Chapter 5

I closed the conservatory door as Millicent’s steps retreated down the corridor. “Arthur is threatening to take Leander to Paris. Millicent objects. I am to reason with my brother in the name of anxious motherhood.”

Hyperia picked up one of the diaries. “Leander might enjoy Paris.”

I gently pried the book from her hands. “Millicent might enjoy seeing Paris with her son, but she’s like a spooked horse. Having once lost her composure—in this case, her home, her privacy, her means, and her profession—she’s more easily rattled. Leander is settling in here more comfortably than his mama is.” Much more comfortably, now that I thought about it.

I put all three diaries on a potting table and took Hyperia’s hand. “Those are Evelyn Tait’s journals. Tait gave me leave to read them, but I did not take that for permission to share them with anybody else.”

Hyperia patted my knuckles and dropped my hand. “If those were my diaries, and I’d been concerned about their confidential nature, I’d have taken them with me.”

Well, yes. A point I’d made to Tait. “Leaving them behind as a reproach to Tait and allowing strangers to read words written in anger are two different things. Then too, Evelyn apparently departed in high dudgeon. She might have simply forgotten them.”

Hyperia ambled between the rows of potted citrus, and I walked beside her. On many previous occasions, she’d linked arms with me on her own initiative or taken my hand.

Not today, apparently. “What do you know of Millicent?” Hyperia asked. “Other than that she and Harry fell in love and had a child?”

The change of topic was a pathetic relief. “She was raised in a vicarage, and such were the family circumstances that Millicent went into service as a housekeeper. She had a series of employers from good though not exalted families, save for Lord Harry, of course, and posts among both gentry and cits.”

We came to the open door that led to the terrace. Because the conservatory was on the eastern side of the Hall, the terrace was in afternoon shade. I stepped through, and Hyperia followed.

“Summer is over,” she said, sniffing the air. “We’ll still have mild weather for a time, but the days are noticeably shorter, and frost isn’t far off.”

Half my mind was on Evelyn’s diaries, another half on Millicent’s situation, but something in Hyperia’s tone warned me to focus on the lady at my side.

“Is something amiss, Perry?”

She went to the balustrade, which overlooked a section of the deer park that rolled off toward the home wood. The forest foliage was golden, the undergrowth a palette of yellows, greens, and the occasional splash of red. The grass enjoyed the luxurious abundance of autumn, and by any standard, the day was beautiful.

“Healy is dunning me.”

Healy West was Hyperia’s brother, and no great fan of mine. In his eyes, I’d all but jilted his sister, left the military in disgrace, and failed to offer any explanation for either transgression. I’d informed him that siring children had moved beyond my powers, at least for a time, and he’d relented to the point that he was civil toward me.

Grudgingly civil. “Your brother is dunning you to return to Town?”

“That too.”

“Dunning you to part company from me?”

“And from Lady Ophelia, who is not a good influence, and from your most unusual investigations, which are the subject of talk. He means well.”

Healy meant to preserve Hyperia’s chances of snagging a husband, despite her insistence that marriage held no attraction for her. I considered offering her polite platitudes and the sort of questions a friend should ask—but what do you want, Perry?—and decided on honesty instead.

“I don’t want you to go. Selfish of me, but the truth.”

She perched a hip on the balustrade, precisely the sort of informal, comfortable conduct I found endearing. I adopted the same posture facing her.

“You’ll miss me?” she asked.

She was not speaking in the conditional. “Terribly. You’ve already decided to go?”

“Healy can’t cut off my funds, but he provides the roof over my head, in Town and at Westview. I must rub along with him domestically from time to time, and he is my brother.”

“Brothers and their foibles make the world a more challenging place. Did you tell him when you’d depart for Town?”

“I haven’t replied to his letter yet.”

Another great, obvious insight befell me. “Are you hoping I will talk you out of going?” I had told this woman I loved her, and I did, but grasping the subtleties of her mind would be a life’s work, assuming I had the opportunity.

