Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

As I added my baritone to the strains of "Old Hundredth," I felt once again the bewilderment of praising the same Deity to whom the Spanish, French, German, and Italians prayed. The Russians, Austrians, Poles, and Danes as well, for that matter.

How was the Almighty to sort out the competing prayers for vengeance and victory by all the armies who earnestly claimed to esteem Him and his Great Commandment? Did the Quakers have the right of it—one broke the Commandments when killing even in the king's name? They seemed a happy and suspiciously prosperous lot, those Quakers.

But then again, many of them had grown rich supplying the military from their tidy and efficient factories, and still more had financed the war effort from their equally tidy and well-run banking institutions. What was the Divine Authority to make of such goings-on?

I had mostly learned to set such questions aside rather than allow them to vex me at length, but today the restless weather inspired an unsettled mood. A gusty wind blew fallen leaves around the green, and coach horses shifted restlessly as gentry and guests waited their turns to quit the village. The breeze had a bite that it had lacked even two hours earlier, and the sky had taken on the look of quilted pewter.

I spotted my quarry in conversation with Miss Bivens, whose cheeks were rosy for a change, thanks to the raw air.

"My lord, perhaps you'd be so good as to accompany Miss Bivens back to Tweed House on foot?" Lady Barrington said. "She is determined on some exercise, though that overcast looks positively threatening."

"How fortunate," I said. "Miss Bivens, you will be pleased to know that Miss West is intent on walking with Miss Frampton, and Mr. Canderport has volunteered to serve as their escort. I'm sure you are welcome in that party, while I can offer my arm to her ladyship." Perry had agreed to this strategy when I'd dropped by her sitting room.

She'd also expressed an interest in assessing Charles's situation for herself.

Miss Bivens dipped me a curtsey. "A fine plan, my lord. Miss West has literary tastes similar to my own. Trish dear! Trisha, Charlie! Wait for me!"

"One would think she found the prospect of my escort disagreeable," I muttered, offering an elbow to Lady Barrington. "Shall we?"

Her ladyship marched off without touching me. "We needn't mince along, my lord. The rain will start at any moment, but the coaches are full, and needs must when one is the hostess. I trust you're finding your accommodations adequate?"

"My accommodations are delightful, but I have some questions for you that you will likely find less than pleasant."

Mine hostess picked up her pace, putting some distance between us and the throng in the churchyard chattering on despite the rising wind.

"I told Dorothea her letters would turn up in due course," Lady Barrington said, "but one doesn't argue with a duchess."

Harry had. His Grace had. I wasn't sure what it would take for me to oppose my mother, and I was loath to contemplate the prospect.

"Her letters have not turned up, neither has Mrs. Whittington's locket, or Lord Drayson's sketches. Neither have the missing gloves. You said they belonged to your late husband?"

We left the green at a pace approaching a forced march and turned along the lane that led to the bridle path.

"I did say that, but honestly, my lord, why make any bother about a pair of old gloves? They weren't even fashionable. More like work gloves or the pair you'd wear hacking out when your good riding gloves needed mending."

"And they bore his initials?"

"A monogram branded on the inside, which I gather is a simple way to make plain gloves distinguishable. They were very plain."

"And you were with him when he ordered them?"

She sent me a peevish look. "I was. We nipped into the shop on the spur of the moment, placed the order, and went on our way. Ordering gloves is not a complicated undertaking."

She was right about that. Taking a gentleman's pattern involved nothing more than tracing the outline of his hand on plain paper. The shop would keep the paper for reference and make every subsequent pair of gloves from the same outline.

"Do you recall the name of the shop?"

She was all but jogging along, and I resented the effort necessary to keep up with her. After a bad night, my stamina suffered, and last night had been restless indeed.

"I do not. We were in Town, my lord, where glovemakers and milliners adorn every street corner."

The entrance to the bridle path loomed ahead, and I waited until we were beneath the trees and out of sight of the lane to put my next question to her.

"Who was he?"

"I cannot possibly grasp what your question is about, my lord."

"The monogram H-G-M did not belong to your first husband or to your second. I believe you were out shopping with an escort, and he did arrange to purchase these gloves while you were with him. A man does not place an order for used gloves, though. One explanation I can come up with for the initials not matching those of the purported purchaser is that he bought used gloves."

