Society addresses me as Lord Julian Caldicott, though as that aristocratic curiosity, a legitimate bastard, I bear no blood relation to Claudius, the late Duke of Waltham. Toward the end of His Grace’s life, when he and I were both using canes as more than fashionable accessories, we got on tolerably well.
Not so in earlier years, though let it be said both parties as well as my mother had a hand in instigating skirmishes.
I survived those battles and even weathered Waterloo in better shape than many. The worst blows to my body and spirit were dealt long before Wellington’s great victory, when I’d been held as a prisoner of war by the French.
The guns have gone silent, the ghosts have not. The best medicine for me of late is solitude and quiet. I was thus starting my day with an ancient Sumerian text involving agrarian metaphors and procreation when Lady Ophelia Oliphant sailed into my study like a seventy-four gunner bearing down on the French line.
“Julian, do instruct your butler that his harrumphing and stodging are pointless. I call only when you are on the premises, and his posturing will not serve.”
“I am at home because you pounce at an indecently early hour, Godmama. Good morning to you.” I drew a blank page over my translation—Godmama could read upside down and, I am convinced, with her eyes closed—and came around the desk to kiss her ladyship’s proffered cheek. She smelled of bourbon roses and mischief, and in my youth, she’d been one of my favorite people.
Her ladyship had known considerable sorrow, burying two husbands, a son, and a daughter, the latter two in their early childhoods. She banished life’s woes with a determination I envied, except when she aimed her schemes at me. Since I’d returned from the battlefields, she’d left me mostly in peace, though the look in her gimlet blue eyes said my reprieve was at an end.
“How can it be a good morning,” she began, “when you look like a death’s head on a mop stick and your hair needs a trim? Young men today might as well be die-away schoolgirls for all they primp, lisp, and sigh. Back in my day, men could wear the most elegant fashions and still comport themselves like men. You lot, with your scientific pugilism and Hungary water, make me bilious.”
“The only pugilism I engage in of late is verbal, dear lady, and never a drop of Hungary water has touched my manly person. Shall I ring for a tray, or will you swan out the door before my poor, stodging Harris can heed my summons?”
“You wish.” She settled onto the sofa, her presence a contrast to the masculine appointments and closed curtains of my study. Godmama had been a beauty, to hear her tell it, and my mother—who would argue with the Almighty over the ideal order of the Commandments—did not contradict her. The former beauty still indulged in every fashionable whim her heart desired or her modistes suggested.
She donned pale silk when sprigged muslin would have done nicely, and she wore jewels during daylight hours. Her slippers, gloves, and reticules were exquisitely embroidered and usually all of a piece—today’s theme was roses and gold. No grand diva ever assembled her stage appearance as carefully as Godmama put herself together simply to disturb my peace on a Tuesday morning.
My mother muttered about Lady Ophelia’s flamboyant style, but I was nobody to begrudge Godmama her crotchets. One coped with grief as best one could, as I, half of England, and much of the Continent had occasion to know.
“Cease pacing about, dear boy.” Her ladyship patted the place beside her. “I come to you in my hour of need, and you must not disappoint me.”
I settled a good two feet away from her ladyship. I wasn’t keen on anybody making free with my person, and Godmama was extravagantly affectionate. I had a valet. Sterling tended to my clothing, and I tended to… me. I was working up to allowing him to trim my hair, but until that day, an old-fashioned queue served well enough.
Though I have yet to obtain the thirtieth year of my age, my hair is snow white, a gift from my French captors. I owe the French army for my weak eyes, as well. My vision is adequate, but strong sunlight, London’s relentless coal smoke, or simple fatigue can cause my eyes to sting and water. Tinted spectacles help, though they add to the eccentricity of my appearance.
To my dismay, my looks render me far too appealing to frisky dowagers. Lady Ophelia likely finds my situation hilarious.
“I have disappointed you any number of times, my lady. I’m sure you’ll weather another blow if need be, stalwart that you are.”
Before I’d gone for a soldier, she would have countered with a witty retort about her fortitude being the result of the thankless job of godparenting me, but now she frowned, glanced at the clock, and held her silence.
“What brings you to my door, my lady?”
For all her imperiousness, Godmama could be bashful. On behalf of others, she blew at gale force on the least provocation. When it came to her own needs, she was the veriest zephyr, though I suspected the contrast was calculated.
“The Season is ending.”
I refrained from appending a heartfelt thank God to her observation. “Will you join Mama for a respite by the sea?”
“Her Grace might find a respite by the sea. I find a lot of aging gossips. I’m off to Betty Longacre’s house party. Her oldest girl failed to snag a husband, so Betty is compelled to take extraordinary measures. The chit goes on well enough, but she’s overshadowed by all those diamonds and heiresses and originals.”
