Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

I passed the night in broken sleep, Hyperia having suggested that with her chaperone of record out of pocket, we exercise a touch more prudence. I had yet to approach my mother about serving in Lady Ophelia's stead, and thus I rose in a fretful humor.

Her Grace did not come to the breakfast parlor, and neither did Hyperia. I found myself in the company of the Honorable Charles Canderport, who looked somewhat the worse for drink.

"We've reached the grueling part of the steeplechase," he said, producing a flask and doctoring his tea. "Perhaps my lord is in better fettle for coming late to the race. I vow I will never attend another one of these gatherings again, and then Mama accepts an invitation and you see before you a doomed fellow. Care for a nip?"

He should have offered the flask to me first, and he should not have confided his frustrated state to a virtual stranger. Ah, youth. This particular specimen was, like his sister, blond, blue-eyed, and possessed of curls that owed nothing to heated tongs. Those blue eyes were a bit bloodshot, though, and the bow of his cravat was a half inch off-center.

MacFadden would have been horrified, while I merely felt old.

"I'll stick to my tea," I said. "Don't you find even the company of the other gentlemen enjoyable?"

The door was open, but we were alone, sharp morning light slanting through the mullioned windows. No footman guarded the sideboard from marauding housemaids, perhaps due to the early hour, or perhaps because the housemaids were too tired to snitch a strip of bacon and the footmen too tired to prevent them.

"The house-party contingent is for the most part not truly gentlemen," Canderport said. "We're mannerly enough when Lady Barrington is looking, but the real gentlemen were doing the pretty for the whole Season. The real gents don't just slink out of the hedges come August, looking to find some low-hanging fruit at the house parties. Ye dancing devils, whatever inspired me to put eggs on my plate?"

"If your mother walks through that door, she will notice whether you served yourself some eggs, or limited yourself to dry toast and weak tea."

He peered at me owlishly across the table. "Right you are, my lord, but then, I suppose you've had a mother somewhat longer than I have. And your mama has her wits about her, but then, your sisters are all married. Mama vows that until she gets Lottie fired off, life will be a constant string of vexations. Where's the…? Ah."

He plucked the jam from the center of the table and dabbed a generous quantity on a half piece of toast. If Charles knew my sisters were married, he'd at least perused DeBrett's at some point, and he recalled what he'd seen.

"Any likelihood your sister will marry soon?" I asked.

"Lottie don't want to marry. Says she's perfectly content to enjoy life without brats clinging to her skirts, and she says it to Mama's face. Mama responds that brats are indeed a tribulation past all bearing. A fellow doesn't know quite which pugilist to back."

"You could abandon your ringside seat, Canderport. Get yourself invited to a gents-only shooting party. Offer to accompany Drayson on an artistic tour of Paris."

"I don't speak much Frog, my lord. The tutors and governesses tended to enjoy short tenures. Lottie has some of the lingo. I was lucky to make it to the fifth declension myself."

Meaning his Latin was in better repair than his French. "Drayson can likely manage well enough for the both of you, and you'd be surprised what you pick up when a language is all around you."

He took a bite of eggs, made a face, and set his fork down. "You had to do that, didn't you? Scouting for Old Wellie? You probably know Basque and Arabic and Corsu. I missed the war. Mama says, ‘Don't worry, there will be another one,' but we haven't the funds to buy me much of a commission. I am babbling. Apologies, my lord, but this is my third house party in three months."

"One sympathizes." I also had to revise my view of the Honorable Charles. He was caught between two unhappy, strong-willed women and hadn't the resources to make either one content. Better and wiser men than Charles would be flummoxed in his boots.

"I am determined to dodge the next one," he said around a mouthful of toast. "Lady Poaling is a good sort, and she won't skewer me for pleading a headache, as it were." He chewed and swallowed and sent me a gloomy look. "I said the same thing about this do. I'll develop a twisted ankle, plead a putrid sore throat, develop a bad cough. I've done it before, though not recently. One cannot overuse such a ploy."

"And yet, here you are. What changed your mind?" Not a what, a who, no doubt.

He took out his flask again, but left the cap on and traced the elaborate C engraved into the silver. "I can't just leave 'em to it, can I? Lottie strains the leash at every turn, Mama pulls all the harder because she knows Lottie is growing desperate, and somebody has to distract them from their fretting, or the spatting grows into a brawl."