She came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the path. "I should never have asked you to look for those gloves."

"But you did," I said gently, "lest Lord Barrington find them first and note the discrepancy with the initials himself." She'd lied to her husband to avoid any controversy about her attachment to the missing gloves.

"I'm sure some footmen came across the gloves and, seeing their condition, assumed they belonged in the gardener's shed."

"Then why ask me to look for them when I planned on conducting a room-to-room search of the guest quarters?"

I could see her weighing the costs and benefits of further lies. She apparently chose to either trust my discretion or to avoid conflict with Her Grace's preferred snoop.

"Sit with me, my lord." She crossed the path to a fallen log at about bench height, probably a popular trysting place for the village's courting couples.

I obliged, prepared to hear more regrets in this unlikely confessional.

"Cobbie had gone to his reward and left me with two boys to raise, their guardians circling like vultures and Cobbie's younger brother making polite noises about how agreeable I'd find the dower house while he oversaw renovations to the manor house. Cobbie's parliamentary cronies had made their polite condolence calls and then disappeared from sight. I knew the boys would be taken from me the instant I'd completed first mourning.

"I was so angry at my husband, my lord. You cannot imagine my rage. Daniel was seven and such a sweet child, utterly bewildered to lose his papa, and those wretched, bedamned lawyers, abetted by Danny's uncle… Society gossips titter about merry widows, but they ought to live in fear of murderous widows."

"A loved one's death can feel like a betrayal," I said, meaning every word. "You've been abandoned in the midst of hostilities by the one person who should have had a care lest you face defeat in solo combat."

She considered me from beneath the brim of her bonnet. "Dorothea said much the same thing when Claudius died. How dare he? I knew exactly what she meant, but at least the duke wasn't foolish enough to take a fractious three-year-old colt out after the hounds."

Or to all but walk into the guns of a French patrol by the gentle light of a quarter moon.

"You were angry," I said, "alone, and facing the loss of your children. You came across a party offering some understanding and companionship, and you availed yourself of his support."

"He said he was after pheasant and partridge. East Anglia attracts the shooting crowd, and I hadn't yet been banished to the dower house. I wanted to show off the glory of my former station, though a widow isn't supposed to entertain. It was early enough in mourning that I could not be evicted without causing talk, and I could imagine Cobbie telling me to gather rosebuds and so forth. He would have."

Years later, and a note of resentment still colored the mention of her first husband. But then, the terms of that husband's will had made banishing her ladyship's young sons to public school all but inevitable.

"Hans was good with the boys," she said, her tone softening. "He explained to Danny that public school would be cold and miserable and lonely, but that pretending to have been kidnapped by pirates and befriending one's fellow captives would help. Mama would send baskets from home, frequent baskets, and write frequent letters, and pretty soon, it would all become more bearable. Pirates are to be pitied after all, because they are doomed to sail always as outcasts, while a young peer could look forward to doing his bit to run the whole empire. Danny later said Hans's words were a comfort."

"Hans was a comfort to you as well." For a time, and possibly not even an intimate comfort, though the gossips would imply torrid trysts by the score.

By now, I knew where the story would end.

"Even a widow is allowed to shop for mourning attire, and second mourning requires a different wardrobe altogether. When Danny was snatched away and Peter and I were banished to the dower house, those outings with Hans in Town were all that sustained me."

"Can you describe him to me?"

Not a particularly relevant question, but a way to keep her focused on the past, wherein some answers might lie.

"Tallish, auburn hair, the kindest eyes… a lovely singing voice, a man comfortable in his own skin. He was a friend, my lord, more a friend than anything else, and certainly never… never a friend who trespassed beyond affection and flirtation. Whether Hans was wandering about the countryside with me or escorting me about the shops, he had a quality of self-containment, of being always in command of himself, that was such a restful contrast to Cobbie."

"Cobbie was loud?"

