Chapter 16

Teaching a boy to make a signature was not the simple undertaking I’d envisioned. Leander could draw his letters in fine straight lines, but for his name, he’d wanted the cursive versions. He and I were still debating the best style for a majuscule L when Hyperia joined us.

“One can get all flourish-y,” she said, pulling a third stool up to the schoolroom table. “But legibility is more important than putting on airs. Oh, I like that one.” She pointed to a rather staid rendition of the letter in question. “Has dignity, and I can tell it’s an L.”

Leander had been enjoying wild loops and curlicues, though he wrote with a pencil rather than a quill pen. A world of artistry was possible with a pencil that became so much smudging when attempted in ink.

“Uncle Julian, is plain better?”

“Legible is better, meaning words and letters that can be easily read. Perhaps Miss West would favor us with a demonstration of her signature.”

Hyperia obliged. I knew her hand intimately, and yet, watching her form the letters of her name was a pleasure. Her penmanship was steady, graceful, forthright… like the lady herself.

“There,” she said, pushing the paper over to Leander, who sat between us. “My H can only be an H. My W can only be a W. Lord Julian, your turn.”

I dutifully applied my moniker to the page and returned it to Leander. “My J is a J. My C is a C.”

“A monogram is something different from a signature,” Hyperia said. “A monogram is made up of only your initials and can be quite fancy. You can allude to the family crest, add symbolic flowers, choose your favorite colors.”

Leander traced a finger along the letters of my last name. “I wish I were a Caldicott. Mama says I am, but Uncle Arthur hasn’t made it official. My papa was Lord Harold Caldicott. He was a soldier who died fighting against the Corsican monster for Good King George.”

Hyperia hugged the lad briefly. “We were all very proud of your father, and now we are proud of you. Not every boy is as conscientious about learning his letters.”

“I was terrible at it,” I said when it looked as if Leander’s little chin might start quivering. “My governess despaired of me. I thought letters were boring, but I did rather enjoy numbers.”

“I like numbers,” Leander said. “They have to come out right.”

Leander’s mother walked through the doorway. “You get that from me. I’m a fiend for my ledger books. Good morning, Miss West, Lord Julian.” She curtseyed, and Hyperia and I reciprocated with gestures that seemed too formal between family in the nursery.

How long had Millicent been lurking in the corridor, and how much had she overheard?

“We’re debating the style of Leander’s signature,” I said. “Leander has a flair for embellishment.” I passed her the paper, and she smiled.

“My son is a calligrapher. My lord, if you can spare me a moment, I’d like a word.”

“Go,” Hyperia said. “Leander and I will attack the vowels.”

Millicent accompanied me into the corridor and kept walking until we were at a window overlooking the garden.

“That’s a fetching frock,” I said. “The color becomes you.” A raspberry hue between red and purple.

“Your mother has yards and yards of it, and I do like the shade. You are very kind to spend time with Leander, my lord.”

More than Millicent’s wardrobe had improved. She’d lost some of her perpetually fretful air, and she was fashioning her hair into a coronet rather than a governess’s severe bun.

“He is my nephew and a delight. I am fond of him and hope he’s learning to enjoy his Uncle Julian’s company.” A pony should soon be added to his life. Caldicotts loved to spend time in the saddle, and whatever the boy’s name might be, he was a Caldicott.

“He’s learning to adore his uncles,” Millicent replied. “He’s a bit cautious with the duke—afraid that His Grace might meet Napoleon in France, that sort of thing—but you are his idol.”

“I am not the stuff idols are made of.”

“You are a good man,” Millicent said, with a degree of earnestness that made me uncomfortable. “His Grace has settled a sum on me. Not in trust, not an annuity. A sum I can do with what I please. A substantial sum.”

Well done, Arthur.“You have earned the right to some security, Millicent, and Arthur and I both know Harry meant to marry you.”

She grimaced. “Can you see me as a duchess?”

Where was this discussion going? “If the old Duke of Chandos could find his second duchess at a wife sale, then yes, I can see you as Her Grace of Waltham. You’d be surprised at what some duchesses have got up to, Millicent. I myself I am not a Caldicott by blood.”

