impending nuptials, why desert the Hall as the holidays approach?”
I should have been relieved at the change of subject, but Mama’s willingness to move on to another topic left me wondering what she knew—about me, about Hyperia, about courting couples, about family history—that inspired her to abandon discussion of my engagement.
“Why did you leave the Hall?” I asked. “We rubbed along together through last year’s holidays.”
She smiled, a genuine expression of warmth. “We did, didn’t we? To try for two consecutive years of holiday cheer would have been to tempt fate. Besides, Lady Clo invited me, and we hadn’t seen each other in ages—we both avoid Town far more than we used to—and we have been catching up.”
All true, but not the whole truth. “Do you avoid Town because I am in disgrace?”
She set down her tea cup silently. “You are not in disgrace, and if I must instruct His Grace of Wellington to emphasize that fact to the Regent, the gossips, and the matchmakers, you have only to say the word.”
Instruct Wellington. Interesting concept, though if that formidable peer were to accept anybody’s pedagogy, it would be that of the ladies.
“His Grace has done what he thought was appropriate for me, and I am content with the results. I am not content that you should deny yourself the blandishments of Town on my account.”
The smile was back. “You should hear yourself. ‘Blandishments of Town.’ Coal smoke that chokes horses, scandal, rampant illness, filthy streets, and sinful pastimes for those who can afford them. Mayfair in spring can be lovely, but winter in London is to be avoided, as most of polite society knows.”
And yet, Hyperia chose to bide there with her rapscallion brother.
“Julian, if we are through skirmishing, might you tell me what brought you here? You appear to be in good health—I do worry, and I am your mother, so don’t scold me. My eyes and ears at the Hall say you show few signs of melancholia, but you are the fellow who made very effective use of disguises when you should have been in uniform. Lady Clo will understand if I must cut my visit short.”
For the barest, merest instant, the words Mama, please come home hovered in my mind. Fortunately, I had Carstairs’s conundrum to solve, and thus Her Grace was spared from any mawkish importuning.
“I have been asked to undertake another investigation,” I said, “and the matter at issue will put me in your ambit here in Hampshire. I cannot divulge all the particulars, but you deserve a general briefing.”
“An investigation.” Neither surprise nor censure came through. “At Yuletide?”
“Commencing afterward.” I explained Carstairs’s situation. He’d sent me his collection of threatening notes, including the first, which had inspired him to quit the family seat a mere few weeks after mustering out.
“And you must involve yourself in this affair at the holidays?” Her Grace asked, munching a petit four draped in green icing.
“At the New Year.”
“Odd. The New Year is not yet upon us, and here you are. How is Leander?”
I needed a moment to grasp that I was being scolded. I so far had offered neither assurances of his good health nor his greetings to his grandmama.
“Leander granted me compassionate leave because I missed my mother.”
“Your mother missed you too. Your letters really are remarkably brief, Julian. Dispatches rather than correspondence. Are you taking up this ill-timed investigation because you are bored?”
In Arthur’s absence, I was shouldering a mountain of ducal correspondence, hosting neighbors at the Hall, and making a dutiful handful of calls in return. I met with the stewards and the vicar and had been approached about joining the Committee for the Peace.
Compared to reconnaissance work for Wellington… tedium by a dutiful name.
“My interest in Carstairs’s situation has to do with knowing that a soldier deserves the privilege of returning home when the guns go silent. He is entitled to be the conquering hero, if only for a short time. To put the war behind him in any fashion, he must be feted and appreciated. He deserves to know that his sacrifices are spoken of and valued. Carstairs is instead being forced into the posture of a pariah.”
The duchess considered the teapot, a graceful ceramic article decorated with violets and greenery.
“We did not fete you. We did not dare.”
“I did not feel fete-worthy at the time. Now, it’s celebration enough simply to live.” On my good days, I could adhere to that philosophy, and I enjoyed many good days. “Carstairs has asked for my assistance. I could not deny a fellow soldier aid if you yourself demanded it of me, madam.”
She nodded. “Duty, honor, loyalty. One understands. Do you suspect Lady Clo is the author of Captain Carstairs’s misery?”
The question astonished me for its insight. “Why would she…? Because she dislikes the family?”
“Has no time for the baron, certainly, though she’s tolerant of the heir. I have not asked for details. She nods to them in the churchyard, though. Her dislike is Sunday civil.”
The worst kind of animosity, cloaking itself in manners. “Somebody is threatening to reveal wrongdoing from the captain’s past,” I said. “I cannot see Lady Clotilda being privy to such information.”
Her Grace chose a pink petit four. “You’d be surprised. When the time comes to launch a daughter or find a daughter-in-law, the most ladylike mother can become rather fierce.”
As Mama was growing fierce when it came to my lengthy engagement to Hyperia West.