“Maybe hoping you’d try?”

Diffidence was not usually in Perry’s nature. Think, man. “On the one hand, I fear to disrespect you by suggesting how you should proceed. On the other hand…” I moved closer and put an arm around her shoulders and to blazes with any chambermaids, godmamas, or dukes spying on us from the windows.

Perry rested her forehead on my shoulder. “On the other hand?”

“Tactical retreat has fooled many an enemy general.”

“You’re saying I should do the pretty in Town now that Parliament will soon be sitting again. Swan about Mayfair, placate Healy, and restore his sense of my biddableness.”

Healy wasn’t a complete fool. “He knows you aren’t biddable. He’s looking to test your loyalties, and you do love him, Hyperia.”

She wrapped an arm around my waist. “I do, despite his dunderheadedness.”

Another strategy was forming in my mind, one that would put Healy on the defensive and leave Hyperia freer to do as she pleased. The theory wanted testing, though, and possibly even discussion with Lady Ophelia before I aired it with Hyperia.

To say nothing of discussion with Arthur, head of my family, resident duke, and all-around brilliant tactician.

Who was leaving in a fortnight or so.

“We could elope,” I said, though that wasn’t the theory I’d been considering. “Off to Scotland with us.”

“If I’m ever to marry, Jules, I want my settlements, and Healy would be under no obligation to turn them over if we eloped.”

She did not dismiss the idea of eloping out of any fault with me. I took courage from that. “You can have every penny of your settlements. I’ll match whatever funds Healy withholds and make sure all of Society knows of his penury. I am in line for a dukedom, Perry, much as it pains me to contemplate such a fate. Nobody would think our marrying that unusual.” Belated, perhaps a crooked lid for a crooked pot, but a mere nine days’ wonder to the casual observer.

In truth, a match between us would be unusual in the extreme, with Hyperia unwilling to take on motherhood, myself unable to perform the preliminaries to fatherhood, and the title demanding parenthood of us both.

Hyperia sat up. “We are discussing marriage, Julian, which strikes me as sending in the artillery when a few sharpshooters can handle the job.”

The job of placating Healy did not require marriage, true enough. “You aren’t haring off because I’ve been discreet about Tait’s investigation?”

“No.” She rose, and I stood as well. “Well, maybe a little. I like helping with your puzzles. I can’t tear about the countryside as you do, but I contribute something, just as Lady Ophelia does.”

That Hyperia regarded her part as so minor offended me mightily. Lest she swan away, I took her in my arms and spoke very close to her ear.

“I am a better investigator because you love me. I hold you in my mind and in my heart waking and sleeping. I consider many a conundrum by asking myself, ‘How would Perry see this?’ ‘What would Perry tell me?’ I tear about the countryside, as you put it, fortified by the thought that I can return to your side, tell you the whole of what I’ve been up to, and have your good counsel to help me sort it out. This business with Tait is onerous in part because we cannot tackle it together.”

She nodded. “I do love you. I will miss you awfully, Jules.”

“And I love you. I will invite you down to the Hall for Yuletide holidays, along with Lady Ophelia and a sister or two.” My sisters would not leave me to face the holidays all on my lonesome at the Hall, and they needed to make Leander’s acquaintance at some point too. “I can even invite Healy, and an invitation to a ducal seat will present him with quite a choice.”

She shifted back enough to peer up at me. “I like that. Put Healy in a corner. I know your sister Ginny best of the lot, though they are all lovely.”

“I’ll start with her, but the sisters will decide who my holiday minder will be, regardless of any preferences I might express.”

We moved, arm in arm, back to the conservatory.

“What of your mother?” Hyperia asked. “She seems to be least in sight here at the Hall.”

“The duchess is something of an enigma to me. She was a detached sort of mother, at least in my case, and she does seem to prefer her spa towns and dower properties.” Of which there were three, one in Town that rivaled even the duke’s Mayfair residence for refinement and comfort.