“Of course you are.”

“Afraid not.”

“But you look exactly like the old duke. He must have half a dozen portraits scattered about this house. You have his nose, his chin, his eyebrows. They sort of swoop, so you look haughty until you smile.”

As a child, I’d overheard my parents discussing the irregularity of my provenance. Papa hadn’t minded, Mama hadn’t seemed very repentant, and I’d only made sense of the conversation some years later.

“You did not haul me to the end of the corridor to discuss ancient history, Millicent.”

“In a sense, I did. I’d like to go home.”

You are home.Except she wasn’t. For all that she was making free with the fabric stores and had been given some independent means, Millicent was still taking supper in the nursery and avoiding public occasions.

“You are the sole authority over Leander,” I said, though the words cost me. “If you want to establish your own household in your home shire, Arthur and I will assist you to do that.” Though Arthur had already taken ship in spirit and would soon be traveling in fact.

“Leander is happy here,” Millicent said, some of her old diffidence leaching confidence from her words. “He’s settling in. I haven’t been home for years, my lord. Haven’t seen my brother, have never met his children. I thought I’d make a visit, without Leander. They don’t know about him, you see, and it might be easier—be kinder—if he remained here when I reestablish family ties.”

I detested this plan. Millicent had tried to slip quietly from her son’s life once before, and without having seen the splendor of the Hall or having had the benefit of independent means.

“He can’t lose you,” I said, wanting to physically restrain her from going anywhere. “You are all that boy has, the center of his universe.”

“He won’t lose me. I intend to visit over in Surrey, my lord, nothing more. A few days, a fortnight. I’m welcome there, and I miss it. My parents are buried there, as is my sister. I need to pay my respects.”

As I longed to pay my respects to Harry’s resting place, even if it was somewhere in bloody, bedamned France.

“I cannot stop you from going, and I will take the best care of my nephew in your absence. You will take the traveling coach, crests turned. An indulgence from your last employer, whose late wife remembered you kindly in her will.”

Simple, useful falsehoods, not that far from the truth. How easily the old skills of an officer in enemy territory leaped back into service.

“I was planning on something like that, but the traveling coach won’t be necessary.”

“Yes, it will. The mother of my nephew shall not be subjected to the indignity of the public stage.” Then too, I wanted John Coachman’s report regarding precisely where Millicent had gone, whether the place was thriving, and how she’d been received.

“You aren’t angry?” she asked as laughter drifted down the corridor from the schoolroom.

“I understand the pull of home, Millicent. Thoughts of home, of the lime alley in particular, saved a portion of my sanity once upon a time. I am nonetheless terrified that you will gather up Leander and take French leave.”

I paced off a little way and considered her silhouetted against the window. She was a lovely woman, but life had been unkind to her. She was entitled to do whatever she saw fit for Leander, and yet, I had to state my piece.

“He just got here,” I said, “and while I know the Hall isn’t exactly cozy, I had a lovely childhood on this property, and I hope Harry did too. You are traveling to Surrey on reconnaissance, but I fear you will send for Leander two weeks hence.” And I would lose my brother and nephew all in the same week. “Promise me you will give us more time with him than that.”

“Who is ‘us,’ my lord? His Grace leaves for extended travel shortly.”

She had been a housekeeper for the middling orders. Decent homes, all, until she’d crossed paths with my philandering brother on winter leave. She had little appreciation for how a large estate functioned as its own village and extended family.

“‘Us’ is the entire household. Lady Ophelia, Miss West, myself. Everybody from the butler to the boot-boy is pleased to have Leander here. Mrs. Ingersoll has assured me she will accept the next invitation to have her daughter call on Leander, and I know many other local children who’d enjoy making Leander’s acquaintance.”

Don’t take him away when we’ve just found him. He’s all we have of Harry, and ducal connections bring many benefits.I kept that powder dry, suspecting I’d need it for a subsequent skirmish.

“I will leave on Monday, if you can spare the traveling coach,” Millicent said. “My purpose is to reconnect with family, to revisit good memories, to renew some old acquaintances. You and His Grace have made that possible, and I thank you for it.”

