“I’ll see you to your horse.” I wasn’t making an offer, and Arthur knew better than to wave me off. He’d doubtless have preferred to take a private leave of Banter, but they’d been closeted for three-quarters of an hour before the dining bell had rung.
I hoped they’d spent the time in earnest conversation. His Grace and I most assuredly needed to exchange a few honest words.
Arthur rose from the table. “Mrs. Silforth, Banter, my thanks for a most pleasant meal and for hosting my brother so considerately. Julian, we’ll expect you back at the Hall shortly.”
For whose benefit had Arthur made that proclamation? I got to my feet and thanked my hostess for another hearty meal. Arthur and I ambled to the front door, he all the while vocally admiring the ample light some wise soul had designed into Bloomfield’s public areas. A silent butler passed the duke his hat and spurs and only then seemed to recall that I, too, had a head upon which a hat usually perched when out of doors.
The butler passed me the requisite article, I donned my specs, and then Arthur and I were out in the early afternoon sunshine, and finally away from eavesdroppers.
“You have upset Banter, Julian.” This was partly a scold, partly a question.
“I am attempting to fulfill the purpose for which Banter summoned me here.”
“To find a dog, which remains at liberty, if we’re to put the most hopeful construction on matters. Any progress in that regard?”
We took a winding path to the stable, and when trees and shrubbery afforded us privacy, I halted.
“I have made too much progress. Potential dognappers lurk behind every stile. The whole shire detests Silforth, a good portion of them are competing with him for a substantial cash prize at the hound trials, and one of the leading ladies of the village regrets that she allowed Silforth to trifle with her. The staff here at Bloomfield can’t abide Silforth’s hunt-mad notions, much less his arrogance. I almost pity the man, but he seems oblivious to his own unpopularity.”
Arthur looked pensive, which he did frequently and very well. “Except he isn’t oblivious. The equestrian dash, the lording it over the staff, and condescending to the neighbors are the epitome of a fellow who wants to be taken seriously and doesn’t know how to earn that honor.”
“Silforth’s wife takes him seriously. You noticed she was drinking meadow tea at table?”
“You guzzle meadow tea like it’s the elixir of immortality.”
“Allow me my crotchets. I suspect Silforth’s nursery might undergo another expansion in the spring, though that’s only a suspicion, so keep it to yourself. Silforth refers to his wife openly as his foundation mare, and he’s apparently intent on keeping her relentlessly in foal. What did you and Banter discuss before lunch?”
Arthur found it necessary to study the leaves dotting the path. “Pleasantries. Nothing of substance.”
Meaning Banter had distracted His Grace from serious conversation in the oldest fashion known to besotted couples the world over. I was perversely glad to know that Arthur could be distracted, though the timing exasperated me.
“And yet, Your Grace is not feeling very pleasant.”
Arthur turned the ducal surmise on me. “I received two messages early yesterday evening. One by pigeon, one by express. Yours made vague references to trouble afoot and the hound being the least of it. Banter’s epistle nigh demanded that I order you to retreat, because you were wandering far afield from your stated task. He claims you have antagonized the victim of the crime, if a crime has been committed.”
That Arthur wasn’t heeding my tacit plea for assistance—or wasn’t on the premises exclusively to aid me—bothered me exceedingly. And yet, I was in possession of facts that Banter had kept from the one he held dearest in the whole world.
An uncomfortable posture for all concerned. “I haven’t found Thales, and the victim—if Silforth is the victim—is more easily antagonized than a mad Roman emperor. Why would I abandon a search I’ve barely begun?” And why wasn’t Arthur concerned that Banter was now waving off the assistance he’d all but pleaded for mere days ago?
Arthur resumed walking. “Banter claims that you have upset the household to such an extent that he’s not sure he’ll have his affairs in order in time to depart with me for France.”
Banter had threatened Arthur? “Osgood Banter summoned me. Now he’s chasing me out the door when I’ve barely unpacked my bags. He claims I am shaming Silforth with my methods—he apparently expected me to use a quizzing glass on some bracken and instantly divine where Thales is biding. When Silforth called me a traitor and a deserter loudly enough to be heard by half the household, Banter let the slurs pass. The situation wants more study, not less.”
