Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

I found Lady Canderport easily enough. She answered my knock, opening the door to her own sitting room.

"If my lord is looking for Charles, he's off reading poetry to some young ladies. Lottie is supposed to be among them, but I do not flatter myself that your lordship is in search of my daughter."

A bit blunt, which I appreciated. "As it happens, I'd like to speak with you, my lady, if you can spare me a few moments."

She stepped back and gestured me into the room. "I did not steal Mrs. Whittington's brooch or locket or whatever. I cannot vouch as confidently for my offspring." Her words were laced with resignation and fatigue, also a touch of despair. "Do have a seat, my lord."

I closed the door and took a wing chair. The accommodations were certainly clean and comfortable, but somebody had taken a notion to decorate in pink and white plaid with red accents. The carpet was pink bordered with red and burgundy, and the carnations on the sideboard offered more pink and white.

The parlor was fairly bright thanks to French doors and two windows, but the abundance of pink gave the room an unsettling quality, as if her ladyship and I occupied the inside of a young girl's jewelry box or workbasket.

"Lottie claims we were put in these quarters as a test of our nerves," Lady Canderport said. "My theory is that a daughter of the house in some previous generation was excessively fond of pink, and this scheme was an attempt to cure her of her fancies. Pink requires moderation. Pink plaid is positively diabolical."

"Different, certainly. Would you prefer a stroll in the gallery?"

"With the weather turning up chilly, half the guests will be wandering about the gallery, the conservatory, or the music room. Here will do. I rang for a tray a good quarter hour ago, and—"

A tap on the door heralded the arrival of a footman bearing the requested service. Her ladyship took the end of the sofa closest to my chair and prepared to pour out.

"Hellie has done her usual excellent job as hostess," Lady Canderport said. "The tea will be hot, the biscuits fresh. How do you like yours?"

"Plain for me."

She navigated the tea tray easily, no slight tremor to her hands. Her eyes were not bloodshot, and no face powder covered tiny veins on her nose or cheeks. She did not doctor her tea with tipple, and as to that, when she leaned close enough to me that I might have caught a whiff of spirits on her breath, I did not.

No spirits, and no parsley, mint, or lemon to disguise sour aromas.

She stirred honey into her tea and regarded me frankly. "You are here in pursuit of a private word with another guest. One doesn't want to give offense, my lord, but you were not on my schedule."

"What was on your schedule?"

Her smile was wan. "Peace and quiet, a solitary cup of tea, possibly a nap. Odd, how simple our comforts become when the years begin to accumulate. I have listened to my children argue nearly nonstop for going on twenty years, and while I love them to distraction, the noise wears on one."

"Will you miss it when they leave the nest?"

"Do you miss military life?"

She asked a surprisingly difficult question. "For much of my time in the army, I did not bide in camp or at headquarters. I moved about on my own. If you refer to camaraderie in the officers' mess or the high spirits at a regimental ball, those did not figure prominently in my experience."

"But here you are again, moving about on your own. You need not be delicate with me, my lord. If you suspect that Lottie or Charles has taken Mrs. Whittington's jewelry, you are welcome to search their rooms. They are cleverer than they seem, though, particularly when they put their heads together. They would know enough to hide any stolen goods in somebody else's quarters."

"In your quarters, for example?"

She wrinkled her nose. "One certainly hopes not, but possibly. My children are clever, not brilliant."

"I doubt your children are thieves and will leave it to you to search their quarters if you think that necessary. I am more concerned that you might bear ill will toward some of the other lady guests."

Her expression turned puzzled. "I am too busy managing a pair of rapscallions to spare the effort for ill will. Do I envy Hellie her lovely house and devoted husband? Yes. Would I like to be aging as splendidly as Her Grace and have my daughter matched with an earl? Of course. Does Gideon Marchant's sniping annoy me? Most certainly. Very well, but am I ill-natured or simply human, my lord?"

I sipped my tea and mentally regrouped. Lady Canderport was not an embittered, flighty sot. She was coping with challenges and a trifle short on graciousness, but long campaigns rendered the best soldiers footsore and weary in spirit.