Would Lady Barrington never join us? As hostess, she ought to be presiding from the foot of the table, but perhaps she, too, preferred a lie-in on her Sabbath.

Or was her ladyship avoiding me for some reason?

"You purposely draw your sister's fire," I said, "or your mother's depending on who is in the more volatile mood. I can see why you find house parties tiresome." An audience lurking in every parlor, scores of servants to bear tales, and other young men expecting Charles to find the whole exercise an endless lark.

"I suspect the right wife would get your mother and sister sorted out," I went on. "A woman of good sense and good humor would see that you had some peace."

"Odd, ain't it?" he said, putting his flask away. "We're supposed to be the protectors, but the ladies can protect us too. Mama means well. She's just weary is all. Lottie would weary Saint Peter himself when she gets into one of her moods. She's too smart is the problem, but she's not clever enough to keep the smartness to herself. Mama says she needs to grow up. Lottie says polite society needs to grow up. I wish them luck on both counts."

Perhaps I'd underestimated Miss Lottie as well. "Her settlements are modest?"

Charles poured himself more tea and stirred in a dollop of honey. "Modest, not embarrassingly so. Papa got that much right. And if we could get her launched, then I could focus on putting the acreage to rights. Have you land of your own, my lord?"

The question was wistful, suggesting Charles was a country squire at heart, and this hellion-ing about with his sister was a trial to his soul.

"I do, as a matter of fact. Two tidy estates, one in Kent, one in Surrey, each grandmother contributing to my situation. I let both properties out, and they appear to prosper. Good land is a blessing unto the nineteenth generation, according to my late father."

"Water and soil, and soil and water. You can manage without much woods and take your time with fencing, but building up the soil and arranging proper irrigation and draining are the holy grail, my lord. Depend upon it. Your fortunes can fly or fall depending on how conscientiously you marl and fallow."

He showed more animation about his fields and pastures than he had about anything else in the past three days.

"Charles, might there be some other reason why Lottie is reluctant to marry?"

He stirred his tea slowly. "She is my sister, and I love her, my lord, but I take your point. She ain't happy being dragged around to the consolation rounds at the house parties, but she pretends she'd rather play battledore and pall-mall than have her own household. What other reason might there be?"

I cast about in my imagination and said the first thing that popped into my mind. "She is worried about you?" Or she worried about her mother, but I did not say that part.

"About me? Heavenly intercessors in their winged chariots, my lord. Me ? Salt of the earth is my middle name."

"You appear argumentative, moody, overly fond of your flask, and evidence no interest in the young ladies. You come down with putrid sore throats and the odd cough at any time of year. You enter into Lottie's mad schemes and pranks when you ought to be blowing retreat."

"I have a very healthy interest in the young ladies, I'll have you—oh. To appearances. Right. Well."

Contrary to his own performance, Charles was not a hopeless gudgeon in thrall to his cleverer sister. A bit plodding, perhaps, but also young and overwhelmed. Allowances should be made.

"I keep hoping somebody will sweep Lottie off her feet, but not a sweeping swain to be found, my lord. One is at a bit of a loss."

"Miss Lottie cannot show to her best advantage if she's purposely picking fights with her mother or trying to inveigle you into supporting her hoyden impersonation. I suggest you enlist the aid of Miss Frampton."

"Trish? Miss Frampton, I mean. She is a good sport and quite fetching. Too fetching for the endless whist and whingeing that passes for the average house party, but she's loyal to Lady Jess and to Miss Bivens. Says Bivvie would be the youngest old maid in Merry Olde but for forced outings in the shires."

A Restoration farce had been going on under my nose, and me all preoccupied with missing gloves and hanging felonies.

"You explain to Miss Frampton that your mama and sister worry about your prospects, and if Miss Frampton would be so good as to seem to take an interest in you and allow you to put forth a comparable appearance where she is concerned, the rest of the house party might go much more smoothly."

"And more enjoyably," he muttered, slathering jam on a second piece of toast. "For all concerned. I vow, when Mama and Lottie go at it, they could be heard in Dover. The racket alone daunts a fellow's spirits."

