“You can’t prove any of this,” Cleary said, though he was doubtless voicing a hope rather than a conviction.
“Actually, I can.” Good former reconnaissance officer that I was. “You had a significant argument with the footman Canning, a notably able and hardworking fellow. We were told you attempted to requisition Canning’s services, but that was not the only topic of your disagreement with him.”
Canny gave me another slight nod.
“You and Canning,” I went on, “bear a resemblance. More to the point, Canning might be the slender twin of your other brother, Daniel Cleary, with whom I briefly served. You were concerned—terrified, in fact—that I would see the resemblance and realize that your indebted brother was slowly working off his obligations right here in Kent, rather than kicking his heels on the Continent.”
My conviction in this regard was based on evidence that in hindsight—always in hindsight—had been sitting in plain view.
Canny kept a low profile around the guests, avoiding the ballroom, allowing the other footmen to earn the vails and recognition.
He avoided even casual romantic entanglements.
He kept his letter of commendation, which would disclose his full name, from prying eyes.
He had trotted out a line of correct French with no effort at all.
He knew precisely how Mendel prevailed at cards, and that had to be something of a family secret.
He had the subaltern’s ability to anticipate a superior’s needs and perform his office with graciousness that never shaded into fawning. That skill might have been honed when he’d donned livery, but he’d acquired the rudiments on campaign with the Rifles.
Then there was Maria’s sketch of her nephews—two peas in a pod plus the rotten apple. Daniel was more stolid than Canning, but their features were nearly identical.
The final scrap of evidence had been the sniffy inhalations. Mendel and Canning had the same sort of disapproving huff, just as Harry and I had had the same laugh. That was the insight that had befallen me as I’d sat on my bed, serenaded by the music of Atticus’s cursing.
Lord Longacre leveled a sniffy look of his own at Cleary. “Your brother’s creditors would have taken him to the sponging house if they’d known he bided in England, and you would have been forced by decency to pay his debts.”
“A good theory,” I said, “but Canning’s debts are debts of honor. Mendel maintains that Canning fell in with a bad crowd. I suspect, on the contrary, that Canning was all but thrown to the very same hands from whom Mendel had won a pretty penny. Mendel knew that Canning would soon be fleeced of every groat, a return of the courtesies Mendel himself had offered to those men. Mendel planned to win twice. The first time at cards and the second time when his brother was hounded from England’s shores with creditors on his heels. Canning could not have intervened on Maria’s behalf from Rome, if he’d even known what was afoot.”
Canning remained by the sideboard, but he was staring at his brother rather than at nothing in particular.
“You gave me passage to Rome,” Canning said. “Claimed it was all you could spare, and took Trafalgar as surety. Then you went and gambled him away. I love that horse. He saw me through battles, kept me warm, carried my gear when I was too weary to stand upright. And you…”
Canning was friendless, in debt, and suffering from the same sense of disorientation every soldier brought home from the war. The thought that his charger had been well provided for had probably been a glimmer of comfort. If anybody had treated Atlas so cavalierly in my absence…
“Mendel was warning you,” I said. “You rowed about Aunt Maria’s situation, and Mendel was telling you that any attempt on your part to rectify her circumstances, and you’d be mourning more than the loss of your horse.”
“I didn’t do anything with the rubbishing horse,” Cleary said.
“You gambled him away,” I replied, “which you had no right to do if Canning was making timely payments against your loan. Trafalgar’s rightful owner intervened, for which we do not blame him. I am not here to discuss stupid wagers over battledore. My objective is to explain why you systematically attempted to shame me into leaving the gathering.”
We had reached the gravamen of my case, so to speak, the point at which truth would prevail or blow up in my face.
Lord Longacre looked at the clock, while Lady Ophelia glared daggers at Mendel. If Canning didn’t black both his eyes, Lady Ophelia well might.
“Do you deny these charges, Cleary?” Longacre asked.
Cleary surveyed the gathering, likely probing for allies, or even for those skeptical of my claims.