"Somebody stole personal letters from Her Grace and an item of equally sentimental value from Lady Barrington. The letters are not incriminating, but they are private correspondence. Whoever has these items could cause Her Grace and Lady Barrington considerable embarrassment."

She dipped a biscuit in her tea. "One assumes the same about Mrs. Whittington's missing item, then. It probably has the wrong initials beneath the inscription or came from the wrong shop on Ludgate Hill. My grandmother told me that beauty is a very mixed blessing, and I would have opportunities to appreciate the advantages of an unremarkable appearance. She was right."

Lady Canderport wasn't plain, exactly. Her attire was fashionable, if understated, her features regular. Her chin was a trifle weak, and her eyes merely brown. She wore her hair in a coronet of braids, and her figure was matronly rather than plump.

Another not-quite lady. Not quite memorable, not quite forgettable. "What does thievery have to do with a woman's appearance?" I asked.

"Your mother apparently misplaced love letters, my lord. Lady Barrington's missing item of a sentimental nature might be more romantic correspondence or a diary or journal of some sort. Mrs. Whittington's brooch or locket somehow embarrasses her as well, or we'd not be hearing from every chambermaid and underfootman that they're to keep an eye out for it. A delightful excuse for the lot of them to snoop, by the way, and yet, the trinket hasn't been found."

She took a bite from the soggy portion of her biscuit. "I was never importuned," she went on. "Not by the handsome bachelors, not by charming fortune hunters. Not as a young lady, a wife, or a widow, and thus I am free from the worry that must be plaguing your mother now."

She dunked her biscuit again and took another bite. Her attitude struck me as neither gloating nor bitter, but simply complaisant.

"You weren't tempted to leaven your mourning with a little flirtation?"

She shook a drop of tea from her dripping biscuit. "I had two small children to tend to, and my means were quite constrained until my grandmother died, Lord Canderport's papa being nothing short of a miser. To the extent that flirtation can lead to marriage, I was not, and am not, interested. I esteemed my husband greatly and mourned him properly, but one marriage has sufficed for me. The answer to your question, my lord, is no. No flirtations, no flings, no discreet liaisons of any sort."

"Were overtures of that nature made to you?"

A portion of her sopping biscuit fell into her tea. "Why would I answer such a rude question about the distant past?"

Was she evading my query or reacting as any proper lady might? "I apologize for the nature of my inquiry, but it bears on the missing items. Each lady is widowed and found consolation in the person of a fellow who showed up during her mourning. You are widowed, acquainted with all three women, and like Lady Barrington, you have a daughter to launch."

"Somebody is trying to blackmail Her Grace?" Lady Canderport put the remains of her soggy biscuit into her mouth. "Very forward of them, and why wait all these years to do it? That a duchess mis-stepped years ago is interesting, but hardly compelling. Why not threaten to expose her peccadillo before she emerges from mourning, or just as she's resuming her place in Society?"

Put that way, I had to agree that the timing of this spree of larceny was curious.

"I do not confirm your characterization of events," I said, "but neither do I deny it."

"Carola was sporting about with some doting dandy a few years back. I recall that much. She wasn't flaunting him, of course, but I took the children for an ice, and there she was, laughing despite wearing weeds. One envied her. He would have been good-looking if he'd not gone in so thoroughly for the starched shirt points, lace cuffs, and an elaborate cravat."

"Did you warn her that her deportment might be noted?"

Her ladyship chose another biscuit. "Warn her? I would have applauded her daring, had the children not been present. She'd been married to some old general and made a go of it, by all accounts. If a woman cannot enjoy some freedom in widowhood, then she must resign herself to spending her whole life as an unpaid domestic servant, must she not?"

Truly, the late Lord Canderport had not impressed his lady wife.

"I do recall that Hellie had a fling, too, now that you mention it." She dunked another biscuit and dispatched the whole thing.

"If asked, I will deny mentioning any such thing."

This smile was a bit brighter and revealed an attractiveness I would not have suspected. "You didn't need to. I heard she was also seen at Gunter's, but I forget who spotted them. She was on the arm of another tall, dark, and handsome admirer." The smile faded, and her ladyship regarded me with uncomfortable intensity. "You must sort this out, my lord. Three women, three handsome admirers, and now three incidents of theft."

