“My lord, I am honored.” Mrs. Probinger dipped a curtsey that said the honor was also a bit of a surprise and possibly a trifle inconvenient. She was a diminutive strawberry-blonde of perhaps thirty years, with pale green eyes and a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her looks were too elfin to be considered beautiful—nez retroussé, point-ish chin—but she made an impact.
Those green eyes were bold, and that lush mouth looked to be on the verge of laughter or naughty asides. Reardon doubtless told himself he found her looks interesting.
I bowed, and she suggested we avail ourselves of her back terrace. I chose lemonade over tea and allowed as how my lunch had been late and lacking.
“One doesn’t want to be rude,” she said, taking a shady seat, “but when a Caldicott calls on a Probinger, tongues will wag.”
Her house faced the church end of the village green, and I had doubtless been seen knocking on her door.
“Then the Caldicotts have been remiss.” I took the chair across from her at a wrought-iron table. “I wish I could say I’m here to remedy the oversight, but I’m actually on something of an errand for His Grace.”
“You’re looking better,” she observed, subjecting me to a dispassionate scrutiny. “Not as pale. Not as gaunt, and you are probably sleeping for more than forty-five minutes at a stretch.”
I knew that assessing, measuring look. Had seen it from dozens of officers’ wives. “Your husband served under Wellington.”
“My husband served and died under Wellington. Made it all the way to Waterloo and was among the tens of thousands who never came home. He’d been injured before—I know the signs of a soldier waging a war against old ghosts—but I never thought… Bonaparte was exiled once for all, and then he was back again. The worst of bad pennies. I wish l’empereur every misery a man can suffer, and I make no apology for my lack of Christian charity.”
“Moved, seconded, and passed,” I said, feeling an odd kinship with a woman I barely knew. “But why settle here? We’re an obscure corner of a rural shire.” I had noticed Mrs. Probinger at services when I’d been recovering at the Hall, and we’d been introduced at some point, but I’d exchanged only pleasantries with her.
The tray arrived, and the abundance before me merited a silent and heartfelt grace. Sandwiches of pink, thinly sliced beef and cheddar. A bowl of glistening, sweet cherries. A small stack of shortbread.
“I have peace and quiet here,” Mrs. Probinger said, looking out over a garden rioting with color. The flowers were the hardy sort—daisies, hollyhocks, and delphinium, with lush lavender borders running along crushed-shell walks. “I have no memories here to plague me, no regimental connections to pluck every nerve on the anniversary of every battle. I hope you don’t intend to upend my hard-earned sense of tranquility, my lord.”
Her tone, though light, promised that if I blundered in that regard, I’d be shown the door, ducal connections be damned.
“My errand is civil,” I said. “Viscount Reardon has wandered off, and the duke has dispatched me to ask a few discreet questions. We suspect his lordship came this way recently and that you and he were well acquainted.”
She chose a cherry. “I am unhappy with his lordship, sir. One might say I am furious with him. Have been for some time.”
I asked the obvious question. “Did he trifle with you?”
She popped the cherry into her mouth. “I trifled with him, more like. Widows are permitted their comforts. The viscount was an enthusiastic caller in that regard, but then I awoke from a pleasant encounter a couple of months ago to find him sketching me, though I was in the altogether. He swore he was only trying to get my hair right, but he’s a privileged young man who uses his art to avoid other responsibilities. He’s truly talented, and he can also be unscrupulous. Has a bit of the rotten, sullen boy about him, for which I blame Lady Clarissa.”
I started on a second sandwich. “You have given him his congé?”
“I sent him packing. I suspect he was trysting with me for the sake of his art, not immortalizing my beauty in his sketchbooks because our rendezvous were so delightful. Quite lowering. I might have forgiven him his artistic trespasses if he’d surrendered the sketches to me, but instead, he offered me money. I let him know what I thought of that overture, wished him every success in Town, and haven’t spent time with him since.”