Bollocks to that. “Before you answer, allow me to finish for benefit of those assembled. Had I recognized Canning as your brother, then Canning might well have applied to me for assistance with Maria’s situation. Canning could have asked me to cover his debts or to investigate how he came to be so quickly in over his head at the clubs to which his own brother had given him entre. Canning might have confided his suspicions about that brother to a fellow soldier who is hesitant to judge others for their foibles. I was a threat on several fronts and should have been easily dealt with.
“Blame me for abducting Miss Longacre,” I went on, “blame me for stealing a watch that is doubtless yet among your effects, blame me for a missing horse you never should have wagered away, blame me for the rain. Do that emphatically enough and long enough, and the most disinterested observer will eventually harbor a few doubts. Do that to a man already dwelling under a cloud and remind everybody of that cloud as often as you can, and you will nigh ruin him.”
“Except,” Hyperia mused quietly, “Mr. Cleary appears to have ruined himself. How ironic.”
“Pathetic,” Ophelia muttered. “In my day… In any day, such behavior cannot stand.”
Miss Ellison rubbed her eye, and Miss Longacre sent her parents a look that presaged many a donnybrook if the wrong course was taken.
Our host apparently heeded that warning. “Lady Longacre and I will understand, Cleary, if the press of business means your coach awaits you out front in the next half hour.”
Canning advanced on his brother. “Spendy-Mendy doesn’t have a coach. He uses Aunt Maria’s. If Lord Julian is right, then Mendel has been running his households with her money, and because Mendel won’t listen when somebody explains that fields must be marled every few years, his land is played out, and he can’t get decent rent for it. He’ll be running his estate with her money too. Auntie has funds aplenty, and Mendel has plans for all of it. He couldn’t spare me two groats and wouldn’t let me even look in on Aunt Maria when she and I were sleeping under the same roof.”
“Look in on her now,” I said. “I’m sure Lady Ophelia will be happy to go with you, and do have an honest conversation with Mrs. Waldrup about all those patent remedies.”
Ophelia aimed a magnificent glower at Mendel. “Send this strutting heap of rubbish to the coast in my coach. John Coachman will tolerate no mischief, and for the good of the law-abiding public, his siblings, and the aunt he’s been fleecing for years, I want Cleary out of England in the next twenty-four hours.”
Cleary tried sniffing. He tried hauteur and then martyred silence. Nobody was having it. He’d been routed, foot, horse, and cannon, and by mere words.
“Begone,” I said. “Send word to Daniel of your whereabouts and send him a power of attorney, but take yourself hence, and don’t come back until your brothers—and your aunt—see fit to forgive you.”
He stalked from the room, and something passed from Mozart’s hand to Amethyst’s. “I cannot abide a cad,” Mozart said. “Might we make a start on that soup?”
“I wanted to search Cleary’s luggage before he left,” Maybelle said. “His lap desk might have held a ransom note printed in a crabbed hand and threatening my doom if the money wasn’t handed over.”
I walked beside her on the crushed-shell paths of the garden. Two hours after Mendel Cleary had been banished to the Continent, the sky was a quilt of cloudy gray batting seamed with gold. My eyes weren’t overtaxed, and Maybelle clearly had something private to convey to me.
She was sensible—most of the time—and shrewd, but she was also young and without much experience of life’s darker corners.
“You underestimate the danger Cleary posed,” I said. “He was relentlessly cruel to Maria, all the while appearing to be a doting nephew. He stole from her and even, in a sense, from his own younger brother. He more or less kept Maria drugged, and if his finances couldn’t be brought right, Maria’s life could well have been forfeit. If you had been able to identify your kidnapper—by voice, mannerism, or watch chain—he might have done away with you too.”
A pillow held over the face of a woman far gone with the poppy would have been the work of a moment for a man in his prime. I hoped for the sake of Cleary’s family that he wasn’t that depraved, but the memory of him crooning lies to his enfeebled aunt left me in doubt.
His campaign to topple Maria’s reason and steal her wealth had taken months to put in place and pursue. Patience in a villain doubled the impact of his evil, as I well knew.
“I’m back to where I was,” Maybelle said, “regardless of Cleary’s schemes. I did not take in my first Season. I do not want to take. I want to live to be one-and-twenty and then make my own choices, insofar as any woman can.”
