Chapter 1

Chapter One

I detested house parties, and I was fairly certain my mother detested me. When Her Grace of Waltham summoned me to the gathering at Tweed House, I thus recruited reinforcements before following maternal orders.

"P'raps your lordship might explain somethin' to me." Atticus, my tiger, was perched beside me on the phaeton's bench rather than riding on the seat fashioned to accommodate him at the rear. His unruly dark hair waved in the breeze, and his wrists stuck out two inches below his jacket cuffs. "If them letters was written so long ago, why is the duchess still haulin' 'em about everywhere?"

How to explain sentimentality in a woman who seemed to harbor not a scintilla of that quality in her whole body? The duchess referred to me invariably as his lordship, or Lord Julian, never simply by my name or as her son. When I'd returned home after Waterloo, she'd tolerated a kiss to her cheek, then declared a pressing need to shop for gloves, despite owning dozens of pairs.

"The letters doubtless put Her Grace in mind of fond memories," I said. "They inspire thoughts of happier days." More likely, the duchess kept the letters at hand to safeguard them from prying eyes. "Take the ribbons."

Atticus was learning to both ride and drive. His mounted skills had lurched forward in recent weeks, and thus the time had arrived to introduce him to the whip's art. A single chestnut gelding pulled the phaeton, a sizable equine hired at the last coaching inn. Jupiter had proved himself a steady sort, and we'd reached a stretch of flat, dry road.

Atticus and I managed the exchange of reins while Jupiter trotted along.

"If I had somethin' that inspired thoughts of happier days," Atticus said, "I'd keep it safe, not drag it 'round where any porter or maid might pinch it. My arms are already tired."

"Because you are holding the reins too high. If you keep your hands near your chin, you will have no leverage should Jupiter decide to stretch his legs." I helped the boy adjust his grip, the process being something of a challenge in a moving vehicle.

"If old Jupe takes off, I'm bailin', and yer worship can do as he ruddy well pleases."

I was a mere courtesy lord rather than a worship of any sort. I'd begun life as an extra ducal spare, but upon the death of my brother Harry at the hands of the French military, I'd become my brother Arthur's heir. I chafed under that honor—I'd much rather have had Harry alive and hale—and dreaded the day when I might become the duke.

I was neither mentally nor physically equal to the demands of a peer's station, and I was for damned sure unwilling to surrender my only surviving brother to heaven's embrace.

"Sit up, Atticus. Posture matters as much at the ribbons, as it does in the saddle, and you will please address me properly when we are in company."

"Beggin' your lordship's paw-don," Atticus drawled. "I wish we'd spent the day in the saddle."

If we'd made the journey on horseback, the contrary little scoundrel would have preferred we'd taken the phaeton. I'd found Atticus at the last house party I'd attended, my first social outing following my return to civilian life. He'd shown unexpected brains and initiative, and a rare and precious capacity for loyalty.

I'd come home from the wars in poor shape, physically, mentally, and emotionally. My reputation as an officer had been in no better condition. Some blamed me for Harry's death. Others considered me a traitor, assuming I'd bartered my honor for my life when I'd been taken captive by the French. I'd spent much of the last year coming to terms with the whole stupid tragedy of my years in uniform.

Which was all very much old business. "Eyes up, Atticus. Look where you're going, and Jupiter will go where you look." Or so every riding instructor since Xenophon had claimed, to the amusement of many an equine.

"Not if old Jupe sees a bucket of oats," Atticus retorted. "He'll trot straight through fire to get to a bucket of oats if he's like my Ladon. That horse is a right dragon about his tucker."

Atticus was a dragon about his tucker, too, but given the boy's past—sent forth from the tender care of the poorhouse to be a general dogsbody on the staff of a country manor—I rejoiced in his appetite and in his curiosity.

"Hands out of your lap, lad. If Jupiter thinks you've gone to sleep, he's more likely to get up to mischief."

