I woke at dawn with only the usual disorientation that follows a too-short night of deep, dreamless sleep. In my usual fashion, I recalled the previous evening’s lapse and that Banter had taken steps to prevent the household at large from learning of my ailment.
Decent of him, but I resented him for that, too, when I should be thanking him. Arthur’s consequence preserved me from the horror of dwelling in an asylum, but Arthur was departing on extended travel. Even temporarily impaired mental faculties were a vulnerability, and I’d rather Anaximander Silforth never learned of mine.
A rap on the door had me rising from the bed and shrugging into a dressing gown.
“Brung your tray,” Atticus sang out. “I’m Atticus, and you’re—”
I opened the door. “You are loud, but the comestibles are welcome. On the reading table will do.”
He set down the tray and fisted his hands on his hips. “You got your mind back.”
“I lose my memories, not my mind. What’s the word belowstairs?” I poured two cups of hot, black tea, added cream and sugar to one, and passed it to Atticus.
He scowled, then slurped. I would not presume so far as to bid him to sit with me, but the lad was too skinny. I passed him a piece of buttered toast and set about fixing my own tea.
“No word. Nobody’s sayin’ much of anything to anybody, and that’s odder than if they was wishin’ you on your way.”
“They are a regiment without officers, so they have no idea in which direction to retreat.”
Atticus dunked his toast in his tea and went to the window. “We’re retreating. You promised His Grace. We leave today.”
The tea was delectable. The kitchen was maintaining standards, even if the domestics abovestairs were considering desertion.
“My thanks for keeping me company last evening, but I had planned to spend last night investigating that grave we found.”
“You were dead on your feet, guv. Keep that up, and one of these days, you’ll have a spell and you won’t recover.”
“I’m not reproaching you, Atticus. You needn’t be a harbinger of doom. If I’d paid more attention to rest and sustenance, I might have spared myself embarrassment yesterday evening.” I lifted the cover from a plate of steaming eggs and sliced ham. I was ravenous, but limited myself to an egg-and-toast sandwich.
Atticus finished his soggy toast. “We’re leaving this morning?”
I wanted badly, badly to fetch a shovel from the kitchen garden and disappear into the woods. Thales was buried there, I was sure of it. The longer he lay in his grave, the harder it would be to prove that he had been sent by his doting owner to his reward.
“I gave His Grace my word that I’d leave Bloomfield this morning.” I’d also assured Hyperia of my return to Caldicott Hall, and a gentleman did not break his word. Lady Ophelia had not sought any reassurances from me, and she’d sent Atticus to guard my flank.
I was in the awkward position of having to thank Godmama for her foresight. A lowering thought to go with the already lowering thought that I’d failed to find Thales or to identify his remains.
“You should eat them eggs, guv. They ain’t half so good cold.”
Atticus’s syntax deteriorated when he was nervous, and for that reason too—my tiger was rattled—I would quit Bloomfield as scheduled. The boy had risen to too many unforeseen challenges, and I could not reward his loyalty with pride and pigheadedness.
“I’m not in the mood for ham,” I said. “Make yourself a sandwich, lest my abstemiousness offend the cook.” I’d already offended half the shire, Silforth, and Banter.
Atticus complied. “You talk all toplofty when you’re discombobulated. Missus Silforth likes you. Miss Eleanora likes you. Banter will like you just fine once he’s racketing about on the Continent with the duke.”
“Banter is not rackety.”
Atticus considered his sandwich. “If you say so, but he’s letting Silforth be a plague upon the shire. Staff isn’t happy about that.”
“The only person happy about that is Silforth.” Though I had my doubts about him. Bullies were driven by fear, in my experience. The military was full of them, and they never seemed to notice that building a bow wave of ill will made their situation more precarious, not less.
A deluge of consequences awaited Silforth, and I longed to be present when he faced a reckoning.
Atticus and I finished our sandwiches and tea. Atticus took the tray back to the kitchen, while I shaved and dressed. I did employ a valet, who took conscientious care of my wardrobe, but too many years of self-sufficiency stood between me and the notion that somebody should assist me into my clothing.
The next rap on the door caught me finishing a note that I would personally slip under Banter’s door. I was sealing my missive when two footmen presented themselves, ready to retrieve milord’s trunk at his convenience. They were young fellows, tall and blond as befit their calling, and had the grace to look uncomfortable at what amounted to issuing me a polite eviction notice.
