Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

For three days, I watched and waited, my trusted familiars joining me on sentry duty. Her Grace, Hyperia, and I kept Marchant under surveillance, but he did not return to the lower reaches of the house, unless he did so in the dead of night.

Wisherd undertook a discreet search of the servants' hall and surrounds. At my suggestion, she first secreted an unfinished embroidery project behind a stack of plates in the china bureau and then made a great show of looking everywhere else for her missing stitchery.

Always ensure an alibi is as credible as possible. She found two lurid novels and a dusty penny, but neither gloves, nor locket, nor letters.

I set MacFadden to the same sort of exercise in the footmen's dormitory, because I also wanted to locate Drayson's sketches. Bawdy drawings he found aplenty, but none executed with Drayson's skill and none depicting guests at the gathering.

Atticus suggested we adorn Marchant's door latch with a single hair to monitor his nocturnal comings and goings, and that worthy strategy suggested Marchant wasn't roaming in the small hours.

In short, my investigation was going nowhere, and I had only a few days left to find the goods and hold the thief accountable.

"Where haven't we looked?" Hyperia murmured as rain pattered gently against the dark windows of the conservatory. The glass was steamy with condensation, and the strains of a male vocal quartet drifted from the music room. Supper had been a buffet, punctuated by the announcement that our Highland Games were canceled due to unrelenting precipitation. Three days of autumnal downpours that showed no sign of relenting meant we had to content ourselves with Highland finery at the grand ball scheduled for the conclusion of the party.

When Lord Barrington had made that announcement, the company had at first been silent—nobody, it seemed, had looked forward to scrambling up hillsides or being dragged through the mud with five other fellows clinging to the same rope. Then Miss Bivens had begun clapping, followed by Charles and Miss Frampton, and general applause had risen to deafening heights.

Highland finery without the Highland Games won the evening handily.

Drayson had suggested an evening of amateur music honoring Scottish composers, and I was reminded again of Charles's steeplechase analogy. With the Highland Games off the agenda, the grueling part was over, and the horses could anticipate the race's conclusion with renewed joy and spirit.

Though my own spirits were sinking by the hour. "I searched the ballroom," I muttered, "and the gallery and this conservatory, the drains of which need a good cleaning."

"I've revisited the rooms of the lady guests," Hyperia said, bending to sniff a precocious camellia. "Miss Bivens has more books than the rest of the ladies combined have slippers. Why a mind like that is judged unfit for Oxford, I do not know."

"You are sympathetic to Lottie's frustrations?"

"I always have been, and my dear brother Healy is the first exhibit for the prosecution. He nearly brought the family to grief with his dimwitted machinations, and yet, nobody considers putting the West fortune in my hands, do they?"

I opened a door in the outer wall and let in a cold, damp breeze. "Stars to the west. We might get a reprieve from the rain after all."

Hyperia took a deep breath of chilly air. "You had to keep an eye on the weather in Spain at all times, didn't you?"

At the moment, my eyes were on her. On the dear, familiar contours of her features, on the inherent reserve that kept her thoughts and emotions private from the world and sometimes even from me. I took her in my arms, and we stood in the door, the brisk night a contrast to the warmth of our embrace.

"Is this when I propose again?" I asked, stroking the fine bones and sturdy muscles of her back.

"I think not," Hyperia murmured. "We are vexed by missing items that refuse to be found and a thief who refuses to be caught. We'll want to make a proper celebration of our official engagement, and the moment isn't right."

In her demurral, she comforted me by innuendo. We apparently had an unofficial engagement well in hand. On that cheering thought, I kissed my beloved, and she kissed me back. We got half a soaking exchanging further proof of mutual affection, while visions of a night spent cuddled in my four-poster danced in my tired head.

I eased away, both frustrated by and pleased with the moment. "Are we still being prudent about our sleeping arrangements?" I asked, arms loosely around Perry's shoulders.