I gestured to the bench where Hyperia and I had sat just a few days earlier. “You have gained ground. Your parents chose Cleary as a suitable prospect to court you and mind the family finances. What will your parents say when you remind them of that? Cleary’s bobbing neck-deep in the River Tick, cruel to his brother, criminally avaricious toward his aunt—at best—and your mother would have been delighted to see you marry him. If her confidence isn’t shaken by that blunder, then you must shake it for her.”
Maybelle sank onto the bench. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“When the moment is right,” I went on, taking the place a foot from her side, “you can indicate that Brimstock tried to inebriate you. He was another of her ladyship’s brilliant choices.” As were Amethyst, Mozart, and Banter. I should have known better than to expect much from Ormstead.
“Brimstock only provided the temptation. The foolishness was all mine.”
Ye gods… My sisters had never been this naïve. “The whole time you were playing cards with him, arguing with him, and perhaps flirting with him, he was refilling your glass. If you weren’t cup-shot by the end of the evening, you were close to it. Brimstock isn’t evil, but he’s shallow and self-centered.”
“He has growing up to do, I agree. Ormstead’s not bad.”
“Ormstead disappointed me, but I think you’ll find his interest lies elsewhere.”
The nature of this conversation, somewhere between confidences and gossip, put me in mind of the trust I had enjoyed with my siblings. My sisters, in their way, were skilled at gathering intelligence, and Lady Ophelia was too. Harry had compared notes with me on any number of topics, though Arthur remained above it all—of course.
“Ormstead wants to court Miss West,” Maybelle said. “I cannot fault his taste. What of Banter?”
Quiet, dapper Banter had been the only guest to actually apologize to me, and he’d made a hash of it.
Have known your oldest brother forever, and you deserved a fair hearing at least. Wasn’t about to second that strutting popinjay. Told him so and he laughed. Should have known then and there. Sincere apologies.
He’d offered his hand, and I’d accepted that courtesy, because he’d at least made an honorable effort.
“Banter has his own reasons for wanting to avoid matrimony,” I said. “State your case to him honestly, where you cannot be overheard. You might well spend the next two years pretending you are growing fond of one another—or growing fond of one another in truth—and then when you come into your funds, you can decide your own future.”
Lady Ophelia would have approved of that bit of strategy. I thought it rather clever myself.
Miss Ellison strolled by, one arm linked with Mozart, the other with Amethyst, though he wore a garnet pin today. She waggled her fingers at me, and I waved back. She was another soldier returned from the wars and was apparently finding her footing at this house party, despite all predictions to the contrary.
“You won’t tattle?” Maybelle asked quietly when the trio had passed. “About… the song?”
“Never. A gentleman doesn’t. If you want me to have a word with Brimstock, I’ll do so. He’s an idiot, and leaving that much temptation under your very pillow was a mean, stupid thing to do.”
“He was ungentlemanly, but then, I was unladylike for reasons we need not belabor again.” She fell silent as if some great pronouncement were welling up from the depths of her soul. “You are a gentleman. These people, my own parents, tried to make you think you were not, but they were wrong, and you are a gentleman.”
“Thank you.” I was also not a traitor. I could no more prove my innocence than anybody else could prove my guilt. No matter. For now, self-exoneration was comfort enough.
Maybelle looked like she might do something bold and sweet, like kiss my cheek, which would not do.
I rose and pretended to admire the geometric walkways and rioting roses. “Shall you bide here in the garden, or would you like an escort back to the house?”
“I do believe I will go visit my mare,” she said, getting to her feet. “Mama says the Duchess of Moreland has invited the whole party over for luncheon tomorrow. Colonel St. Just is in residence for the nonce, and he quite likes my Tatiana.”
St. Just liked his peace and quiet more, but that was his battle to fight. “Please give the colonel my regards. I believe that’s Banter coming down the steps of the terrace.”
Maybelle smoothed her skirts, looked over her shoulder at Miss Ellison and her brace of bachelors, and made straight for Banter, who greeted her with an exceedingly pleasant smile.
“You are determined to leave?” Hyperia asked.
She’d intercepted me on the terrace, just a dozen steps shy of the house.