“My trunk is in the dressing closet,” I said. “I’ll take my saddlebags with me, and you can tell your confreres that the intruder has been ejected.”
Bad form, to grouse to the staff, but I was still tired and was being forced to quit the lists.
“You were invited here, my lord,” the older of the two said. “Mrs. MacNeil says Bloomfield has never before tossed a guest out on his ear. Some of us were hoping you’d stay on a bit longer.”
The other fellow nodded tersely. “Man who takes the life of his pet, a fine beast in his prime… That crosses a line.”
I thought back to the previous evening, when I’d harangued Banter about my insurance-fraud theory. Within minutes, Banter had gone to the door and conferred with a footman—a footman who’d apparently been eavesdropping.
“For money,” the older fellow said, shaking his head. “Thales was a good dog, my lord.”
And if a good dog wasn’t safe, what did that say for the staff left to contend as best they could?
“I have only theories, gentlemen. I have no proof and no more time to find any. I can be reached at Caldicott Hall if anybody would like to apprise me of further developments.”
They went about their business, securing and removing the trunk, but I’d disappointed the enlisted men, and I knew it. I’d disappointed myself and, in some sense, Lizzie, Eleanora, the children, and the whole shire.
To return to Caldicott Hall and nurse my wounded pride went against every particle of my training. A soldier did not abandon his mission, did not accept defeat, did not abet the enemy.
If I hadn’t known it before, I realized in that moment that I was no longer a soldier. The insight was a source of both relief and bewilderment. I left my quarters, slid my sealed note under Banter’s sitting room door, and made my way down to the breakfast parlor proper. The hour was too early, apparently, for my host to be abroad, and Silforth was probably out on his unfortunate, cantankerous horse, leaping stiles and hatching up more mischief.
“Does Banter expect me to leave by way of the kitchen?” I muttered to no one in particular.
“I doubt it.” Eleanora had come up behind me. “You will depart from the front steps, in full view of the staff and children. Silforth knows the value of appearances. Have you eaten?”
“I have, thank you.” Not enough, but now that my departure had begun, I wanted it over with.
Eleanora’s hems were damp, and she had the look of somebody who’d partaken of the fresh morning air. Her hair had a touch more curl. Her cheeks were slightly flushed. A pretty woman, but an unhappy one.
“You are probably anxious to be on your way,” she said. “I’m sorry for that. If anybody could have found Thales, my lord, you were that person. I know you don’t want to leave, but you’ve tried your best.”
Where was Banter, and when would Silforth’s prospective victims stop making excuses for me? “I have not tried my best, Miss Eleanora. I have done what I could in the time allotted, but my best is apparently not what was needed.”
She glanced up and down the corridor, then hauled me into the breakfast parlor. A footman who’d been sitting in a chair in the corner rose and stood at attention by the sideboard. The scents of ham, fresh bread, and a steaming pear cobbler blended agreeably and put a prosaic scent on an otherwise difficult morning.
“You believe Nax is committing insurance fraud?” she asked.
By now, the vicar’s wife, the goosegirl, and Lady Patience’s puppies had doubtless been apprised of my theory. The footman certainly did not appear surprised at the question.
“If so, then to have me putting on a show of searching for the hound will only add credibility to the eventual claim Silforth will make.”
“I think he already made it,” Eleanora said. “I take the mail to the Pump and Pickle when I’m on my perambulations.”
When she was dispensing honey and tisanes and likely collecting all the gossip. “Silforth has been in contact with Dewey and Blaydom?”
“That’s the name. Earlier this week. Silforth is too cheap to send an express to Town, but the mail is in London by day’s end anyway.”
I wanted to toss the tray of pear cobbler through the nearest window. “Keep watch for return mail from the same firm, please. I will bide at Caldicott Hall and be most interested to hear of any further developments.”
She swiped a cheese tart from the tray next to the cobbler. “Silforth might have told Mrs. Joyce to hold any such correspondence back for him to pick up personally. I really wish you didn’t have to return to Caldicott Hall.” She munched her tart and gave me a smile that was doubtless supposed to be sympathetic.