Hyperia emerged from the schoolroom. “I’ve been banished,” she said. “Putting together seven letters in the right order requires practice and concentration. I hadn’t the heart to tell the boy how many more letters will soon demand his attention.”

“I will admire our scholar’s efforts thus far,” Millicent said, dipping slightly at the knees. “Enjoy your outing to Chiddingstone, my lord, Miss West.”

She repaired to the nursery, her new skirts swishing gently.

“Not here,” Hyperia said quietly. “Children have the ability to hear thoughts.” She escorted me down to the waiting coach, and we began our eastward journey.

As the vehicle turned through the gate posts, I explained that Millicent was intent on visiting her old village, but that Leander would remain at the Hall for now.

“You’re concerned she’ll take him home with her?”

“She might, once she has scouted the terrain. Arthur would say that could be for the best.”

“What do you say, Jules?”

I considered my answer as the horses picked up speed. “I say that Millicent is Leander’s mother and has legal authority over him. Were he legitimate, other considerations would pertain, but he’s a bastard, and thus her claim to custody is valid. If she does take him to dwell in some hamlet in Surrey, I will be the most doting, meddlesome, visitatious uncle in the history of uncles.”

“Visitatious isn’t a word.”

“Neither was vexatious until somebody deserved the epithet. I’ve brought Evelyn’s diaries. Would you like some reading material?” I was changing the subject, lest I descend into ranting.

“I would. Let me start at the beginning, when all was rose petals and birdsong, at least for a time.”

I handed Hyperia the first volume and resumed reading where I’d left off the night before, with the second volume. Paradise had become purgatory. Evelyn’s entries were less and less frequent and more and more bitter.

Hell hath no fury… I was so troubled by the notion that Millicent would take Leander away that I could barely focus on Evelyn’s angry chronicle. I called upon a soldier’s discipline, and by the time we’d reached Chiddingstone, I’d finished the second volume and made a good start on the third.

* * *

“I ask myself, what did Evelyn want?” Hyperia posed the question as we strolled the length of Chiddingstone’s Tudor high street. The town—a village, really—showed to good advantage under the autumn sun. The lone inn was a red-brick edifice of substantial proportions, and the conical chimneys of an oast house suggested a local crop of hops.

The predominant building style along the street itself was whitewashed half-timbered architecture, mullioned windows, and window boxes overflowing with pansies and herbs.

The place charmed me at first sight, and I suspected Evelyn Tait had fallen under its spell just as quickly.

“Evelyn,” I said, “wanted to get away from a husband who flirted with everything in skirts.”

“John has always had charm. She liked that about him at first. He offers his arm as willingly to me as to the local beauties or their grandmamas.”

That Hyperia did not include herself among the local beauties… “You describe a gentleman rather than a flirt. Tait broke his vows, though, and that is not gentlemanly in the least.”

I could make that observation to Tait’s devoted friend because Evelyn’s diaries had made it for me first.

“Evelyn wanted children,” Hyperia said. “Truly wanted them, and leaving John was a certain step away from that objective.”

The aroma of baking bread wafted on the breeze, and my belly reminded me that the day was advancing.

“Evelyn wanted children, you’re right, but she also wanted a husband she could trust. This must be the famous Chiding Stone.”

Nobody knew where Chiddingstone got its name—perhaps from the corruption of an old Norse name—Cidda’s town—or perhaps from some Saxon reference lost to antiquity. The place was named in the Domesday book, after all. Another theory suggested that we beheld the location where villagers gathered to remonstrate with scolding wives, habitual inebriates, or mischievous children. The list of possible etymologies also included Druid worship, though the Druids must have been a busy lot if they used every stone oddity in southern England as a place of worship.

The stone itself looked like a large lump of sandstone dough—six feet high, perhaps ten feet across—set on a ledge of stone that gave it another ten feet or so of height at the front.

“Only in England,” Hyperia muttered. “It looks like a rock outcropping to me. A place for children to play that their mothers forbade them to climb upon. Evelyn truly did want a child.”