"No, he ain't. You nobs think everybody is like you, always looking for something you can filch without paying for it, or some rule you can break without gettin' caught. Most folk just want a fair wage, and a plate and a pint. Jupiter ain't fancy."

Precisely why I'd chosen him for the final leg of our journey. A duchess could summon her son in the middle of a genteel gathering, but that didn't mean the host and hostess, much less the other guests, would be glad to see him. A discreet entrance was called for.

I had timed my arrival for early afternoon, when those guests were likely to be at their amusements, napping, or enjoying amusements that involved napping in the venerable house-party tradition. My hope was to arrive in my unprepossessing equipage, observe a few Society niceties, find Her Grace's letters tucked into forgotten a hat box, and then depart without fanfare.

My hope would prove to be in vain, of course.

"Atticus, you must not squirm. Even if you think you are holding the reins still, Jupiter can feel you scooting about on the bench, and he will wonder if something is amiss."

"Something is amiss. A lad's got to piss from time to time."

"We've had that discussion. You're to step around to the jakes at the posting inns and not inflict upon me a recitation of the state of your bodily processes."

Atticus was blessedly quiet for the duration of half a mile. Harvest was approaching completion in Kent, and the countryside had the mellow, tidy look of land at rest. Though the maples were mostly bare of leaves, the occasional oak still stood in golden glory, and the pastures were green with lush fall grass.

"You always talk fancy when you're out of sorts," Atticus said, guiding Jupiter around a long, sweeping curve.

Atticus's diction, by contrast, tended to deteriorate when he was upset. "And?"

"You been talking fancy since we left Caldicott Hall this morning. You should be glad you still got a mama, beggin' your toffship's pardon. Some of us got neither sire nor dam nor littermates."

He'd mixed his metaphors but, as usual, made his impertinent point.

"Heed me, young man. The last place I want to be is among a lot of idle peers and their admiring gentry friends, my day scheduled like a recruit in the clutches of the drill sergeants. With His Grace soon to leave for France, my place is at the Hall."

"If the duke's own mama isn't at the Hall, why should you bide there?"

Because Caldicott Hall was my home and my refuge, the one place where I wasn't Lord Julian Caldicott, traitor, disgrace, and—I'd known some truly dark times, and still had serious memory problems—aspiring halfwit.

"The duke's departure means much of the responsibility for the Hall will fall to me," I said, though I should have told Atticus to mind his infernal tongue. "I've been away from home for most of the past five years. If I'm not to make a hash of the whole undertaking, I should be at my brother's elbow, cramming my head with his instructions."

"Right, and himself don't have an army of footmen, farmers, tenants, toadies, and assorted other layabouts ready to point you in the right direction. Of course he does. You're worried he won't come back is the trouble, and here your mama thinks she'll distract you from all your frettin' with some harmless silliness, and you have to go and fret about that too. Oh, the Quality."

"Her Grace wants those letters found, and that is why you must keep a particularly sharp eye out belowstairs."

"I allus keep a sharp eye out."

In fact, Atticus did, and I'd benefited from his vigilance. "Let Jupiter walk a bit," I said when my sharp-eyed tiger was once again holding the reins near his chin, slouching, and watching a skein of geese passing overhead rather than the road.

"He ain't sweatin'."

"Because the day is cool and overcast." My favorite kind of weather, given my weak eyes. "He covered five miles in good order, and the road is wide enough here that we can be safely overtaken by vehicles traveling at speed."

Then too, we were nearly at the Tweed House gates by my reckoning, and if I tooled up the drive with my tiger at the reins while I sat idle beside him, eyebrows would be raised. My plan was to have Atticus negotiate the turn through the gateposts at a sedate walk and then to commend him to his proper place on the back perch.

"You are puttin' off seeing your own mama."

"She has put off seeing me is more the case." Though now that Her Grace needed to find her precious letters, and now that I had a modest reputation for quietly solving polite society's more embarrassing problems, she had issued her summons.

And I had packed my bags. One did not ignore a duchess with impunity, especially if she was one's own mother.

