Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"Do pour me a cup of tea, your lordship," Her Grace said, closing the parlor door and crossing to the sideboard. "You took your jolly time traveling over from the Hall. I was nigh shredded with worry to think you might get caught in a downpour and end up with a lung fever."

She lifted the stoppers in the three crystal decanters one by one, held each under her undainty nose, and made her selection.

"A dash of sugar in mine," she went on, "and a biscuit or two, if you please. One wants a restorative at this hour of the day." She took up a perch in the middle of the sofa without indicating that I was free to resume my seat, but I did anyway. Her Grace had not knocked, had not greeted me properly, and had not thanked me for risking that downpour.

A pleasure to see you too, dearest Mama.

"Arthur sends greetings." I poured a second cup of tea, added the requisite sweetener, and put two petits fours on the saucer. "He expects to take ship within the week." I'd jaunt over to Dover to see him off, downpours, enemy invasions, and biblical cataclysms notwithstanding.

"Your brother is a bit old for a grand tour." Her Grace accepted her tea and poured a dollop of brandy into her serving. A generous dollop.

I had never known my mother to tipple, and even as a boy, I would have noted such behavior.

"Don't make that dismayed face, your lordship. I am of age and enduring tribulations without number. A tonic is the least I deserve."

Whatever these tribulations, Her Grace was bearing up admirably. She was tall for a woman, and while far from sylphlike, she was well formed despite having passed the fiftieth year of her age. The late duke had referred to his duchess as a lively armful, more Hera than Aphrodite, though she was a surpassingly attractive woman. Her red hair was fading graciously to gold. Her smile could coax good humor from sulking dragons.

When Dorothea, Duchess of Waltham, chose to be charming, otherwise sensible people comported themselves with no dignity whatsoever. Harry had had the same quality, especially with the ladies.

"No brandy for me," I said, sipping my plain, tepid brew. "My journey was uneventful and Lady Barrington's welcome gracious."

"Hellie is like that." The duchess took a deep draught of her doctored tea. "A sweet soul, but nobody's fool. Dotes on her step-children a bit too enthusiastically. The girls are spoiled, but then, their papa is an earl and Hellie merely their step-mama. Watch yourself around that Jessamine creature. She fancies herself in a tiara."

That advice was remarkable for being halfway directed at my wellbeing. "I will make it a point not to be found alone with any unattached young ladies. Miss West will abet that goal, as will Lady Ophelia."

The duchess made a face. "Ophelia was always a bit too involved as a godmother, but perhaps that's not such a bad thing. She knows everybody, and I do mean everybody, and she never forgets a scandal."

By her own admission, my godmother had caused a few scandals in her day and enjoyed every one of them.

"Tell me about your letters." I finished my tea, poured myself another half cup, and prepared to listen to a recitation no son should have to hear.

Her Grace polished off her restorative in a few hearty swallows. "My letters are missing. You must find them."

Why me? Except I knew the answer. I had an aptitude for dealing quietly with Society's vexing little conundrums. A peer's heir gone missing, a prize hound apparently stolen, a child turning up on the ducal doorstep with no established provenance. I'd started down this path at another house party, when some unknown malefactor had attempted to wreck what had remained of my good name.

"Where do you usually keep these letters?"

"This set is with me at all times, your lordship. They travel with me, so you needn't go looking for them in Bath and Mayfair."

Her Grace was unused to interrogations. Patience was in order. "I meant, in what location did you have them here at Tweed House? Location can narrow the list of people who had access to them. The boot-boy, for example, would have had his ears boxed for presuming to venture anywhere near a lady's apartment. Even if you'd left your riding boots out for an overnight polishing, your maid would have taken them belowstairs or entrusted them to a footman."

"My lord, boot-boys in the general case cannot read. How would he have known which letters to steal, assuming he found them?"

"By the dates," I said gently, "which even illiterate boot-boys, chambermaids, and underfootmen can decipher."

She bit into one of her petits fours. "I abhor the whole situation. That is my private correspondence, and stealing is a felony."

A valid point, and a puzzling one. Whoever took Her Grace's epistles courted a small chance of being hanged for their effrontery. "When did you receive these missives?"

She finished her sweet and dusted her hands. "Years ago."

Patience was in order, so was firmness. "Madam, I understand that the matter is painful and sensitive, but I am your son and a gentleman. What you tell me remains private, though you should be aware that Lady Ophelia and Miss West are in my confidence, particularly when necessary to conduct an investigation. The more detailed your descriptions, the more likely I am to find the letters quickly."