She shifted on our log bench. "Cobbie was the spoiled son of generations of spoiled sons. He was amazingly dear, given his antecedents, but he blew hot and cold, raged, and then jollied himself out of his tempers. He was sunny by nature, also tempestuous. Not a calm presence, for all his heart was in the right place. He was determined that being unable to serve in the military, he would pull his share of the parliamentary load, and he did. He was more conscientious about his infernal committees than most of the dukes and marquesses bothered to be. He was well liked and mourned by many."

As Harry had been. "Did you know the boys were to be raised by guardians?"

"No. I knew I would be adequately provided for, but beyond that, Cobbie never went into details. In his world, boys went into men's hands at seven years of age. In my world, the boys were all I had, and they were wrenched from me when they needed me most."

"This Hans person understood your rage."

"He did, and he counseled a patient strategy. Take advantage of every opportunity to be the benevolent, generous, understanding mama, because there would be such opportunities. Never miss a Speech Day, a cricket championship, or a boat race, and send baskets sufficiently lavish that all the lads awaited their arrival with pleasure. I consoled myself with those measures, but they have been inadequate revenge."

The wound still ached, in other words, and might for the rest of her life. "How did you and Hans part?"

"Amicably. My attachment to him was hard to keep private once Town became the easiest place to meet. Friends quietly let me know that talk was starting, and for the sake of my sons, I could not have that. I half hoped Hans would offer marriage, though I could not have remarried that soon after losing Cobbie. I gather his prospects were limited, for all he was a gentleman, and he probably realized that my interest in him had been somewhat driven by…"

"Murderous impulses?"

Her smile was wan. "Don't judge me, your lordship. The man was handsome, attentive, a practiced flirt, and blessedly affectionate without putting untenable expectations on me. Cobbie would not have judged me, and thus I try not to judge myself."

And yet, these recollections embarrassed her. "How did you come into possession of the gloves?"

"I was still allowed to be the lady of the manor at the time. Hans and I had taken the children for a picnic, and we were caught in a downpour. One of those sunny-one-moment, a-deluge-the-next turns of weather, then back to bright sunshine and dripping boughs. Hans gave me his gloves and jacket. He took the jacket back when we reached the house, of course, but I kept the gloves, and he never asked that I return them."

"Do you miss him?"

"Yes, and no. He was truly a comfort and offered wise counsel, but he was also an indulgence. Had the guardians got wind of the variety of consolation I'd found, I'd never have seen Danny or Peter again. I was being foolish, my lord. Very, very foolish, and that realization made setting Hans aside mandatory."

Not quite the same story Her Grace and Mrs. Whittington told, but a parallel version.

"You were also wise," I said. "You exercised discretion, you did not try to make the liaison into something it couldn't be, and you let it go at the first sign it could become troublesome. Have you crossed paths with this Hans fellow again?"

"I thought I saw him once a couple years later across Bond Street. I was with Lord Barrington, and Hans apparently did not see me, or chose to exercise discretion. Then too, Hans was with a young lady. He was very attentive to her, buying her roses from the flower seller on the corner, as he'd bought me roses more than once. He might not have welcomed a greeting from me. What has all this to do with Her Grace's missing letters?"

I stood and offered my hand. "You have confirmed for me that the missing items form a pattern, and a troubling one at that."

"Oh dear. I knew about Dorothea's flute teacher fling, but Carola too?"

"A dashing diplomat." An aspiring, dashing diplomat, or so he'd claimed. "Who knew of your liaison with this Hans fellow?"

"Nobody would have known for a certainty. I was careful to occasionally accept the escort of some of Cobbie's old friends. I saw Hans in Town on a mere handful of occasions, so I hope the answer to your question is that the gossips speculated, but idly so."

"Do you believe that?"

She looked up at the pewter sky, visible through the pines. "I don't know what to believe, my lord. Those gloves are the only memento I have of a troubling time and of the joy I stole in the midst of sorrow. Nobody present now knew to whom they belonged—nobody could know—save myself. Even if some of the usual wagging tongues began linking my name with Hans's, nobody, not even my lady's maid, would have known about those gloves."

And yet, the gloves had disappeared. No footman would risk his post pilfering a pair of plain brown gloves. No maid would have a use for them. I considered guests one by one as we made an unhurried return to Tweed House. When we came within sight of the stable, her ladyship stopped and unwound her hand from my arm.

