“Lizzie grew up in the dower house,” Banter said, passing me a scant portion of brandy from the sideboard in his study. “Her mama didn’t survive long after Eleanora’s birth, and Lizzie became as much governess as older sister. She’s a managing woman in the best sense of the word and a natural for the role of Bloomfield’s hostess.”
We’d enjoyed a pleasant supper en famille without Anaximander Silforth. He’d sent a note saying he’d bide for the night with a neighbor some ten miles distant and return in the morning. When the ladies had withdrawn following the meal, Banter had suggested we leave the dining room to the servants and enjoy our digestif in his private sanctum.
A room, I noted, that Banter kept locked.
Silforth’s absence hadn’t met with any disappointment that I could see. Lizzie was a gracious and charming hostess. A pair of adolescents—William and Hera—had joined us at supper. Both children were blond, blue-eyed, and tallish, though Hera, despite being the younger sibling, topped her brother’s height by about an inch and a half.
How well I recalled my sisters towering over me and my growing delight when I’d finally, finally shot past them, and then past both of my brothers. A half inch could mean the world to a very young man.
The numbers at table had been balanced by Lizzie’s half-sister, Eleanora, a younger version of Lizzie, but quieter, not as tall, and apparently “lending a hand” in the nursery. That arrangement—dispatching spinsters to the nursery—was so common as to be expected among gentry and merchant families.
Banter poured himself a more liberal portion of spirits, saluted in the direction of London—and my brother Arthur—and took a sip.
“I gather Silforth is not quite a natural in the role of glorified steward?” I asked. The vintage was excellent, but then, Banter was a man of taste and refinement. In all matters.
“Why do you say that?”
Banter was also a man in love, an affliction that could take a heavy toll on anybody’s common sense.
“Silforth has spent the past three days annoying your neighbors by demanding to inspect their kennels in search of his missing hound.”
Banter studied his drink. “Inspecting their kennels? He said nothing about taking such measures. He told me he was merely making inquiries.”
“And you wanted to believe him, even though you know he’s hunt-mad and that Thales matters as much to him as his children do. He might be demanding to see the stables and outbuildings as well, and sooner or later, he will give offense.”
He apparently already had, but allowances were being made. Then too, what choice did tenants have when Silforth was taking over the Bloomfield reins?
“That damned hound means the world to him.” Banter took his drink to a love seat near the window. No fire had been lit in the hearth, so our illumination was two branches of candles. The shadows gave Bloomfield’s owner a rare, pensive air.
“My horse means the world to me,” I replied, “but not enough that I’d violate every tenant of rural civility and pry into another man’s figurative henhouse. I might take a discreet peek when nobody was looking, but I would not insist on a tour as a matter of right.”
I chose a wing chair near the empty hearth and was assailed by a feeling akin to homesickness. Yes, Thales’s situation was becoming complicated, but as MacNeil had suggested, a domesticated hound at liberty in high summer was no threat to the king’s peace and hardly a tragedy.
“Silforth plans to put Thales out to stud in the spring,” Banter said. “Thales is to have one more season in the field, then found his doggy dynasty. Silforth has already developed a list of acceptable visitors.”
Fatigue had slowed my mind. “Lady hounds?”
“Bitches, as in a bitch makes her visit to the stud, and they are together for several busy days, and then, nine weeks later, give or take… puppies. Silforth has let it be known that Thales’s services will be very exclusive and come quite dear. This strategy has apparently had the desired effect. Lucky Thales.”
Or… unlucky Thales. If the poor beast was seldom let out of Silforth’s sight now, what might his existence become when he was generating renown, revenue, and puppies as a stud?
I sipped my brandy, my mood slipping down toward melancholia, though not the dangerous variety. I knew that foe well and had learned to avoid his company for the most part, but… the topic of puppies made me ridiculously sad.
“Reproduction is everywhere when you can’t see it in your own future,” I said. “Arthur is a natural parent, and I suspect he wanted me out from underfoot so he could enjoy top-uncle honors with Leander.”
The boy was a recent find, my late brother Harry’s by-blow, and Arthur was determined that we raise the lad at the Hall, with full Caldicott honors. I would have supported no other plan for our nephew, and my sisters would have dismembered any brother who suggested some other, more discreet scheme.
“I left Town in part because I wanted to look in on matters here,” Banter said, “and in part because…” He finished his brandy. “Arthur won’t even try to marry. I’ve argued with him until I’m exhausted—everybody will be happier if one of us marries. Maybe having the boy about will make His Grace see reason. Women aren’t awful. In the general sense, I prefer their company, for the most part, and Arthur is everything wonderful in a fellow, but he insists…”
Arthur did not insist. He simply stated that he was incapable of providing a wife the intimacies she was due from her husband, and one did not argue with Arthur’s perspective on such a matter.