I had never before lectured my mother, but she had summoned me to locate the damned missing mail, and we were wasting time.

"I thought you could look at the footmen's gloves or examine the maids' caps and identify the culprit."

"Divination and conjuring yield unreliable results. I draw conclusions from facts and observations, and thus far, you have given me none of either to go on. How many letters, what are their specific dates, what do they look like, did they bear any particular scent or seal, who sent them, have you seen similar handwriting or stationery anywhere else, and do you have copies of your replies?"

I waited, giving Her Grace time to choose between further prevarications and for once doing as she'd been told.

In her usual fashion, she attempted prevarication. "Of the three boys, you have always been the most like Claudius. Arthur lacked the late duke's quickness, and Harry never had His Grace's steadiness. You will find my letters, won't you, my lord?"

She turned a hopeful half smile on me that should have melted my heart. My own mother, a damsel in distress, was appealing to my gallant nature. Alas for her, my nature was gallant on occasion, but never saintly.

And—I hoped—seldom stupid.

Her Grace had deftly passed me two sideways compliments—I was quicker than Arthur and steadier than Harry—and those were valid observations. Arthur was far from plodding, but he wasn't prone to leaps of insight. Harry had been impulsive and dashing, and was likely dead in part as a result of those attributes.

The insult in her words lay in more subtle directions. She'd referred to her sons as "the three boys." Based on innuendo, overheard conversations, and awkward silences, I had learned in my youth that Claudius, late Duke of Waltham, husband to Her Grace, and the man I'd grown up calling Papa, was not my father. The duchess had provided the heir and spare, and then assumed the freedoms a dutiful aristocratic wife was permitted, with predictable results.

I was one of three boys . She did not describe me as one among three ducal sons , and she had doubtless chosen her words to remind me of my questionable patrimony.

Or I was being ridiculously sensitive to innuendo, and Her Grace was being ridiculously evasive. "I cannot find your letters, madam, unless you provide me the information I've requested. Resign yourself to the need for honesty, or I will depart in the morning."

Her smile faded to puzzlement, then humor. "Oh, very well. You needn't scold. I'm told you keep pencil and paper handy, so prepare to serve as your own amanuensis. Three letters. Six years ago to the month, and yes, I would have been in mourning. Parents are human beings, my lord. We have flaws and foibles, and mourning is damned lonely. The handwriting was public-school penmanship, no seals—these were billets-doux , for pity's sake—and the wax was blue, though it has faded to gray. As for scents, I kept these epistles in my traveling desk, which includes lavender sachets, so the original damask fragrance was long since overpowered. What more do you want to know?"

This volley of generalities was a step in the direction of cooperation, but I'd need specifics before we concluded our discussion. I took out my little bound notebook and pencil and jotted down her litany and put a few more questions to her.

"Who was Your Grace's correspondent?" I'd kept that question in reserve, hoping Her Grace would volunteer the information.

She picked up her empty tea cup and studied the dregs. "His name was John Pickering, a mere mister. I'd taken a notion to learn the flute. My lady's maid at the time suggested that study of a musical instrument might leaven the boredom of mourning, and she was right. The flute seems easy at first, but to create beauty instead of mere notes at the correct pitch is a subtle art."

Insightful, and I was reminded that Her Grace was quick, too, when she wanted to be. "Do we know where Mr. Pickering is now?"

She set down the empty tea cup. "One does not cling to a gallant, my lord, and despite what society will gleefully imply, Pickering was only that. We were not, that is… I never allowed… oh, bosh and botheration."

"You indulged in a flirtation, a romance rather than a liaison." Some consolation to me, but Her Grace was right: Society would put the worst possible connotation on the missing letters.

"Pickering diverted me," the duchess said, "from a period in my life that was equal parts sadness and tedium, but a music master's existence is often peripatetic. He was always running off to see this cousin or look in on that former patron or a potential new one. After he'd departed on one of those excursions, I received the usual gracious, tender, ultimately selfish letter. I kept that one, too, and why shouldn't I? I own the letters. They were sent to me, and I want them back."

"You own the letters," I said slowly, my pencil posed above a new, blank page. "You do not own the right to publish them."

She glowered at me down what had been known at the Hall as the Fennington nose. "Those billets-doux cannot be published. I will be a laughingstock if they are published. Ruined or, worse than ruined, a joke. Nobody can publish them ever. "

A music master dallying with his widowed employer six years ago was of no great moment. A bit sad, a bit tawdry, but not ruinous to a duchess.