"I like house parties," Atticus said. "Lots of food, everybody in a good mood, at least at first. We get run off our feet belowstairs, but it's all for one and not so strict."

"Atticus, gather up the reins and let Jupiter walk."

"Jupe, walk!" Atticus bellowed, reins loose in his lap. The horse, preoccupied with whatever passed for equine thoughts, or perhaps keen to get to his oats, trotted on.

"Lad, if you don't take up the reins, he'll trot until Domesday. We'll miss our—"

A gunshot sounded from the trees to our left. Gunfire would never again be just another aspect of the rural landscape to me, but while my body panicked, my mind knew that we were in the midst of shooting season, and the quarry was likely grouse rather than former British officers.

The explosion nonetheless had Jupiter picking up his pace, and Atticus did nothing to check the horse's speed.

"That were a gun," Atticus said, gaze slewing about. "Are there highwaymen in this part of Kent? We're near the sea, ain't we? Smugglers always have great big pistols."

"Take up the reins," I said sternly, but without shouting because Jupiter might react to a raised voice.

Atticus fumbled with the reins, and a second shot had Jupiter breaking into the canter as we sailed past the Tweed House gate.

I was torn between the urge to grab the ribbons from the lad, real worry, and the inclination to let Atticus muddle on and experience the consequences of his inattention. One more shot and Jupiter might bolt in truth. Any horse stabled at a coaching inn was likely in good condition, and Jupiter was still fresh enough to gallop for some distance.

To say nothing of the fact that gunfire inclined me to bolting. "Atticus, take up the reins."

Atticus sent me a blank look, and a third shot decided the matter. I appropriated the reins from him, or tried to. Alas for me, the lad had reached the limit of his considerable courage. When he should have surrendered control of the vehicle to me, he instead fought as only a boy who had scrapped for his existence since birth could fight.

"Atticus, please let go . Give me the reins." To speak calmly while the phaeton bumped along and Jupiter's canter gathered momentum was a skill born in battle. To my great relief, that commanding officer tone penetrated Atticus's thick skull.

He let go of the reins and promptly clutched my arm. "He's runnin' off, guv. Bastard's goin' to see us killed!"

"Jupiter, halt." I hauled stoutly on the reins, and Atticus hauled just as stoutly on my arm.

Jupiter went merrily on his way. The horse was not spooked, but he was certainly ignoring me. His naughtiness was abetted by a pair of plow horses at grass in the field next to the road, who lumbered along parallel to him on their side of the drystone wall.

"Jupiter, halt ." Perhaps because the plow horses had slowed to a thundering trot, perhaps because Jupiter himself had tired of the game, the gelding also abandoned the canter for the trot.

"Halt, blast you." Another hard tug that did not relent, and Jupiter finally did as he was told. I eased the reins forward, and to the extent the harness allowed it, the horse hung his head. "Walk on, you rogue in chestnut livery."

I put him through the walk/halt sequence several times, turned him at another widening in the road, and brought him again to a stop.

"You can let go of my arm, Atticus."

The boy complied and sat up straight, gaze on the horse's broad rump. "I think I'll get down and stretch my legs for the rest of the way."

Like hell he would, though lecturing the lad when he'd had a considerable fright would be unfair.

I resorted instead to the age-old adult strategy of honesty served with a dash of exaggeration. "I cannot indulge your inclination to dawdle. You are correct that the reunion with my mother looms as something of an ordeal and I want it behind me."

"Your mama is an ordeal?"

He'd inconveniently fastened on the honesty, of course, so I urged Jupiter onward and made a clean breast of it. "You are right that I have put off spending time with my mother. She has conveyed in no uncertain terms that she has no use for me. Harry was her favorite, and every time she sees me, I have no doubt that she's wishing he'd lived and I'd died."

"Yer own ma thinks that?"

His incredulity buoyed my spirits. In truth, Her Grace and I hadn't had a frank discussion since I'd asked her if ladies truly liked to be kissed. I'd been seven at the time and baffled by the whole business of romance.