Except it wasn’t. Even Eleanora was relieved to see me go. I wrapped four tarts in a handkerchief, pocketed them, and took my leave of her.
I put on my spectacles and made my way to the front steps, where Arthur’s traveling coach awaited. Atlas had been saddled and bridled and tied to the boot, and I really should have left him there. I’d overtaxed my eyes, and the morning was bright.
“Leaving so soon?” Silforth sauntered forth from the shady depths of the portico.
“I’d be happy to stay, if you like.”
He appeared to consider the notion. “If I thought for one minute that you could find my missing Thales, I’d take you up on that, but your skills have been overstated, apparently.”
The impulse to punch him in the gut, to wallop him on the chin… But no. He’d have me arrested for assault, and I’d admit my own guilt. I had no wish to tour the Antipodes or to bring disgrace—further disgrace—on the family name.
“If Thales is extant,” I said, “he’s been hidden with such care that tracking skills alone won’t find him.”
“Right,” he said. “But according to you, he’s not extant. I’ve murdered my best friend. William passed that theory along to me. Heard it from some footman attempting to flirt with the Holcomb creature. When you set out to insult a man in his own home, you do a thorough job of it, my lord.”
“Bloomfield is not your home.”
Silforth’s smile was charm personified. “Banter will be corresponding with his solicitors in the immediate future, and in less time than that,”—Silforth snapped his fingers in my face—“I will be the owner of Bloomfield in fee, simple, absolute. Cousin Osgood has taken a notion to live out his days on the Continent. A prudent decision. We will miss him.”
If I tossed Silforth down the steps—I was angry enough to manage that—he might crack his head and make the acquaintance of Old Scratch before noon. I still claimed enough native speed that he’d never see the attack coming.
Just my luck his head would be even harder than his heart.
“Will you miss Banter?” I asked. “Or will you write to him with further threats when you’ve run Bloomfield into the ground, chased off the retainers who know best how to manage this place, and intimidated every neighbor in a ten-mile radius? Will you try to threaten Waltham then? I don’t advise it.”
The smile dimmed. “You have spells,” he said. “Some sort of mental problem. You forget your name and have no idea where you are.”
Banter’s footman had been the garrulous sort, more’s the pity. “Your spies lack discretion, Silforth. Best choose more wisely in future.”
“Spies are like that. No loyalty, no honor. They aren’t much missed when the inevitable mishap befalls them.”
The threat amused me—Silforth would never call me out, and he wasn’t about to take me on in a fair fight—but the insult to my service record threatened the last iota of my patience.
Which was doubtless what Silforth hoped to achieve. I offered him the same cheery smile he’d flung at me.
“My temper is trying to get the best of my manners,” I said, starting down the steps. “But a man who kills a loyal hound for coin should have to live with the knowledge that he’s destroyed the only creature in all of creation who bore him some respect. Good day.”
As broadsides went, my shot fell far short of taking down the enemy’s mast, but Silforth called after me nonetheless.
“I would never have killed Thales. Never. If you’d found him—you, the great tracker, Wellington’s best scout—but you didn’t. You failed. You failed, my lord, and the whole shire knows it.”
I turned at the foot of the steps and beheld a man in torment. Everything about Silforth was false—his charm, his dapper attire, his pretensions to graciousness, his political aspirations—but his anguish struck me as real.
“Not even I can track ghosts, Silforth.”
I untied Atlas from the coach, checked his girth, and ran his stirrup irons down the leathers. He stood patiently throughout this ritual and while I affixed my saddlebags. The coachy waited for me to mount up, and when I wanted to gallop down the drive, I instead turned in the saddle to regard Bloomfield’s stately façade.
A curtain twitched on the third floor, the nursery brigade watching my departure. I thought of George, a fine boy who had so far resisted the arrogance and insecure swaggering of his older brothers—and of his progenitor of record.
I touched a finger to my hat brim and gave Atlas leave to canter off.
I departed from Bloomfield with no proof, no allies, and no Thales—dead or alive—to show for my efforts, and that twitching curtain bothered me exceedingly. Banter was turning his back on wealth, standing, and his homeland, all of which I understood and to some extent commended. True love was supposed to move us to such sacrifices, wasn’t it?
But he was also turning his back on that boy, who might be a cousin of Banter’s at a remove, or he might be Banter’s own son.
