Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty

I went through the pretense of climbing into the duchess's traveling coach when it lumbered up to the porte cochere. I remained within its confines as trunks were strapped to the boot and roof, and I was still in my appointed location when the coach lumbered off to retrieve Her Grace from the front steps.

When the coach arrived before Tweed House to collect Her Grace, who was resplendent in a carriage dress and fashionably veiled bonnet, I was lurking among the camellias in the conservatory, having exited the moving vehicle after it had pulled around the corner of the house. I crept back to my quarters in a house gone eerily quiet and used a prearranged tap on the door to alert Mrs. Whittington to my return.

She and her familiars waited in my bedroom, while I repaired to the balcony from whence I kept watch over the parlor.

MacFadden cut the timing fine, waiting until the last trunk had been sent down from Marchant's rooms. He opened my parlor door, bold as you please, closed it behind him, and went straight to the chimney.

The bells tinkled quietly, and I let myself in through the French doors. "MacFadden, what have you there?"

He frankly stared at me. "My lord. Good day. Thought you'd left."

"You were supposed to think I'd left. Have a seat, if you please."

"Best not, sir. Mr. Marchant gets into the worst sort of taking if his departure is delayed. I've got my box—put it here for safekeeping when this room was vacant—and I'll just be on my way." MacFadden's tone was as brisk and cheery as ever, but he was also eyeing the French door to my left.

"It's a good twenty feet down to the terrace. You'd break something, probably something important. The ladies would not want your death on their consciences. Look in the box, MacFadden."

He obliged, his demeanor subtly changing as he viewed the empty interior. "Did Marchant get here first?"

"I got here first. Mrs. Whittington got here second. Ladies, if you'd join us?"

Lady Barrington, Mrs. Whittington, and Her Grace emerged from the bedroom with Hyperia bringing up the rear.

MacFadden sent another longing glance to the French door and stared resolutely at nothing.

"Sorry, Mr. Pickering ," Her Grace said, putting ironic emphasis on the name. "You saw Wisherd climbing into my coach. Veiled hats are ever so convenient, and one takes a tiny bit of satisfaction out of deceiving the deceiver, to quote my son."

"We want answers," Lady Barrington said, "and we shall have them."

The parlor door swung open. "What the hell is taking you…" Gideon Marchant stopped short, then made to withdraw.

"Don't you dare scurry off now," Her Grace said. "We have questions for you too, sir."

"That is a pity," Marchant said, "because I really cannot tarry. If you must detain MacFadden, feel free. I've sacked him for the last time, and you can't believe a word he says. He'd betray his own mother for tuppence, and—"

"I rather think," I said, "that it was you, Marchant, who betrayed his mother. You've betrayed your son as well, by any reasonable measure."

Carola Whittington marched across the room and glowered at MacFadden, then at Marchant. "By God, there is a resemblance. I shall be sick."

"The ages are right," Lady Barrington murmured. "They could be father and son if Gideon was quick off the mark."

"They bicker like family," Her Grace noted. "Was that how you knew, my lord?"

"The bickering was a clue, true, but I also mistook MacFadden for Marchant when I watched him return to the house last week. From the back, they have exactly the same walk. The person I mistook for Marchant went directly belowstairs rather than up to his apartment. I thought that unusual, but I was nonetheless thoroughly convinced I'd been watching Marchant."

Even when the real Marchant had come into the house a few moments later, I'd not realized my error.

"Why steal old mementos?" Her Grace asked, and she aimed her question at Marchant. "Why do this to us and to your own son?"

"You have no right to question me," Marchant retorted. "I have done nothing wrong, and I do not answer for the behaviors of my valet—my former valet. Now if you will all excuse me, I have promised Lord Westerboro—"

"My mother asked you a question, Marchant. You refuse to answer her, but I can offer some considered speculation. Run along to curry favor with your parliamentary sponsor if you must, but know that I will call upon him too."

"You would not dare. You are the next thing to a traitor, according to half of Mayfair. Got your brother killed by the French, to hear Horse Guards tell it, came home a wreck, and I've seen with my own eyes that you're as dotty as a drunken—"

My mother slapped him to silence. I could feel the ladies and perhaps even MacFadden restraining applause as the crack of her palm against Marchant's cheek reverberated in the otherwise quiet room.

"Whack him again," Carola Whittington said. "Lest I do worse yet."