One did not argue with Arthur on any matter, without very good reason.
“You and Lizzie had an understanding at one point?”
Banter returned to the sideboard and poured himself another half portion. “Something like it. She has money from her mother’s side. She’s a step-cousin, but I can’t recall a time when she wasn’t in my life. The aunties and grandmamas who manage such affairs declared that I did not need her money, and along came Silforth—he cuts quite a dash—with acres and acres of land. I well knew my own propensities by that point, and though I’m sure Lizzie and I would have been very happy, she consented to allow Silforth to court her. The aunties were pleased.”
“You could have been happy with Lizzie?”
“Oh, very. She’s wonderful, and I love her, and… I have reason to suspect that the third boy, George, is mine. The only one who isn’t blond. Lizzie was bent on making Silforth jealous and… I doubt Silforth even noticed. I suppose I’ve appalled you.”
I wasn’t surprised, exactly—the aristocracy treated wedding vows unsentimentally, for the most part—but Lizzie and Silforth, even Banter himself, were gentry. Gentry tended to be far less laissez-faire in their marital dealings.
“You’re George’s godfather?” I asked.
“Oh, of course. Isn’t that how it’s done?”
How would I know? I was a legitimate by-blow myself, though I’d never had the nerve to ask my mother for particulars. The late duke had been a conscientious and affectionate father, and the longer he was gone, the more I wished Papa were still extant.
“Does Arthur know you have a child?”
“Silforth doesn’t know—I hope—and neither does Arthur, but not for the reasons you think.”
I was rapidly becoming incapable of thought, so great was my fatigue. While one part of me lamented my lack of toughness, another part of me knew that I was miles and leagues ahead of where I’d been a year ago. Time, patience, and determination were my friends.
Brandy was not my friend.
“Arthur would push you away if he knew you could manage a marriage. He’s that noble.”
“That stubborn. And he does love children. When he’s around Leander…” Banter fell silent and wandered back to his love seat. “I will tell him what I suspect regarding George when the moment is right. I’ve never asked Lizzie, and it could be even she doesn’t know for a certainty. George is in the middle of the nursery pack, so clearly Lizzie and Banter resumed their marital pleasures.”
Which was none of my business and really none of Banter’s either. “All that aside, it’s well you are here, Banter. I found evidence in the woods suggesting that Thales was stolen. Nothing conclusive.”
I showed him my sketch and explained what MacNeil had had to say: Silforth was unpopular with the neighbors and possessive of the hound.
“The whole dognapping scheme might have come up on the spur of the moment,” I said, “but if it’s a prank born of opportunistic mischief, why hasn’t Thales been set loose to sniff and piss his way home?”
“You think this is a premeditated crime?”
“I will speak to Sir Rupert in the morning, but yes… if Sir Rupert makes a habit of traveling into the village by that path at the same time of day, if Silforth and Thales often use the trail at a similar hour, then lurking nearby and luring the dog with a few treats would be the work of a moment.”
“Silforth is a great believer in routine and order. He leaves the house and the children to Lizzie, but he has taken over the stable and runs it with more discipline than the average Magdalen house. I’ve lost some younger staff since Nax arrived, but I haven’t wanted to fault him. Young people are restless by nature, and all they hear is that wages are better in Town.”
Wages were better in Town, but they didn’t go nearly as far as they would in the country, and good posts were hard to come by. Decent housing had also become nigh unaffordable. Nobody apprised the young folk of any of these difficulties.
“I take it the older staff hope that Silforth’s billet as acting lord of the manor is temporary?”
“While I hope, for my sake, Lizzie’s, and the children, that Silforth can learn to take a lighter touch with Bloomfield.”
Not even I would suggest Banter bide with Arthur at Caldicott Hall. We’d both stayed with His Grace at the ducal town house earlier in the summer, but three bachelors sharing a temporary residence in Town was a very different situation. In the country… not a possibility, absent house parties, shooting parties, and so forth, which was why Arthur’s upcoming travel with Banter loomed for them both like a reward for many tribulations.
“Time will sort out who should be managing Bloomfield,” I said, “but you must take into account that somebody has purloined Silforth’s darling dog.”
“Hound. My guess is a competing hunt has decided to steal the stud, so to speak. Once Thales has done his duty by their ladies, he’ll be brought home.”
I was tired enough that plain speaking was in order. “Banter, somebody knew not only Silforth’s usual routine of a summer morning, but Sir Rupert’s as well.”
Banter rubbed a hand across his brow. “You could learn that much by the second pint at the Pump and Pickle, if you asked the right questions.”