"A plethora of coincidences, when what I need are logical deductions and solid evidence."

"And you were hoping I could provide you some of the latter. Sorry to disappoint. My widow's portion is quite modest. Papa-in-law is quite the pinchpenny. I would not interest a blackmailer on those grounds alone. Charles doesn't even have leave to use the courtesy title yet, that's how miserly his dear grandpapa is."

She took a considering sip of her tea. "I should be grateful that the children and relative poverty kept me safe from any philanderers, but then, I was never the romantic sort, and neither was my husband. He did nearly name our son Charlemagne—that was his late lordship's given name—but my grandmother noted that French associations might not serve the boy in our bellicose age. The derivative Charles had to suffice. My younger daughter was Charlene, though we lost her at two. Scarlet fever."

"I am sorry for your loss, my lady." I murmured the requisite platitude, and I meant the condolences sincerely. "Lady Ophelia quit the gathering in part because old losses haunt her in autumn."

"One suspected. The boy… Peter? No, Patrick. Once a child turns five, you breathe a little easier, and then they turn seven, and you hope surely the worst dangers are past. But they aren't, not for some of them. I remind myself of this every time the twins pluck my last nerve. Families argue and bicker and spat—that's normal—but we must treasure even the noise. This is gloomy talk, my lord."

"You worry about your children." She wasn't merely afflicted by her offspring, or bothered by them, she genuinely cared for their welfare.

"Charles has a good head on his shoulders, and when the right young lady catches his eye, he will cease involving himself in Lottie's wilder schemes, but my daughter is neither beautiful nor wealthy. I was content with my lot when life dealt me the same cards, but add bored and resentful to the list, and trouble is bound to follow."

I finished my tea and peered at the dregs. "The flasks belong to Lottie?"

Her ladyship grimaced at her tea cup. "You are supposed to conclude that they belong to me, because they do."

Well, of course. "Lottie tipples, and because you know that could be disastrous to her future, you do what you can to cast suspicion on yourself rather than on her."

Her ladyship sent a disgruntled glance toward the closed door. "I cannot reason with the girl, because she is justified in half of her pique and frustration. Frittering away most of the year on shallow entertainments is honestly boring, and holding out matrimony as the only worthy objective for young women of intelligence and ambition is unfair and wasteful. Lottie raises a figurative fist to all the stupid rules every time she takes a sip. I understand this, and yet, she does not know the risks she runs."

This last was said plaintively, a mother's lament. Lottie sounded in many particulars as if she and Lord Drayson were compatible spirits, equally oppressed and vexed by their elders' conventions, but I could not recommend Drayson as a suitor.

"Do you resent that Lady Barrington and Her Grace aren't taking a matchmaking hand with your Lottie?"

Her ladyship set down her tea cup. "Not now. Two years ago, they might have been helpful, but my daughter is not aiding her own cause. Has the bit between her teeth, as the equestrians say."

"What if you declared that your efforts to find Lottie a husband were at an end?"

"I cannot give up, my lord. What I have to leave Lottie won't be enough to maintain her in the style she deserves, and Charles should not be saddled with his maiden sister for all eternity. The earldom is far from wealthy, the opposite in fact, and that assumes Charles lives long enough to inherit from his infernally vigorous grandpapa."

"I'm not suggesting you consign Lottie to the bleakest moors. Simply tell her that you are no longer engaged in the futile effort to find her a match. I have good reason to suspect that Charles and Miss Frampton enjoy each other's company, and that will leave Lottie the odd man out, so to speak."

"Ignore her. My husband used to tell me that all the time, and then he'd bring her a new storybook and give it to her whether she'd been naughty for half the day or sweet."

"May I ask if Lord Canderport aspired to serve in Parliament in any meaningful capacity?"

"Committee work, you mean? A stint in the lower house while waiting for the earl to stick his spoon in the wall? My husband dreaded the very notion of politics. That nonsense would have cramped his socializing considerably."

Not our socializing, his socializing. The distinction was not lost on me, and thus I steered the discussion back to more relevant topics.