"I don't want to be."

More consolation. "But?"

"But Marchant could choose tonight to prowl about unchecked, and when next I treat myself to dreams in your arms, I would rather be preoccupied with thoughts other than ‘where are the letters?' and ‘where haven't we looked?'"

I kissed her cheek. "Your dratted logic is valid."

I pulled my thoughts back to the matter at hand. Where hadn't we looked? An excellent question with not enough answers. In my supposedly idle hours, I'd done a thorough inspection of the stable, the springhouse, the summer kitchen (still in use owing to the large number of guests), the brewery, game locker, and laundry.

"I had a peek at Lord and Lady Barrington's quarters," Hyperia said, stepping back. "Bad of me, but we hadn't looked there."

"Thorough of you." I closed the door and secured the latch. "I did a cursory pass through Mrs. Whittington's rooms. She's a tidy soul." With a penchant for shockingly lovely underlinen. Confiding such a detail even to Hyperia felt unnecessary and ungentlemanly.

Hyperia laced her arm through mine, and we moved in the direction of the camellias. "I made a try at Drayson's quarters, but the odious Murray was lurking."

"I managed to have a look while Murray was at supper. Atticus helped me with the timing. His lordship should give landscapes a try."

"Or honest employment," Hyperia said. "How I do blaspheme when vexed." She stopped me at the next set of doors for another hug. "We're running out of time, Jules."

The duchess had grown quiet, and Lady Barrington's gaiety had taken on a determined quality. Mrs. Whittington's serenity bore an undertone of anxiety, and I had yet to hear any news from Lady Ophelia.

"I'll see you up to your rooms," I said. "Perhaps inspiration will strike us while we're dreaming our separate dreams."

"Insomnia is more likely. How about if I see you to your rooms, and we can share a nightcap?"

My experience with nightcaps was that they hastened one to sleep, then resulted in a fitful night, but Hyperia's company calmed my spirit at any hour.

"A scandalous nightcap rather than a scandalous night. I will content myself with lesser measures," I said, ushering her through the door. "The gents are in good voice."

"I think Burns is often the better for being sung by men. ‘Green Grow the Rushes, O' just doesn't ring as convincingly from a soprano."

The quartet had a good ear for harmonies, and they weren't rushing through "Jock O'Hazeldean."

"This one has a happy ending." Why I should recall that, I had no idea. "The Scottish lover spirits the lady away from her wealthy English suitor and his annoying father."

"And you like that?" Hyperia started up the main staircase, which abruptly loomed before me as daunting as the Pyrenees in winter.

"I like that the lovers are happy and nobody had to be shot at dawn. Has a certain sentimental appeal. If we do catch Marchant with the goods, what then?"

Hyperia paused on the landing. "We won't catch him with the goods, Jules, and Her Grace never asked that of you. Return her letters to her, and she will count that a victory."

I would count that fighting to a very frustrating draw, but better than a defeat. The whole way across the Iberian Peninsula, Wellington and his generals had known exactly how to define victory—invade France. Take the fight to the Corsican who had inflicted violence on much of an entire continent and beyond. Liberate France from the Corsican oppressor and from his continental system of trade, of course, and return her to the oppression of a king whose reign would be more profitable for Albion.

Perhaps I blasphemed when vexed as well.

"I must decide what our victory will entail," I said. "What would Marchant consider a defeat?" Even if I managed to locate the stolen goods and return them to their respective owners, Marchant apparently had learned of the affairs in detail and still held a place in Society where he could instigate very inconvenient gossip.

We gained the top of the steps, fatigue hitting me at gale force. "I've been overdoing," I said. "I know better."

"But you push yourself, because you think surely you won't have another bout of forgetting so soon, and your mother is depending on you, and time grows short. Should we forgo our nightcap, Jules?"

I should have said yes, but I was too selfish. "Join me for a moment. I've come to regard my green plaid apartment as my sanctuary. I can't say the décor has grown on me, but neither does it jar."