I added the local coaching inn to my morning’s itinerary.
“But you cannot convince a beagle and a foxhound who’ve never seen you before to make no fuss at your appearance in their woods. Thales allowed whoever took him to put a collar and leash on him, and he went along with them, also without making a fuss. I found no torn-up bracken, no sign of a big canine resisting commands or struggling to get free.”
Banter rose and began blowing out candles. “I brought you down here because I wanted the beast found, for Lizzie’s sake and because Silforth can’t be trusted to behave. Now that you’re telling me… a friend, neighbor, or employee stole the dog, I regret bothering you.”
“The matter must be resolved before you take ship, Banter.” I rose and collected the single lit candle not yet extinguished.
“Right, or I won’t be taking ship. A mess like this has far too much potential to escalate.”
He saw my point. Thales’s situation had acquired a seriousness and urgency it hadn’t had before I’d gone nosing about in the woods.
All the more reason I should get a good night’s rest.
I lit myself up to my rooms, a comfortable suite of parlor, bedroom, and dressing closet, and tended to my ablutions as my mind slipped into the pensive peregrinations of the near sleepwalker. Once I was divested of clothing and appropriately scrubbed, I climbed beneath the covers.
I wasn’t homesick—Caldicott Hall was less than ten miles away—and I wasn’t missing Arthur. He and I had been parted for years when I’d gone to Spain, and while we were much closer than we’d been before Harry’s death, I was preparing to send him on very extended travel. I would miss him after his departure, but at present, I did not.
The truth dawned upon me as I smacked my pillow and kicked off my blankets.
I missed Hyperia West. That was the hollow ache in my chest, the blue mood in my heart. I missed her, though we no longer had an understanding and were not remotely close to being engaged. I nonetheless fell asleep composing a letter to my dear Perry, and that helped a little.
A very little, but it did help.
“Silforth would post sentries if he could,” Sir Rupert Giddings said, stumping along the path by the river. “Then he’d have to pay them, and then Banter would see the increased expenses and ask questions, so we’ve been spared that indignity for the nonce. Good boy, Merlin.”
The beagle had lifted his leg on one of Bloomfield’s venerable oaks.
“Why sentries?”
“Because Silly Silforth thinks the village boys will set snares on his fixture, or steal one of his whining puppies, or set fire to the haystacks so necessary to keep his hunters in good weight over the winter. Merlin, come.”
The beagle, tail wagging, ears flapping, gamboled to Sir Rupert’s side.
“Why would village boys risk transportation with pranks such as that?”
Sir Rupert came to a halt at the same spot where he’d last been in conversation with Silforth, then eased his bulk down the bank and made a waving gesture at the dog.
“Our lads wouldn’t risk so much as a lecture from Vicar, my lord. I tell you the truth when I say that times are too hard for much idleness on anybody’s part, and the children in our village are a good lot. I took my turn as magistrate, and the worst juvenile offender was guilty of nothing more than letting Mrs. Cranston’s goat loose on the green. The beast did have some corsetry rigged ’round his horns, though the goat didn’t seem to mind. Sensible creatures, goats.”
While boys were not sensible much of the time. “A child who’d put a lady’s undergarments on display might set a snare or two.”
Sir Rupert watched the water going by. This was a smooth stretch of river, and at the end of summer, without recent rain, the water level was probably at its annual low. Several feet of muddy, malodorous bank showed where high water would be come autumn.
“Before Silforth arrived,” Sir Rupert said, hands steepled on the top of a gnarled walking stick, “the Bloomfield gamekeeper made regular gifts to the local goodwives. Almost had them on a rotation, but now… the gamekeeper takes his orders from Silforth, while Banter kicks his heels in Town. Every parent in the village has told the lads that poaching is a hanging offense, no matter how hungry the baby might be, no matter how badly an increasing woman needs red meat, no matter how rabbits are decimating the garden.”
I foresaw a difficult discussion with Banter in my immediate future. “Would somebody have stolen Thales as a warning to Silforth?”
The old man’s gaze became sad. “Oh, of course. But being Silforth, he’d take it not as a warning, but as an excuse to behave like an even greater ass than he has already. If he weren’t married to Miss Lizzie… but he is, and thus we must endure him.”
Merlin took a noisy drink from the river, then Sir Rupert clambered up the bank, leaning heavily on his walking stick.
“What were you and Silforth discussing when Thales went missing?”
“One doesn’t have discussions with that man, my lord. One is lectured with more or less disregard for the rules of civil conversation. He was haranguing me about his ambition to become one of our aldermen. The fool wants a waiver.”
Sir Rupert resumed his progress toward the village, and Merlin left off pawing the water. The dog was muddy, happy, and full of energy. Was Thales having an equally enjoyable start to his day, or had somebody decided that if they couldn’t get rid of Silforth, they’d put period to his pride and joy?