She munched another cherry, and it struck me that her conscience was clear. Of course, many a soldier committed murder by the hour and concluded his battlefield labors with a clear conscience and even pride in his work.
“When did you last see his lordship?”
“Earlier this week. He was mooning about by the river, stealing irises from the patch at the foot of the garden. That was three… four mornings ago. I caught a glimpse of him striding by yesterday at dawn, knapsack and hound at the ready. He was walking in the direction of Squire Huber’s parcel, though why anybody would call on Huber so early in the day defies explanation.”
I debated whether a third sandwich would be ill-mannered and decided to refrain. “You don’t get on well with Huber?”
“Other than the Valmonds, few in the area do, as you should know. The squire is arrogant, wallowing in the past, and chronically disappointed by a life most would call well blessed. He is my bad example. Have some cherries. They enjoy such a short season, I devour them on sight.”
She held the bowl out to me, and I took a single ripe fruit. The cherry was perfectly sweet, a small delight. I took another.
“What do you mean, Huber is your bad example? He was supposed to marry my great-aunt or something. I shudder to think he might have been family.”
“John Huber is family to the Valmonds. Second cousin or some sort of cousin to the present earl, though they aren’t far apart in age. Huber took his wife’s name along with her fortune, and the fortune is still going strong. What I mean by my bad example is that Huber is the thing I must not become. Yes, he lost his wife, but he has three grown sons and two daughters, along with grandchildren, and they all toady to him. I will not let my husband’s death turn me into the bitter, demanding, bumptious creature Huber has become.”
I took one more cherry. “The squire was a veritable demon as magistrate, but I’d forgotten he’s connected to the Valmonds by birth. Lord Reardon played the occasional game of chess with him.”
“Reardon felt compelled to call. Said those evenings were more about cheap brandy and a repetition of regrets—if only Mrs. Huber hadn’t gone to her reward, if only the Americans hadn’t proven so ungrateful, if only young people today were not so frivolous.”
I set the bowl of cherries before my hostess. “Is art frivolous?”
“For a peer’s heir, it’s supposed to be. Reardon will put aside his paintbrushes when he inherits the title. His sister will see to that, and Reardon knows it.”
Mrs. Probinger offered me the shortbread next, and the buttery scent alone decreed that I take a sample.
“You don’t care for Lady Clarissa?”
“I don’t know her, but I suspect another motivation for Reardon’s visits here was masculine rebellion. He has more the nature of a sixteen-year-old than a man who has attained his majority. Lady Clarissa has discouraged him from the usual pursuits that help a fellow leave boyhood behind. An earl’s heir and only son was unlikely to have served in the military, but the viscount’s role has been limited in recent years to that of Clarissa’s escort, her confidant, her project…”
“And is his art also a rebellion?” Was his lordship staging a bit of an uprising by going missing as his exhibition loomed?
Mrs. Probinger went back to demolishing the cherries one by one. “Reardon’s art is a genuine calling, but Clarissa pushed him to do the exhibition. Most aspiring artists would have applied to join the Royal Academy’s summer show and taken their lumps if none of their work was included. The usual recourse is to try again, year after year. Lady Clarissa convinced her brother to make his own splash, though Reardon would rather have gone the traditional route.”
“You are saying Reardon is henpecked?”
“By a prime biddy. Clarissa alternatively spoils him and manipulates him. She’s his greatest supporter and the first to whine if he steps out of line. I was a step out of line for him, but one she could ignore. I certainly ignore her to the greatest extent possible, though one does pity the woman.”
Clarissa couldn’t ignore Reardon’s protracted absence. “Why pity her?”
Mrs. Probinger considered the empty bowl. “You came across enlisted men who would never rise beyond sergeant, didn’t you? Shrewd fellows, tough, charismatic, dead shots, endlessly brave, but their rough speech alone meant they’d never command more than a night patrol. At the same time, prancing buffoons by the score strutted around wearing a lieutenant’s uniform simply because their papas could buy them a commission.”