“Children, plural,” I said as we resumed walking. “She envisioned a loud, happy supper table and filling the Tait pew at the local church. She must have been very angry with John to cut herself off from that dream.”

“Leaving certainly punished John, if that was her aim.” Hyperia clearly did not approve, which was just too bad. She’d wanted to join me in this inquiry, and we’d reached the for better or for worse part of the proceedings. Darling John had behaved like an ass, and dear Evvie had retaliated in similar form. That was the plain truth as far as I knew it.

“She’s sold her every worldly good,” I pointed out. “She has vexed and worried her sisters and courted scandal to stay away. Why do that unless she hates, truly hates, the idea of rejoining Tait’s household?”

“Marry in haste…” Hyperia murmured. “Shall we try the local ale?”

We more or less needed to if we were to learn the exact whereabouts of Evelyn’s farm. I had not mentioned this excursion to Tait, because I hadn’t wanted him galloping hell-bent for Chiddingstone and confronting Evelyn without witnesses—or referees.

Then too, I might be wrong about Evelyn’s location, in which case Tait’s hopes would have been raised for nothing.

The innkeeper was a jovial fellow of substantial proportions. He girded his middle with what looked like a red-checked tablecloth made over into a half apron, an interesting variation on turning a worn sheet.

“A farm owned by a lady over in Sussex?” he asked, wiping his hands on his apron. “You mean the Hasborough place? Good land, lovely situation, fine little manor house. The acres are prospering under Henry Mainwaring’s hand. You couldn’t ask for a better tenant. Henry and his sons know the land, and Maudie keeps the dairy and the garden in good trim. We get some of our winter butter from them because they always have a few fall heifers.”

Before mine host could name the heifers and describe their markings, I asked for the private dining parlor, where Hyperia and I enjoyed ham sandwiches and excellent ale.

The innkeeper had explained how to reach the farm—Hasborough Cottage—which lay about half a mile from the village itself. We chose to walk, having spent much of the morning in the coach, and I was glad for a chance to move about.

“Do you still need those tinted spectacles?” Hyperia asked, striding along at my side, “or are they more of a habit now?”

I took them off, regretted it, and put them back on. “Still need them. Autumn sunshine is supposed to be mellow, but as we lose the leaves, I find the sunbeams brighter than in summer. Bright sun on snow is a recipe for a megrim.”

“You dread winter?”

I had missed her so in the few days she’d been in London. These conversations that meandered into random corners of my soul were good for me, and I hoped Hyperia enjoyed them too.

“I dread the Hall without Arthur as the unfailing prop and stay of the household and the estate. Now Millicent is making noises about leaving, though she never promised us we’d have Leander for long. Even Banter is a frequent visitor, and he’s good company.” I was dodging the hard part, of course, and that would not do. “If Lady Ophelia goes to Paris, you cannot bide with me, Perry. I know that. I will miss you dreadfully.”

If we were married, we’d never need to be parted, though I couldn’t see Hyperia tolerating a husband who lived in her pocket.

“I am quite at sixes and sevens,” she said as we started up a hill. “Dwelling with Healy is unthinkable, but at the family seat I’ll be by myself, as you will soon be, and that will cause a bit of speculation. Not quite a scandal.”

“Can you recruit an auntie or companion?”

“Old women have companions. I hadn’t thought in that direction.”

I knew for a certainty that, despite my infirmity and inadequacy, I wanted to marry Hyperia. I knew with equal certainty that this was not an opportune moment to renew my suit.

“Lady Ophelia will certainly know of willing and appropriate parties who can serve as your companion. We’ll ask her.”

We topped the rise, and Hasborough Cottage lay in the dell below us. The neighborhood was much given to oaks, and several grand specimens provided the backdrop for a two-story manor in the local red brick with a crown of chimneys and a wealth of mullioned windows.

“Tidy,” Hyperia said.

“Prosperous,” I replied. “Not a weed on the walkways, not a shutter dares sag.” Evelyn, by her own account, found weedy paths untenable. “The door is painted red.” Tait Manor had a red door of the exact same hue.

“You think she’s biding here?” Hyperia asked as we started down the lane that led to the little manor.