I rode through the lovely morning landscape, a hint of autumn in the air and more than a hint of determination in my heart. The greenest foot soldier knew that retreat was a strategy, and it differed in significant regards from defeat.
By the time Atlas was trotting up the drive to Caldicott Hall, and my purloined cheese tarts were history, I had begun planning the next and most delicate phase of my campaign.
Silforth had to be stopped, and in the absence of any other parties willing to take on that challenge, the job fell to me.
“Julian, you naughty boy.” Lady Ophelia enveloped me up in a fierce, lilac-scented hug before I’d taken two steps into Caldicott Hall’s foyer. “Traipsing all over the shire in pursuit of some smelly hound. What was Banter thinking? You have a nephew now, and the child should be your first concern.”
Arthur and I both had a nephew, courtesy of our late brother, Harry. Leander was about five years old, illegitimate, and dearer than any child had a right to be.
“Leander has managed without benefit of uncles for his entire life,” I said, extricating myself from my godmother’s grasp. “Besides, His Grace was on hand in full avuncular regalia. I’m sure our nephew wanted for nothing.”
Leander’s mother had also traveled down to Caldicott Hall from Town, though nobody had resolved quite how Millicent and Leander would be explained to Society.
“The prodigal returns.” Arthur stood framed in the entrance to the corridor that led to the library, the guest parlors, and the music room. His Grace wasn’t much given to smiling, but his relief was evident in his eyes.
“Empty-handed,” I said. “I was unable to find the hound.”
“Hence your testy mood,” her ladyship remarked. “A little vexation is good for the character.” She was a willowy beauty of indeterminate age, though I knew her to be my mother’s contemporary. Lady Ophelia was twice-widowed, and she’d cut quite a dash until recent years. She knew everybody, heard all the gossip, and thought nothing of dressing down the Regent if he failed to mind his manners.
As one of her legion of godchildren, I came in for more than my share of scolds.
“Banter’s situation didn’t merely vex me,” I said, pocketing my spectacles. “His cousin-by-marriage offered me insult, wasted my time, and made me look a fool. Despite passing appearances to the contrary, Anaximander Silforth was no more interested in finding that hound than I am interested in a detailed recounting of Mrs. Dolan’s battles with rheumatism.”
Mrs. Dolan, former housekeeper at the vicarage, was a spry veteran of ninety-some winters. Her famous rheumatism had never stopped her from standing up at the local assemblies.
“Ah, youth,” Lady Ophelia said, patting my shoulder. “Wasted on the young, as the saying goes. I will alert the nursery that you’ll pay a call after the noon meal. Perhaps some decent food will leaven your mood. I vow you grow grumpier by the week.”
She wafted up the steps, and though I hadn’t planned on visiting the nursery, her reminder was appreciated. An uncle was as an uncle did.
“Let’s continue this discussion in the library, shall we?” Arthur said, turning on his heel.
A command phrased as an invitation. How did he do that? I followed, and though I’d mentally mapped out my next steps regarding the fraud and extortion going on at Bloomfield, I had not rehearsed my report to Arthur.
I accepted a glass of lemonade, and Arthur poured a serving for himself.
“If a man exists who is less capable of giving offense than Osgood Banter,” Arthur said, “I have yet to meet him. The opposite seems to apply where Silforth is concerned. Nobody blames you for being unable to find the hound, and yet, you are in a taking. Am I to have an explanation?”
I was still suffering the ill effects of inadequate sleep, and my hoard of cheese tarts hadn’t come close to appeasing my hunger. Despite what Lady Ophelia called my grumpy mood, I perceived that Arthur wasn’t goading me on purpose.
He was, for different reasons, as overset by Banter’s predicament as I was. Going best out of three falls with His Grace—verbally or otherwise—would solve nothing.
“Banter’s situation worsens apace,” I said. “Silforth all but promised me that Bloomfield will soon be legally his, and I’m sure Banter desperately wants to believe that will be an end to the pillaging.”
Arthur sipped his lemonade as consideringly as if it were some venerable vintage of Armagnac. “Somebody has to own Bloomfield. Banter has assured me that while he likes the place, he’s not particularly attached to it. It’s solvent, thanks to him, but his primary income is derived from other sources. He’s toying with the idea of establishing a household in France.”