"Was he married?"

"Of course not. I have standards, as you should well know."

I studied the fading beauty who had brought me into the world nearly three decades ago. Beneath her indignation lay a legitimate fear of ridicule. Her Grace would look foolish not only in Society's eyes, but in her own. I knew how bitterly self-castigation burned. What would cause this toweringly self-confident arbiter of social mores to feel ashamed of herself?

She tucked a lock of golden hair over her ear. Golden hair that had once been flaming red.

"This Pickering fellow was younger than you," I said. "Much younger."

She grimaced. "My lord is sometimes too insightful. I could have been Pickering's mother, though I doubt he grasped just how great the difference in our ages was. The memories embarrass me now, but at the time… I was angry, if you can understand that. Nobody has much use for a widowed duchess. I told myself that if I'd been a bereaved duke, the age difference would have been nigh expected. Then too, I was convinced that Pickering was smitten. I hadn't made that mistake in previous affairs, and I will never make it again."

Pickering could well have been smitten and simply realized that his love was doomed. Now, though, years later, the fellow might be short of cash and happy to blackmail a former lover or sell scandalous memoirs that traded on her social standing.

"I grasp why retrieving the letters has become a priority," I said, pouring Her Grace another tot of brandy. "I will need a few more details before I make a thorough search of your quarters."

She downed the brandy at one go. "We always pay for our pleasures, don't we?"

"Sometimes we are rewarded for our diligence too. I must talk with your current lady's maid, and Lady Barrington should know that she could well be harboring a thief."

The duchess rose and returned the decanter to the sideboard. "I want to leave. To fly off in one of my legendarily mercurial changes of venue, but that won't serve, will it?"

I got to my feet out of manners. "Not just yet, though retreat can be a useful tactic on the way to victory."

She gave me a perusal perfected by even young parents, one that seemed to see not only the person of their offspring, but their progeny's interior realities as well.

"You have his kindness too," she said. "Claudius was the kindest of husbands in most regards. Not all regards—husbands are human too—but he did make the effort to befriend me, eventually. I still miss him, and he's probably pleased to find it so."

She departed on that odd note, and I returned to my perch on the balcony. Questions swirled in my mind: Where was Pickering? How was he faring at present, if he was still extant? Had he hired somebody to retrieve the letters because the sentiments compromised him ? Was he contemplating marriage and so very worried about his colorful past that he'd steal rather than risk the letters falling into the wrong hands?

Had Her Grace made the sort of enemies who'd blackmail her out of spite—enemies close enough to know of dear Dorothea's letters and determined enough to have them stolen?

Had a member of the duchess's staff come upon the letters and sold them to the penny press?

The possibilities were as alarming as they were endless, and all because a lonely widow had been a bit self-indulgent. The afternoon shadows lengthened as I sorted through next steps, and all the while, I was aware that whether I ever found the letters, I carried a question in my heart that I had never had the courage to put to my mother.

Who was my father? Who had tempted a young duchess to stray, and had that man played any role in my life? Was he extant, or had I already lost him—him too—to death?

"The design is ingenious," I said as Hyperia closed the door to the duchess's sitting room. "Papa gave the traveling desk to her for Christmas one year, and Harry and I delighted in unlocking its secrets."

"You read your mother's correspondence?" Perry sounded more curious than horrified.

"Of course not. Papa would have put us on short rations for consecutive eternities. The desk itself fascinated us."

I had already made a thorough search of Her Grace's quarters, which, while not fit for royalty, were certainly commodious. Come morning, light would pour in from the grand balcony overlooking the drive and bounce from the mirror over the sideboard, to the folding mirror at the vanity, to the cheval mirror by the door, to the dressing closet.

The quilt on the bed was burgundy velvet trimmed with a thistle-and-heather border. Pillows covered in purple satin and embroidered with the same motif were mounded at the headboard. Even the steps to the bed were carved with Caledonia's emblems.

The carpet was mulberry decorated in a predictable bouquet of cream, purple, and pink flowers with interlacing greenery, and the walls were hung in panels of cream and mulberry silk.

Not precisely a feminine room, but an exquisite complement to my mother's coloring and to her station.

"This bedchamber is designed to be quiet," Hyperia said, trailing a hand over the quilt. "All the upholstery and carpet, the silk on the walls. Your mother ought to be sleeping soundly."

By strictest protocol, Hyperia and I ought not to be alone in any room, much less one with an enormous bed and locking doors. She and I had an understanding, though. At some point, when the stars aligned and the moment was right, I would propose—again, having already done so once or twice—and she would accept.