Betty Longacre—Viscountess Longacre, in point of fact—was about ten years my senior. That she had a daughter old enough to be presented came as an unpleasant shock.
“What has any of this to do with me?” I asked. “I am firmly indifferent to the concept of matrimony, and even my mother has accepted that I will not be moved from that opinion.”
“You are an idiot. Your mother has other children to manage, and thus it falls to me to chide you for the error of your ways.”
I rose, a spike of disproportionate annoyance threatening to rob me of my manners. “Chide away, but your efforts will be in vain. We both know that I am not fit for matrimony, much less fatherhood, and there’s an end to it.”
I expected Lady Ophelia to fly at me, wielding eternal verities, settled law, and scriptural quotation at my preference for bachelorhood. Godmama remained brooding on my favorite napping sofa, confirming that even she conceded my unfitness for family life.
Her relative meekness came as a disappointment and a relief.
“I ask nothing so tedious as matrimony of you,” she said.
“Perhaps you ask me to make up the numbers at this house party, to lend whatever cachet a ducal heir has to the gathering. Thank you, no.”
I managed to make the refusal diffident rather than rude, and now Lady Ophelia did rise, though she paced before the hearth in a manner calculated to make my heart sink. This, too, was evidence of the damage done to me during the war, and of Lady Ophelia’s shrewdness. She’d noted my reluctance to sit near her, and I wished she hadn’t.
I was improving in many regards, though the pace of my recuperation was glacial.
“One does not wish to be insulting,” she said, “but I assisted Betty with the house-party guest list. The numbers match quite well, thank you, and if we allowed a ducal spare to lurk among the bachelors, the other fellows would all hang back, assuming you had the post position in hand. All I ask is that you escort me down to Makepeace. Maria Cleary will be among the guests, and we were bosom bows once upon a naughty time. I have not seen Maria for eons.”
As best I recalled, the Longacre family seat was a reasonable day’s travel from Town in the direction of the Kentish coast.
“Since when do you need an escort, Godmama? Any highwayman who accosts your coach would get the worst of the encounter. You’d scold him into submission and demand his horse for your troubles.” Or she’d brandish her peashooter at his baubles.
“You don’t get out much,” Lady Ophelia said, “so I forgive you for ignoring the fact that former soldiers are swarming the countryside. They can’t find honest work, many of them have come home to families incapable of supporting them in the shires, and the dratted Corn Laws have driven the cost of bread to the heavens. We all thought we wanted peace, but we didn’t plan for the reality. Thanks to the great and greedy men charged with ordering the nation’s fate, English highways are unsafe these days.”
During the Season, I did not get out socially at all if I could manage it, but I read the papers. I corresponded with some of my fellow former officers and a few who still held their commissions. I paid courtesy calls on the widows of my late comrades and the families of fallen subordinates—those who would admit me.
I had a platoon of sisters, cousins, and in-laws who were very active in Society and who made their duty visits to me.
Godmama had a point. The peace following Waterloo was creating violent upheaval in Merry Olde England, for the reasons she’d alluded to. Napoleon had claimed to rule by conquest, and the British economy had thrived on war as well. Without the French threatening our southern coast, the great military appetite for everything—from canvas to cooking pots, wool to weapons, chickens to chaplains—had dried up in the course of a year.
Britain had emerged victorious from two decades of war appended to a century of war, only to find herself fantastically in debt and ruled by a buffoon. The populace that had made endless sacrifices in the name of patriotism was now deeply discontent for many of the same reasons that had fueled revolution in France.
The rich had grown very rich, while the poor had grown very numerous. The government’s response was to counter potential upheaval with real oppression, which, of course, contributed to greater unrest.
The Corsican was doubtless enjoying a good laugh over the whole business, while I… I did not bother my pretty head with national affairs, though I did bear an inconvenient fondness for my godmother.
“I shall see you safely to Makepeace,” I said, “then take my leave of you. You can travel back to Town in company with some of the other guests who will doubtless return this direction.”
She pushed aside a curtain to let in a shaft of morning sun. Had she taken a knife to my eyes, the result would have been less painful.
“Your staff is remiss, Julian. These windows require a thorough scrubbing. If your windows are this filthy as summer approaches, I shudder to contemplate their condition in winter.”
I rooted about in my desk drawer for my blue-tinted spectacles while all manner of profanity begged for expression.
“I shall pass your insult along to my housekeeper. She will delight to know that you, she, Harris, Sterling, and my neighbors on all sides are in agreement.”
“The light hurts your eyes,” Lady Ophelia said. “That’s why you lurk like a prisoner in an oubliette, isn’t it? Your mother hasn’t said anything about you having vision problems.”