"I'll tell Lord Barrington about the gloves, my lord. He knows I lost them, and he thinks they belonged to Cobbie. He'll understand."

"But?"

"But Barrington thinks I was the typical widow, devoted to my late husband's memory, involving myself in pious good works, and content to write regularly to my sons."

"You thought Barrington was a devoted papa, his children models of decorum, and your role as step-mama a pleasurable addition to your role as wife."

A raindrop landed on the toe of my boot.

"I did. If Jessamine doesn't sink the whole family in scandal before the next year is out, I will be very, very surprised."

The other possibility remained unmentioned: Lady Barrington's past could sink the family in scandal. Not a horrid, boiling, fresh scandal, but enough whispers and innuendos to reduce Jessamine's chances of a good match, and her sisters' chances as well.

"Putting the truth to his lordship strikes me as prudent," I said. "He is a devoted papa, but what he knew about raising daughters would probably rival what I know about raising penguins. You need his permission to use your discretion with Lady Jess—who has been maligning my mother, by the way—and to know that his lordship will support your decisions."

"Maligning the duchess ?"

"His lordship is aware of the situation and, as far as I know, has done nothing to intervene."

A raindrop spattered onto Lady Barrington's shoulder.

"Ye suffering saints," she muttered. "I am off to have a quiet chat with my husband, your lordship. If you do find those gloves, please burn them."

She hastened away, but I called her back. "A thought, my lady. You said that part of your motivation for indulging in the company of a follower was revenge, but that the instrument was inadequate to the challenge. You were separated from your children and relegated to a lesser status in a lesser dwelling."

"Well, yes, but I should have anticipated at least a remove to the dower house."

Her son had become the viscount upon Cobbie's death. No remove had been in order. She could have lived out her days in the home where her children had been born, but for the meddling of her in-laws.

"What you should anticipate," I said, "is that a grandmother goes where she pleases, spoils whom she pleases, and meddles where she pleases, and there is nothing anybody can say against the regular and vigorous exercise of her God-given privileges."

"But the present viscount doesn't… That is to say, he's not yet…"

"He will be married, and he will make his best effort to secure the succession, and you are the mama who never let him forget her love. Grandchildren are all but inevitable, and your right to be a presence in their lives is indisputable. Best be off before the rain comes down in earnest, my lady."

Her countenance underwent a shift, like the East Anglian weather. First puzzlement, then a frown, then a smile as warm and benevolent as the English summer sun.

"Grandchildren," she said, as if she'd just now grasped the meaning of the word. "By heaven, grandchildren ."

She hurried away, my paltry self apparently forgotten, along with gloves, bereavements, and even—for the moment—a difficult conversation looming with her husband.

My own destination lay in the stable, and by the time I gained the horsey-scented gloom of same, the rain was coming down in serious, chilly earnest.

"Atlas were at grass all night," Atticus said as we stood outside the gelding's stall. "Grooms knew there was weather on the way and put all the riding stock to pasture at sunset."

My noble steed dozed with one hip cocked, though he would have done his serious sleeping in the safer confines of an open paddock. Some horses were confident enough of domestication to sleep flat out in a stall, but Atlas was a former cavalry mount. I'd never seen him lost to deep slumber indoors.

"When I'm off to Dover," I said, "I'd like you to keep a special eye on my rooms. Work on your letters there, polish my spare boots, nap all you please, but guard my quarters."

The stable was deserted, the staff having gone for their midday meal before the guests would sit down to a proper Sunday supper.

"Who am I guarding them from?"

"Anybody and everybody. Miss West will remain at the house party as well, and she will keep a sharp look out too. Report anything suspicious to her."

Atlas shifted, cocking the other hip.

"Don't seem right," Atticus said, scuffing his toe on the dirt floor. "You off to the coast, Lady Ophelia gone to the Hall. I seen the duchess. She's…"

I waited, curious to hear how Atticus would characterize my mother.

"She's toplofty," Atticus said. "Like a real smile would make her shoes pinch or something."

"I'm told she's shy." A not-outlandish theory.

Atticus frowned up at me. "She's yer mum. You'd know if she was shy."