“I will bide with Carstairs when he visits his family seat, and you need not explain to Lady Clotilda the true nature of my role. The captain and I served together in the loosest definition of the words, and we are neighbors in Surrey.”
She passed me the only other pink petit four. “Raspberry. You’ve been eyeing it for the past quarter hour. They are quite good. Bring Leander to stay with me here. Society must begin to accommodate the notion that Harry left us a consolation. Lady Clo will agree with me. Don’t look so surprised, Julian. You would have asked eventually. We can’t both repeatedly leave that boy, or he’ll grow up as rackety as his late father.”
Her Grace had just solved a problem I hadn’t been prepared to face. Leander took great exception when I absented myself from the Hall, which was understandable. His mama had gone for a short visit to her home shire and never returned. He had no memory of his father, and his ducal uncle had decamped very soon after making the boy’s acquaintance.
Leander nonetheless had no place in my investigations, which could and did occasionally turn dangerous. I thus tended to leave him at the Hall when I went sleuthing.
He tended to object and expressed his disapproval by climbing out onto the roof, refusing supper, or getting lost between the nursery and the kitchen for hours. Her Grace regarded that behavior with an equanimity that eluded me.
“I have missed you,” I said, rising. “Very much. Lady Clo is lucky to have your company over the holidays.”
Mama rose as well and linked her arm through mine. “She is. I miss you too, Julian, but you managed so splendidly last year that I felt I could accept Clotilda’s invitation. You and she will get along magnificently. You are both skeptical by nature and stubborn to your bones. I predict rousing political debates should your paths cross.”
When the duchess and I parted, I ventured to hug her, after I offered her a proper bow, of course. She bussed my cheek, and on the return journey to Surrey, my heart was lighter than it had been.
Hyperia and I were approaching some sort of impasse, but I was growing accustomed to those—and braver about them. Thanks to Her Grace, I need not abandon Leander to take on Carstairs’s challenge, and thanks to Carstairs, I had an investigation to relieve the monotony of life at the Hall.
Then too, Mama had pronounced me skeptical and stubborn, and surely those traits were preferable to being rackety?
Chapter Three
When my life and the lives of those I’d served with had depended on my judgment, I’d learned to make decisions carefully, based on evidence and logical deduction if possible. Had a sizable French force passed through a valley three days ago, or had the tracks, ruts, and boot prints been left by bandits hostile to the French?
Would a stream be low enough in a week’s time to allow artillery to safely ford, or would a longer route be necessary? Where could our snipers provide covering fire for such an operation? Where might the enemy lie in wait?
In making the decision to detour to Town, I relied solely on instinct, which was no end of discomfiting.
“Everybody will be singin’ carols,” my tiger, Atticus, observed. He was small, dark-haired, and exhibited an odd combination of outspokenness and tact. “The shops will be a-bustlin’ and every door will have a wreath or a bit of ribbon on the knocker. The whole of London will smell of gingerbread early in the day and pine in the afternoon.”
Ah, youth.
Atticus’s benevolent view of Christmas was at variance with his usually jaundiced perspective on human nature. His earliest memories were of a parish poorhouse, from whence he’d been whisked into domestic service at a tender age, separating him from a brother I had yet to locate. I’d come upon Atticus at a house party in Kent, discerned that he was both shrewd and loyal beyond his tender years, and offered him a post.
What that post entailed was a matter of ongoing negotiation. I agitated for book learning and further domestic accomplishments, but Atticus loved the stable and the company of the grooms and gardeners. I tolerated his preferences for the nonce, because more than once, the information Atticus had gathered in low places had proved critical to solving an investigation.
Then too, better to be a happy stable boy than a miserable clerk, provided that stable boy was literate and could cipher accurately.
“You recall the holidays in London fondly?” I asked as the coach slowed for yet another turnpike.
“When I was on the parish, we sometimes got a peppermint stick at the Yuletide if we was good. Tom didn’t care for peppermint, so he gave me his, and I gave him my cinnamon biscuits.”
Atticus’s speech was a fair barometer of his mood. When he was excited, whether by fear or joy, his syntax suffered. When calm and focused, his humble origins were less in evidence.
“You like cinnamon biscuits, young man.” Atticus, who had known long periods of short rations, liked food in the general case. His age was estimated to be nine or tenish, but he could have been younger or older. Short rations made for a short boy.
“Fair’s fair,” Atticus said, his bootheel swinging against the bench. “I like peppermint sticks too. I could walk faster than this coach is moving.”
“Good idea.” I thumped on the coach roof with my walking stick. “Let’s do a bit of sightseeing, shall we?”