“I am. Lady Longacre made it plain that I am abundantly welcome to bide here for the rest of the two weeks, but I’ve had enough excitement.” Her ladyship had all but begged me to stay, now that I’d made her gathering the most-talked-about house party of the year. In her eyes, I was restored to full honors as a bachelor of independent means and ducal connections.
Despite my white hair, my dubious past, and my lingering infirmities. Society was nothing if not fickle.
“I’m glad you came,” Hyperia said, slipping her arm through mine and directing me—for that’s what she was doing—to a grouping of chairs and benches arranged in the shade of an overhanging balcony. “Very glad. Cleary should be in Calais by this time tomorrow, and I wish the French the joy of his company.”
He’d have to kick his heels in the port city until official traveling papers could catch up with him, meaning his creditors had a chance to catch up with him first.
Such a pity. “If I know Daniel Cleary, he won’t send along any passports until Cleary has surrendered a power of attorney. Daniel has a keen appreciation for proper documentation and will doubtless work his way up through the ranks at Horse Guards.”
Hyperia settled on a stone bench in the shade and patted the place beside her. “What of Canny? He won’t have made much progress against his debts on a footman’s wages.”
Canny and I had had a quiet talk over a couple brandies. A terrible breach of fashionable protocol, but a tolerable lapse for two former soldiers compared to attempted kidnapping, larceny, and extortion.
“When his aunt is feeling better, Canny will approach her for a loan, provided his brother Daniel does not object. Canny would not accept a loan from me, but neither did he forbid me from making inquiries among the gentlemen who hold his markers.” I would buy up those markers and ensure Canny had a reasonable chance to meet the repayment terms, even without a loan from dear Maria. “He did accept a rather generous vail from me, every penny of which he earned.”
“By not judging you.”
“He went beyond that, Hyperia.” I had some time to ponder the details, and Canny’s subtle hand had become apparent. “He made sure that I had basic considerations such as food and clean linen. He saw to it that I had at least one dependable support in the boy, Atticus, who is frightfully clever. He took a hand in sorting out squabbles belowstairs, and he was every bit as chivalrous toward Miss Maybelle as I was. He’s a good fellow, and life hasn’t been easy for him.”
When Canny had recovered from the week’s events, I would offer him a position as my London house steward. The butler’s nose might be out of joint, but the cook and housekeeper would thank me.
“You are ready to mount your charger and ride off into the sunset?” She posed the question briskly, so I answered in the same tone.
“I’m ready to be quit of this place. I was never supposed to tarry here. I am glad to have spent time with you, though.” I kept to myself any questions about Ormstead, who had been fair-minded enough until being fair-minded had cost him more than words.
“Turn your head, Jules.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Turn your…” She pushed my chin gently to the side, the better to study my profile. “There’s some gold here,” she said, drawing a finger along the fine hairs at my temple. “Faint, but I don’t think I’m imagining it.”
“Gold?”
“Baby blond. Paler than wheat. A sun-on-the-water hint of color.”
“You’re sure?”
She tugged me by the wrist into the stronger light on the terrace and brushed a thumb over my temple. “If it grows in that color, you’ll be as blond as a Viking.”
My middle had gone oddly fluttery. I would make a very good Viking. I had the height for it and the breadth of shoulder.
“What about the other side?” I waited an eternity while Hyperia strolled around me and brushed her fingers through my hair.
“The same,” she said. “The new growth has a smidgeon of color. Must be the sunshine doing you some good.”
Somewhere in the past few days, I had ceased to care about my hair. The issue had never been vanity, but rather, recovery. If my hair was gaining some color, there was hope for the rest of me—even the parts that hadn’t stirred since I’d stumbled down the French side of the Pyrenees.
“You’re sure?”
“My eyesight is good, Jules.” She appropriated the end of my queue and held it up so that the ends of the mature strands were side by side with the new growth at my temple. “The difference is clear when I compare new and old growth. Shall we alert The Times?”
She was smiling at me and forgetting to hide the luminous abundance of her beauty. She had done the scientific thing—a direct comparison—while I had only peered at myself by candlelight, hoping to see a return of my formerly chestnut locks.