“And those enlisted men,” I said slowly, “had to watch in silence, eyes front, while the prancing buffoons ruined good soldiers and even got them killed. You suspect Clarissa is that enlisted man?”
“She is mortally unhappy, my lord. If you can’t see that, you need to stop wearing your tinted spectacles. Reardon swore all Clarissa’s worldly aspirations were focused on him because her own dreams had come to nothing. Lord Harry might have figured prominently in her disappointments.”
Oh, him. He figured in my disappointments as well. “Harry has been gone for some time. I suspect Clarissa has set her sights on the duke.”
Another laugh, this one genuinely amused. “More disappointment in the offing. Mind you don’t come into her ladyship’s crosshairs, my lord. For Reardon’s sake, I hope he’s taken ship for Rome. Clarissa can have her exhibition, but Reardon won’t be one of the items on offer.”
“And for my sake, I hope the viscount is doing an impromptu portrait of Huber’s younger daughter.” I rose, though a nap wouldn’t have gone amiss. A nap in some obliging hammock rather than in Mrs. Probinger’s bed. “Thank you for your hospitality and assistance.”
Mrs. Probinger popped to her feet. “Huber would like that—he’s hinted at a match between Reardon and Eunice, though he pretends to disapprove of the notion. Reardon was fond of Eunice, or so he claimed. I do not envy Eunice his lordship’s variety of esteem, and my conscience is easier for having removed myself from his orbit. To hear Huber tell it, Eunice and Reardon were all but courting.”
“Huber has also spoken of taking the Americans to task and giving the Regent a piece of his mind. Shall I give him your regards?”
“Best not. He already refers to me as ‘that jezebel’ and worse—when he isn’t ogling my bosom, of course. When I first set up housekeeping here, he sought permission to court me, and I… gently declined the honor.”
“You see before you a former officer bent on tactical retreat before he says something truly stupid. Miss Hyperia West and Lady Ophelia Oliphant are visiting at the Hall. May I send them to call on you?”
“You may. But why?”
Mrs. Probinger called for my hat and spurs to be brought out to the terrace. I’d left Atlas munching grass at the foot of the garden, and a whistle brought him trotting to the terrace steps.
“We are neighbors,” I said, taking up the girth. “I realize my brother is somewhat retiring, but His Grace is a good sort, and he truly does prefer country life to doing the fancy in Town.” I realized I might have just made a mortally stupid comment. “I don’t suppose His Grace calls here?”
She stroked Atlas’s muscular neck with cherry-stained fingers, and he turned a limpid horsey eye on her.
“The duke has never called on me in the sense you mean, and not in any other sense either. Reardon was an indulgence, but ultimately not worth the bother. He’s an unhappy, frustrated fellow. Sometimes I felt a sense of hopelessness from him that reminded me all too much of life on campaign. I’ll look for more mature fruit the next time I go a-maying.”
There would be a next time, apparently. This woman knew what she wanted and how to obtain it. I bid her farewell, swung into the saddle, and refrained from offering her a salute.
I aimed Atlas back toward the creek and tracked Reardon and his hound onto Huber’s property. Only as I was rapping on the squire’s door did it occur to me that I might already have broken bread with the cause of Reardon’s disappearance.
Mrs. Probinger was an army widow and thus no stranger to violence, gore, and death. She was discontent, for all her talk of seeking peace, and Lord Reardon had betrayed her trust and insulted her.
Was she angry enough to have sought retribution for the wrongs he’d done her? Mortal retribution?
I would have jotted those questions in my notebook, except that a graying housekeeper had opened the door and was giving me a most unwelcoming inspection.
“It’s been ruddy Smithfield Market here lately,” the housekeeper said, hands on ample hips. “Coming and going, going and coming, and now the Quality must show up again, uninvited. I’ll have that hat, my lord, though I’ll likely be handing it right back to ye. Himself is in a towering pet, but when ain’t he?”