We’d been cooped up for hours, leaving the coach only for moments here and there to stretch our legs when a fresh team was put to. Experienced hostlers could swap out horses in less than a minute, and John Coachman knew better than to linger in the innyard when we had winter roads to negotiate.
The coach halted, and Atticus was out the door like a first-form scholar granted summer parole. I donned my blue spectacles before debarking in deference to eyes that took painful exception to bright sunshine. We’d made it as far as Knightsbridge. The mile or so walk to the ducal town house would quell Atticus’s natural restlessness.
And perhaps quiet my mental agitation as well. I had not sent word ahead to Hyperia that I would be in Town. The note might well have arrived after I did, and—shameful admission—I wanted the option to change my mind crossroad by crossroad.
“See?” Atticus said, pointing rudely to the nearest shop door. “Wreaths and pine ropes and red ribbons everywhere.”
I saw two wreaths. “The town house is that way,” I said, nodding to the northeast. “Mind you don’t get lost.”
He scowled at the sky. “How can you tell which way is which when there’s no sun?”
In our various adventures, I’d taught him a bit of tracking and a few other skills. “You often can’t. A heavily overcast day is frustrating if the sun is your only point of reference. If you’re a native to London, you know the wind comes mostly from the southwest in every season except spring. Which direction is southwest?”
He stared at the brick walkway for a moment. “That way.” This time, he used his chin. “Hampshire is southwest of Town.”
My boy was a born map reader. “Correct. Now tell me about the wind.”
He stuck a finger in his mouth and held his damp digit aloft. “Can’t tell you nothin’. It’s all just cold air.”
I moved off along a street that would take us as far as Hyde Park. “Look at the buildings, Atticus. Look up high and down low. Inspect the horizon in a complete three-hundred-sixty-degree circle.”
Moving felt good. Reminding Atticus of previous lessons did too. London itself, though, had long since ceased to have any attraction for me. Harry had loved the sheer activity in such varied and sprawling surrounds, while I preferred the peace of the countryside.
“Flagpole!” Atticus said, spinning in a circle. “Atop that bankish-looking place. If that flag is flapping northeast, we’re moving mostly north.”
“Correct.” I resisted the urge to tousle his hair. “Where is your hat?”
“Left it in the coach.”
Along with his mittens and scarf, which was a reflection on my mental preoccupation. We stopped at Gunter’s for hot chocolate and rum buns, strictly to prevent the boy from taking a chill, of course.
I was debating whether to offer Atticus the half of my bun I was disinclined to eat when I caught sight of a woman sitting in a town coach across the street. She was in great good spirits and laughing with more enthusiasm than a lady usually showed in public.
An excursion to Gunter’s, especially for the genteel distaff, was often completed without leaving the conveyance that brought them. The ladies would remain comfy and cozy in a carriage, while a footman procured the comestibles.
Passing swains would visit with the damsels through the coach windows, or—in fine weather—by lounging beside open vehicles, seeing and being seen as they paid court to the fairer sex.
The laughing lady was Hyperia, and I did not recognize the gentleman who’d inspired her mirth. All I knew was that she did not laugh like that in my company, and I disliked that other fellow immediately and intensely.
Atticus paused in the inhalation of his rum bun. “You going all forgetty on me, guv? You got the look.”
From time to time, my memory deserted me completely, though temporarily. “Do not be impertinent.” Atticus was, in fact, worried. He’d nannied me through several of my lapses, which had to be nearly as unnerving for him as they were for me. “If you are through, let’s be off, shall we?”
He drained the last drop of chocolate from his mug. “You dint finish your bun.”
I passed over the uneaten portion, wasted food being a mortal sin, a hanging felony, and perilous stupid, according to the Code Atticus.
“Wrap it in your handkerchief,” I said, “assuming that article is clean.”
He complied, though where he stashed his plunder, I did not know. We were soon out on the busy street, the famed Berkeley Square maples winter-bare on the rectangular patch of dead grass across from us.
My intended was still smiling at the idiot making sheep’s eyes at her through the coach window.
“That’s Miss Hyperia!” Atticus said, raising an arm. “Miss West! Miss West! It’s us! The guv’nor’s come to Town!”
I could have throttled the boy. Instead, I slapped a cordial smile on my mug, tipped my hat, and started across the street.
“Julian!” Hyperia called. “Oh, Julian, what a delight!” She extricated herself from the coach and was soon standing on the walkway, her hand in mine. “What a pleasure to see you, my lord. Atticus, you grow taller every time we meet. Henry, stop looking politely bewildered. You know I am great friends with Lord Julian.”
We were great friends engaged to be married, in point of fact.
Upon closer inspection, I did know the fellow. “Duquette, good day. A pleasure.”
“Caldicott, likewise, and as Miss West said, a surprise.” His tone was cordial, while his gaze held a sneering hint of masculine challenge.