I still was, in many particulars. "I'd been home less than a day," I said, "when the duchess asked if I'd be biding at my London town house. Her question implied that no other venue would be open to me, and I haven't seen much of her since."

"Shoddy. Duchesses ain't supposed to be shoddy."

Mothers weren't supposed to be shoddy either, though Her Grace had her reasons. "You will please drive to the gateposts, which we passed about half a mile back. Jupiter may walk or trot, though I advise walking through the turn at the gate. Halt him once he's on the Tweed House carriageway, and I will resume driving."

Atticus took the reins from me and adjusted them to a safe, proper length. He sat up, he looked where we were going, and we gained our destination without mishap and with a few yards of sedate trotting.

"Well done, lad. Well damned done." I tousled his hair so he'd have an excuse to grouse and took possession of the reins. "Ready to make our entrance?"

He scrambled onto the tiger's perch. "Ready, your toffship. Ready for some tucker, too, and I gotta piss something powerful. I still wish we'd ridden horseback."

The distance from the Hall would have been too far for the aging Ladon—much less for Atticus's fledgling equestrian stamina—but one did not denigrate a pony in the eyes of his enthralled boy.

"Atlas will be along by tonight, and if you'd look in on him from time to time and get a general sense of the situation in the stable, I'd appreciate it." I gave Jupiter leave to walk on, and we crossed the Tweed House park as calmly as a pair of dowagers returning from divine services.

To appearances.

"I were proper scairt," Atticus said apropos of nothing. "You wasn't scairt at all. Does soldiering march all the fear right outta ya?"

"I was worried too, Atticus, and your fear was justified. Jupiter is an unknown quantity, the shooting might have gone on, and the smallest bump in the road if taken at speed can result in a spill. Handling equines in any regard is not for the fainthearted."

"You wasn't fainthearted. You was nigh bored."

"Appearances can be deceptive, lad. I was unnerved by the gunfire, worried for you, angry at the horse, and wishing we'd stayed the hell home where we belong." Especially wishing we'd stayed at the Hall.

"But you were a soldier, so you kept your eyes front, forward march and all that. Right?"

How many questions could one boy ask? "I am a gentleman , and thus your safety and Jupiter's were a higher priority than was indulging in a pointless display of pique. I will expect you to present yourself tomorrow after luncheon for another driving lesson, weather permitting."

Atticus said nothing as the golden sandstone fa?ade of Tweed House came into view. Willows dotted the approach, a touch of lightness when compared to the usual oaks or even to Caldicott Hall's venerable lime alley.

"So you learned not to give in to your nerves when you were fightin' old Boney?"

Would he never cease? "Something like that." I turned Jupiter along the circular drive before the wide front terrace. Potted geraniums splashed red, pink, and white color in tidy rows, and a groom stepped forward from a mounting block. "Look sharp, my boy. Listen more than you talk, watch closely, and we need not bide here for long."

Or so I prayed. In fact, the house party dragged on interminably, and before my mother's situation was resolved, I would do a great deal of keeping my eyes front and marching forward. I would also spend significant effort not giving in to my nerves—or to my temper.

My godmother, one Lady Ophelia Oliphant, would bring up the rear guard by nightfall and accompany Miss Hyperia West to the gathering. To say Miss West was my dearest friend left a world of heartfelt declarations unspoken. When I'd departed for the Iberian Peninsula, we'd been all but engaged. I'd told dear Perry not to wait for me, but she had anyway, and in a sense, she was waiting for me still.

Even she, who knew me so well, could not have envisaged the condition of my mind and body when I'd stumbled home from Waterloo. She'd marshaled her patience, and I'd marshaled my courage. Investigation by investigation, we were forging a union that had little to do with vows and everything to do with great esteem and abiding affection.

I did not deserve the degree of loyalty Hyperia had shown me, but I was determined to earn it, despite my present condition being unsuited to the demands and pleasures of wedded life.