"He'll find a way to whack you back," MacFadden muttered. "Every time I thought I was done with him, he'd come up with a new scheme, a new promise, all is forgiven and let's-begin-again-my-boy. I fell for it every time."

The ladies regarded MacFadden with a mixture of puzzlement and disdain.

"Did his victims include the national exchequer?" I asked, because finally, finally, I'd found enough connections to see past the convenience of a blackmail motive. Marchant had been a naughty fellow indeed, if my suspicions were correct. Treasonously naughty.

"I tried not to think about what he got up to," MacFadden said. "I knew all the same. He made sure I knew so it's my sin too. He claimed Parliament was looking for scapegoats, when all he'd done was try to provision our soldiers for a fair profit."

"Wool?" I asked. The infantry had been desperately short of uniforms and good British wool the preferred fabric.

"Aye," MacFadden said. "He'd buy cheap up in the Highlands—coarse stuff, barely fit for carpet—then top a shipment with some decent Cheviot fleeces and send the lot of it from Edinburgh. The inspectors would approve the whole, and dear papa would pocket a princely sum while the factories asked no questions."

"Lying," Marchant said breezily. "Exactly as I predicted. Complete falsehoods intended to distract you from his thieving and swindling."

"He wasn't swindling," I said evenly. "He was snooping, and at your behest, Marchant. You sent him to the grieving widows of those committeemen rooting out fraud on the military. You wanted to know if your name was coming up in those late night meetings, if your scheme was about to be toppled by criminal charges and a warrant for your arrest."

The disdain the ladies had expressed toward MacFadden paled compared to the disgust they aimed at Marchant.

"In short," I said, "while MacFadden had a thorough look through old journals, copy books, and meeting minutes, he'd offer the widow distractions of a compelling sort, and then he'd move on to the next assignment. Perhaps he also tried to court a daughter here and there, provided her papa sat on the same committee."

"No daughters," MacFadden said. "Daughters move about in public. Widows keep to themselves. I drew the line at allowing all of polite society to see what a bounder I'd become."

"He's lying," Marchant said. "He's no relation of mine, and I wash my hands of him."

MacFadden waved a hand. "Right, and the next time you want a footman to lurk at some ambassador's soiree, collecting gossip in four languages, or a groom to sneak about a gentleman's stable, you will be back, with more promises and excuses. I wish we weren't related, but alas for me, we are. I owe you, you claim, because you had your bastard son educated when you could easily afford the expense. You expect a return on every investment. Well, it appears your investment will be lucky to get transported, Papa dearest, and I am honestly not as daunted by the prospect as I should be."

"Transportation?" Carola Whittington gave the word a horrified air. "For stealing a locket that you'd given me in the first place?"

"A pair of gloves isn't worth your life," Lady Barrington observed. "I am displeased in the extreme to have been lied to and used, but those are not crimes in the eyes of the law."

They turned to the duchess, and as the entire assemblage waited for Her Grace's opinion on the matter of MacFadden's fate, I realized I had been asking myself the wrong question. The relevant query was not what constituted victory from my perspective, but rather, what constituted justice in the view of the ladies, if justice was even possible.

"John Pickering," the duchess said slowly, "longed to travel to Vienna, but I think in this, we must defer to Carola's wishes."

MacFadden waited with the stoic resignation of a prisoner in the dock.

"Explain to me," Mrs. Whittington said, "exactly why my locket was stolen."

MacFadden shook his head. Marchant eyed the door.

"Correct me if I'm wrong." I took up the narrative rather than waste more time on pointless histrionics between father and son. "MacFadden apparently stole the items rather than leave Marchant a clear field for the same larceny. The gloves, the letters, and the locket were the only proof of liaisons each of you ladies might regret. If Marchant had them, he'd have influence over you and thus access to your jewelry boxes, so to speak."

"Damn you for a meddling, cork-brained fool," Marchant snarled. "You are determined to embroil me in nonsense I had no part of."

"The real problem arose," I went on, "when MacFadden realized that Marchant is genuinely enamored of Mrs. Whittington. My guess is, Marchant would not have threatened scandal outright, but he would have started rumors and mentioned to his dear friend Carola how easily a lady's reputation could be brought low. Mrs. Whittington, knowing that somebody had her incriminating locket, would have viewed Marchant's offer of marriage as an honorable kindness. MacFadden, who does appear to have a conscience of a sort, found marriage for Mrs. Whittington to Marchant on those terms intolerable."