“Invite her,” Hyperia said. “Not an invitation invitation, but a letter explaining who will be at the holiday festivities and asking her to join in.”

The sticky business of festivities needing a hostess and Her Grace being the logical party for the role passed through my mind, but that was a question for later in the campaign.

“As it happens, I have to trot up to Town myself,” I said. “I left in a bit of a hurry and want some of my books about me if I’m to bide at the Hall.”

Hyperia stopped with me among the citrus trees. “You will speak with Ardath Deloitte, won’t you?”

Why did I bother to attempt dissembling before such a noticing mind? “I might.” Also Lina Hanscomb, if I could scare her up. “I regret to inform you that I cannot leave for Town until Monday, though.”

She patted my chest. “Such a pity. Your delicate constitution must vex you terribly.”

It did, though my health was far less delicate than it had been a year ago. “We’re to enjoy Tait’s company for Sunday supper, if you’ll recall. Lady Ophelia was importuning Millicent to make up numbers, but I doubt she will oblige.”

“I’ll recruit another suitable parti. One of the local widows, perhaps.”

“Not Mrs. Probinger, please.”

Hyperia smoothed my lapel. “She took an interest in you when you were searching for Viscount Reardon?”

“Not that sort of interest, but her presence might still be awkward.”

Hyperia gave me a long, skeptical look and stepped back. “When you’ve found Evvie Tait, or found out what became of her, I will expect a report. Perhaps not a full report, but a report of some sort.”

“I will delight in delivering it—when I’ve completed the investigation.”

Hyperia sent a pointed look in the direction of the diaries on the potting table, then headed for the door.

“I’ll see you at supper, Jules. I must have my carriage dress aired and pressed if we’re to leave on Monday, and then there’s packing to do, lest I make somebody work unnecessarily on the Sabbath.”

She departed through the same door Millicent had used, though the comment about airing her carriage dress gave me something to think about.

Millicent, former housekeeper, mother without benefit of matrimony, and discreet guest, likely had no carriage dress. If she’d owned such a garment at one time—hemmed for sitting, sturdy fabric for the vagaries of travel, fashionable within those limitations—she’d long since pawned it.

Millicent very likely had no wardrobe suitable for even informal Sunday supper at a ducal residence. Upon reflection, I thought it likely that she remained in the guise of a governess because she had no other costume and no funds to obtain same. We’d assigned her a chambermaid, of course, but those duties and the duties of lady’s maid were vastly different.

“We’ve been treating her like a servant, not like family,” I muttered.

My discussion with Arthur acquired some urgency, and yet, I took up the last of the diaries, repaired to the settee, and resumed reading the journal of a very angry young woman.

* * *

A Battle of the Nations had been fought in the kitchen prior to Sunday supper, with Mrs. Gwinnett, our cook, attempting to make His Grace’s final company supper as memorable as possible. Hyperia and Lady Ophelia argued for humbler fare, and staff loyally supported both camps depending on the hour.

The result was a beef roast that would have been the envy of any ambassadorial chef and side dishes and desserts worthy of the great Carême himself, though fewer in numbers than Mrs. Gwinnett would have preferred.

While the food was impressive, I was more interested in the company. Arthur occupied the head of the table, Lady Ophelia the foot. Hyperia and I had one side to ourselves, and opposite us sat Mr. John Tait, looking obnoxiously splendid in his Sunday finery, and a Mrs. Euphemia Ingersoll. She was a recent arrival to the surrounds, a widow with a small child, though I put her age south of thirty.

She was soft-spoken, willowy, and had a pleasant laugh. Not quite a retiring lady, but certainly a quiet presence. Not a beauty either—good complexion, smooth blond chignon, regular features—but when she smiled, she was quietly attractive in the manner of a woman who had nothing to prove to anybody.