Hyperia was well aware of my limitations—my weak eyes, my memory problems, my lack of animal spirits—and aware that despite my failings, I wanted children. The ducal succession needed children—Arthur and I were the last legitimate scions of our line—and I wanted them and the family life that revolved around offspring.

Hyperia was of the opposite persuasion. She was fond of children in the general case, but babies had a lamentable tendency to imperil the health and even the lives of the women who bore them. This fact had appreciably dimmed her enthusiasm for motherhood.

The topic was delicate for us both, but such was my faith in our devotion that I hoped we'd muddle through to a mutual accommodation. Given a choice between fatherhood on some distant, happy day and risking Hyperia's life, I chose Hyperia hale and whole.

End of discussion.

Given a choice between spinsterhood and marriage to me, Hyperia was choosing me with a gratifying lack of hesitation. There was hope, and great mutual esteem, and time to advance our discussion as we saw fit.

In terms of appearance, my late brother, Harry, had once described Hyperia as not quite. She was not quite a pocket Venus, though shortish and generously curved. She was not quite beautiful, having chestnut hair rather than the preferred blond, and green eyes rather than the requisite blue. Her features were attractive rather than gorgeous. To Harry, much taken with appearances, including his own, Hyperia had been not quite .

She had fooled him, along with the rest of Society, into ignoring her blazing intellect, her keen insight, and her ferocious spirit. I could not esteem her more highly if she'd been in line for the crown itself.

"What is so special about this traveling desk?" she asked, considering the object where it sat on a fussy little escritoire angled to take advantage of the natural light.

"Open it," I said.

Hyperia undid the little hook that latched the thing closed and attempted to lift the lid, without success. "Clever, and an irresistible challenge to a pair of young scamps."

She felt along the bottom and sides, eventually finding the catch secreted between a back and side panel. The lid lifted easily, revealing a tidy assortment of writing implements arranged around a red velvet writing surface. Beneath the velvet-covered lid, paper reposed in a tray sized to hold its specific dimensions. Bottles of ink, a jar of sand, lengths of wax, two pearl-handled penknives, quills, blotting paper, a small gold quizzing glass, even a slot for holding a signet ring and seal were all arranged such that not an inch was wasted and all was to hand.

"Looks serviceable and elegant," Hyperia said. "A trifle worn and sturdy, too, for all the fancy inlay."

"Italian work. I know not how old it is, but Her Grace takes it with her everywhere."

"False bottom?" Hyperia asked, tugging on dividers and tracing the velvet lining.

"Of a sort."

She needed but another minute to find the mechanism that allowed the whole interior tray to lift out in one piece, revealing a place where private letters might be stored.

"Is there more?" Hyperia asked, replacing the tray.

"At least three more hiding places, of a size to keep a piece of writing paper from view." Harry had found one. I'd located the other two.

Hyperia hunkered down to squint at the desk from eye level. She turned it slowly in a complete rotation and found the side panel that opened to reveal another narrow hiding place.

"Think of where we don't look," I said. "Of what we put aside as we explore more interesting—"

"The lid," Hyperia muttered. "Lids, rather."

Though it took her some doing, she eventually found the manner in which the lid over the box of paper could be slid apart to reveal two perfectly matching panels that fitted together to appear as one. The space revealed was sufficient for a single sheet only—a sketch or map, perhaps.

"I found that one by accident," I said. "I was holding the lid in my hand when Harry shoved me aside to get a better look at the interior of the paper tray. I dropped the lid to the carpet and happened to notice that the two panels had come ever so slightly askew. Harry was furious for days."

Hyperia set aside the paper in the tray. "Jealous of you?"

"Harry had it in his head that I was the better scholar. I wasn't. I was simply more dogged and left more to myself, so I became fond of books. What have you there?"

Hyperia pushed down on the short end of the empty tray, and the bottom flipped up.

"Gracious saints, woman. You found a new hiding place."

"This is you." She withdrew a single piece of paper going a bit yellow about the edges. A faded ink drawing graced the page, a three-quarter portrait of a gangly youth. He was bashful and sweet and all odd angles. His hair needed a trim.

Hyperia turned the page over, but no signature or date was to be found. The words My dear Julian were lightly penciled near a corner.

"Her Grace must have forgotten it was there," I said, ambling away from the escritoire. "The drawing has to be ten or twelve years old."

Hyperia put it back and reassembled the desk. "At least. Where is the other hiding place?"