And Arthur was desperate to believe Banter’s lies. “If your travels with Banter don’t inspire Silforth to further blackmail—aimed in your direction—he’s lazier and stupider than I thought. Mr. Johnson’s lexicon should have Silforth’s face next to the entry for the word ‘schemer.’ If you are willing to add your coin to Banter’s birthright when it comes to appeasing Silforth, imagine what that man can do to Leander, to me, to Millicent—”
Arthur held up a hand. “It’s even more dire than you know, Jules.”
“Silforth is already threatening you? And you didn’t think to tell me?”
“The situation is complicated, and Banter doesn’t realize that I’m aware of some of the more delicate complications.”
I sipped my lemonade and grabbed for my patience. “Plain English, please. I’m not at my best.”
That admission provoked the slightest hint of a smile. “Silforth takes pride in his nursery.”
“Every parent should take pride in their progeny.” Precisely why I could not commend Banter for blowing surrender. He might well be leaving his own son to the vagaries of Silforth’s tender mercies. If Lizzie, in some fit of wifely exasperation, taunted Silforth with insinuations about George’s paternity, the boy’s life would become hellish.
“Banter and I have been close for years,” Arthur said, studying his drink, “but from time to time, we have parted ways. Tried to part ways, rather, to no avail. We’d cross paths at some card party, or run into each other on the bridle paths, and it was always the same. All the common sense, self-discipline, and duty in the world aren’t worth giving up that joy, that spark, that gladdening of the heart.”
Arthur could have had his pick of partners, male or female, both at the same time, enough to fill the largest bed to overflowing. He spoke now not of bedsport, but of a much more profound—and private—joy.
About which I wanted to know as little as possible. “You and Banter tried to remain apart?”
“We did, and Banter’s proclivities are not as limited as my own. This secret isn’t mine to tell, Jules, and desperation alone justifies burdening you with it now: Banter has a son. The third boy, George, is the result of an affair between Banter and Lizzie that she deeply regrets instigating. Lizzie confided this to me without grasping the full nature of my friendship with Banter. Until this business with Silforth, I believed that Banter himself might not know.”
I struggled to rearrange motivations in my mind, though Arthur was presenting me with old news, more or less—old news to me. “You suspect Silforth seeks revenge against Banter, and Banter is leaving in the hope that George won’t be made to suffer?”
“Something like that.”
Exactly like that? I sat at the reading table, and Arthur took the chair across from mine. “How would I feel,” I mused, “if somebody threatened to make Leander’s life a misery? I barely know the boy, and yet…”
Drawing fire, tempting the enemy to focus on one aspect of an attack rather than another, was a venerable military tactic. Make him think you’re in retreat, then open fire when he’s assuring himself of victory.
Except that Banter was retreating in earnest, possibly forever. “Your theory is that Silforth is trading Bloomfield for George’s happiness?”
“And for my happiness. Silforth’s scheme convinces me that Banter knows of and loves his son, but Banter cares for me as well. He is in an impossible situation, and leaving the country is the closest choice he has to a solution.”
Leaving the country had solved dilemmas for everybody from the Duke and Duchess of Richmond (living much more affordably on the Continent) to the cobbler’s wayward apprentice. I struggled to see Banter’s self-banishment in such a constructive light.
“Silforth is interested in much more than revenge over a straying wife,” I said. “If he even knows for a certainty that George isn’t his. Silforth is working his way onto the alderman’s board and putting the local innkeeper—and thus access to everybody’s correspondence—under his figurative thumb. He will doubtless soon find a path to the magistrate’s bench and even the House of Commons. Banter is the victim who makes all the other victims possible.”
“Believe me, he blames himself for opening the door to Silforth’s depredations and hopes that Bloomfield will be enough to soothe Silforth’s injured pride.”
I finished my lemonade and rose to pour myself another glass. “Just the opposite. Bloomfield is proof that Silforth’s schemes can bear fruit. The ammunition that will make all of Silforth’s artillery lethal. With Bloomfield, he acquires wealth, influence, legions of spies, the first pew, and physical proximity to half the neighbors. Ownership of Bloomfield will prove to everyone that intimidation, gossip, manipulation, and threats can get Silforth what he wants. He recently threatened two thousand pounds out of Banter, and when he could have used that to pay down the mortgage on his own acres, he instead hatched up this business of fraud over the deceased hound.”
