Chapter 12

“Might your ladyship be inspired to write a short note to Miss Hyperia West?” I asked.

Godmama, pestle in hand, peered at me over half spectacles that made her look like a scholarly stork. “Julian, write to her yourself. You and she are of age, and dancing about decorum and prancing around propriety grow ridiculous.”

Her ladyship had ensconced herself in, of all places, the Hall’s herbal. The air was redolent of gardenias, a rich, cloying fragrance that her ladyship favored. Bunches of drying plants hung from the exposed rafters, and herbs growing in clay pots lined the windowsills.

“Healy West has taken me into dislike,” I said, sniffing the bowl of leaves and stems she’d been mashing. “I am trying to step lightly with him for Hyperia’s sake. Shall I do this for you?”

“You shall not. One must not be too forceful.” She resumed her labors. “Hyperia is a grown woman, and if her brother needs sorting out—mine invariably do—then she is equal to the task. Hand me the lavender.”

She’d filled a small bowl with lavender flowers. I passed it over and took up a lean against a cabinet that stretched from the countertop to the ceiling. The herbal was semi-sunken, with latticed windows at ground level. This arrangement meant most of the sunlight was indirect, which was said to be better for preserving scents and medicinal properties in plant specimens.

The afternoon had developed a sullen overcast, and a fractious wind was whipping the garden’s remaining flowers. Blue and red salvia bowed and swayed at eye level. Chrysanthemum blooms dipped and bounced into one another.

“You might tend to the fire,” Lady Ophelia said, shaking a few teaspoons’ worth of lavender into her mashed greenery. “My hips suggest the temperature is dropping, and we’ll have a proper autumn storm this evening.”

I took up the poker from the hearth stand and rearranged half-burned logs in the parlor stove that filled the herbal with cozy heat. A coal fire in the herbal was forbidden lest the scent taint the delicate plant aromas.

I liked playing with fire, always had. “Banter might join us for supper.”

“And in deference to the weather, he’ll stay to enjoy the Hall’s hospitality for the night. He and Arthur will retire at a shockingly early hour, and I will be left in your dubious company.” Lady Ophelia sniffed her bowl and resumed mashing with a twisting motion of the pestle. “Are you asking me to look into Healy’s West’s circumstances? He was involved in a duel earlier this year. The other fellow was said to have disappeared to the Continent, which suggests the wounds were not mortal.”

I closed the stove and stood, poker in hand. “How do you know these things?”

“I just do. Hand me the lemon balm.”

By scent, I identified a dish of dark green foliage already mashed. “What are you making?”

“I’m not sure. Soap possibly, or a tisane or sachet. I experiment in the herbal when I need to think. Healy West and Gaylord Montefort got into a spat over a hand of cards. Words were exchanged, followed by the usual dreary excursion to Hampstead Heath. Montefort deloped, Healy did not, though let it be said the shots were fired simultaneously. Montefort hasn’t been seen since. Typical masculine stupidity.”

If Montefort had died, then Healy West would be guilty of murder in the eyes of the law and a good portion of society. A convicted felon’s worldly goods were nominally forfeited to the crown, should the matter ever come to trial. My first thought was not for Healy, but for Hyperia, who needed no more scandalous associations in her life.

“Why interest yourself in such matters?” I added two fresh logs to the fire, cherry from the look of them, a beautiful wood that burned long and well.

“I don’t interest myself. When you were in Spain, did you ever find yourself sitting down at the same table with your French counterparts? Neither of you bore the other fellow any personal malice, and, in fact, you shared a certain rare sympathy of outlook with one another.” She left off grinding and mashing and put a cast-iron pot of water atop the stove.

“If you must know, Godmama, the unwritten rule of engagement among intelligence officers of all nationalities is to avoid violence. Violence complicates the mission, which is gathering information and surviving to report that information to one’s superiors. Brute force is the less sophisticated tactic. If my path crossed that of a French intelligence officer or an agent for the Spanish Bonapartists, we were civil about it.”

“Just so, and you might even, in an odd way, have compared notes. If the generals on all sides were hell-bent on having a battle nobody could win, then you intelligence officers could agree in your civil way that such a battle was rank foolishness.”

Had she been lurking at my elbow during a certain conversation in Spain, she could not have summarized the situation more accurately. Battle—which would have been mutual slaughter for no purpose on that occasion—had been averted.

“What has this to do with Healy West?”