From across the corridor, we heard a man's raised voice. Marchant berating his valet, perhaps. MacFadden apparently returned fire, though the words were indistinct.

"Does nobody at this house party get along with anybody else?" Hyperia muttered. "That sounds as acrimonious as Lady Canderport and her dear Lottie."

"The ladies are family. Family members have a license to bicker. Harry, along with every one of my sisters, assured me it was so." I used my key on the latch of my sitting room door, noting that the single hair was unbroken. Atticus was still on his appointed rounds, then, which was cause for some concern, given the lateness of the hour.

"Brandy for you?" I asked, handing Hyperia into a wing chair, "or something else?"

"Is it still the good brandy, or are the more pedestrian vintages on offer this late in the gathering?"

"Good, not spectacular." I passed her the stopper from the decanter, and she took a sniff.

"Good will do. I've been looking forward to seeing you in your kilt."

"I might have to rely on MacFadden's good offices to tend to the details. He's an interesting sort. More philosophical than the average valet."

I poured a single serving and passed it over, then busied myself with the fire, which had been allowed to go out. For the staff, the steeplechase wasn't over.

I used the poker to establish that the flue was, in fact, open and went through the exercise of piling tinder and kindling on the andirons. By rights, I should have summoned a footman to make a proper job of it, but I'd built countless fires in the Spanish wilderness. Why bother those already overburdened?

"We haven't searched the kitchen," Hyperia said, sipping her brandy. "Easy enough to plead a growling belly."

"How could Marchant hide anything in the kitchen?"

"You said he went belowstairs, and that suggests he was in the kitchen."

"Marchant's trespass into the lower reaches was probably noted and observed by three footmen, two maids, the undercook, the scullery maid, and a disapproving valet. With a crowd of witnesses such as that, he'd not have tried to hide anything."

I used a taper to bring the flame from a wall sconce to the hearth and watched my tinder—paper, some pinecones, and sticks—catch. I was having to build this fire because I'd eschewed MacFadden's aid upon my arrival, and he would have reported my rejection to the ranks.

Lord Julian liked his privacy and wouldn't require or tolerate much fussing. Not a guest likely to part with generous vails, and thus I could be neglected to a point with impunity. Atticus made my bed and managed my coal and laundry.

Of all the staff, only MacFadden himself had ventured… I was abruptly reminded of walking into my private quarters and finding MacFadden fussing with my flue.

Ye blushing gods and goddesses.

"Hyperia, where is the last place you'd look for something that my mother expressly directed me to find?" As I spoke, I shoved a heap of ash over my inchoate fire.

"Jules, what are you doing?"

"Looking in the one place we haven't searched." I rose and gestured to the room at large. "The last place anybody would look." I peeled out of my evening jacket and gathered up the loose sleeve of my shirt. "The first place I should have thought to inspect."

I stuck my arm into the chimney, felt around the ledge, as MacFadden must have, and brought out a metal box latched with a simple hook.

Hyperia passed me a handkerchief. "Well done, Jules."

"Well done, MacFadden." Rather than risk getting soot on the box's contents, I used the washstand in the bedroom to clean my hands.

"You open it," Hyperia said. "You found it."

The gloves and letters lay on the bottom, the locket atop them, the little collection at once prosaic and profound. My sense of victory was keen, also incomplete.

"The ladies will be relieved." I was relieved. I'd complied with orders and found Her Grace's letters. Mission accomplished, which wasn't the same thing at all as victory won.

Hyperia gently closed the lid of the box. "You are fretting because the ladies, though relieved, all departed from strict propriety, and somebody has learned of their adventures. Worse, that somebody collected evidence of those liaisons."

Mentally hurtling from facts to conclusions along straight lines of logic and reason was work for a fresh mind. I was tired enough that hurtling eluded me, mentally and physically.