"Trust in Miss Frampton, and perhaps you can alter the course of events in your own favor. Then too, when bachelors notice that a young lady has gained the escort of a particularly eligible young man, they tend to take more of an interest in the young lady. You'd be doing Miss Frampton a good turn."

I flattered him with that observation, but the lad was overdue for appreciation from some quarter.

"A gentleman is always honored to be of service to a lady," he said, munching enthusiastically. "I've seen Marchant watching Trish—Miss Frampton. Don't care for the look in his eyes, as if Miss Frampton might be persuaded to surrender her hand to an aging roué with parliamentary expectations. Nothing good happens in Parliament. Ask anybody. She can do better than the likes of that cold fish."

Lady Barrington had eluded me yet again, but the meal hadn't been entirely unproductive. Miss Frampton absolutely could do better than to become Marchant's wife, and Charles could occupy himself with pastimes more enjoyable than refereeing squabbles between his womenfolk.

"Walk the young lady home from services," I said. "At a gathering like this, the gesture doesn't have quite the significance that it would in your own parish. The rules are relaxed, and who knows how much longer the decent weather will last?"

"Mama says rain by nightfall. Her rheumatism is seldom wrong. You have given me much to think about, my lord. I don't care what Drayson says, you're a bit of all right."

I had been enjoying the conversation, a diversion from weightier matters and an exoneration of Charles's bratty reputation, but his well-intended comment sobered my mood. My lot was to have the loftiest expectations of any man at the gathering and, at the same time, to be held by many in the lowest esteem.

The only way I could navigate that confusing state of affairs was to assume at all times that I was on reconnaissance in disputed territory. A wearying but familiar strategy.

"I'll leave you to your toast and eggs," I said, rising, "but a word of advice, Canderport. Go easy on the tipple. Your mother relies too heavily on her medicinal tots, and that has been remarked. Set an example of continence for her, and she might reduce her consumption."

"She is rather fond of a dose now and again. Lottie, too, though I don't think Lottie even likes the stuff. Does it to vex Mama and me, no doubt."

"A young lady tippling is playing skittles with her reputation. Take her flask and bet her you can abstain longer than she can."

"Good heavens, she'd become head of the nearest temperance league… ah. Right. I must discuss that scheme with Miss Frampton, my lord. Two heads and all that. I'll wish you good day and see you at divine services."

Never had a young man contemplated some dreary hymns and churchyard chat with more enthusiasm, while I… To sit in a holy place with a group of people whose rooms I had searched, knowing at least one of those people was up to no good, was not a cheering prospect.

I made for the door but thought to assay one more question before leaving. "Canderport, does either your mother or your sister have any reason to bear ill will toward Her Grace of Waltham?"

He paused, the jam knife in one hand, a slice of toast in the other. "Mama purely hates the duchess. Sorry, old fellow, but among gentlemen, there should be honesty. She thinks Her Grace ought to lend a hand getting Lottie fired off. Mama ain't none too keen on Lady B either, but at least she invited us here, so Mama keeps her powder dry where Lady B is concerned. She don't care for Her Grace one bit, though. ‘The author of all my ills, the instrument of my present tribulations' and so forth. Unbecoming, but not entirely fanciful either."

"Good to know. Best of luck with Miss Frampton."

Charles nodded and beamed at his toast as a drop of strawberry jam fell from the bread to the snow-white tablecloth. "Capital female, that one. Absolutely capital."

I left, making a mental note to ask MacFadden to show young Canderport how to tie a mathematical that didn't list quite so hard to port.

I was a former soldier, a gentleman, and a dutiful son. To that list, I contemplated adding the term failure.

I still hadn't the first inkling who had stolen my mother's letters or why, much less whether that same person might have purloined items of sentimental value from other ladies. Drayson's missing sketches baffled me utterly.

As I made my way to Her Grace's sitting room, I reminded myself that one was obligated to report even a lack of progress, however mortifying the exercise. Then too, I had yet to request Her Grace's aid in the matter of serving as Hyperia's chaperone, and that detail required attention before I presented myself in Perry's boudoir.

I tapped on the sitting room door and was bade to enter by a soft female voice. Miss Wisherd was at the sideboard, tidying up a tea tray.

"My lord, good morning."

"Miss Wisherd." I bowed slightly, because she was owed the deference. "Is Her Grace awake?"