“His godmother and I were rivals at one time for the affections of a certain royal duke. I prevailed, of course, but a few years later, Lady Mary Pringle had set her sights on some Bavarian princeling. I aided the course of true lust. I was still occasionally humoring my royal duke, and Lady Mary had accepted defeat graciously. We exchange views from time to time, and sometimes what she has to tell me has no relevance to anything, but eventually, intelligence of all sorts has a way of proving useful.”

One shuddered to think what the mistress of a royal duke might have considered fair game in such an exchange.

“Lady Mary keeps an eye on Healy West?”

“The boy’s father asked it of her, and with good reason. Inheriting too young rarely goes as well as it has in Arthur’s case. Have you instructed him to take some pigeons with him on his journey?”

“Yes, my lady. Immediately upon my return from London.” The pot on the stove began to steam, and Godmama tossed a handful of her mashed mixture into the water. “My request, that you pen a note to Miss West, remains, but I also wanted to ask you about one Barbara Hasborough.”

Her ladyship began tidying up, dumping all of her unused specimens into a dustbin and setting bowls and knives into the wet sink.

“The quiet sister,” she said. “Supposedly sickly in childhood, not as tall as her siblings, but still quite robust. Did her one Season in the ordinary course, accepted the suit of a Berkshire baronet, and hasn’t been heard from since. Why?”

Berkshire lay a few hours’ ride from Town. “Because I suspect Evelyn Tait has been biding with dear Barbara and sending her sibling into Town occasionally to sell a piece of jewelry. Lina Hanscomb told me Barbara and Margery have both occasionally looked in on Ardath, but neither Margery nor Ardath so much as mentioned Barbara to me.”

“And when two gabbling women are inexplicably silent on a particular topic common to them both, a smart man takes notice. You’re off to Berkshire, then?”

“Seems I am. I’ll take the traveling coach and try to get there in a day.”

Lady Ophelia stirred her steaming pot from which a complicated aroma rose. Sweet from whatever the gardenia scent was, brusque with the top note of lavender, and tangy with a hint of lemon in the finish.

“This jaunting about can’t wait until Arthur has taken ship, Julian? I don’t care for you haring all over creation for days on end, out in the elements at all hours, taking on troubles that have nothing to do with you. The war is over, Harry is dead, and you could find every missing wife in Merry Olde, of which there are many, and you won’t bring him back.”

“I know that.” Why did she have to turn her blunt speech on me now? “Hyperia asked me to find Tait’s wife, and I have reason to believe Evelyn is in peril.”

“Those Hasborough sisters were all well dowered. Do you fear Tait will do Evelyn in if he finds her first?”

“I… do… not.” But I would take care that nobody followed me to Berkshire, and I would report my findings to Tait upon my return only if the lady gave me permission to do so, assuming I found her.

“But you can’t be sure. Very well, tilt at other people’s windmills if you must. I will write to Hyperia after supper, and you can enclose whatever note you please before Arthur franks the mail in the morning. He always rises in such a good mood after Banter has spent the night. The two of them need to learn some discretion.”

“Or we need to learn to appreciate Banter, because Arthur is as deserving of good moods as the next man.”

The herbal was now pleasantly scented with a sort of general conservatory aroma. Botanical, fragrant, complicated… Not a perfume, exactly, but certainly appealing in soap or sachets.

“Be off with you,” her ladyship said, brandishing her pestle at me. “But get a good night’s sleep before you decamp, or I won’t be colluding with you to get your billet-doux to Hyperia.”

“Thank you, Godmama. For everything.” I kissed her cheek and left her muttering in French about impertinent young men and foolishness being the order of the day.

* * *

A great, booming thunderstorm that started just after midnight kept me from a proper night’s rest. I no longer jumped at a rumble of thunder as I once had, but neither was any noise that resembled cannon fire restful. The puzzle of Evelyn Tait’s situation distracted me as well.

I was overlooking some connection, some fragment of truth sitting in plain sight, though mentally reviewing everything I knew brought me no insights. I still wanted to reread Evelyn’s diaries, and I wanted to revisit her rooms.

“Ain’t never been to Berkshire,” Atticus said as we waited for the coach to pull into the porte cochere. The morning was misty and damp, but the rain had let up.

“A very pretty shire,” I said. “They’ve kept a lot of their forests in trees rather than trying to put every acre into crops. Excellent shooting out that way.”

“You don’t hunt game, guv.”