I greeted my hostess with every intention of comporting myself as a congenial and unremarkable guest, in part because Hyperia would expect no less of me.

"My lord, a delight to welcome you." Lady Barrington's smile suggested the sentiment was genuine. "Dorothea is overjoyed that you could join us. I've put you on the west side of the guest wing. You have excellent views and considerable privacy."

She strolled along a corridor lined with ancestral portraits in gilded frames, interspersed with the occasional serene landscape. Tweed House featured prominently in the collection, as did depictions of its various features—a granite folly awash in climbing roses, a fishing cottage on a sunny lakeshore, yellow irises bobbing in a summer breeze.

"You did the landscapes?" I asked, peering at one that featured mares and foals at grass, with Tweed House providing a stately backdrop. The artist had done an excellent job of catching two chestnut colts at play, their coats gleaming, sunshine sparkling on dew-laden grass.

"I am a devoted amateur, but an amateur only. Portraits elude me." Lady Barrington was a substantial blonde of matronly dimensions and pretty features, though I had yet to see any painting of her gracing the manor's walls. "Gideon Marchant, aspiring member of Parliament, has the next apartment down, and I've asked his valet to look in on you from time to time. Dorothea says you don't use a valet proper."

At Caldicott Hall, I had a valet. His role was tending to my wardrobe rather than to my person. I liked him well enough, but we saw little of each other, and that was how I preferred it.

"I hope my imposition on your hospitality is brief," I said as we mounted a curving staircase. "Her Grace assured me she'd asked your permission before adding me to your guest list."

"She did, of course, but Dorothea has ways of asking that brook no refusal. That aside, the young ladies of the party would have mutinied had I pleaded a full house when a ducal heir could have been included in the gathering. Besides, we could billet a regiment without filling our guest wing."

Young ladies. Rubbishing hell. I was held in contempt by many former officers—taken captive, unable to save my brother, doubtless in the pay of the French all along, et cetera and so forth—but the matchmakers would overlook even those faults in a ducal heir.

My hostess led me down a corridor remarkable for being sunny. A pair of light wells in addition to alcoves boasting bow windows turned an upper floor into something of a solar.

"I'm sure I will enjoy the company of the other guests," I said. "Might I inquire as to where my godmother will bide?"

"One floor down, and Miss West's apartment is beside Lady Ophelia's. Not quite the same views, but cozy and commodious. Here we are."

She used a key to open a paneled oak door carved to depict the same folly I'd seen immortalized in oils on the lower floor. That the apartment had been kept locked struck me as odd, but every household had its habits and quirks.

Her ladyship ushered me into a parlor done up in hunter green, with dashes of green and white plaid, and plenty of oak wainscoting and sturdy oak furniture. The plaid was subdued, thank a merciful Deity, and relieved by green velvet upholstery and a bouquet of red roses on the windowsill.

The room was simply comfortable. Not fussy, not cluttered, neither overly elegant nor soberly masculine. Comfortable.

"These quarters will suit wonderfully," I said as Lady Barrington proceeded into the adjoining bedroom.

Some thoughtful maid had drawn back the drapes and left the French doors cracked. The view was unremarkable—park leading to woods, a bit of lakeshore to the west, the roof of the stable peeking through the trees to the east—but pleased me.

I could monitor anybody's approach to this side of the house. The alcoves across the corridor afforded a fine view of the front drive and the main approach. As a sentry's tower, my rooms would suffice handily.

"The bell-pull is in the sitting room," Lady Barrington said. "We gather on the back terrace before supper, and a tea tray will arrive shortly. I noticed, my lord, that you didn't ask where your mother's rooms are."

"Remiss of me." Her Grace would be staying in the grandest quarters Tweed House had to offer. "She is doubtless across the corridor, four doors up, just to the other side of the main staircase. Her sitting room will have the series of oriel windows and her bedroom the grand balcony."