The merest cooling of Arthur’s generally reserved expression acknowledged the seriousness of the insults. “Nobody should take whining from the likes of Silforth seriously. He’s the quintessential bumbler. Why wasn’t he at lunch?”
The conversation was growing more frustrating, not less. If Silforth was a mere bumbler, why was Banter so unwilling to upset him?
“Silforth was up all night with a whelping hound.” Even so, to snub the neighborhood duke was… badly done. “You had to notice the canine portraits in the formal parlor.”
“I noticed Silforth’s portrait and what I assumed was Thales’s likeness. A handsome beast.”
“More hound portraits clutter the family parlor. The artistic monotony in the informal parlor is leavened with a few hunt scenes. On that evidence alone, you have to admit that Banter is allowing an invasion of his home.”
The stable came into view, as did a groom leading a handsome bay from the barn aisle. Arthur’s horse raised his head, probably spotting his rider even from this distance.
“Banter told me he encouraged Lizzie to make the place comfortable for her family.” Arthur slowed his pace. “I agree with you, though. There’s trouble afoot, and that’s all the more reason to absent yourself from the scene. A mere missing hound isn’t worth risking all you’ve gained since returning home.”
Meaning I mustn’t stir up talk. Silforth’s accusations—traitor, deserter—could easily inspire similar epithets in Town.
“You tell me nobody should take Silforth’s whining seriously, and now you imply that everybody will heed him when he casts aspersion on me?” And I would bet my spare pair of blue spectacles—one of them, I had several—that Lizzie had had little say in which portrait hung where.
Arthur stopped again, though by now the groom had seen us as well. “Do you know how much courage it takes for Banter to be in my life? I have the title. Should scandal befall us, I’ll be allowed to scurry off to the Continent and live out my days in disgraceful obscurity. Banter has no such standing, and all his wealth and decency will make him that much better a proxy for the punishment Society would long to aim at me.”
“And you, being decent and honorable yourself, would not allow him to suffer alone for your sake.” For Banter that suffering could, in theory, include a trip to the gallows, though he’d have to make himself the equivalent of a staked goat to court that fate.
“Julian, Banter is beyond even my protection, and I have placed him in that dubious posture with my selfish attachment. And yet, he cares for me to such an extent that he’s risking his life rather than take the easier routes. I cannot allow you to complicate his situation.”
Arthur was commanding me to make a disorderly retreat. To allow a criminal, or a whole gang of criminals, to go unpunished, to ignore insults to my own honor.
To admit defeat. He was choosing Banter over me, and in good conscience, I should applaud that choice. Banter could face a public, humiliating death if the true nature of his attachment to Arthur were exposed—not a likely outcome, but among the possibilities. I was merely coping with varying degrees of rumor and that triviality known as my pride.
Though to be fair, Arthur likely reasoned that anybody who’d try to murder me by virtue of an equestrian accident was unsafe company for me as well.
And murder might well have been Silforth’s aim.
“I am mindful of the risks involved for all parties,” I said. “Answer a question for me: Do you truly believe Banter will come skipping back to Bloomfield after your travels, when Silforth has had the better part of a year to intimidate the staff, ingratiate himself in the village, and further snoop about Banter’s home shire?”
Beowulf, Arthur’s steed, whuffled, and His Grace resumed our progress. The horse was the embodiment of equine dignity in the presence of all save his rider, particularly when apples were on offer.
“Have you a horse for his lordship?” Arthur asked the groom as we gained the stable yard.
“I’m not leaving.” I was, though, attired for riding.
“I’m inviting you to ride with me to the village.”
“Belt could use another outing with a capable rider,” the groom volunteered.
Arthur and I had resolved nothing, except that we were both worried. “Very well, Belt and I will enjoy the fresh country air with His Grace as far as the village.” Which was ridiculous, when the village was a mere fifteen minutes away on foot.
We detoured because I used the opportunity to show Arthur where Silforth had tried to unseat me with his in-and-out gate jumps.