"The whole lid. Works on the same principle as the lid to the paper tray. Swivels apart if you know where to press and twist. That's where she had the letters. Three single sheets of paper. Two swearing undying devotion, one wishing her a tender, permanent farewell."

Hyperia found the mechanism and worked it twice, then closed the traveling desk and secured the hook.

"That sketch is a good likeness of you," she said, "but you don't care for it." She joined me on a cedar chest at the foot of the enormous bed.

"I wasn't prepared for it," I said, taking her hand. "As a youth, I was so… ignorant. So unsuspecting of what life could do to a bookish lad with no vocation and a lot of privileges. Harry, as the spare, was given some warning, and Arthur was raised to step into Papa's shoes. I was neither heir nor spare, and whoever drew that sketch knew it." A boy adrift and all unsuspecting of the currents that awaited him a few years downstream.

Hyperia bumped my shoulder with her own. "You're the heir now, my lord."

"Must you remind me?" I looped an arm around her waist. In a sense, we were the heirs—a duke without a duchess wasn't of much account when it came to securing the succession, was he?

She kissed my cheek, and rather than dwell on troubling sketches or ducal titles, I instead considered what the traveling desk had told us, though the topic was hardly more sanguine.

"My initial impression," I said, "is that the thief was either very much in Her Grace's confidence—had seen her working the desk's secret compartments—or the thief was an experienced felon." The sort who'd had a lot of practice opening Society's puzzle boxes and locating its safes.

Hyperia let her head fall to my shoulder. "The servants would see the duchess at her correspondence. She's not quite in Lady Ophelia's league as a letter writer, but she keeps up."

"Her Grace tends to ignore the staff and hire only the kind who know how to go about their duties quietly. Maids or footmen could have seen her reveal the desk's secrets."

"Perhaps the thief was a cabinetmaker's apprentice at one point," Hyperia murmured.

To sit with her thus settled my mental tendency to hare about, to leap from worries to questions to conjectures and back to worries. How was Atticus faring belowstairs? Had my horse made the journey from the Hall without incident? Had anybody else noticed personal effects going missing? Was that why Lady Barrington was keeping unused guest rooms locked?

What was Lady Ophelia up to? Always a worthy inquiry.

"The thief knows Her Grace well." I rested my cheek against Hyperia's hair and considered what should have been just a pretty wooden box. "To search this room earlier today took me nearly two hours, and unraveling the secrets of that box even incompletely took Harry and me the better part of a summer. The person who stole the letters didn't have that sort of time. Their crime was the work of a few quiet moments."

Had to have been, based on the sequence of events I'd pried from my mother in my earlier interview with her. The letters had been in their assigned location after luncheon. When she'd come in from watching a bowls tournament, they'd been gone. Her room had been empty for a scant hour.

"Her Grace has many friends," Hyperia said. "I could name you a half-dozen ladies from among the guests who are of an age with the duchess and on cordial terms with her from long acquaintance. Nobody would think anything if one of them dropped by the duchess's rooms at midafternoon. She'd say she was leaving Her Grace a note and have the requisite message to support her tale."

My spirits sank. " Ladies . Ladies get up to mischief, and nobody suspects them. Harry relied on women for a great deal of his information in Spain. He excelled at charming neglected wives and cheering up the occasional languishing widow."

"I'll make you a list of Her Grace's familiars." Hyperia patted my knee. "You'll speak with Her Grace's lady's maid. Her name is Wisherd."

"I will speak with Wisherd tomorrow. Right now, I'd like to escort you to your room and spend a quiet hour reading to you."

I felt the change in Hyperia and knew the satisfaction of having surprised and pleased her.

"You want to read to me?"

"The day has been long for both of us, and troubling in my case. The woman who gave birth to me is all but a stranger, and yet… Her Grace knows me, Hyperia. I am mystified as to her means—we've gone for months without exchanging a word, we exchanged only epistolary pleasantries the whole time I was in uniform, but she knows me, and that is unsettling. A chapter or two of Mrs. Burney's wit or Mrs. Radcliffe's Gothic ridiculousness appeals, as would any handy excuse to tarry in your presence."

"Half an hour," she said, rising and shaking out her skirts. "The journey from the Hall was easy enough, but I suspect in the days ahead, we will need our rest."

A prosaic observation—I always seemed to feel short of sleep—also prescient. Before I'd concluded the duchess's investigation, I would exhaust both physical and mental reserves, and my adventures would make Mrs. Radcliffe's scribblings look dull by comparison.