“Hyperia, might you do me a favor?” I posed the question before common sense could snatch away my courage.
“Of course.”
“Kiss me.”
She took me by the sleeve and steered me back beneath the overhanging balcony. “You’re sure?”
“Just a kiss.” We’d kissed any number of times, a buss in greeting or parting, a mistletoe nothing, a friendly smacker.
She stood so her back was to the wall, and I could step away if need be. Then she went up on her toes and kissed my cheek. More than a peck, less than overture.
“Well?”
I assayed my reactions and found no distaste, no reflexive shrinking away. I found no overt desire either, but perhaps that sort of yearning, like a glimmer of gold in my hair, would steal back over me bit by bit. Hyperia’s kiss had been a small, sweet, sad loveliness, and I had borne it if not eagerly, then at least I had borne it calmly, a victory of sorts for me.
May it be the first of many.
“Well, thank you,” I said. “I could not have asked anybody else.”
She patted my chest. “You won’t be asking me again either. I might take it amiss.” Her tone was light, her words were a warning. Friendship did not give me the right to mislead her.
I owed her some sort of explanation, and now—finally—I had the courage to proffer one. “Not every ailment I brought home with me from France has obvious symptoms, Hyperia, and no, I don’t have the pox. It’s a different sort of malaise, affecting my… my humors.”
My mortification was nearly eclipsed by amusement at my own expense. I had succeeded in surprising the ever-assured Miss West.
“Gracious.” She blinked up at me. “Gracious angels defend us, Jules. Don’t tell Arthur. He’ll banish you to Switzerland for a repairing lease where they’ll bathe you in ass’s milk and force you to stride up and down the mountains all day. Your humors. Well. I thought I was the problem. You might have said.”
She was both pleased and dismayed. The dismayed part was touching, also embarrassing. “I’m saying now, and if we don’t soon change the subject, I will never be able to face you again.”
She touched my hand. “See that you do—face me again. Spare me any more speeches about my independence and your prospects, Jules. I know I’m not to predicate any decision or action on your availability, suitability, or proximity, but let’s not be strangers.”
“We are friends, Hyperia. Very good friends, and I hope we always will be.” On some fine and future day, I might admit to hoping for more than that, but today was not the day to be reckless and greedy.
Today was a day to be grateful for honest friendship.
I parted from Hyperia on a smile and a bow and entered the house intent on packing. If I left in the next hour, I could cover half the distance to London before darkness fell. I wasn’t precisely keen to get back to my town house, but I was keen to shake the dust of Makepeace from my boots.
My work here was done, my heart was full, and I had much to ponder.
“Julian, a moment.” Lady Ophelia’s voice rang out when I was three steps shy of the top of the staircase. Today was also, apparently, a day for ambushes. She stood in the foyer, the most public location in the entire dwelling.
I stayed right where I was. “My lady, I’m in something of a hurry.”
So, of course, she swanned up the steps. “You don’t want to rest on your laurels for a few days? Make the bachelors at least pretend to try where the young ladies are concerned? I vow I am disappointed in you.”
Too rubbishing bad. “You are concerned for me, but you can’t admit that, so you natter and carp and pluck at my last nerve. I love you too.” Hyperia had discovered gold in my hair. I could be generous to the less fortunate.
“You young men,” she said, coming level with me. “You think you’re so dashing, when you’re simply rude. My sentiments toward you have never been in doubt. You’ve had a note from Arthur. I’d tell you to take my coach over to Sussex, but my coach is transporting a criminal at present.”
She passed me a folded missive sealed with the ducal crest. No franking, meaning Arthur had sent it by messenger.
“Did you read this?” I could find no sign of tampering, no indication she’d used a heated knife to ease the seal up without breaking it.
“I don’t need to read it. Osgood Banter doubtless sent word to Caldicott Hall of your situation here, and Arthur’s idea of helping is to invite you to go home.”
I read the few words scrawled in Arthur’s slashing hand. A visit to the Hall at your earliest convenience would be appreciated. A.
He’d signed his writ of summons as a brother, not as the duke, but the tone was pure peer. “You know him well, apparently.”
“I know you better, and I’m coming with you.”