I liked her, in other words. Tait, by contrast, acted as if he barely recalled being introduced to Mrs. Ingersoll in the churchyard, then proceeded to aim nearly all of his conversational sallies in her direction.

“You must lend us your little Merrin,” Lady Ophelia said. “We’ve a five-year-old boy visiting in the Caldicott nursery, and a playmate would enliven his days considerably.”

“Merrin hasn’t found many playmates yet,” Mrs. Ingersoll replied. “She’s only four, but a precocious four, if I do say so myself. A fiend for her letters and a shameless mimic. Divine services are a tribulation to her when the weather’s fine, but she does enjoy the singing.”

“Divine services,” Lady Ophelia remarked over a serving of raspberry fool, “can be a tribulation to all of us when the weather is fine. Your Grace, don’t frown at me so. You will wrinkle prematurely. Julian is smirking at his dessert, and Hyperia thinks I’m outrageous. Mrs. Ingersoll knows of what I speak, being a mama herself. Mr. Tait, a drop or two more of that wine, if you please.”

Tait obliged. Arthur steered the conversation away from odd little visitors to the nursery and back to harvest and his upcoming travel.

“You’re taking Osgood Banter along?” Tait asked.

“Or he’s taking me,” Arthur replied. “I fear my artistic education pales compared to his.”

“The single ladies in the shire will go into a collective decline,” Lady Ophelia observed. “Fortunately, Julian will be on hand to console them.” She simpered at me.

“On that note,” I said, “perhaps I can interest the ladies in a constitutional about the garden when we’ve finished our sweets. The chrysanthemums are in good form, and I’d like to stretch my legs after such a feast.”

Hyperia took up the chorus, and we were soon arranged in a polite promenade. Arthur offered his arm to Lady Ophelia. Tait paired up with Hyperia, leaving Mrs. Ingersoll to do the pretty with me.

“Tell me of this little fellow in the ducal nursery,” she said, donning a wide-brimmed straw hat. “The village gossip is astonishingly thin when it comes to the doings at Caldicott Hall.”

I accepted a parasol from a footman and escorted the lady onto the terrace. “Give it some time. Once the local goodwives have established your bona fides, you’ll be inundated with talk.” I opened the parasol and passed it to my companion, who rested it against her shoulder as we descended into the garden.

We moved along comfortably arm in arm, she being on the tall side and happy with a sedate pace.

“My bona fides might take years to establish,” she replied. “They are protective of the Caldicotts in the village. I catch references to you having served too well on the Peninsula, and His Grace having lost both brothers for a time, but nobody parts with details. Be grateful for that, for the loyalty you and your family have earned.”

She wasn’t asking for those details, and I wondered who had been disloyal to her. “Was your husband military?” Britain, indeed the whole Continent, was awash in war widows.

“Nothing so noble. Just a merry fellow who drank himself into an early grave. We grew up on the same London street, and he’s buried in that very neighborhood. I hear you are off to Town on the morrow.”

Her late spouse had been a merry fellow apparently not worth more than a passing comment. We all grieve differently. I was not one to mention Harry if I could avoid it.

“I will escort Miss West back to Town,” I said, “and take care of some errands before preparing for a winter at the Hall, my first in some time, and I will be biding here without His Grace.”

She paused by a pot of forget-me-nots, a cheerful splash of blue that had somehow been made to bloom far later in the season than usual.

“The silences are different when you’re alone,” she said, gaze on the flowers. “In a house the size of the Hall, you and your brother could rattle around for weeks and not see each other, but when he’s gone, and you know he’s gone, the rattling around has an emptier feel, even if you and he aren’t particularly close.”

That was the sort of observation Lady Ophelia might have made. Personal, insightful, unexpected.

“The officers’ mess worked on the same principle,” I said, resuming our progress. “Between meals, you went there to read, to clean your firearms, to write a letter home, because somebody else would be sitting at the next table engaged in an equally solitary task, and solitary together was preferable to solitary alone.”