Something about that diffident observation caught my ear. “You’d like to learn how to handle a firearm?” Boys not much older than Atticus had taken the king’s shilling. Such lads had often ended up as flag-bearers, a hellishly dangerous job when capturing the enemy’s colors was proof positive of victory.

“Someday,” Atticus said, mimicking firing a pistol with his thumb and index finger. “Every ’prentice and drover who went to war knows how to shoot now. Guns aren’t just for squires and gents anymore.”

A troubling and true observation. “When you can read and write French and English fluently, I will instruct you on the fine art of marksmanship.”

Atticus’s gaze became speculative when I’d expected resentment. “You mean that? When I can do the parly-voo and bon-swar, you’ll show me how to shoot?”

“Read and write, my boy, both languages, and my French is fluent, so a few handy phrases won’t impress me. I was raised to speak both languages with equal facility. Why do you want to learn to handle a gun?”

He began hopping up and down the steps that led from the terrace to the carriageway. “I just do.”

The mysteries were piling up like linen on laundry day. “We will not encounter any highwaymen, Atticus, and if we do, John Coachman and I are both armed.”

The coach jingled up from the stable, precluding any more discussion of Atticus’s newfound fascination with firearms. He was welcome to ride inside with me, but preferred John Coachman’s company up on the box. Better stories to be had from that perch, and scenery unfettered by window shades.

Atticus loved the outdoors, while my eyes appreciated the gifts of a cloudy day and a closed coach.

“Julian!” Osgood Banter trotted forth from the house. “Glad I caught you.” He was freshly shaved, immaculately attired, and exuding the aura of a man whose slumbers had been enviably satisfying, the blighter. “A moment of your time, and then I’ll see you off.”

What now?“We’re not in any particular rush.”

“But you are in a general rush because you are investigating.” Banter gestured at me to walk off a little way with him. Atticus switched to hopping up and down the steps on one foot, though I knew the lad could eavesdrop as well on one foot as on two.

“His Grace mentioned that Healy West has turned up difficult,” Banter said.

“Disapproving, at any rate—of me. West insisted that he needed his sister back in Town to serve as his hostess, and now that she’s heeded his summons, he doesn’t appear to be entertaining.”

“West does not enjoy the steadiest temperament.” From Osgood Banter, who avoided speaking ill of anybody, that approached a scathing condemnation.

“Lady Ophelia mentioned a duel with Gaylord Montefort, who I believe is the oldest scion of the Montefort house.”

Banter’s gaze was on the windows at the corner of the house one floor up. The ducal suite, which had a lovely view of the drive, the park, and the home wood.

“Your godmother scares me, Julian, but then, West isn’t always as discreet as he should be, and Montefort’s seconds included his younger brother. Bellerophon Montefort claims no great stores of discretion or sense.”

One did not forget that name. “Bell Montefort served in uniform for less than a year before selling up. I seem to recall the threat of a court-martial hanging over him, but the details elude me.”

“I’d heard a general’s daughter was involved,” Banter said, “but one cannot trust club gossip. Montefort’s other second was a Scot, Murdoch, another former soldier who had a reputation for battlefield rages.”

I vaguely recalled mention of such a man. He supposedly killed with his bare hands, a demon in plaid, Ney’s personal nightmare. The whispers had been half ghoulish and half in awe.

“If one is to have murderous rages,” I observed, “the battlefield is the place to indulge them.”

Banter left off making sheep’s eyes at his true love’s windows. “I suppose a soldier would see it like that. Murdoch seemed perfectly sensible to me. Lady Ophelia is right—there was a duel. A spat over cards—nobody is sure who started it—but West was the challenger. Montefort offered the usual apology—an excess of drink, a paucity of manners, meant no insult, et cetera and so forth—but West wouldn’t have it.”

“In my experience, the men who did not go to war are more likely to indulge in lethal stupidity than the men who did.” Though officers could and did duel, despite Wellington’s stated disapproval—Wellington, who had also defended his honor at twenty paces, of course.

“It gets worse.” Banter’s usually genial features were a mask of distaste. “Gaylord Montefort fired into the air, West wasn’t half so gallant. Montefort was winged. Bell started yelling about murder, and dishonor, and the seconds must duel, but Murdoch and I put a stop to that damned nonsense.”

“Who was Healy’s other second?”

“He had only me. Nobody else wanted to dignify the lunacy by supporting him. I am accounted a fool for having done so.”