“Again, all the more reason for you to quit Bloomfield,” Arthur said as we turned for the village. “Silforth is an ass who doesn’t know the difference between a prank and rank stupidity.”
Silforth was dangerous, to Banter, to Arthur, to every good soul in Bloomfield’s surrounds.
“Listen to me, Your Grace,” I said. “I have bitter experience with the frustration of failing to protect a loved one. One becomes a trifle unhinged.” Or a lot unhinged, and I felt no compunction whatsoever about invoking Harry’s ghost. “You aren’t thinking clearly. Silforth won’t stop just because he’s chased Banter off to France, and likely permanently. He will go after you next, and me, and anybody else he can bully.”
“Silforth is blackmailing Banter,” Arthur said. “You needn’t spell it out. Banter is quite well fixed, and he’s prepared to part with his home, his fortune, and his honor to protect me. You are simply vexed because this is a riddle you won’t be allowed to solve.”
The placid village green came into view, bookended by the church and the coaching inn, a scene worthy of the talents of a John Constable acolyte.
Silforth was trying to extend his reach here as well.
“My reputation is already in tatters,” I said. “Let me draw Silforth’s fire as I poke about the undergrowth. He will be much more tempted to aim his guns at me than at you or Banter. With some luck, I can get to the bottom of the whole mess before Silforth gets off a telling shot.”
“You are my only surviving brother, you dolt. Leander’s favorite uncle, Lady Ophelia’s dearest godson, Hyperia West’s preferred escort. Banter has never asked anything of me. He wants you gone from here, and thus I want you back at the Hall.”
Referring to our nephew was not quite fair—the boy barely knew either of us—but he was an orphan and illegitimate. He’d need his uncles in this life, and looking out for the lad was likely as close as I’d ever come to fatherhood.
“If Silforth is in possession of certain facts,” I said, “he can menace Banter with the noose. I understand that, but Banter is not his only potential victim. The entire neighborhood, the staff, the tenants, dozens of hard-working souls are at risk of harm because you fear the threat to Banter. O’Keefe will never see a penny of his pension, MacNeil won’t either. The young people will be forced to starve in the London slums because nobody hereabouts will have the coin to hire them. Eleanora’s reputation will be ruined, and that’s the least of the mischief I can foresee in the next five years alone.”
I wasn’t remotely exaggerating, but I paused, silently reminding myself that Arthur was a duke. He answered exclusively to his own conscience and had never known the soul-destroying penance of following unsound orders. To cede the field to Silforth was beyond unsound, but Arthur had never seen villages wiped out because some general had dismissed prudent counsel, had never seen mere boys cut down in ambushes any scout could have anticipated, but the dashing lieutenant had been too drunk to consider.
“If harm befalls Banter,” Arthur said, “I… I cannot lose him, Julian. Not over a lost dog and a vain man’s greed.”
And I, when faced with the possibility, could not lose Arthur. “I can agree to an orderly retreat,” I said, though the notion sat ill with me. “Today is more than half gone, and my eyes are honestly bothering me. Give me tomorrow, and then I will return to the Hall the following morning.”
Arthur drew Beowulf to a halt with no cue I could discern. “I could thrash you.” For His Grace, that was tantamount to a tirade.
“You could try.” Belt stopped as well and made a halfhearted try for a bite of grass from the verge, which I thwarted. “I am not as quick, strong, or resilient as I used to be, but if I were, I couldn’t use my infirmities to beg another day at Bloomfield to recover.”
His Grace muttered something in French, which we’d learned right along with English in the nursery.
“I love you too,” I said as Belt’s ears pricked forward at the sight of a donkey kicking up a fuss in the coaching yard. “My boundless fraternal devotion is precisely why I see that too much is at stake to yield the fight without even a dignified retreat.”
Arthur gathered his reins. “The last thing I want is a fight. What I do want is to quit these shores more fervently than you can imagine.”
Provided Banter could quit them with him.
My brother was wroth with me, and I was none too pleased with him either. The essence of the gossip following me home from France was that I was a coward. I’d abandoned Harry to the murderous Frenchmen who’d taken us both captive, doubtless buying my freedom by betraying my country, my brother, and my command.