"Awake and at her correspondence. Shall I let her know you'd like a word?"

I was to keep my visit short, apparently, which suited me well. "Please." My mother routinely took a breakfast tray in her room, and it had never occurred to me that she might be using the early hours to tend to business.

Her Grace appeared in the doorway to her bedroom. "My lord, is something amiss?"

She wore a forest green morning gown, a darker green wool dressing gown belted loosely at her waist. Her slippers were plain and had no heels, and her hair was in a thick braid over one shoulder. Dishabille rendered her appearance no less formidable.

"Your Grace." This bow was more punctilious. "No cause for alarm, but the morning will be spent attending services, and I thought to have a quick chat."

"Come. The light is better in the bedroom. Wisherd, I can dress myself. Leave the tray for the house staff. You aren't an underfootman."

"Yes, Your Grace."

Wisherd withdrew, the sitting room door clicking softly behind her.

"She's no great fan of this gathering," the duchess said. "I expect some of the footmen think flirtation is their due. I have made it excessively plain she is under no obligation to indulge their vanity."

Wisherd, like a junior officer among seasoned veterans, had to make her peace with those footmen, else the tray would still be sitting on the sideboard this time tomorrow.

"I broke my fast with young Canderport," I said. "I gather he has come to dread house parties."

"But his mother and sister insist, and he's too kindhearted to send them on without him. They might actually learn to cooperate if he did. They squabble in a competition for his notice."

As I followed my mother into the spacious high-ceilinged bedroom, I had an odd sense of déjà vu. Her Grace's strategy had merit. A lot of merit. If mother and daughter were cast on each other's resources, they might find common ground, however small. From that toehold, greater cooperation might result.

The duchess's approach was different from the one I'd suggested—seeking Miss Frampton's aid—but simpler to effect. More efficient, and it required only that Charles have another well-timed sore throat, or perhaps—novel thought—grow some backbone. When Wellington had solicited the opinions of his generals, they'd formed plans by refining one another's suggestions.

"Should the Canderport ladies perhaps be scheming to see Charles wed?" I asked. "If his wife is sufficiently influential, she might assist in getting Miss Lottie settled."

"Valid point. Miss Canderport won't consider a husband until Charles takes the marital plunge, as it were. He probably won't consider matrimony until his sister is safely husbanded. Drayson would suit her—they both fancy themselves young rebels—but Hellie and I have agreed that, given other matters in train, we'd best not meddle."

Other matters in train , meaning thievery, of course. "About those other matters, I haven't much to report."

The duchess took a seat at the escritoire by the windows and waved a hand at a reading chair by the hearth, an overstuffed, comfortable, sofa-in-miniature. Morning light did not flatter Her Grace. As handsome as she was, my mother was nonetheless aging. She was pretty as an antique mirror was pretty, its elegance balanced with fragility and the evidence of time passing.

"The only development thus far," I said, "relates to Mrs. Whittington's missing locket. I thought it was mourning jewelry, because she said it had been given to her shortly after her bereavement. The item has sentimental value, but that sentiment is not grief." Or not only grief. Shame figured into the widow's feelings, along with regret and determination not to repeat her error.

"This has to do with Carola's dashing diplomat, doesn't it?" Her Grace said, folding her arms. "I did not care for him, though we were introduced only the once. He and Carola were at Gunter's, which is not the usual outing for a widow still in mourning, but then, Carola's husband had been a soldier, not a duke. She could be more flexible with the rules."

"What do you recall of the fellow?"

"Tall, dark-haired. Sable, not quite true black, what I saw of it. He had a hat on, of course. His voice was supposed to be plummy, but I found him oleaginous. Mind you, I formed this impression in the course of five entire minutes. He touched Carola's sleeve at least five times during those same five minutes, like a fly that won't be shooed away from the pudding."

Oleaginous , the same word Lady Ophelia had used about John Pickering.

"Ridiculously high shirt points," Her Grace went on, "which were just coming into fashion, and a cravat knotted such that his nose was always in the air. Used a jeweled quizzing glass, of all things, but then, Brummel was still ascendant, and his acolytes were legion. The diplomat's laugh was for public show: ‘See how lucky this widow is to have my devoted escort.' He was performing for me and for the other people enjoying Berkeley Square."

An amazingly vivid report. "Anything else?"