I ought not to have shown off, but in the fashion of any reconnaissance officer, I had been making a mental map of the house and surrounds since my phaeton had turned through the gateposts. The staterooms, or what passed for their lesser equivalent, would look out directly over the drive and enjoy deluges of morning sunshine. The lord and lady of the manor were likely situated in comparable splendor, but at the back of the dwelling, overlooking the gardens.

"You have it precisely," Lady Barrington said as a footman bearing a tray stepped into the parlor, deposited his burden on the sideboard, bowed, and withdrew. "One heard that your time in uniform took a heavy toll, my lord, but your wits appear to be quite intact."

My wits were mostly reliable. Not so my memory. "I have recovered significantly in recent months, my lady, much to my relief." The most obvious evidence of my years in the military was a sensitivity to strong sunshine and eyes that tired more readily than I preferred. I wore blue-tinted spectacles on sunny days, and if I taxed my vision excessively, my reward was a pounding headache.

My hair, which months of captivity had turned white, now grew out in a pale chestnut shade. I kept the white part queued back, oddly unwilling to cut it.

I still tired too easily, and melancholia dogged me if I allowed myself too much idleness. I was unfit for the marital lists in the most intimate sense thanks to a bewildering lack of ability rather than an absence of willingness. The flesh and the spirit were not coordinating their maneuvers. Hyperia was aware of my many failings and regarded them as mere bagatelles.

I could not be as sanguine. I hoped that my medical indignities would abate with time. My dodgy memory, on the other hand, had been with me since before I'd bought my colors.

Lady Barrington made one last visual inspection of my quarters and of me. "I'll leave you to enjoy a hot cup of tea and some peace and quiet. Shall I inform your mother that you've arrived?"

Her Grace had doubtless been told the moment I'd set foot on Tweed House's front terrace, for all that she would act surprised to see me when we did eventually meet.

Surprised and not necessarily pleased, though she'd summoned me herself.

"If you might instead tell me how the duchess is faring? I was not expecting her invitation."

Lady Barrington, who knew the duchess well enough to refer to her by her Christian name, checked the water in the vase holding the roses.

"I suspect Dorothea is between diversions again. She has that distracted, not-quite-happy air. The spring whirl is over, summer at the shore was more tedious than anticipated, and now we come to the house-party portion of the program. How many decades of that can a woman truly enjoy, regardless of her station?"

That my mother still had diversions was a shock to my sensibilities. "Caldicott Hall could certainly use Her Grace's hand in the household management, what with my brother departing for the Continent."

Arthur was soon to embark on extended travel with his boon companion, lover, and friend, Osgood Banter. Where they traveled was probably immaterial to them both, provided the laws were less draconian than England's infamous bloody code.

"You expect Dorothea to count linens, my lord? To peruse menus and entertain the vicar's wife?"

Well, yes. I did, actually. Somebody had to do it, and what I knew of menus would hardly suffice for a weekday breakfast.

"I hope Her Grace will recall that she has a lovely home in Sussex and family who would enjoy her company." The lovely home part was true.

Lady Barrington studied me for an uncomfortable moment. "You are so like your father. Arthur has the same quality—inscrutability on command. Dorothea hasn't an inscrutable bone in her body, heaven knows. I confess, she does not seem her usual, vivacious self. Her health, her finances, I know not what bothers her, but Gideon agrees with me, and he's known us both for ages. I'm glad you are here, because the duchess is troubled, and you stand as good a chance of sorting her out as anybody. I'll leave you to your tea."

She withdrew on a nodding sort of half curtsey and left me troubled too. I closed the door behind her and brought the tea tray out onto the balcony. While I poured myself a cup of strong, black tea, I sorted through first impressions, questions, and instincts.

If I had to use one word to describe my mother it would be passionate . Her Grace of Waltham could rage, laugh, sulk, and rejoice all in the course of an hour, and each sentiment would be given the fullest expression in its turn. The duchess was prone to drama, in other words.

And now she was quiet and brooding? Oh yes, I was troubled. Very troubled. When the duchess herself swept into my parlor five minutes later, I grew more troubled still.