"I'm suggesting only that you ignore Lottie's marital prospects. Let her notice that her friends are all making matches, that Charles and Miss Frampton could be next. That the house-party invitations are over for the year, and winters can be long and lonely." Or peaceful and sweet. "Give the young lady a chance to do some growing up, in other words, and time to decide for herself if marriage has any appeal."

"I have tried just about every other strategy," Lady Canderport said. "I suppose a temporary retreat deserves consideration."

"The Russians retreated all the way to Moscow and beyond," I said, rising. "Look how that turned out for Napoleon." The tsar's generals had drawn the emperor and his exhausted army straight into the face of a Russian winter, and disease and privation had achieved a victory more decisive than any the Russians had managed on the battlefields.

Her ladyship rose. "Thank you, my lord, for your suggestion. I hope you can find what's gone missing. I would not call myself warmly disposed toward your mother, nor she toward me, but I have no reason to wish her or any other guest ill."

"Does your goodwill extend to Lady Jessamine?"

"Even Lottie has found reason to criticize Lady Jess, and one feels for her step-mother."

We parted on that note, though the conversation left me frustrated. Surely, surely, I'd thought, Lady Canderport would admit to having been charmed by a handsome stranger and to having recently lost a memento of that romantic interlude.

Surely not, apparently, and I believed her. Her unsentimental attitudes, her lack of beauty, her lack of means, and even her late husband's weak allure had all conspired to make her ladyship nigh untemptable when it came to romantic liaisons.

I sorted similarities and differences all the way to the stable, a raw wind hampering my progress. All four ladies were widowed, three had titles, one did not. All four ladies were past youth, only one had remarried. All four ladies had married somewhat flawed men, three of those husbands had had parliamentary connections, one had avoided the mention of same. One was childless, three had daughters, two had daughters yet to be wed. Two had been abandoned by their lovers, one had gently sent hers packing. The fourth had disdained intimate consolations altogether.

I was getting nowhere with my search for facts and evidence, but I was forming a better picture of why my dear Hyperia might be skittish about marriage, even to a fellow who genuinely esteemed her. What sort of father sought to name every one of his children after himself, for example? What sort of husband preferred port and cigars with his parliamentary cronies night after night to the occasional quiet evening with his lady wife?

Somewhere in the middle of these ruminations, I became aware that Arthur had taken ship. The hour was noon or thereabouts, and my certainty was a matter of a hollow feeling low in the belly, almost a homesickness. I hadn't known the exact day or hour of Harry's passing, but I would have bet my grandfather's watch that Arthur's packet had just that moment filled its sails and begun the crossing to France.

"Fare thee well, brother mine, and safe journey home."

I wandered idly between the rows of loose boxes, trying to gather up the thoughts that awareness of Arthur's departure had scattered. No Atlas, no Arthur, no answers… as many differences as similarities among the victims, and too many potential malefactors.

I was standing outside the stall of Gideon Marchant's wayward gray—aptly named Ruffian— when it occurred to me that the three gallants, for want of a better term—the dashing diplomat, the doting dandy, and the flirting flutist—had all traveled under the name John or one of its many derivatives.

What else did the three gallants have in common, besides being tall, dark, and—to varying extents—dishonorable?

"That 'un didn't want to come in this morning," Atticus said, joining me outside Ruffian's stall. "Up on his back legs, buckin' and kickin' like perdition when Jean tried to bring him in. Nearly clocked Jean on the head rearin' at the gate."

Behavior like that passed rudeness and qualified as dangerous. "What set him off?"

"Nuffing. Jean was leading the horse to the gate, all placid and ready to come outta the wet, and then Ruffian took a fright. Jean says it were demons only the horse can see. I say the beast is too old for that nonsense."

The horse, whose coat was still dampish, munched his hay with every appearance of calm. "He's not young." In fact, the contour of the gelding's eye suggested mature years. Though handsome and doubtless fit enough for his job, Ruffian was no youngster. I opened his stall door and had a look in the horse's mouth.

"What you doin', guv? You want your fingers bit off?"

"A horse's teeth keep growing throughout his life. If he's constantly eating grass, he wears them down almost as quickly as they grow, but later in life, the teeth can be quite long. I'd put this horse's age, given the length and shape of his teeth, at past twenty."