"His boot heels were slightly elevated. An inch or three-quarters taller than the usual gentleman's fashion. Not suitable for riding, but suitable for strolling Vauxhall or the Mayfair shops. I noticed it when he was assisting Carola into her coach. And Society considers vanity a female failing."

Ye dancing devils, to quote young Canderport. The duchess had the eye of a reconnaissance officer, at least when it came to Society's bachelors.

"He sounds like a popinjay. The locket was a gift from him."

"He was an antidote to everything Carola married. Her Freddie was a stranger to pretension, and he would no more have followed fashion than Prinny would take up street sweeping. The diplomat was a young exquisite, witty, a bit silly, and if Carola needed to indulge in some silliness, she had earned the right."

"He told her he had a short trip to make, and she never heard from him again."

Her Grace frowned, her mouth bracketed by what might become permanent grooves in a few years. "Diplomats meet with foul play."

"He had diplomatic aspirations, but Mrs. Whittington doesn't describe him as having found a post."

"Then why travel? On business, I suppose, or to flirt with some other widow better set up than Carola. One comes to appreciate that even an indifferent husband can spare one much mischief."

Hardly high praise for the institution of matrimony or for the late duke. "You met this man once, perhaps five years ago, and yet, you recall him vividly. Why?"

She looked at me as if I'd posed a particularly complicated question, though I hadn't. Ian the Exquisite had made a lasting impression on a woman who met Society bachelors by the score.

Her Grace considered the bleak day beyond the windows, a morning that should have been misty and romantic, but instead looked merely dreary.

"My own situation with Pickering was fresh in my mind. I recall the meeting because Carola looked happier than she'd ever appeared when with her husband. She'd been content with her marriage, perhaps even pleased, but not aglow with a sense of her own value. I recall being worried for her, because she was smitten, and when we are smitten, we are vulnerable to humiliation and heartache."

An observation Lady Ophelia might have made. Dispassionate on the surface, but also attesting to a life that held some regrets.

"It strikes me," I said, "that you and Mrs. Whittington have both lost items that reminded you of liaisons you might now wish you'd not embarked upon."

Perhaps the missing letters had been Her Grace's talisman against further foolishness. By her own admission, she'd not given her heart to another since her interlude with Pickering.

"My lord, among widows such liaisons are nearly a rite of passage. The merry widow is a caricature on stage and in drawing rooms for a reason."

You are not merry . Mrs. Whittington wasn't. Lady Ophelia certainly wasn't. "Both you and Mrs. Whittington might pay a tidy sum to have the purloined goods returned. Prior to my recent discussion with her, I wasn't aware that Mrs. Whittington shared that posture with you."

Her Grace tapped a nail on the desk blotter. "So you ask yourself: What of Hellie's gloves? What could the significance of an old pair of gloves be? Perhaps it's time to stop asking questions, my lord. Nobody has been threatened with blackmail or scandal, and I consider these women friends."

That was fretting rather than a direct order to cease firing. "Lady Barrington married a viscount's heir," I said slowly. "Those fellows don't generally have courtesy titles." Either the viscountcy was the only title conferred, or, as was often the case, an underlying barony bore a similar name. Viscount Feathers was often also Baron Feathers, which would have resulted in both the peer and his heir larking about as Lord Feathers.

In an unusual fit of common sense, the viscount's heir remained a mere honorable, and thus he kept his own initials.

"Lady Barrington's first husband, Your Grace. What was his name?"

"Cobbie? Viscount Cobbold?" She tapped her nail more slowly. "Given name… biblical. Not an evangelist, but an apostle rather than a prophet… Thomas. That was it. Thomas Melton Grindelwald Cobbold, which suggests his nickname was given to him in his youth. The occasional viscount has the family name in the title as well. Why?"

How on earth did she recall these details? I'd thought Lady Ophelia unique for her vast and accurate memory, but perhaps I'd underestimated the ladies of the prior generation generally.

"How can you remember that?"

"Melton and Grindelwald are towns, though one is in Switzerland. The family is said to have lit upon place names because they could not decide on family names. I believe the previous viscount was conceived in Melton and Cobbie in Berne, or so the gossip went. His Grace observed that if the fashion caught on, we'd have any number of Greater Backsides, Bitchfields, and Shittertons among the British peerage."