In her pristine apron and mobcap, Mrs. Wingate had the indomitable substance of the old Spanish fortified towns. High on their precipices, they’d kept watch over the plains and pastures by the century. Wellington’s sieges had toppled a few, but not without tremendous effort and loss of life.
My guess was nobody had besieged Mrs. Wingate in living memory, and even Squire Huber would quail at the thought.
“I do apologize for my intrusion,” I said, handing over my hat, “but I come on a matter of some urgency. Is Squire Huber in?”
“Of course he’s in,” she said, her gaze pitying. “He’s always in, unless it’s market day or the Sabbath. Miss Eunice is keeping a close eye on him in this heat, for which God be thanked. If ye have a flask, I’ll cheerfully fill it for ye, but Squire will begrudge ye a tea tray. Too hot for tea anyway.”
I passed over my flask. “Cold tea, water, lemonade, cider… Anything to quench thirst would be appreciated, but no spirits, please.”
“Cold meadow tea with a spot of honey, best thing for summer. Come along.” Mrs. Wingate led me down a dim corridor to a combination library and parlor. In Mrs. Huber’s day, the room had likely had matching carpet, curtains, and upholstery, but time and the squire’s bulldog sensibilities had turned the parlor stuffy, cluttered, and masculine.
A long gun hung over the mantel beneath a portrait of Huber in his youth, a brace of pheasants in hand, a pair of adoring hounds at his feet. No fire burned in the hearth, and the andirons—lions couchant—added another pugnacious touch to the décor.
The rest of the art on the walls was the predictable assemblage of hunt scenes and one landscape of Huber Manor. The style appeared to be Reardon’s, but the signature, I was astonished to note, was J.V. Huber.
“Did that in my misspent youth,” Huber said, entering the room at a brisk march. “Nicely done, if I do say so. Mrs. Huber liked it. What do you want?”
A long swim in the quarry pond, a longer nap in a shady hammock, a pleasant evening strolling in the gloaming with Hyperia…
“I seek a moment of your time,” I said, nodding rather than bowing. Might as well give Huber more grist for his endless sense of injured pride. “Lord Reardon has gone missing, and Lady Clarissa is concerned. I’d like to know whether his lordship passed this way and, if so, when.”
Huber scrubbed a hand across his jowls. “You aren’t the magistrate. You have no authority to make these inquiries.”
He had avoided addressing me by name or title, avoided offering me any greeting whatsoever, and was ignoring the dictates of rural hospitality. His determination to cause offense was nearly as pathetic as it was predictable.
I’d had senior officers like him. They needled, pushed, and insulted their inferiors until some fool stepped out of line and got himself a flogging or a demotion. Reconnaissance had been dangerous, but not as dangerous as some of Britain’s own officers.
“You are correct, sir,” I said. “I have no authority to ask questions, but I am concerned. A gentleman and good neighbor does not ignore a lady’s distress.” I wasn’t about to tell him I’d left the Lord Lieutenant himself idling along the creek several hot, dusty hours past.
“Clarissa thrives on distress.” Huber was aging, or perhaps the heat took a toll on him. His mane of white hair was thinning at the top. His face was more lined than I recalled from my previous visits. “Her mother is the same way. If it’s not a misplaced earbob, it’s a sneeze portending a fatal lung fever. Reardon wanders off in defense of his wits.”
Huber crossed to the sideboard, poured himself a brandy, downed the lot, then poured another. “Care for a tot?”
“Thank you, no. In Spain, I learned to go easy on the spirits during hot weather.”
“In New York, I learned to live on spirits. You never saw such a hellish winter, young man. The horses could barely stand it, the cold was so bitter. But I was a third son, so off I did march.”
Was that the wellspring of Huber’s misanthropy? Enforced service in the colonies?
“Papa, do we have guests?” Miss Eunice Huber joined us and offered me a pretty curtsey. That this lovely lady of nineteen summers could have bloomed on Huber’s branch of the family tree proved nature’s talent for surprises.