“If what she wanted was independence, this was the most direct path for her to that goal. She could wait here until she inherited control of the land and the leasehold, then deal with John from a position of strength. Unless he wants to look a perfect fool, he’ll not gainsay her decision to live apart from him.”

“He already looks a perfect fool, to hear some tell it. The property is lovely. Merry Olde at its bucolic finest.”

The people inside were lovely too. We’d caught Henry Mainwaring lingering over a midday meal, two of his grown sons with him, Mrs. Mainwaring at the foot of the table, and a nearly grown daughter present as well.

No Evelyn Tait, but then, she’d likely keep to herself when in the area.

“Knew your old steward, my lord,” Mr. Mainwaring said when Hyperia and I had been inveigled into joining the family for a delectable serving of apple tart. Cinnamon and nutmeg underscored the Mainwarings’ relative wealth, and the whipped cream slathered over our sweets was a paean to fall heifers.

“I learned a lot from Sean Gorman,” Mainwaring went on. “Was a great one for reading every pamphlet, and he does love those Welsh herding dogs.”

“As does his son,” I replied, though the connection surprised me when it should not have. Villages were no longer worlds unto themselves, and enterprising fellows in these modern days often left the home shire in search of opportunity.

Hyperia was smiling at her tart, and I could have spent a lovely quarter hour simply watching her consume it.

“What brings your lordship to our humble abode?” Mrs. Mainwaring asked, sending a pitcher of cider around.

“We’re looking for Mrs. John Tait,” I said. “The Taits bide not far from Caldicott Hall, and I am under the impression that Evelyn Tait has come this way.” Vague, and husband and wife sensed I was treading lightly, based on the glance they shared.

“Fanny, boys, away you go,” she said. “You can finish your tarts in the kitchen.”

The boys were twenty if they were a day, their sister perhaps sixteen, and away they did go, desserts in hand, after taking a proper leave of Hyperia and me.

“If you want to buy the property,” Mr. Mainwaring said, closing the door after his offspring had decamped, “you’re too late, my lord. I’ve signed a contract of sale with Mrs. Tait, right and proper, duly witnessed, and I’m to hand over the coin in a fortnight or so. I don’t blame you for wanting this farm—it’s excellent land, and Mrs. Tait has been a wonderful landlord—but you’ll not have it from me at any price. My children were born here. My boys will work this land when I’m gone. Mrs. Mainwaring has said it shall be so, and thus I am bound.”

I poured more cider for Hyperia, though Mainwaring’s revelation left me mentally reeling. “I am not in the market for more acres, Mainwaring, and I can see that you are taking excellent care of this farm. Might I be so rude as to inquire what you’re paying for the property?”

Husband and wife exchanged another look, this one unreadable to me. Mrs. Mainwaring named a sum that would allow Evelyn Tait to leave for continental parts unknown and spend the rest of her days there, living in safety and comfort, if not outright luxury.

Damn and blast. Outmaneuvered again.

* * *

“You weren’t completely wrong,” Hyperia said as the coach rattled away from Chiddingstone. “Evelyn is apparently set on independence, and she did see the farm as her haven of last resort.”

“But she conducted the transaction entirely by post, Perry. Where in perdition is she?”

“Could her sisters be selling the property out from under her?”

Hyperia’s question gave me a bad turn—for a moment. “You’ve read Evelyn’s diaries, seen pages and pages of her handwriting, and you might have noticed her name in the front of each volume. The signature on the contract looked to me to be Evelyn’s signature. The penmanship on that letter Mainwaring showed us looked like hers to me. What did you think?”

“Hers,” Hyperia said after a moment’s reflection. “She makes a little production out of the initial T in Tait and crosses the final T with a markedly upward slash. A vigorous signature, much as I picture Evelyn.”

She hadn’t set foot on the farm itself for more than five years, but she’d corresponded regularly, congratulated the Mainwarings on good harvests, and condoled them on wet springs. She’d convinced them to try the Russian wheat that was planted in fall and came up in spring, and she’d approved a dam on the stream to facilitate irrigation for dry years.

A good landlord indeed. Involved. Conscientious.