She recalled His Grace's humor fondly, and I could hear him making just that point. Clearly, she still missed her husband, despite Pickering and any of his ilk who might have come after.

Rather than observe that Harry had shared His Grace's irreverent sense of humor, I kept to the matter at hand.

"The monogram on the gloves I am to find is H-G-M. Lady Barrington fed me some taradiddle about shopping for the gloves with her intended when they were courting. Unless he bought gloves meant for another, the missing items are not the late viscount's castoffs."

"Gloves are made to order," Her Grace said. "Each one sewn individually from that customer's pattern. I cannot imagine a viscount's heir purchasing used gloves."

Neither could I, and yet, I equivocated. "At university, living on a budget, or failing to live on a budget, one compromised."

"Cobbie wasn't at university when he and Hellie courted, but again, perhaps we'd best consider allowing some sleeping dogs to lie. This is all old news, and nothing of real value has been taken."

I had not achieved the objective I'd had in mind when I'd paid this call, but I'd found—finally—a thread connecting all the items stolen from the ladies. I wasn't about to blow retreat when I might finally have sighted the enemy's advance guard.

"I will have a discreet conversation with Lady Barrington," I said. "Very discreet, unless you'd rather undertake that maneuver?"

Her Grace twirled a white quill pen between her palms. "You believe Hellie strayed?"

"Or she had a flirtation prior to speaking her vows, or a dalliance after her husband's death. The latter would put her in the same league with you and Mrs. Whittington."

"Not unless her fling was with a handsome young scoundrel who disappeared without a trace." Said with a hint of bitterness. "Lady Canderport is a widow as well. Will you poke your nose into her past too?"

My distaste for that prospect must have been visible.

The duchess laughed. "You used to make that same expression when it was time to practice your dancing."

"My sisters likely made it too." They having had to dance with me and always being more accomplished than I. His Grace would play the piano, and Her Grace would call the steps, until somebody tromped on somebody else's toes. Arthur had been exempted from these occasions, while Harry and I had had to stand up with two successive sisters apiece.

"Ginny still loves any excuse to dance," the duchess said. "Meggie thought the whole exercise beneath her until she put up her hair."

I'd forgotten these lessons, one of few times the younger siblings had been united in an activity involving both parents. Hilarity had often ensued, and we'd even learned to navigate a few of the simpler ballroom dances.

"Now you look wistful," the duchess said. "Unpredictable, the things we miss, and the memories that make us miss them."

Was she alluding to Harry? The duke? The scoundrel Pickering? Me as a scowling boy?

"I am courting Hyperia West," I said, apropos of nothing, save perhaps a deluge of family nostalgia. "I thought you should know." I'd thought no such thing, until the moment the words had left my fool mouth.

Her Grace's amusement shifted to a sort of puzzlement. "I should certainly hope you're courting her. The two of you are said to be very much in each other's pockets. Such a sensible lady. Perhaps too sensible. Will she have you?"

Not exactly the delight a duchess ought to express when the ducal heir spoke of matrimony. "If I ask properly and at the right time, I am likely to succeed." I hoped. "We have a few matters to clarify, but she has given me reason for optimism."

"Well, for pity's sake, my lord, court her . Bring her roses, quote poetry to her, and drop her fond notes even if you just shared supper the night before. I'm sure chasing old ghosts and lost letters is all very intriguing, but a woman wants and deserves some romance."

Not the advice I would have predicted from Her Grace. Look where romance had landed the duchess, Mrs. Whittington, and quite possibly Lady Barrington. For all I knew, they were about to be blackmailed or made the butt of public humiliation.

"I esteem Miss West most highly, and she is aware of my regard."

Her Grace muttered something about the Caldicott male, then withdrew a folded piece of stationery from the drawer of the escritoire. "Ophelia sent this over. She left it to my discretion whether to show it to you."

"I am in her bad books still, I suppose." I took the piece of paper, which was grayish rather than yellow with age. Faded blue, perhaps.

"The handwriting gave me a pang," Her Grace said. "I doubt it will shed any light on the current situation."

I read over Pickering's acceptance of the post offered at Caldicott Hall. He agreed to an engagement of three months for a sum certain, with ample leave to tend to other clients, and lodging and board to be provided at the Hall. Half the sum was to be advanced by post, the other half payable at the end of three months, at which time the parties would renegotiate.