“Miss Eunice.” I bowed properly. “A pleasure to see you.”
She opened both windows and aimed a glower at her sire. “You are being naughty, Papa. Making his lordship endure this airless cave. Come to the formal parlor, my lord. I’ll have a tray brought around, and you can tell us all the news from Kent. You were at the Makepeace house party, weren’t you?”
I could feel Huber marshaling his patience, and Eunice’s arrival had inspired other transformations. The paternal chin was no longer jutting in general indignation. The faded blue eyes had gone soft with affection.
“Might we chat on the terrace?” I asked. “I really can’t stay long, and I wouldn’t want the kitchen to go to any trouble when supper preparations are under way.”
“We’ll have a cold collation this evening, given the weather,” Eunice said. “Very well. Papa, show our guest to the terrace, will you? And tippling is not good for your gout, sir. I will tattle to Dr. Heller if you persist in your wayward behaviors.”
She offered me a smile and another curtsey and decamped, the very air in the room more pleasant for her brief appearance.
“Blighter will break her heart,” Huber said. “Young ladies take that sort of thing hard, while you pawing stags never give it a thought.”
Miss Eunice had not seemed in the least heartbroken to me, but then, I was not her devoted papa. “You refer to Lord Reardon?”
“Lord Randy.” Huber stomped from the room, and I followed. He ceased marching when we’d reached a flagstone expanse at the back of the house. All was surgically trimmed privet, latticed roses, and potted mint here, a stark contrast to Mrs. Probinger’s exuberant flowers.
“I know how it is with young men,” Huber said, casting a skeptical eye over me. “You don’t think. You disport with this one, waltz with that one, drive out with the other. Constant rut, that’s your natural state, but a gentleman doesn’t yield to his base nature every time the sap rises.”
“Does your disappointment in Lord Reardon have anything to do with his friendship with Mrs. Probinger?”
“Friendship. Do you typically cavort as God made you with your friends? Perhaps you do. Ducal families are a law unto themselves, as is known to all who have the misfortune to encounter them, and the Caldicott men disdain marriage in the general case.”
He was in fine form today, while I was hot, tired, and increasingly worried. “If it’s any comfort, Lord Reardon is no longer welcome to call on Mrs. Probinger. Hasn’t been for some time. Did his lordship come by here yesterday or earlier today?”
“So what if he did? As far as I’m concerned, the viscount can sketch himself right into the sea. Eunice adores him, and all he can think of is his perishing exhibition. He’d take ship for darkest Peru to escape from Clarissa if he had the blunt.”
The more scorn I heard heaped on Clarissa’s head, the more sympathy I felt for her. “Is Lady Clarissa the impediment to your marital ambitions for Eunice, or is Reardon’s devotion to his art the real problem?”
Huber left off studying his formal parterres to glower at me. “Art. Bah. Reardon has talent. I had talent. A gentleman is supposed to be competent at rendering an image, just as he’s expected to have a passable singing voice and know his way around a dance floor. He’s also supposed to have a few pretensions to honor, about which I’m told you know precious little.”
Of course Huber would get around to accusing me of treason. As an old soldier, he’d feel particularly entitled to strike at that wound.
“I was held captive by the French and tortured before I escaped. My brother was similarly tormented—to death, if I can believe what I was told. The military cleared me of any suspicion of wrongdoing, and while I respect that you have served our country loyally and well, you have no right to insinuate that my honor is lacking.”
A few months ago, I would not have taken issue with Huber’s insult. I myself could not be entirely certain what had happened in that French garrison. My captors had denied me food and water, kept me in cold and darkness, and likely drugged me as well. I know not what horrors Harry endured, but my French guards informed me that he’d died honorably.
In recent weeks, I’d entertained the possibility that they’d lied to me. The French were nothing if not shrewd, and their purposes might well have been served by contending that Harry had died without yielding any sensitive information. A ducal spare might have been allowed a hero’s death, when Harry’s lapse could instead be conveniently attributed to me.