“Silforth isn’t a resident of the parish, is he?” I asked.
“He is not, nor does he own land here. His acres, thank a benevolent Deity, are firmly located in Dunforth parish. Let him pester those good folk for an alderman’s honors.”
“And they will say he hasn’t attended services there for months.”
Giddings smiled. “You almost restore my faith in England’s youth, my lord. Silforth leaves ill will in his wake like a billy goat leaves a stink on the breeze. Another hunt might well have stolen the beast. The annual competition is just around the corner, and the pot is enormous this year.”
I knew I’d regret the question, but I asked anyway. “What competition?”
“The hound trials, of course. Nobody has won the pot for four years, though Merlin and his brother came close three years ago. We’re all trying to get our packs into condition as autumn approaches, and the trials give us a prize to aim for.”
He described a competition that sounded like a prime opportunity for drinking and gossiping while various canines ran around sniffing madly at scent lines laid by human design. Classes at such an affair typically included single competition for the champion few, braces of two hounds, and small packs chosen as the elite of their kennels.
“It’s our village’s turn to host this year,” Sir Rupert went on as a makeshift crossing of stepping stones and boulders came into view. “We’ll do the tradition proud, my lord, with or without Thales. It’s all supposed to be in fun, you know, but it’s also fine sport, and a great deal of side wagering goes on as well. Jolly good time, or it has been. Silforth competed occasionally, but never with much success. I expect this year he intended to show us all how a real foxhound trails his quarry. More fool he.”
Sir Rupert was marching along at a good clip, Merlin panting at his heels. They were of a piece, old campaigners with plenty of fire left, companions in the fight against senescence and irrelevance.
“How much is the pot that Thales would have competed for?”
“Two thousand pounds.”
I halted abruptly. “Two thousand pounds, for a doggy derby?” I had seen men marching barefoot in Spain, wearing two-year-old uniforms that were more rags than clothing—while the supposed backbone of England had been squandering a fortune on a day out for dogs?
“Never been that high before,” Sir Rupert said, scratching Merlin’s ears. “Nobody wins, the money stays in the pot. Weather has been confounded disobliging in recent years. Too dry for the scent to rise or too windy. Bad job all around, but we’ll put all that behind us soon.”
A rural family with a decent garden and some livestock could live on two thousand pounds for ten years, easily.
“We all contribute with entry fees and donations, and there’s a raffle and whatnot,” Sir Rupert went on, resuming his walk. “The winner usually donates a portion to the church, but that’s between him and his conscience.”
I paced at Sir Rupert’s side. “You’re telling me that anybody who intends to compete for that pot had a motive to make off with Thales, or worse.”
“You are a clever lad, aren’t you?”
I was developing an aversion to Sir Rupert’s attempts at humor. “I do try. How many competitors are there this year?”
“Nearly a dozen, so far. I’m on the list. Merlin’s progeny are exceedingly proficient. Foxhounds are all the rage now, but in my day, we appreciated a smarter creature, even if he was a little slower to flush the quarry.”
Given Sir Rupert’s revelations, I doubted I would ever flush my quarry. Any single competitor would have had a good reason to remove Thales from the lists, and the entire group of competitors, or any subset—Sir Rupert included—might have acted in concert against Silforth.
If I couldn’t find the culprits, perhaps I could find the dog. “If you were looking for Thales,” I said, “where would you start the search?”
We rounded a curve in the path, and Merlin shot ahead.
“Likes his pint, does Merlin,” Sir Rupert said. “A word to the wise, my lord. If I was tasked with finding Thales, I’d make all the proper noises and put on a decent show for Silforth’s benefit. Look very earnest, talk to everybody, take a lot of notes, and profess to utter bafflement, even if you think you know who the malefactor is.”
Was I being threatened, warned, or sincerely advised? “And all the while, I’m waiting for Thales to come trotting through the Bloomfield gates the day after the competition?”
“Precisely. Silforth is taught a lesson, the money ends up with a deserving local, and life goes on without undue upheaval. Shall you join me in a pint?”
He was a wily old man, and I would not put it past him to steal a dog and then offer hospitality to the investigator whose express task was to find the missing animal.
“Thank you, no. A bit early for me, though I appreciate all that you’ve told me. Could I get a list of the competitors?”
“Posted right beside the dartboard at the Pump and Pickle. Add your own name, if you’ve a decent pack.”
“As it happens, I do not. Defeating the Corsican left little time for galloping, half drunk, after starving foxes.”
His genial air faltered, but rather than give him a chance to insult me again, I bowed and made an orderly retreat.