“Banter has kept me apprised of those developments.”
I refreshed my drink and did the same for Arthur. “Please assure me that you and Banter are not so foolish as to meet privately while Silforth lurks in the bushes?” Though worse yet would be putting sentiments in writing.
“We use a book code.”
A book code was a simple cypher, and the code worked only if both parties knew to refer to the same edition of the same book. The combination 12-47, for example, would refer to the forty-seventh word on page twelve. Tedious to decrypt, and nearly impossible to break when the correspondents had thousands of volumes in their libraries.
“Let me guess,” I said, returning the pitcher to the sideboard. “Tom Jones?” A tale that made a mockery of polite society, stupid laws, unwritten rules, and male hubris. One of Arthur’s favorites.
“Of course.”
If I could guess that accurately, so could others. Lizzie perhaps, Eleanora, even Silforth, assuming he knew a book cypher when he saw one.
“Change books.” I went to the French doors and beheld a vista that would always be dear to my heart. Rioting flower gardens, a maze of privet that had been tended for more than two centuries, a peaceful deer park that covered a hundred acres. “Fordyce’s Sermons, Pamela, something ubiquitous and uncontroversial. Did Banter inform you my memory deserted me?”
“He did, and he assured me he’d bundle you into the traveling coach come morning, regardless of your mental aberrations.”
“He wasn’t even awake when I left.” Perhaps he’d been hiding? “Even when I was not myself last evening, I knew I resented him.”
Arthur stirred behind me, and then he, too, was at the French doors, each of us leaning against our respective sides of the jamb.
“How can you admit you resent Osgood Banter? He’s facing financial ruin, leaving his homeland, and swears he’s doing so without regrets.”
“He has means secreted beyond Silforth’s reach, which I assume you made possible.”
“I might have made a suggestion or two.”
“Wentworth’s?” I referred to a banking establishment owned by a dour Yorkshireman. The bank was gaining a reputation for both discretion and sound management, despite the Yorkshireman’s utter lack of charm.
“Of course,” Arthur replied, “but Banter hasn’t stashed away such a great sum that you should be envious.”
What exactly bothered me about Osgood Banter, who was, all my histrionics aside, a decent fellow sorely tried by unjust circumstances?
“I envy him that gladdening of the heart,” I said, gaze resolutely on the gardeners trimming the maze to an even shoulder height. “I envy him the options he does have.” To choose love over money, retreat over public dishonor.
I’d tried retreating from the stares and whispers. Traitor, madman, deserter, disgrace. They’d followed me into solitude and become an endless harangue until I’d half believed them myself. Young William Silforth, abetted by his father, would doubtless unleash the truth on George at some point, and where would Banter be then?
Arthur, too, appeared fascinated with the play of the gardeners’ shears on the maze’s greenery. “Jules, are you well?”
“I’m worn out. My summer has been busier than I’d prefer, and some rest is in order.”
My brother had the grace to humor that prevarication. “Rest, then,” he said, “and put the business with Bloomfield behind you. Silforth will eventually cross the aldermen on some petty regulation, and they’ll recover their backbones, or his horse will misjudge a fence. Not every wrong is yours to right.”
A platitude for a platitude.
Arthur pushed away from the doorjamb, and for some reason, I offered him a truth that had been plaguing me since leaving London.
“Hyperia doesn’t want children.”
His reply came after an infinitesimal hesitation. “Then don’t have children.”
“I want children.” They gladdened the heart too.
Arthur smacked my arm. “Drat Harry for dying.”
“Right, drat Harry for dying.” We’d probably be trading that refrain for the rest of our lives. “I’m off to grab a nap before noon, but I will join you and the ladies at table.”
“Glad to have you home, Jules.” Arthur sauntered on his way, a man in anticipation of extended travel with his dearest companion. I went in search of sleep, though I was tempted to find Hyperia and discuss my sojourn at Bloomfield with her.
Atticus had reminded me that neglecting my rest had consequences, so I found my bed and surrendered to the arms of Morpheus. I expected to be up and about for much of the night, and for that excursion, I would need my strength, my wits, and a good deal of luck.