"This is all very entertaining," Marchant said, "but your lordship can vouch for the fact that I held no matrimonial aspirations toward Mrs. Whittington—meaning no offense, madam."

MacFadden rounded on his father, and Marchant shrank back against the door. "Do you know what I inherited from you? Not the languages, not the music, not the maths—that was all from my mother. From you, sir, I inherited the ability to act , to put on performances worthy of Drury Lane, but I never developed the knack you have of believing your own lies."

MacFadden shifted to face the ladies. "My father assured me he had no marital aspirations toward Mrs. Whittington, and he's also said that I was all but on my way to Vienna. He's said every job was the last one. That it would be a cold day in hell before he aspired to sit in Parliament. He's said he never sent the army cheaper wool than they bought. He says and says and says—half of it's lies, and half of it will become lies, and he himself cannot tell the difference. I could not risk that he'd get his hands on that locket, or on the gloves or the letters."

"Why give them to us in the first place?" Lady Barrington asked.

"I shouldn't have. I'm sorry. If I hadn't, then you would have had no cause for all this bother and worry, but my esteem for each of you was genuine, and I wanted you to have something real from me. He,"—MacFadden jerked his chin toward his father—"was wroth with me for the mementos, and that was a consolation to me. I should never have done what I did, should never have fallen for his promises, should never have deceived anybody. A token of true regard makes the deceptions less vile, in my mind. I am sorry."

That last was offered with a fleeting glance at Mrs. Whittington, who appeared lost in very serious thoughts.

"All quite touching," Marchant said, "and ridiculous. If you're bringing this fellow up before the magistrate for his larcenous actions, I will cheerfully testify that he gave bad service and could not be trusted with coin. Hearing no more unfounded accusations, matrimonial or otherwise, then I will just—"

"Shut your mouth." Carola Whittington spoke with the finality of an experienced governess reduced to her last remaining nerve. "You stole from every infantryman to sweat and stumble his way across Spain. Soldiers died of the heat, and some of them doubtless died wearing the cheap, heavy wool you bilked the army into accepting. You have much to answer for. My husband was a soldier, and I am not convinced by your display of disdain, Gideon Marchant."

"Nor am I," Her Grace observed.

"The jury is unanimous," Lady Barrington added. "But what are we to do with him?"

"I have a suggestion." What I actually had up my sleeve was in the nature of a bluff, a threat along the lines of an empty pistol. I'd hoped for proof from the Hall, and I still might find proof at the Hall, but for the present, I was prepared to dredge up my own thespian talents.

Somebody tapped on the door. Marchant stepped away and might have bolted through the subsequent opening had not MacFadden moved to check him.

A dusty and worn Jean stood in the corridor, along with a butler trying to look utterly disinterested and failing mightily.

"Beg pardon," Jean said. "I have documents that I am to surrender to Lord Julian, in person, and only Lord Julian. Lady Ophelia was most insistent."

"As only she can be," the duchess muttered. "Julian, have a look, and somebody find this young man some food and a quiet place to sleep."

I took a packet from him wrapped in oilcloth and secured with a red ribbon. "Well done, sir. You heard the duchess. Tucker and a nap."

He bowed, and I closed the door on the scowling butler. I opened the packet and scanned the contents and sent a silent prayer of thanks in Godmama's direction.

"From the late Duke of Waltham's personal records," I said. "Meeting notes, signed minutes, agendas. Our very own Gideon Marchant's name figures prominently, but not—one blushes to admit—in a flattering light."

The last of Marchant's insouciant air evaporated, leaving a furtive, frightened creature in our midst. "You can't prove anything."

"We don't have to," I said gently. "Just as all the reputations you ruined merely for sport, all the friendships you soured because it amused you to make trouble between innocent parties, were spoiled without proof. Three honest women need only whisper a few hints, and not a club in London will open its doors to you, Marchant. Please do finagle your way into Parliament. I'm sure Mrs. Whittington has a cause she'd like you to tirelessly champion."

Mrs. Whittington caught her cue with admirable alacrity. "Our veterans and retired seamen," she snapped. "There is no Britannia without them, and yet, we discard them like lame coach horses when they can no longer serve."

"Climbing boys," Lady Barrington said. "They are barely out of infancy, and we turn a blind eye to their suffering."