“Do you recognize the address she used in Town?” Hyperia asked.

“Doubtless a poste restante of some sort, maybe the first of several she set up in a series to make tracing her whereabouts more difficult.” And Tait had never thought to inquire of his wife at the farm, very likely because the quarterly rents had come in regularly.

“Julian, do you have the sense that Evelyn isn’t simply hiding from Tait, she’s hiding from her sisters too?”

“You put your finger on a notion that has been plaguing me since my first discussion with Margery Semple. Who is the villain of this piece? I want it to be Evelyn or John—apologies for that, my dear, but his wife left him for reasons—but that’s too simple.”

“Promise me something, Julian. If ever we are married, and even if we’re not, we won’t quarrel for five straight years, until neither one of us recalls exactly what justified our pique in the first place. Evelyn’s behavior strikes me as that of a runaway horse. Once the beast panics, its own panic fuels more headlong flight.”

I had ridden runaways, and Hyperia was right. Once fear got a grip on the beast, any attempt to assert reason over the situation provoked worse and more dangerous hysterics.

“And John became passive,” I replied, “waiting for Evelyn to come home or demand a legal separation by correspondence, anything to put matters in order. He’d still be waiting, but you got him off his backside, so to speak. I can’t imagine holding a grudge that long, Perry, or that hard.”

“You bear a grudge against France.”

She had me there. I did have a grudge against France, and as long as my brother lay moldering in French soil, I would hold that grudge hard. The rest of the wartime dead were lamentable casualties and even tragedies, but Harry’s death was a personal grief. I could not avenge him. I could not reconcile myself to his passing. A grudge was all I had.

“Let’s get comfortable,” Hyperia said when we’d made the only change of horses the journey necessitated.

“I am comfortable.”

“Comfortable,” she said, leaning forward and opening the opposite bench so it folded out flat.

“An excellent suggestion.” Excellent and bold. The Caldicott traveling coach was a luxury conveyance, and thus its interior could be fashioned into a rolling bedroom. We shed boots, and I removed my coat, and Hyperia was soon resting against my side on our makeshift mattress, her head on my shoulder.

“Will you be insulted if I fall asleep, Jules?”

“I will be honored to serve as milady’s pillow. You didn’t find much rest in Town, did you?”

She stirred about, sighed, and tucked an arm across my middle. “I grew fretful. Healy’s behavior made no sense. I feared for his sanity, and from there, all manner of mental flights took hold of me. If Healy was legally incompetent, what would become of his properties and income? Who could become his trustee? Who would marry him if he continued to behave erratically? He needs a wife.”

So do I, by God. One particular wife.“Why do you say that?”

“I tell you things, Jules. That I was terrified in London, that your investigations give me a purpose I hadn’t realized I needed. You listen to me. Healy needs somebody to listen to him, to tell him his fears are reasonable but he’s equal to the challenges he faces. He needs somebody who reposes her most personal confidences in him.”

I traced the curve of Hyperia’s shoulder and drifted my fingers across her nape. “The listening is mutual, Perry. You sort me out.” And she cuddled so sweetly too.

I inventoried my bodily state and found no real stirring of desire, but instead, a sense of… wellbeing. Of comfort and comfortableness.

“I’m falling asleep,” she murmured. “Sorry.”

I commended my beloved to the arms of Morpheus and soon joined her in his embrace, but something in Perry’s observations, about a spouse being the one who listens, plucked at my heartstrings. When Evelyn locked her door to her husband, she’d turned a deaf ear to him in more than the basic conjugal sense.

He had become deaf to her wifely concerns too. Their disregard for each other had made a bitter mockery of the vows. I thought of Mainwaring and his wife, their gazes speaking volumes without a word. They likely indulged in carnal pleasures rarely, and yet, they were clearly, devotedly, married.

“They aren’t my investigations,” I said to my sleeping beauty, “they are our investigations.” Hyperia would not see it as I did, but she’d known that for me to exclude her had been wrong.

I drifted off, bemused by the notion of John Tait having nobody to talk to, and when I awoke, I realized that I had yet another party to interview in the ongoing search for Evelyn Tait.