“And yet,” she said, “I avoid the company of certain widows. Bad of me, but one must look forward at least some of the time. Merri—I call her Merri more as a statement of optimism than fact—keeps me looking forward.”

“Mrs. Probinger is a cheerful soul,” I said. “Practical, well-liked, has a lovely garden.” She was also among Tait’s erstwhile paramours, one of those facts I wished I’d never encountered, for her sake. Mrs. Semple came to mind as another cheerful soul, but she was also a busy soul and prone to managing.

“I’ve made Mrs. Probinger’s acquaintance. The vicar’s wife has been conscientious about introductions, and I do feel as if I’m getting to know some of my neighbors. Was Lady Ophelia serious about having Merri visit the nursery? One doesn’t want to presume.”

Lady Ophelia had been half serious, half stirring up trouble. Her invitation gave Mrs. Ingersoll an excuse to call on me after Arthur’s departure. I didn’t exactly dread the prospect—the lady was restful company—but neither did I appreciate the meddling.

“The boy in the nursery is a family connection.” I stopped at the lavender border, which had yet to be pruned, and plucked a few sprigs for my lapel. “Leander is five, recently retrieved from London, and likely to spend the rest of his childhood calling the Hall home. An occasional playmate would enliven his days considerably.” He delights in new faces and new challenges…

Before welcoming any guests to the nursery, though, I would of course confer with Millicent.

Mrs. Ingersoll tucked her parasol under her arm, took the lavender from me, and situated my nosegay in my buttonhole. “Better.”

This bit of familiarity brought the lady close enough that I caught a whiff of her scent, a subtle, summery honeysuckle that clashed with the brisk fragrance of the lavender. As I submitted to her fussing, I caught Tait’s eye across a bed of purple asters.

His expression was hard to read, but his focus was purely on the lady. Perhaps he was one of those tiresome fellows perpetually smitten by novelty. His courtship had been notably quick and his succession of lovers distinguished by the brevity of his affairs.

Hyperia said something, and Tait bent his head closer to hers.

“Would you like to try the maze?” I asked, though I knew its secrets of old.

“Some other time, perhaps. I suspect mazes were invented by governesses who wanted to keep their charges within shouting distance, while avoiding the exertion of chasing after the little darlings the livelong morning.”

“My own mother might agree.”

Up on the terrace, Lady Ophelia was in earnest conversation with Arthur. His Grace’s expression was that of a gentleman graciously attending a guest, but his posture bore some tension. He wasn’t accustomed to being lectured, poor lad.

“I suspect my brother could use an interruption,” I said. “Do you mind?”

“I excel at the polite interruption.” She flashed me that sweet smile, and we made straight for the terrace.

“I vow I am impressed,” Mrs. Ingersoll announced as soon as we’d ascended the steps. “His Grace has forget-me-nots blooming in autumn. This is a horticultural feat, and I must know how it has been accomplished.”

Arthur prosed on enthusiastically about the head gardener being a genius, and the conservatory having a corner prone to chilly drafts, and whatnot and whatever. Mrs. Ingersoll gave the duke her rapt attention, Lady Ophelia ceded the conversational field, and Hyperia and Tait soon joined us on the terrace.

“Might I offer you a lift to the village, Mrs. Ingersoll?” Tait asked after the assemblage had agreed that the time for parting had arrived.

“The day is pleasant for walking,” that lady replied. “I do appreciate the courtesy.”

“You can walk anytime,” Lady Ophelia observed. “Take pity on the man, Mrs. Ingersoll. He’s clearly determined on his chivalry.”

And sometimes I admired her ladyship’s gift for graciously interceding. “Before you leave, Tait, I have some items to return to you. Perhaps you’d join me for a moment in the library?”

We extricated ourselves from the company of the ladies and moved in silence to the privacy of the library.