"Get the women and children out of the mines," Her Grace added, surprising me. "You men are so convinced your greater physical strength entitles you to run the whole world. Well, run it, one load of coal at a time, please, and leave the women and children to live their feeble lives above ground."

Marchant's mouth worked, but he said nothing.

"You're giving him a choice?" MacFadden asked.

"Not really," I replied when the ladies disdained to do so. "If Marchant can get himself into Parliament, and if he espouses the causes enumerated by the ladies, and if he's also above reproach in every other regard, he will enjoy a reprieve. At any point, if he fails to perform to expectations, traitor and dimwit that I am, I will take the evidence that I have straight to Wellington, assuming my proposal meets with the approval of the ladies."

"His lordship means the duke," Her Grace added. "Of Wellington."

"Wellington?" Marchant barely managed three coherent syllables.

"Wellington, for starts," I replied. "The penny press might come into it, and I'm sure the ladies could suggest a few other interested parties."

"You won't get transportation," MacFadden said. "I'd get myself into Parliament posthaste, Marchant."

"But I…"

Lady Barrington made a shooing motion. "You have a pressing engagement with Lord Westerbumpkin. Leave my house, and don't expect to be invited back."

Marchant scurried out. I predicted he'd become a first-class scurrier in coming months. He'd learn to toady as well and perhaps do some actual good with his talent for manipulation and artifice. Stranger things had happened.

"I am for Caldicott Hall," the duchess said. "John, or whatever your name is, I bear you ill will only for the way you parted from me. Lord Julian saw through your attempt at a death threat, so we will classify that as bungling." She stuck out her hand, he bowed over it, and then Her Grace made a quiet, dignified exit.

"I will see my guest off," Lady Barrington said. "As for you, Hans … We can learn from the past. I hope you do." She followed the duchess into the corridor, leaving Hyperia and me with MacFadden and Mrs. Whittington.

MacFadden seemed to know better than to renew his apologies. He simply regarded Mrs. Whittington with the air of a man who had been cast out of Eden and knew he must dwell in the land of Nod forevermore.

"I'll help you finish packing," Hyperia said, taking Mrs. Whittington's arm.

The widow didn't immediately accept the invitation, but rather, regarded MacFadden impassively. "I loved you. I honestly, truly loved you, and I was in love with you." On that devastating blow, she quietly passed into the corridor, Hyperia on her heels.

MacFadden stared at the door, then seemed to realize his performance wasn't quite over. He tried for a weary smile in my direction.

"We're for the magistrate, my lord? I'd like for the boy, Atticus, to have what vails I've earned." MacFadden took some coins from his coat pocket and put them on the mantel. "I don't expect the rest of the staff will want my effects, but perhaps the local vicar will have a use for them."

"Nice try, MacFadden, but your sentence won't be that light. Collect your vails save for tuppence and sit down."

He ignored the money on the mantel—give the man credit—and took a seat.

"You sent MacFadden to Vienna?" Hyperia asked as the phaeton rattled down the Tweed House carriageway. " Vienna , Julian?"

"Mrs. Whittington wasn't willing to see him transported, and MacFadden insisted a life sentence in the Antipodes was the least he deserved. I suggested a compromise. A remove from Britain, across land and sea, far from all that is familiar."

"Across the Channel. Far from his wretched excuse for a father's importuning. Not too far if Mrs. Whittington should take a notion to travel in the next year or so."

"Now who's matchmaking?" Though, for the sake of both parties, I hoped Mrs. Whittington did take a notion to travel and that MacFadden was wise enough to accept forgiveness if she offered it.

I steered Jupiter through the gateposts, glad to have the last two weeks behind me, gladder to have Hyperia at my side. Atticus had been bribed to make the journey to the Hall with the duchess's coach and four.

John Coachman would doubtless demand a raise before day's end, and I would pay it without a qualm.

"Why make MacFadden's dream come true?" Hyperia asked. "He deceived three women, abused their trust, even if he couldn't find the documents he was supposed to steal for Marchant."

"I suspect he did find the documents. He simply could not bring himself to destroy them, which would have guaranteed Marchant safety. Neither could he bring them to light, which would have seen Marchant hanged."

"And revealed MacFadden for the rogue and thief he is. You believe he purposely failed in his efforts to protect his even more roguish father. Why does that entitle MacFadden to tour the great capitals?"