Press-gang me once, shame on you. “I thought you were taking Maria Cleary under your wing.” More to the point, I wasn’t about to loiter at Makepeace when Arthur wanted to see me. News that my memory problem had become public would be best broken to him in person—and when he had some other matter he wanted to bring up.
Oh, by the way, there’ll be talk…
Arthur hated talk, but better to be a nine days’ wonder than a traitor or a felon, I always say.
“I am taking Maria under my wing. Getting her weaned from those damned patent poisons will be a thankless job.”
“Enlist Mrs. Waldrup’s aid and go slowly. Maria does not want to be confused and helpless any more than you do.” Any more than anybody did, ever.
“Oh, very well. Take yourself off to the Hall, and I will see to Maria, but warn Arthur and Her Grace to expect me once I get Maria situated.”
“I will look forward to seeing you again soon.” I wouldn’t dread it, anyway. To my surprise, Ophelia let me go without bellowing any more warnings, instructions, admonitions, or exhortations at me.
I finally gained the sanctuary of my quarters and found Atticus attempting to properly fold one of my shirts.
“Canny said you’re off to Town.” He unfolded one sleeve and made another attempt. “Canny’s staying here for the nonce. Says he can’t sell his commission in time of war.”
The house party had certainly been a battleground. “He’s a good fellow, though I suspect his days at Makepeace are numbered.”
“Ruddy shirt.” Atticus made a third attempt at a precise crease, but the linen was fine, and he was too hasty.
Canning hadn’t been my only ally here at Makepeace. Atticus had been loyal, brave, kind, and he’d followed orders.
“Do you fancy a job in London, Just Atticus?”
He left off trying to fold the shirt. “What sort o’ job?” He spoke with the exquisite indifference of the often disappointed.
“General factotum, aide-de-camp, dogsbody, minion.” His family was in London—his mother’s family. Perhaps I could see him reunited with them, if they were suitable.
“Never been a minion before.” He set about stripping the bed, yanking sheets from beneath the mattress, and heaping the pillows on the vanity stool. “I don’t suppose you can get articles for being a minion.”
The pillows toppled to the floor. I picked one up and tossed it at him. “A minion is simply a loyal retainer, a trusty henchman.”
He tossed the pillow at me with some force. “Is it legal? I’m not leaving a warm bed and good food for no Town wickedness.”
Lovely. A pint-sized Puritan would soon join my London payroll. “Your duties will be similar to the work you do here. Boot-boy, potboy, messenger, junior footman, occasional groom, assistant valet, substitute gardener, tiger. You will be bored witless, paid well, and educated enough to become a gentleman’s gentleman.”
Oddly enough, that last part wiped the diffidence from his face. “You’ll teach me to read?”
“In as many languages as you like, and how to do sums, and stay on a horse.” Dealing with new recruits simply took patience and humor, and I had modest supplies of both.
“I’ll miss Cook.”
A sentimental little Puritan. “You can write to her of your accomplishments in Town and work your wiles on my own cook.”
“Is she nice?”
“Quite jolly.” Mostly quite jolly, and she would delight in another mouth to feed. “If you want to discuss the offer with Canning, I won’t be gone for another hour or so.” I had packing to do, a formal leave to take of my host and hostess to endure, and arrangements to make for Atticus, who also could not be expected to leave Makepeace until the house party concluded.
“Nah,” Atticus said. “I don’t need to ask Canny. I’m nobody here. A dogsbody, like you said, and the housekeeper always says she’ll start me on my letters, but she never does. Canny would tell me to go, so London it is. You’re on your way back there?”
“By way of Sussex. His Grace My Brother needs to blame me for Mendel Cleary’s mischief.” I hoped that was what troubled Arthur.
“You aren’t to blame.”
“And the duke will not scold me, not truly. He frets in his way, and we indulge him in ours. Gather your belongings at the end of this house party and prepare for your next adventure.”
As it happened, Atticus and I went on to further shared adventures, the next one at the Caldicott family seat. By the time I had that little contretemps sorted out, Arthur was scolding me in earnest, and I was not indulging him whatsoever.
Though that, as they say, is a tale for another time!