I should know, but I didn't. "She will remain here while I'm making my farewell to the duke. If you discreetly can, you will keep an eye on her as well."

"Should I put a hair on the door latch to her room?"

An interesting suggestion. Wrapping a single human hair around a door latch as a means of noting if the latch was lifted was a spy's trick, one I'd taught both Atticus and Hyperia to employ.

"Only if you can do so without being seen. Same with my quarters." Leaving Atticus behind, even for twenty-four hours, made me uneasy, but the journey to Dover and back would be grueling, and the boy would slow me down.

"Any idea who stole them letters?" Atticus asked.

"None, though a motive is becoming clearer. Some widows are apparently prone to liaisons early in bereavement that can cause them regret later on. Our thief might seek to capitalize on those regrets."

I expected Lady Canderport to be the next victim, though the handsome bachelor intent on consoling her on a fresh bereavement would have been a stalwart sort of fellow.

I still could not explain Drayson's missing sketches.

"I thought widows was a sad lot," Atticus said. "Nobody has any use for 'em, they ain't allowed to go hardly anywhere, and they're supposed to dress like ghouls, at least among the Quality."

"Mourning attire is to ensure Society accords the widow the respect her grief is due. As for the other… Sadness and loneliness can result in impulsive choices."

"You mean the ladies gave in to temptation?"

Atticus could be astonishingly delicate at times. "Apparently so." And apparently, a certain class of bachelor enjoyed tempting them. Harry had escorted more than a few widows in his day, though they had been past formal mourning.

"I wish you wasn't going to the coast," Atticus said, kicking the boards of the stall wall hard enough to make Atlas open his eyes.

"The journey will be a few hours of hard riding in either direction, Atlas is up to the effort, and I have promised to see my brother off." Promised myself, though I dreaded the prospect of putting Arthur on a ship.

"His ma should see him off. You got letters to find."

"Atticus, you are not to put yourself in a compromising position searching for the letters in my absence. That is a direct order. Disobey a direct order, and you'll be drummed out of the regiment."

"But they hafta be somewhere. A thief don't steal old letters just to toss 'em in the dustbin."

Precisely, my boy . A thief stole proof of a scandalous liaison to use as leverage against the recipient of the letters. The gloves and locket were similarly proof of past indiscretions. Lady Barrington had step-daughters to launch, and Mrs. Whittington had a pristine reputation to guard. Her Grace had significant social consequence at risk.

Then too, Mrs. Whittington had at least one admirer in a position to offer her matrimony. Marchant might well view matters differently, if Mrs. Whittington fell from grace in the eyes of society.

"You should take me with you," Atticus said. "Miss West can keep an eye on Tweed House, or yer ma can."

For a lad determined on his own independence, the prospect of two days without immediate supervision from me should have appealed strongly.

"Nonsense, my boy. You can watch from vantage points the ladies have no access to. What are you hearing in the servants' hall?"

"A lot of moanin' and whinin'. Seamstresses and lady maids is havin' to alter plaid getups for the gents. Footmen will have to wear their own plaid getups for the Highland Games. You won't put me in a skirt, will ya guv?"

"I will put myself in a kilt." And oddly enough, I enjoyed my plaid finery. The fittings had been a trial and the sensation of bare knees an adjustment, but when the tailors had turned me around to behold myself in a three-way mirror, I'd seen not an English lordling, but a man of style and confidence.

"Daft business, men in skirts. Do Scottish ladies wear trousers?"

"Under their riding habits, very likely. So do English ladies, I'm told. What else have you heard in the hall?"

"MacFadden says to keep clear of Lord Drayson's man. He's accusin' everybody of stealing those naughty sketches. I say he took 'em hisself, and he'll miraculously find 'em, be the hero of the day, and earn hisself extra vails."

I peered down upon my tiger-cum-general-factotum-cum-occasional-conscience. "That would explain the disappearance of the sketches. Is Lord Drayson a pinchpenny?"

Atticus let himself into Atlas's stall and took down the water bucket. "Lord Drayson is skint. All the Quality is skint, to hear the talk in the Hall. Prinny is the skint-est of them all."

"Is Her Grace in want of coin?"