I could state the obvious, though—obvious in hindsight, of course. "MacFadden put this evidence where nobody was likely to find it."

"On Marchant's orders?"

Across the corridor, through two closed doors, they were arguing still, which was bad form, to say the least. MacFadden getting ready to quit again, or Marchant preparing to sack him.

"Marchant could have hidden the goods himself and then not even his valet would know their whereabouts. I suspect MacFadden was operating on his own initiative."

As I stared at the little locket winking in the candlelight, my sluggish imagination lurched sideways into an incontrovertible fact: The ladies had each known of their individual mementos. Only the suitor would have known of all three and been able to easily identify them in the course of a swift spree of thievery. The suitor, who was tallish, dark-haired, charming, canny, and facile with disguises.

"Do you find MacFadden attractive?" I asked, closing the lid of the metal box.

"What sort of question…? I suppose he would be, but he has that stooping, head-cocking air, which puts me in mind of chickens and crows. His features are well fashioned. I grant you that."

"And he's Scottish rather than English, and a valet, rather than accomplished at the gentlemanly arts… but I do believe he's our man, Perry."

HGM, Hugh Gunning MacFadden , and not a monogram for Hans M. Gadabout, or some such patronymic. Simple initials in the usual order.

"As a valet," Hyperia said, "MacFadden isn't likely to cross paths with the lady guests, is he?"

She wasn't rejecting my theory outright, and the more I mentally probed the notion of MacFadden as John-Hans-Ian, the more support I found for it.

"He's tallish when he isn't bringing an obsequious stoop to the party, dark-haired, has access to walnut stain. A valet would know all about fashion, as Hans the doting dandy did."

Hyperia considered her brandy. "A valet would not be a talented musician, much less have diplomatic aspirations."

"Robert Burns was a talented musician, and he came from a long line of farmers." I rebuilt my little fire, and this time let it catch. "My father was a duke, at least in name, and yet I made a credible intelligence officer as did my brother. When necessary, I was also a believable drover, deserter, monk, or sot."

"Fair point. Then MacFadden's accent and Scottish name are as false as his humble demeanor?"

I tossed a square of peat on the flames and settled on the arm of Hyperia's wing chair. "I don't know. Perhaps MacFadden had a gentleman's education and fell on hard times. Perhaps he's an actor of superb skill. Perhaps Marchant has some hold over him."

Hyperia sipped her drink. "That fits. I don't know as anybody associates with Marchant enthusiastically, but the hostesses keep him in plain sight rather than allow him to skulk about behind their backs."

I looped an arm around her shoulders, and we sat for a good half hour, evaluating possibilities and coming to no definite conclusions, for all that we'd found both our thief and the purloined mementos. When Hyperia's head was a sleepy weight on my shoulder, I escorted her to her room and kissed her good night.

By the time Atticus reported for lights out, the bickering from Marchant's side of the corridor had subsided to an irritable rumble. I was reminded of those times Harry and I had sniped at each other for days and sulked for more days.

That recollection gave me another potential answer and yet still more questions. I stashed the stolen items in the squeaky drawer at the bottom of my wardrobe and passed a fitful night in anticipation of battle in the morning.

I rose with a map in my head of the terrain that had to be covered, but no clear route to my destination. All I knew was that I must begin by consulting Mrs. Whittington.

The strain of the past two weeks was telling upon her, putting a tension about her eyes and mouth. I took the place next to her at breakfast and suggested she accompany me on a stroll to the stable. The rain had let up, though the skies remained gray and threatening.

"The stable, my lord?"

"I like to confer with my horse early in the day. Gives me an excuse to stretch my legs and catch up on the stable gossip. I sent a groom over to Caldicott Hall earlier in the week, and I'm hopeful that he's returned."

She topped up my tea cup. "I suppose a bit of fresh air won't go amiss. I must change out of my slippers, and I'll meet you at the door to the back on the hour."