Silforth would find many an ear willing to hear more slander cast upon my name, a burden I was willing to bear. Banter’s life and reputation mattered—albeit the risk to his life was theoretical while the risk to his reputation substantial. Neither Banter nor Arthur could see that my objective—freeing them from the menace they faced, making their journey a celebration rather than a flight from peril—mattered too. Freeing Bloomfield’s denizens from Silforth’s arrogant and incompetent generalship mattered, and thus finding the blasted dog mattered as well.
And so did my honor, to me at least. I would press on carefully in the limited time remaining, despite the increasing odds of failure.
“I am blowing retreat, Your Grace. Just give me time to get my troops organized for the about face lest retreat turn into a rout.”
“Thank you,” Arthur said, touching a gloved finger to his hat brim. “Please present yourself hale and whole at the Hall the day after tomorrow.”
Please, and yet, it was an order, the blighter.
“I have given my word, though keeping my word will be easier if you inveigled Hyperia into coming south with you.”
Arthur patted his horse. “Leander likes her, and Lady Ophelia would not think of allowing me to take the boy to the Hall without providing her doting supervision of the lot of us. My dignity would not allow me to inveigle anybody anywhere, and yet, I’m told the Pump and Pickle serves a fine summer ale.” He cantered off, the very picture of grace and self-possession.
I sent Belt trotting for the inn and silently thanked the very best, and most vexatious, of brothers for getting at least one important aspect of the situation right.
Mrs. Joyce was not in evidence when I charged into the common of the Pump and Pickle. The door to the ladies’ parlor was ajar, however, and a quiet conversation issued therefrom. I allowed myself the luxury of eavesdropping for a handful of heartbeats.
I listened not to the words, but to the simple sound of Miss Hyperia West’s voice. Like a nervous horse who sees a trusted rider approaching the mounting block, I settled into myself.
She’s here. She came.
I had no claim on Hyperia West, save the bonds of friendship and, on my part, highest esteem for the lady. We’d been all but engaged before I’d bought my colors. I am ashamed to say that in some dastardly particle of my soul, I’d been relieved to trade the prospect of matrimony for the supposed glories of war. I had been resigned to marrying someday, but I had enjoyed my freedom and my privacy as a bachelor enormously.
There was no fool like a young, strutting fool. Hyperia had graciously accepted that I’d decamped for Spain out of patriotic duty, or so I’d believed at the time. We’d made each other no promises, leaving us in the infernal posture of spoken for but not committed.
When I’d returned from France in a sorry condition and with a sorrier reputation, I’d made plain to Hyperia that she would endure no proposal from the disgraced, half-starved, half-blind, twitching object of contempt that I’d become.
How noble and gracious of me, to presume no further on her future, and how endlessly stupid.
I’d gone off to war intending to show the world that the extra Caldicott spare was the most dashing of the three brothers, but increasingly, as arrogant innocence had been replaced by a soldier’s sorrows, I had sought merely to serve honorably, while I’d clung to the thought of a future with Hyperia.
She was a link to my happy childhood, my heedless youth, and to all that was lovely and dear about my past. Far more than she knew, thoughts of Perry West had comforted me when little else could.
My former almost-intended was not strikingly beautiful, though she qualified as passingly pretty. Her attributes included chestnut hair, green eyes, a figure pleasing to any man with an imagination, and an intellect all the more formidable for being kept mostly out of sight.
Hyperia was no bluestocking, though. She had common sense in abundance, and I trusted her honesty and kindness as I trusted no other’s.
And while she appeared to return my esteem, we were at something of an impasse. She had recently apprised me of the shocking fact that she did not want children, or did not want to risk her life in childbed, more accurately. Given the medical realities, I could hardly object to her position. Women in childbed faced about the same odds of survival as the average infantryman on the day of battle, and yet, motherhood earned the ladies neither a regular pay packet, nor handsome medals, nor a hero’s accolades.
I would rather have Perry alive to be my dearest friend, than enjoying the celestial realm as my late spouse.