"He stayed the full three months?"

"I had paid him the second half three days before he left for good, promising only a short absence. Said he had to run up to Town."

I took the letter over to the windows. "Public school hand," I murmured. "Bit of a flourish with his capitals. He crosses his t's with an upward stroke. You are sure he wrote this?"

She came to stand beside me and peered at the words. "Yes, as sure as anybody can be. It might be a skilled forgery, but if you look at the J in the month of June and in his signature, they are as I remember him making them. A tasteful embellishment rather than an elaborate display. He used that same paper to write his subsequent notes to me."

"You're certain of that too?"

She leaned close enough to sniff the paper and grimaced. "Camphor. Ophelia said she found it in the house steward's lumber room. She must have begun her search before the coach horses were out of their harness."

Or Godmama had had a clear recollection of dates and had known which months to focus on. "May I keep this?" I held the paper up to the light, and the faint outlines of a watermark showed through.

"You may. Don't leave it lying about, please."

As if. "Have you a quizzing glass, Your Grace?"

She produced the requested item from her traveling desk, which had been sitting closed and latched on her escritoire.

The magnification helped me discern the mark. "Heeney and Sons, Ltd. Dover, England."

"Dover?"

A thriving port of, I'd say, about ten thousand souls, also the nearest convenient point of exit for a man fleeing the country.

"Apparently so. I'll have a nose around when I'm seeing Arthur off, though stationers' shops come and go."

"He never mentioned Dover," the duchess muttered. "London, Vienna, Edinburgh, Bath, and some other spa towns, but not Dover."

"His stationery might have been a gift from a relative, or he might have purchased some paper from a London shop that bought out a Dover concern closing its doors. The watermark alone tells us little."

Her Grace wrinkled the Fennington nose. "Yes, but Dover . I realize that I didn't know him anywhere near as well as I thought I did, but to be confronted with more evidence of my folly… One finds the experience lowering."

"Mrs. Whittington would doubtless agree with you, but she also claims to have learned greater caution from her frolic with the handsome bounder."

"This sadder-and-wiser business is vastly overrated," Her Grace said. "I cannot recommend it."

We shared a moment of odd understanding. "Agreed, madam. Agreed. Will I see you at divine services?"

"You will not. I showed the flag last week. I will do so again before we depart. My correspondence waits for no woman, and I do believe the weather is finally turning on us."

I was being dismissed, and I needed to change into boots if I was to hike to the village. I also wanted to greet my beloved. "I wish I had more to report."

Her Grace considered me for a moment. "I wish you had no need to report at all. To think that Carola and I were similarly foolish is some consolation, but not much."

That Napoleon languished on an island in the mid-Atlantic was no consolation for Harry's death either.

"I will keep searching. We have a connection between you and Mrs. Whittington. That could be the start of a path to some answers."

"Go very carefully, my lord. Carefully and as quietly as you can. I'm beginning to think I've overreacted to a series of unfortunate coincidences."

While I was increasingly certain she had not. A silence bloomed, and I nearly made my way to the door, except that I had one more item to discuss.

"In Lady Ophelia's absence, will Your Grace serve as Hyperia's chaperone? I mean… Would you be willing to serve in Lady Ophelia's stead, as Miss West's chaperone of record?"

The duchess considered me and likely saw that my request had cost me. "Hyperia West's conscience and good sense will protect her name better than I ever could, but yes, of course. I will wave away presuming fortune hunters and intimidate any man foolish enough to present himself as a rival for her affections."

That was a yes. My relief was disproportionate. "Thank you, Your Grace."

The duchess retied her dressing gown with a firm pull on the knotted belt. "Julian, please recall that if you are truly courting a lady, then you must woo her. Expecting her to wait patiently while you peer behind portraits and rifle wardrobes is not wooing."

I thought of a long, sweet night spent with Hyperia in my arms, and of her assessment of Drayson and his quarters.

"Point noted, Your Grace. I'll leave you to your correspondence."

I bowed and withdrew, and not until I was halfway to the village did I realize that my mother had addressed me by my given name, albeit in the context of a scold. Still, she had called me Julian, and I had asked for her assistance.

And the sky had not fallen.

Yet.