Lady Jessamine and Miss Frampton joined us, and talk turned to how much plaid was too much (if the plaid was pink, the only possible answer was any was too much, in my opinion). When the subject shifted to the necessity of finding a piper for the grand ball, I made my exit and conferred with my reinforcements.

I waited until Mrs. Whittington and I were a good distance from the house before I stopped beneath a towering stand of rhododendrons and passed her the locket.

"I found this stashed in the chimney of my sitting room."

She opened the locket and peered at the inscription. "This is mine. This is the piece I thought I'd misplaced. What of the other items?"

"Found in the same location, all stored in a box that would keep them safe from soot and flames. The stolen goods were secreted in my quarters by one MacFadden, valet to Gideon Marchant."

Fine brows drew down, and a feminine fist closed around the locket. "Gideon stole my locket? I was walking with him the morning I noted it was missing. A pickpocket could manage such a thing, I suppose, but Gideon Marchant?"

"To snatch the locket off your person would generally result in the chain or clasp breaking. Both are intact. Marchant could easily have slipped into your quarters and helped himself to the contents of your jewelry box, just as you slipped into his quarters when first you and I met."

She sent a fulminating glance in the direction of the house. "Gideon has an unpleasant side, but he leaves me alone. I am no threat to anybody. I am exactly what Society believes me to be—a contented widow of modest means."

Gideon did not leave the lady alone in his thoughts. In his thoughts, and possibly in what passed for his heart, he esteemed her sincerely, and that had been his first real mistake.

"I apologize for the question I'm about to ask, and I would avoid it entirely were the answer not key to setting matters to rights. When you were enjoying the occasional company of Ian the aspiring diplomat, did you have occasion to… That is, how close did you and he become?"

She snapped the locket closed. "Very. We were lovers in the physical sense of the word. Why?"

"Would you be able to identify Ian if you saw him again?"

"Of course. I identified him a little over two years ago from across a busy thoroughfare."

"Have you seen MacFadden?"

"Who? Oh, Gideon's valet? No. I have no occasion to consort with the entourage male guests might bring to a gathering such as…" She turned from me and frankly glowered at Tweed House's graceful fa?ade. "You are saying that Ian has been underfoot at this gathering, and I've not recognized him?"

"If MacFadden is your Ian, then he has much to answer for. He would have taken great pains to avoid you, the duchess, and Lady Barrington."

Mrs. Whittington bowed her head, adopting a posture often seen in those who grieved deeply. "I refuse to believe what you're implying. Ian could be frivolous—I needed frivolity desperately—and his schedule was erratic, but he wouldn't—he absolutely would not—be so cavalier as to pursue other women, other widows, while we were close."

"If I can believe my mother and Lady Barrington, he did not play you false to that degree. You are the only lady with whom he indulged in the intimacy you've described. With the others, he encouraged affection and trust, and certainly friendship. He lavished time and attention on them, but he took few liberties beyond those permitted a typical gallant."

She rounded on me. "Few is not none."

"You consider yourself a woman scorned, but I suspect that Ian's esteem was genuine." I even had some grudging sympathy for the conflicting loyalties that drove MacFadden to his deceptions. Some. A little.

Harry had literally slept with the enemy and with the enemy's wife. He'd claimed never to have seduced an innocent, but I'd still found his behavior repugnant and stupid. To save the whole British army, I might have attempted the same, but Harry's amours had never been in aid of so worthy an objective, at least as far as I could tell.

I'd lived in fear that some brilliant lady spy was beating Harry at his own game, and for all I knew, a woman had inveigled him into leaving camp on the night he and I had met with disaster at the hands of a French patrol.

"If Ian's esteem was genuine," Mrs. Whittington said, "then why disappear from my life like the proverbial thief in the night?"

"Because Ian was a thief in the night, and he didn't want you to learn that about him. He genuinely cared for you and probably never meant for matters with you to become as involved as they did." I was speculating, offering Mrs. Whittington the dubious fruits of insomnia and imagination.