On that, I was very clear. The whole discussion was at present moot, anyway, seeing as I’d left my manly humors behind in France, along with my formerly spotless reputation. When it came to conceiving children, I was incapable of the requisite preliminaries. This fact bothered me exceedingly, and I prayed the condition was temporary.
Unlike Perry, I wanted children. I wanted a family—grandchildren even, if I might admit to a closely guarded dream. I wanted to relieve Arthur of the burden of a dukedom that lacked a secure line of succession, and—to the extent a man incapable of functioning can long for such a thing—I wanted exclusive intimacy with Hyperia.
I clung to the hope that our situation might reach some sort of happy resolution, though hoping for Hyperia West to retreat from a logical, closely held position was as farfetched as hoping that Prinny would become a teetotaler.
I nonetheless stood in the inn’s common, doubtless a curiosity to the two old fellows gracing the snug, and let the melody of Hyperia’s words wash over me. That I loved her was simply true. I’d die for her. I’d go through another war for her.
While I wallowed in joy and relief, her tone shifted, becoming subtly more crisp. My darling Perry was growing annoyed.
I made my way closer to the parlor door, though I still could not see her.
“And from which foolish quarter did these rumors reach you, Mrs. Joyce?”
“From several, truth be told. Sir Rupert Giddings was the first to imply that his lordship bears the taint of scandal. Silforth was heard to heartily agree, and those two can’t agree on anything.”
“Who else?” Hyperia’s tone was polite and merely curious.
“Piers Ladron allowed as how the talk in London about Lord Julian has died down, and the war is over, but Jonas Eckstrom claims his brother, who served in Spain, wouldn’t spit in his lordship’s eye.”
“Ah, little boys trying to out-gossip one another. Please do make the opportunity to inform these clucking squabs that Wellington himself has acknowledged Lord Julian in public, cordially, and at length.”
“Wellington?”
“Duke of. Lord Julian’s godmother refers to the poor man as Artie, and he does not dare correct her. Lady Ophelia is visiting at the Hall along with me. Where can his lordship be?”
I rapped on the door and pushed it open. “Miss West, a pleasure to see you.” I bowed. “Mrs. Joyce, good day.”
Mrs. Joyce had apparently been sharing a friendly pot of tea and some of her signature tarts with Hyperia. Hyperia considered herself firmly on the shelf, despite having some way to go before reaching her thirtieth year. Such was her resolve, though, that if she claimed the status of spinster, her family had no choice but to concede the battle.
“My lord.” Mrs. Joyce rose and curtseyed. “If you’ll excuse me, Miss West. Feel free to remain in the parlor as long as you please. The local ladies tend not to bother with it, and we aren’t expecting another coach until after five. Or you might repair to the back terrace.”
Her gaze as she passed me was unreadable, and she left the door open when she departed.
Hyperia rose and hugged me despite the gawkers in the snug having a clear view of us. “Jules. You’ve been gone from London barely long enough for the coach’s dust to settle, and already you are in trouble. How did you ever survive a whole war?”
By thinking of you. Of your laughter and smiles and your ferocious ability to debate on any topic. “I am not precisely in trouble, but I suspect I am causing trouble.”
She stepped back. “Bring the tray, will you? I’d much rather sit outside, if it’s not asking too much of your eyes.”
I wanted privacy with Hyperia more than I wanted to protect my eyes. I gathered up the tea things and picked up the tray.
“Lead on, and you should know that Arthur has ordered me home.”
“He must be very worried.” She made no further comment as we wended across the common and onto the back terrace.
Arthur was worried—about his plans with Banter and his future with Banter. Also about me.
“What do you make of this gossip Mrs. Joyce was so eager to pass along?” Hyperia asked when we’d chosen a shady table from which to enjoy the bucolic view.
“Silforth all but promised that if Banter can’t eject me from the property, Silforth would see me off the premises himself. Gossip is a coward’s way to achieve such an end.” The tarts were wonderful, but the chance to discuss the situation with Hyperia was a higher order of blessing.
She saw what I missed. She knew me and my proclivities and complemented them with her own. I was methodical and plodding, while Hyperia could step back, let her imagination fly, and make brilliant intuitive leaps.