To break under torture was human. To lie under torture was all but predictable. Every fiber of my soul and a thorough military investigation concluded that I’d done neither, but I could not as confidently speak for Harry.
Which was none of Huber’s bloody business.
“You don ducal dignity most convincingly,” Huber said, offering me a mocking bow. “Why isn’t your older brother chasing about after Reardon?”
“Because His Grace is of the opinion that if a young man is determined to make an ass of himself, discretion promises to better thwart the tantrum than does setting up a hue and cry.”
“Still not your job,” Huber said. “Reardon was here yesterday morning. I was at breakfast, but I saw him with Eunice in the garden. Down there, by the bowling green. Taking liberties in broad daylight, like the damned fool he is. The lad’s no better than his dimwitted father, but then, his mother is no prize, and his sister has been left to manage as best she can. One fears for young Lady Susan.”
Genuine worry colored that last observation.
“You have confirmed my suspicion that the viscount passed this way. I’ll not trouble you further.”
“See that you don’t, and tell your brother if he’s the Lord Lieutenant, then he ought to be on his horse, riding after Reardon in hot pursuit. In my day…”
In the slanting afternoon shadows, the squire looked old and bitter, and also sad. He took out a flask and tipped it up.
“In your day, sir?”
“Never mind, and don’t tattle to Eunice. She thinks she’s confiscated my flask, but a soldier learns to carry a spare. Reardon might well have left for Rome early, you know. Clarissa was driving him mad.”
“He told you that?”
Huber pocketed his flask and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I endured the occasional night of bad chess listening to Reardon sing his laments. We played for pennies, and the boy never did pay up. He’d always get back his own next time, he said. I took that as a bid for another invitation, so I humored him.
“He had nobody else to lament to,” Huber went on, “and one feels a duty to the less fortunate. He was a man beset, to hear him tell it. Unable to serve his country because of a faulty constitution, forbidden to study under proper masters abroad lest his sister feel abandoned. His parents are a rackety, self-indulgent pair… Even I had to admit his grounds for complaint were legitimate.”
And yet, somehow, my compassion for Reardon was ebbing by the hot, dusty hour. “Was his lordship despairing, sir?”
Huber’s glower faded. “All young men get to despairing at some point. I’d say yes, the viscount was gloomy about his prospects and rather dreading the whole remove to Town.”
“Thank you, sir. That could be a helpful insight.”
“Tell it to your brother. The viscount might well have taken a fatal leap into the quarry pond, and His Grace can’t be bothered to have a look.”
Huber apparently wasn’t about to make that effort either. “The duke has already sent trustworthy, discreet eyes to inspect the quarry, sir, but as cold and deep as the water is, a dead body wouldn’t surface there for several days at least.”
That factual recitation sent bushy brows upward. “Suppose not.”
“What direction did Reardon take when he left?”
“Toward Semple’s patch,” Huber said, gesturing to the north. “Plenty of places to cross the creek there, and the boy could have picked up the track in the woods that turns back toward the village. I have no idea where he went, and even less do I care. He’s treated Eunice far too cavalierly.”
“While I do care, and I suspect Miss Eunice does as well.” I turned to go and was halfway back to the house when Huber’s voice caught me.
“I don’t have the bloody gout,” he said. “I lost four toes in the colonies. Leather boots are no protection from cold such as that. I can drink as much as I please, but you will not tell Eunice I said so.”
He likely had gout in addition to missing toes. “Your secret is safe with me, sir.”
I all but dashed for the house and found my flask tucked into the crown of my hat. I took a fortifying sip of cold, sweet meadow tea—mint, bless Mrs. Wingate for all eternity—and headed for the stable.
I was already in the saddle when Eunice came hurrying down the path. “My lord, please wait. You are trying to find Lord Reardon, aren’t you? Might you spare me a moment before you ride off?”
I swung down and prepared to become the repository for more secrets, as thankless as that office would prove to be.