Hardly a fashionable mount, but then, I hoped to be riding Atlas into our mutual dotage. Not a realistic aspiration, of course.

"Then he's going senile," Atticus said. "He had quite a tantrum, and Jean has wicked rope burns to show for it."

A strong, skilled rider could handle a horse who bolted, but a horse that reared, bucked, kicked… Marchant must be very attached to his Ruffian to keep that sort of mount in his stable.

I let the horse return to his pile of hay and left the stall, being very careful to latch the half door behind me.

"Keep your distance from this one," I said. "I mean that, Atticus. If he kicks out unexpectedly, he could snap your neck. Don't take him to the water trough. Don't hold him for the farrier. Don't offer to groom him because you have idle time on your hands. Jean handles horses all day every day, and Ruffian got the better of him."

"I'm too busy to have idle time on my hands." Said with bashful pride.

"Polishing boots?"

"Polishing boots. Tuppence a pair, and I'm up to sixpence in me pocket. Another sixpence and I'll have a whole shillin'."

On the one hand, I admired the boy's initiative. On the other… "Atticus, where is your coat?" I hadn't seen him in proper outer wear for some time, come to think of it.

The question earned me a fleeting scowl. "Ain't that cold, guv. Don't need a coat indoors, anyways."

The stable wasn't especially cold, but neither was it indoors. If Atticus had been busily sweeping the aisle or currying the mud off a horse, he'd be warm enough. Standing in the damp draft, he had to be chilly.

"Listen to me, my boy, because the shame belongs to those who are fleecing you. The dice were loaded, and you thought the mild weather would last forever. You were supposed to think that. Somebody suggested you bet your coat, a safe bet. You lost. Thank heavens you had the sense to leave the game before you had to surrender your boots and stockings."

"Wasn't going to bet me boots. I ain't stupid."

"No, but you are young, and the game is old. When the time comes for us to leave, you will be offered a proposition: You get your coat back in exchange for every penny in your pocket." New recruits were swindled in this same fashion almost as a rite of passage. "You did the work for the valets and boot boy, but you earn nothing except perhaps a sniffle. Whoever stole your coat gets paid for doing nothing, unless enticing you to gamble took some effort."

Which it likely had not.

Atticus scuffed a toe in the dirt, glowered at Ruffian, and then up at me. "Where can I get me summa them loaded dice?"

"Good question, but just this once I will offer a different solution. I will find you another coat, and you will return to Caldicott Hall with coin in your pocket. Whoever thought to trick you out of your coin will have a coat he can never wear and you will have your wages, but there is a price, Atticus."

He sniffed. "I'd rather have me own loaded dice."

"That way lies danger and dishonor, though I understand your frustration. Tell me who inveigled you into rolling the dice."

Another sniff. "Drayson's valet. Murray. Grouchiest old besom I ever did come across, but then he turns up all friendly after supper is served. I shoulda known he was up to something."

The entire adult staff had doubtless known, but Drayson was a lordling, and rank belowstairs derived from rank abovestairs. Nobody had warned Atticus, and nobody would peach on Drayson's man.

"And you've been cleaning Lord Drayson's boots?"

"Twice. He's allus tramping to the lake and back or off admiring nature. Murray snickers when he says that. Did Marchant's the once. Might do them again tonight if he went out today."

On the Sabbath and a miserable Sabbath at that? "Hoard your coins, my boy. Keep them in my jewelry box. They will be safer there than in your pocket."

I could see this Murray fellow thinking it acceptable to literally turn a defenseless lad's pockets out when Atticus showed no interest in redeeming his coat. Murray might well have been responsible for sending Drayson into Hyperia's sitting room, come to that.

I abruptly needed to know more about Drayson's valet, and the best person to educate me was another valet, a friendly, decent chap who had already offered to be of service to me. Upon returning to the house, I put in a request to Lady Barrington for the loan of a boy's plain, sturdy coat and took myself in search of Hyperia.

Before embarking on another sortie in the name of evidence and logical deductions, I would confer with my superior officer and gain the benefit of her wise counsel.