“And you,” she said, “wonder why finding this Thales will throw the shire into such chaos, when that is precisely the job you were asked to do. Tell me what’s afoot, Jules, and leave nothing out.”
I summarized events for her while we demolished the tarts and ordered a second pot along with a tray of sandwiches. Another couple took a table several yards away by the time I’d completed my report.
Hyperia considered me, the afternoon sun finding all manner of highlights in her hair. “You can’t call him out, Jules.”
“The thought never occurred to me.” Fisticuffs, perhaps, despite Silforth’s roaring good physical health. I was fast and nimble, while his strength was of the brutish variety. I might not prevail, but I’d give a good account of myself.
“You mustn’t let him call you out.”
“Hyperia, I cannot think that a missing hound is worth anybody’s life. I don’t care for dueling, and I will decline any challenges offered. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be.” True enough, and I wasn’t helping matters with all my sunny perambulations.
My word was apparently good enough for her when it came to avoiding the field of honor, though if Silforth were to slander her…
“Then you must find the dog, bow politely, and leave Banter to sort out the rest. That’s the best you can hope for.”
She suggested a compromise. I was to fulfill the letter of my original orders, then cede the battlefield to other combatants. I didn’t care for that notion, but she was doubtless right.
I nonetheless aired my concerns. “Silforth won’t stop once he has his paws on Bloomfield, Perry. He’ll be like Napoleon. Give him an inch, and he’s effected the bloody subjugation of another country in the name of liberty, equality, and freedom.”
She traced the roses adorning the porcelain tea pot. “I agree that Silforth is dangerous to all in his ambit, and I will anxiously await your safe return to the Hall. Do be careful, Jules. Please.”
Do be careful. I had expected something different from Hyperia. Seething condemnation of Silforth’s bullying, or a ringing endorsement of my perseverance.
Do be careful. How many times had I said the same words to Harry? They’d often meant I wash my hands of the stubborn likes of you.
“I will take every precaution. Shall I have the coach brought around?”
“Please. Lady Ophelia will expect a full report. You might pen her a note.”
Was that a veiled request to keep Hyperia informed? “I might, but then she’d hare over here to sort Silforth out herself. Can’t have that.” I nipped into the common and had a word with a serving maid, who’d alert the stable to Hyperia’s impending departure.
When I rejoined Hyperia, she was standing at the edge of the terrace, gaze on the pastures rolling off into the distance.
“You need have no fear that Lady Ophelia will pop in at Bloomfield unannounced, Jules. She won’t leave Leander until she’s seen him settled in at the Hall. Leander likes her. They are forever whispering in corners, giggling, and exchanging winks.”
“Godmama was like that with me when I was a small boy. I thought her a capital old thing, until I got all adolescent and dignified.”
Ten minutes later, I bid Hyperia a proper farewell and waited for the grooms to bring Belt around. Discussing the situation with Hyperia had helped me clarify some details—sequences of events, avenues yet to explore (the nursery, for one)—but our exchange had been disappointing.
Arthur was wroth with me, and Hyperia, too, wanted me to simply put on an agreeable show, then quit the field. As I climbed into the saddle and headed back to Bloomfield, I was struck by the odd thought that Lady Ophelia, godmother, gossip, and general plague, would have counseled me to stay and fight. Beneath all her fluttery ways and abundant chatter, her ladyship did not suffer fools or take matters of honor lightly.
But what a pass I’d come to, that Godmama was likely my sole ally, and the author of my disfavor was a smelly, hairy, panting dog.
I found some comfort though, in another realization: After weeks wandering the northern slopes of the Pyrenees, I’d convinced myself that my near certain demise would be for the best. The world would have one fewer incompetent soldier cluttering up its battlefields, and my siblings could get on with their lives unburdened by my half-witted, scandalous self. My end would have been no great loss to anybody, or so I’d concluded.
I’d been wrong. My death would have caused sorrow to loved ones who cared very much whether I lived or died. I ignored the admonitions of my loved ones where Silforth was concerned at my peril.