“You probably saved his life.” And for Hyperia’s sake, that was a good thing. “Does Hyperia know any of this?”

“I doubt it, unless Lady Ophelia has told her. I agree with the general sentiment that the less said about any duel, the better. The law is increasingly intolerant of citizens indulging in premeditated murder in the name of honor.”

“Not citizens, Banter. Almost invariably men. Grown men.” Women dueled, though the occasions were vanishingly rare—at least with pistols and swords.

“Well, nobody has seen Gaylord Montefort since. Wounds fester, and if Healy is behaving badly, it might well be that he fears charges of murder.”

“He’d be an idiot not to, and yet, there he is in the London residence, when he could instead bide quietly at the family seat until spring. He is also pulling his sister into a closer orbit. If scandal looms, he ought to be distancing himself from family and friends.”

That had been my course a scant year ago.

“To lie low and play least in sight,” Banter replied, “is the honorable, sensible course. I had hoped the whole business would blow over, but this happened in the spring, and my guess is Bell Montefort won’t let it drop.”

I knew the younger Montefort slightly, but he’d have no reason to listen to my pleas to exercise restraint. “I will apprise Hyperia of the storm brewing over her brother’s head and offer what aid I can to Healy.”

“Offer him one-way passage to the Antipodes. Better to leave of his own free will with his silks and linens stowed in the hold than on a convict transport ship.”

Banter, for all his facile charm, was pragmatic at heart. “I might suggest that.” Though how would Hyperia fare if her brother left England one step ahead of the law? “Please let Arthur and her ladyship know I might detour into Town on the way home. This news is best conveyed to Hyperia in person.”

“Be careful, Julian. Healy West and Bell Montefort are a pair of hotheaded idiots. I’m sorry I involved myself in the whole affair, and your reputation will suffer if you get dragged into it too.”

His words inspired a smile. “Banter, my honor is dear to me. My reputation in the clubs, among the churchyard gossips, and with the Mayfair scandalmongers matters less and less.”

Banter smacked me hard on the shoulder. “Then have a care for Miss West’s reputation, and my own, as well as your continued existence, my dear. If anything happens to you, Arthur will be inconsolable.”

“If anything happens to Arthur, I will be… You must look after him, Banter. I will haunt you from the ninth circle of hell if you allow anything untoward to happen to my brother.”

Banter patted the shoulder he’d just pummeled. “We understand one another. Safe journey, my lord, and good hunting.”

* * *

Because Arthur kept teams along all the major routes to London, we made excellent time and were in Berkshire by midafternoon. Atticus had joined me for part of the journey—the drizzling part—and was bouncing with energy by the time we pulled up at The Lambs’ Knoll.

Lady Ophelia had been unable to give me the name of a particular manor or its direction, but she recalled the village from which Sir Tristan Peele hailed. I thus needed local intelligence to find Lady Peele, née Barbara Hasborough.

“Pretty,” Atticus said, scanning a village green ringed with shops. “Hills are bigger hereabouts, but not as long as ours.”

“Not like the Downs, but not like mountains, you’re right. Proper hills. Proper woods.” Harvest was nearly complete in these surrounds, and many of the trees had lost most of their leaves. The autumnal air felt different from Sussex too. Sharper, with more of a damp tang.

“You could doubtless do with some tucker,” I said, “and John Coachman and the groom will leave me at the nearest crossroads if we don’t make time for at least a pint.”

“I’ll kick you out of the coach meself,” Atticus said. “I’m that famished.”

He was always famished, which I took as a sign of a boy catching up on his growth. Since joining my employ a few months earlier, Atticus had gained both height and swagger, and his diction was coming along. He’d also, thanks to Hyperia and Lady Ophelia, made a start on his letters.

“Help with the horses as best you can,” I said. “I’ll arrange for your comestibles.”

I trooped into the inn’s common, the fire in the enormous hearth a welcome respite from the damp and chill. With its whitewashed walls, blackened beams, high-backed settles and battered tables, The Lambs’ Knoll could have been any one of a thousand inns in the home counties. The smell was pleasant—peat smoke and roasting meat—and the hygiene impressive.

“Sir, good day.” A balding fellow with an apron about his belly welcomed me with a smile. “Thaddeus Howell, proprietor of this fine establishment.” He was the quintessential English innkeeper, and I hoped he had the encyclopedic knowledge of his surrounds that usually attended that office.