Because Mama did not know my eyesight was in any way impaired. Only my older brother knew, and as the ducal heir, Arthur had been consuming discretion before he’d first thrust a spoon into runny porridge. Arthur was the family strategist, also our patriarch, though he was barely six years my senior.
“The physicians assure me the impairment to my eyes is temporary. I see well enough. Bright light is painful, though, hence the tinted spectacles.”
She bustled toward me, and I steeled myself to endure a hug, but her ladyship merely patted my cheek with a gloved hand.
“Your secrets have always been safe with me, Julian. That hasn’t changed, and it never will. We leave on Thursday, and I will hope for cloudy weather. We can keep the shades down, though you shall not smoke in my traveling coach.”
“I don’t smoke anywhere.”
She collected her reticule, scowled at my window, and scowled at me. “You used to smoke. All young men do.”
“I used to do a lot of things. I’ll be on your doorstep by eight of the clock.”
Thus did I embark on a journey that would involve far more than a jaunt to the Kentish countryside and test much besides my ability to endure bright sunshine.
In Lady Ophelia’s company, reasonable people were frequently tempted to expostulate, “But that’s not so!” Or, “There is no such word!” Or, most frequently of all, “My lady, have you taken leave of your senses?”
My godmother enjoyed the purity of conviction known to seven-year-old girls expounding on the topic of unicorns. No force of logic, theology, or science could prevail against such confidence, nor—in many cases—should it. Ophelia managed to be happy from what I could see, or to give that appearance anyway.
In defense of my wits, I chose to accompany her coach on horseback. My steed was an agreeable old campaigner by the name of Atlas. He was a seventeen-hand bay who dealt as calmly with the vagaries of Town as he did the temptations of the countryside. I’d bought Atlas off a lieutenant colonel lordling who’d been drummed from the regiment for conduct unbecoming with the general’s wife.
The poor sod, like most officers, had lived beyond his means and lacked funds for buying passage home. He’d told me that Atlas was steady, keen, and nimble in battle. A prince among horses. He’d clearly miss the horse, but would the general’s wife miss her randy lieutenant colonel?
Masculine dignity avoided the obvious answer.
I amused myself with these ponderings as we navigated the hideous tangles of the London toll booths and eventually made our way to the Kentish countryside. The morning was overcast, which suited me quite well, though being the end of the social Season, the roads were thronged.
“We’ll not change in Dorville,” I called to the coachman. “The Laughing Dog in Frederick will do.”
John Coachman nodded and called for the team to trot on. I cantered forth rather than eat the coach’s dust. Not having ventured this far from Town in many a month, I had anticipated some hesitance of the spirit about the journey. To my surprise, I wasn’t exactly relieved to get out of London, but neither was I unnerved.
We pulled into the yard of The Laughing Dog a quarter hour later, and the footman had no sooner let down the steps than Ophelia sprang forth in full cry.
“For God’s sake, Julian, what are you thinking? The Dorville Arms is fashionable, while this establishment…” She glanced pointedly at a pile of horse droppings. “Quaint is not my style, nor will I allow it to become yours.”
“Quiet is not your style,” I countered, offering my arm while a groom took Atlas to the water trough. “And when the Dorville Arms passed off four high-stepping chestnuts on you, two of which would come up lame before the first crossing, you’d become very loud indeed. Half of Mayfair wants to see and be seen at The Dorville Arms because Wellington is said to favor it as a trysting place. The teams are more reliable here, and the food is good.”
The Dog was also quiet, which my nerves much preferred.
Godmama peered at me owlishly. I could hear her deciding not to ask the rude question: How does a recluse know which coaching inn is a la mode, why, and where to change teams in the alternative?
Once a reconnaissance officer, always a reconnaissance officer—that’s how. “Are you hungry, my lady?”
“Always. Sometimes for food, sometimes for excellent champagne, sometimes for the company of an agreeable gentleman. Hunger is a blessing in this life. Be glad of your hungers, Julian.”
House parties put Ophelia on her mettle, while they now terrified me. Not all hungers were cause for rejoicing. Rather than engage in a game of philosophical battledore with her, I shepherded her toward the steps.
“Let’s be glad of the inn’s kitchen, shall we?”
When I handed Ophelia back into the coach an hour later, the sun was attempting to break through the clouds. I directed our coachman to make all possible haste to our destination, though my imperative was for naught. By the time we cantered up the lime alley that formed Makepeace’s formal driveway, my head was throbbing and my eyes burned.
“What imp of ambition prompted me to attempt this journey?” I asked my horse as we waited our turn behind another coach debouching its occupants.
Atlas sniffed at the toe of my dusty boot. I patted his sweaty neck. “You are too polite to reply.” The imp had not been an ambition, but rather, hope. Maybe now, I hoped, after weeks spent pacing behind heavy curtains, after declining invitation after invitation, worrying my family, and going out on only the dreariest of days, my eyes would be better enough to meet the challenge of a day of travel.