We tooled along, the day chilly without shading into bitter cold. I appreciated this opportunity to discuss the Tweed House investigation with dear Perry, who would be honest even when the truth didn't flatter me.

If we aired the whole business thoroughly enough, I could turn my sights to the holidays and to the arrangements necessary to host guests and family at the Hall.

"MacFadden was betrayed by his father," I said as Jupiter fell into the businesslike trot that would get us to the first posting inn in little more than an hour. "He should have hated Marchant, but that's not how family works. When siblings or parents turn from us, we seek to win them back. We can't help it."

Hyperia bumped her shoulder against mine. "I am wroth with Healy, but he's my brother. If you invite him to your Christmas revels, I will be civil to him and likely even give him a token."

"And I will welcome him graciously." An aspiration, not a promise. "We cannot choose our family, but we desperately want them to choose us. The duchess and I… She needed me, and I came."

"You and Her Grace seem to have resolved some misunderstandings."

"Some, not all. I decided that my mother held me in low esteem and then found every piece of evidence necessary to support my conclusion and ignored evidence that did not. I have that much sorted."

Another shoulder bump. "Human nature. Will you ever let me have a turn at the ribbons?"

We executed the transfer of the reins with practiced success. Hyperia was a skilled whip, and to be honest, the whole Tweed House excursion had tired me in body and spirit.

"Trot on, Jupiter," Hyperia called, which earned her a flick of a horsey ear and a slightly smarter pace. "Your mother says Ginny will join us at Christmas."

"I expect all sorts will come out of the family hedges to look me over. I was least in sight last year." We fell to discussing the cousins, in-laws, and informal relations who might grace the Hall at Yuletide. Some of them were twice as old as Father Christmas and not half so jolly.

The miles passed pleasantly, and a gradual sense of a job well done settled over me.

With the aid of my friends and family, I'd found the letters, found the truth, and found the start of better footing with my mother. Not a bad effort, not bad at all.

Hyperia and I made two changes of horse and traded the reins frequently by the time we were back on Caldicott land.

"I did something last night, Perry, and I wanted to let you know." I'd left this confession as late as I could.

"Last night, you were keeping watch over MacFadden's empty box."

What a metaphor. "Atticus took a shift, and when I was free, I went to your rooms."

She glanced over at me and guided our horse—Taranos, a Caldicott steed—through the Hall's gateposts, then handed me the reins. "You came to my room and didn't waken me?"

"I was tempted, of course. Sorely tempted and considered curling up with you, but I would have had to ask your permission first, and that would have meant waking you, so I completed my errand and decamped for another forty winks in my own bed."

"Jules, get to the point."

"When you unpack your effects, you will find a brief missive in my hand. A personal missive. I tucked a lock of my hair with it. Your trunk was unlocked, else I would have put it in your reticule."

I was glad for the reins in my hands. They gave me an excuse to stare hard at the horse's ears and pretend I had to steer him along a lane he'd been traveling since foalhood.

"A missive?"

"And a lock of my hair, even though my hair isn't the right color these days and might never again be as it once was. The note is in the style of a tame billet-doux, or tending in that direction." I was babbling, also blushing.

"I love your hair, no matter what color it is. You've written me a love letter?"

"Something of that sort. Harry gave me a lock of his hair. I have letters written in my father's hand. Leander gave me a four-leaf clover I will treasure until it turns to dust. I wanted you to have something of mine to keep." I'd thought long and hard before committing a few heartfelt sentiments to paper, and I had stared at my reflection in the mirror for a quarter hour before snipping off a length of straw-colored hair.

I guided Taranos around the circular drive and brought him to a halt at the foot of the terrace steps.

"My mother said I owed you a courtship. I gather His Grace didn't give her much of one. If ever you and I parted, I want you to have some proper courting to look back on. A lot of proper courting. Investigations matter, but they aren't everything or even the most important thing."

I trailed off into silence, expecting laughter, teasing, or even a dismissive pat to my knee.

Hyperia kissed my cheek. "I love you so, Julian Caldicott. Prepare to be courted in return. Christmas is coming, and you have been an exceedingly good fellow."

We sat for a moment, enveloped in a mutual glow of loving regard, and then I assisted my beloved from the bench and escorted her into the Hall. Christmas did come, bringing that mutual courtship Hyperia and I had promised each other, and mischief and mysteries in abundance came along as well.

But that, as they say, is a tale for another time!