“If you’d like a meal,” he went on, “then take any seat in the common. If it’s rooms you’re after, we have four vacant at the moment.”

He likely had two rooms and a pair of garrets under the eaves. The premises were clean, but exceedingly quaint.

“A meal would be much appreciated. My groom, coachman, and tiger will be hungry as well—and thirsty. The boy in particular is prodigiously fond of his food.”

“A change in the weather puts an appetite on us, me missus says. On your way out from Town, sir?”

He was the chatty type, thank providence. “On my way into Town, as it happens, but I promised my godmother I’d detour from the King’s highway to look in on an acquaintance of hers, a Lady Peele, married to Sir Tristan Peele.”

“You haven’t far to go, then. Peele Manor be less than a mile from the green as the crow flies. Sir Tristan will be in residence. Another month, and he’ll be out on his hunter from dawn to dusk. Goes into a positive decline every spring, I vow.”

“We have that type in Sussex too. Can’t see it myself. Might I have the inglenook?”

“A good choice today. Frost is right around the corner, or my name’s not Thaddeus Howell.”

I settled onto the worn bench next to the fireplace and let my mind wander. I’d had hours in the coach to plan my interview with Lady Peele, but thoughts of Hyperia and Healy West had intruded. If Healy had to leave the country, how was Hyperia to go on? Healy was not her guardian, but he doubtless dealt with the solicitors on her behalf, played the role of head of her family, and kept the gossips from accusing her of being without male protection.

She was not quite old enough to be a convincing spinster and not young enough to be anybody’s ward. Feme sole, as the law put it, rather than that legal non-entity, feme covert. Would she view marriage in a different—and more favorable—light if Healy exiled himself?

Meaning marriage to me… I hoped.

A plump, smiling tavern maid approached my table. “Good day, sir. Howell says we’re to feed you and your fellows. We have beef stew with lentils and the best beer this side of Bristol.” She was pretty, and I’d put her age at about twenty.

“Might you add some cheese toast to that order and something in the way of a pudding?” I was truly hungry and knew the folly of neglecting my belly when on campaign.

“Aye, and for your fellows too. We’ll start you off with a pint.”

“A small pint, please. I’m paying a call locally when I leave here, and I expect more libation will be offered then.”

“Up to see Sir Tristan and his lady. They don’t get many callers, other than neighbors, of course.” The young lady was making me an offer—give up some information about myself and my business, and she’d hand over the local opinion of Sir Tristan and his lady.

Many excellent intelligence officers had never worn a uniform.

“I’m something of a neighbor to Lady Peele’s oldest sister down in Sussex, and I’ve made the acquaintance of the youngest sister as well. We have mutual acquaintances in Town.” Lina Hanscomb was a mutual acquaintance of a sort. “My godmother, who knows everybody, suggested a brief call would be an appreciated courtesy.”

“They’re lovely people,” the tavern maid said, taking the towel draped over her shoulder and applying it to the spotless table. “Sir Tris is hunt mad—so’s half the shire—but he’s not too high in the instep. Doesn’t begrudge a neighbor the time of day, pays his tithes, and sponsors the Christmas pageant. His gamekeeper is always bringing around a hare or some grouse to the widows, too, dontcha know. Lady Peele does the loveliest boxes at Yuletide, organizes the village fete, and makes sure we have a kindly vicar, which is more important than most grand folk realize. She’s finding us a new schoolmaster—the old one was a dear, but has moved closer to family, which is understandable, of course, when he had a tyke to raise and no missus. Lady Peele also put together the lending library. She heads up the lady’s charitable committee, too, and always turns out to cheer her husband on race day, though Sir Tris is never in it to win. Puts on a good spread afterward for the whole lot of us.”

“That is a glowing report.” More significantly, it appeared to be an honest report.

“Aye, sir.” The maid finished polishing the table. “Her ladyship was country-born, and Sir Tris’s people have owned the manor since the Flood. He served in the Low Countries and came back a baronet, and we’re that proud of him.”

As well they should be. “Anybody who survived that debacle deserves the unending respect of his country.”

I had said the right thing, with the right sincerity, and my meal was abundant. By the time I was waiting for the coach and a fresh team outside the inn, Howell was inviting me back anytime to hoist a pint in honor of His Grace of Wellington, may God keep that dear fellow into a great and lauded old age.

All in all, a delightful encounter—deceptively delightful, as it turned out.