"Nah. Nobody says much about the duchess. Wisherd would skewer 'em with her knitting needles. I like Wisherd. You know where you stand with her."

I liked Wisherd too. Her loyalties were not in question. Neither was her common sense. "Where is your coat, my boy? The weather has turned up nasty, and sleet is a possibility."

"Saddle room. I cleaned all your gear because you're off to the coast tomorrow. Lady Ophelia reminded me before she left."

Inspiration struck. "You might consider sending her a report. All's well, no progress, that sort of thing. Miss West will see it delivered to the Hall."

"Whyn't you send a report?"

I would do exactly that, but not because I needed to practice my letters. "Lady Ophelia quit the house party because the time of year brings her sad memories. She lost a son when he was about your age. She is also concerned for Leander, whose mother might not be returning to the Hall any time soon."

Atticus exited the stall, bucket in hand, and closed the half door behind him. "Leander said his ma might have to go away for a while. She told him that. Said she wasn't off to war, and she'd miss him and all, but you'd look after him, and she wasn't going for good and always."

And you didn't think to tell me this? But then, Atticus had no memory of either parent. His sole inheritance was a locket from his mother that he wore about his scrawny neck. In his world, parents were a dodgy lot on a good day.

"When did Leander pass this along?"

"We were playing Waterloo in the conservatory the day before you brung me here. He said his ma wasn't happy at the Hall, but that he was, and he had uncles now. Said his ma had uncles, too, and she missed 'em, and she was off to visit them, and aunties and cousins, too, but Lee-Lee liked the Hall better than anywhere else."

This exchange put a sunnier complexion on any discussions I might have with Leander, but what did it say about my nephew that he'd confided the news of his mother's exit to Atticus rather than to one of those shiny new uncles?

"Lee-Lee?"

"I call him that. Sometimes I call him Andy."

"What does he call you?"

"None a yer business, and I'm not tellin'."

I felt at once proud—Atticus and Leander were becoming friends, and a boy with a friend was a boy who found some joy and security in the world—and dismayed. I was again the outsider, the extraneous spare, and while the context was nearly silly—I did not want to play Waterloo with anybody, anywhere, ever—the feeling still took me aback.

"Write to Lady Ophelia," I said. "You may use the supplies in my traveling desk, and I expect you to keep an eye on Jupiter in my absence in addition to your other responsibilities."

"I got tuppence from MacFadden for doing Mr. Marchant's boots."

"Put the coin in my traveling desk if you haven't anywhere else to keep it."

The boy looked pathetically relieved, suggesting life belowstairs wasn't all tea and gossip. "I still wish you wasn't going to Dover."

My mother's words came back to me. "I wish I had no need to go to Dover, but His Grace will enjoy his holiday, and he's overdue for some leisure."

"And you ain't overdue for some leisure?" Atticus sauntered off, bucket in hand, and I wanted to stick out my tongue at his retreating back. Of all the cheek…

Atlas looked at me as if to ask if I was through interrupting his nap.

"Rest today, horse. Tomorrow, we fly to the coast."

Atlas replied by lifting his tail and perfuming the stable with eau des verts paturages . Another cheeky lad.

My next destination was my own apartment, where I would change out of my damp attire and pen a note to Lady Ophelia. I missed her keen insights and acerbic wit, but I also needed to thank her for manning the turrets at the Hall.

She had provided a sample of John Pickering's handwriting and his stationery, and done so posthaste. That watermark on the stationery might prove to mean nothing, or it might lead to the truth—and peace of mind for three women who most assuredly deserved at least that.

When I reached the end of the barn aisle, I saw Gideon Marchant, hat pulled low, retreating along the path to the house. He was getting a thorough soaking, which begged the question: Why had Marchant, who'd dodged divine services, come to the stable? One did not typically travel on the Sabbath other than to attend church, and Marchant had chosen to visit the stable at an hour when the grooms would be absent from the barn.

I hurried after him, and when we reached Tweed House, I was surprised to see Marchant head down the steps that led to the lower reaches of the house. Not the done thing, but then, he was an old friend of the hostess and likely in want of a hot cup of tea sooner rather than later.

As was I, but I made my way to my room, where I found, to my delight and concern, that Hyperia was lying in wait for me.