“More fool I.”
“May I assist with your horse, my lord?” A young groom had taken the initiative to move up the queue while the coach ahead of us appeared stuck fast at the foot of Makepeace’s front steps.
“Please. I am Lord Julian Caldicott,” I said, swinging down carefully. My balance had improved enough that I would not fall on my arse before half of polite society and their horses, though bodily caution had become second nature.
“This good fellow is Atlas,” I went on. “He’s come all the way from Town and will benefit from close association with a bucket of oats and a grassy paddock in which to roll. He and I will start back for Town before nightfall.”
We’d get as far as the first decent inn—The Fool’s Paradise, several miles to the west—and bed down there, possibly for a day or two if the place was clean, quiet, and possessed of heavy curtains.
“Very good, my lord. Welcome to Makepeace.”
A former cavalry officer always made an adjustment upon quitting the saddle. Atop his charger, he was a lesser god, capable of wreaking death with his saber or galloping across battlefields on the wings of his equine eagle.
On the ground, aching from his toes to his temples, he was a mere mortal, his locomotion a humble and achy business relying on two sore feet. I had forgotten about this transition. I had forgotten much. I excelled at forgetting.
I collected my saddlebags lest they become lost amid a confusion of baggage and directed my feet to the door of Ophelia’s coach, prepared to hand her down as a proper escort should. She’d traveled alone, her lady’s maid keeping company with an extra groom in the baggage coach. What had Ophelia got up to while I’d been cursing the sunshine?
She descended with a gracious smile, suggesting she’d enjoyed a nap, light refreshment, a humorous French novel, and the latest newspapers.
“Well, my boy, you got us here. My thanks for that. Now see me up to the terrace where, if I’m not mistaken, our host awaits.”
What followed was a sort of Via Crucis, though instead of contemplating the sorrows of Jesus station by station, as Ophelia and I passed from host, to hostess, to butler, to housekeeper, I meditated intensely on a cold glass of lemonade, a washstand, and a change of linen. My objective was to find someplace to bide until the light waned—some dark place that lent itself to a nap—and then slip away without further socializing.
Ophelia was among the first guests to arrive, and thus I managed with a few nods, a bow, and a passing greeting or two. The talk would soon start. Was that Lord Julian? Here? Is he staying? What was Ophelia thinking?
I had become inured to whispers months ago. Let them talk, while I rested in the darkest available corner. I saw Godmama to the door of her guest room and then accosted a footman and explained my situation.
“You’ll want the conservatory, my lord. Plenty gloomy, lots of padded benches and such. The fellows like to congregate there to smoke in the evening. His lordship says the smoke keeps the aphids off the roses. I’ll have a tray sent in, and the gents’ retiring room is just around the corner from the conservatory. Towels, soap, wash water, all on hand.”
“My thanks.” I passed him a coin, which earned me a smile and a wink.
“Sweet dreams, my lord.”
“What’s your name?” The fellow brought pleasant associations to mind, as if I’d known him or somebody very like him in a happier time. His looks were unremarkable and, for that very reason, struck me as also having a familiar quality. Blond hair and blue eyes were ubiquitous among the footmen’s ranks, though his friendly air set him apart.
“I’m Canning, my lord. They call me Canny Canning.” He jaunted off, and I envied him both his energy and his apparent aptitude for his post. He exuded that combination of dignity and graciousness unique to a competent domestic or junior officer.
Sterling, by contrast, lacked polish, but he could starch a cravat and had a good ear for servant gossip. More significantly, he was loath to share my personal business with my family’s retainers or with my siblings and my mother. For loyalty and discretion, I was happy to pay handsomely.
I found the men’s retiring room, washed the dust of the road from my person as best I could, changed my shirt and neckcloth, and felt marginally less grubby. My head still pounded, but with a dull thunder of agony rather than the full symphonic fortissimo.
Darkness was the best medicine, and thus I sank onto a cushioned sofa in the conservatory with the same rejoicing as a man greeted his long-lost beloved. A gentle breeze bore the fragrance of rich earth and ferns, and a pillow placed just so at my nape brought further relief of my suffering.
Two hours of quiet rest and darkness, and I’d be restored enough to hole up at The Fool’s Paradise. After a day or two of respite at that commodious establishment, I’d begin my London-bound travels as dawn approached, the better to ensure the sun would be at my back.
I drifted off to sleep, pleased with myself for having ventured from London with nothing worse than a headache to show as punishment for my boldness.
I was in the nether regions of consciousness, dreamily flirting with tavern nymphs while Atlas slurped summer ale from my upturned top hat, when a female voice cut through my musings.
“What the hell are you doing here, and why didn’t you at least do me the courtesy of warning me that I’d have to put up with you?”