"Where is he now?" she asked. "Ian, or MacFadden, or whoever he is? They might not be the same man, you know. Gideon seldom keeps any employee for long. He's always complaining about wages and characters and the agencies."

As if on cue, Atticus's piping tones heralded his approach. I drew Mrs. Whittington deep into the foliage and put a finger to my lips.

"The guv'nor claims Murray will offer to sell me back my coat for every penny in my pockets," Atticus said. "I got sixpence, MacFadden. Jolly, jolly sixpence. I'm as rich as I've ever been."

"Will you ransom your coat, Master Atticus?"

"Just Atticus." He stopped near where Mrs. Whittington and I lurked and pulled tuppence from his pocket. "I dunno. Guv says let him keep the coat, I'll keep me money, and that'll teach old Murray to fleece the likes o' me. I fancy that coat, though. Miss Hyperia said it fit me somethin' handsome."

"Tell you what," MacFadden said. "You leave the coat to me, lad. Murray will find when he goes to pack his lordship's duds on Sunday that the coat has mysteriously found its way back to you. Murray can explain to Lord Julian why you ought not to have possession of your own clothing with winter on the way. His lordship doesn't suffer foolishness."

I would have been flattered by even a thief's praise, except that MacFadden was also a convincing and experienced deceiver.

"Guv will sort him out proper, I promise you that. Murray took Drayson's dirty pictures."

"Young Atticus, how could you possibly know such a thing?"

"I don't know it, but I seen him skulking about. Mind your step, MacFadden, or he'll put them pictures under your cot."

"You have a vivid and criminal imagination, laddie. Off to the stable with you, and keep a keen eye on what shows up under your own cot." He tousled Atticus's hair—Atticus hated such presumptions—and jaunted off in the direction of the house.

Another piece of the puzzle fell into place as I watched MacFadden's retreating form. His posture was impressively upright until he gained the edge of the park, at which point a subtle angle crept into the way he held his shoulders and head.

"You comin' out, guv?"

I put a hand on Mrs. Whittington's arm when she would have revealed herself. "You heard MacFadden, my boy. Off to the stable. Find out if Jean has returned, and report developments posthaste one way or another."

"Aye, guv." Atticus pelted off with the energy of a lad who had no concept of the weighty matters in train all around him.

"Mrs. Whittington?" I drew her from among the dripping eaves. "Can you identify that man as your Ian?"

Her features were pale and composed, but her voice shook slightly. "That was Ian, but he is not mine and apparently never was. You will excuse me, your lordship. I have a trunk to pack and—"

"Please don't go. Keep to your room with a megrim, visit the village shops, look in on the vicar's wife, or attempt a quiet hack between showers, but please do not call attention to yourself by departing. Not yet."

"You have no idea," she said, "what the sight of that man provokes in me, my lord. He isn't safe if I bide at Tweed House."

Hell hath no fury, and Carola Whittington had reached the end of a very long and, for the most part, lonely tether.

"Let me give you the benefit of my further conjectures," I said, "and then you can decide the best course. I have yet to broach any of this with Her Grace or Lady Barrington, though I am assured that their involvement with Ian was in the nature of protracted flirtation only."

I was betting that Carola Whittington would yield to the pull of fair play and propriety, the lodestars of her existence thus far, but for one flaming aberration.

"Very well. I will bide here for now, but I make no excuses for Ian's fate should his path cross mine in a deserted corridor."

"Fair enough. Let's find someplace warm and dry, and I will acquaint you with the larger picture as I envision it, though, mind you, I might have the whole business absolutely wrong."

I offered that gesture in the direction of modesty for the sake of her pride. In truth, the longer I pondered and observed and gathered evidence, the more certain I was that a very great scandal was in the offing, and I would find myself at the center of it, exactly where I did not want to be.