“But I don’t understand,” Hermione said, shocked by the news that her father had almost been killed. “Papa spends a great deal of time in gaming hells, but he is hardly violent. I cannot imagine why someone would wish to harm him.”
She’d awakened alone in her bed, disappointed in spite of her determination not to be the sort of wife who clung to her husband’s every word. She’d tried to go back to sleep, but the unfamiliar room, coupled with anxiety over her new situation, kept her awake.
When Jasper returned some moments later, she knew at once that he had bad news to share.
“Hermione,” he said, sitting down on the side of the bed and taking her hands in his. “I’m afraid your father has been attacked.”
“What?” she gasped. “What do you mean? Is he alive? What’s happened?”
“He is alive,” he assured her, chafing her hands between his. “The physician is with him now. Trent had him brought here where we could look after him. We agreed that would be best for him instead of sending him to Half-Moon Street where he would have only the servants to look after him.”
She knew she should get up and go to see him, but she was numb with shock. Hermione had become accustomed to the ups and downs of life with her father and his gambling habits. But it had somehow never occurred to her that his behavior could lead him into danger. He was often desperate for funds, of course. But she’d never connected that desperation with the other people who frequented the same spots as Lord Upperton.
Of course he’d come into contact with dangerous people, though. What a naïve fool she’d been.
“Thank you,” she said numbly, grateful that he was alive and not dead in an alley somewhere. “That is best. Greentree would see to him, of course, but it’s best that he’s here. With me. Do you know how badly he’s hurt?”
“I haven’t been to see him yet,” Jasper told her, his voice gentle. As if he were afraid she’d go into hysterics. Though Hermione knew she was far too shocked for that. “But I believe it was a near thing. His attacker was interrupted, Trent said. So he hadn’t the time to finish his task.”
The task of killing Lord Upperton, he meant. Unbidden, the memory of Lord Saintcrow’s lifeless body rose in her mind. And she began to tremble.
“Come here,” he said, gathering her against his body, holding her close. How long had it been since she’d had someone she could go to when she needed comfort? She had Leonora and Ophelia, of course, but she couldn’t tell them about her darkest fears. The ones relating to her father’s worst excesses. “He is alive. That is the important thing. He was attacked but he survived.”
“I need to see him,” she said against his shoulder. “I need to see for myself that he is still breathing.” And to replace the image of Saintcrow’s body with her father’s face that had set up shop in her mind. “Please.”
“Of course, my dear,” he said, moving aside and offering her his hand.
When she was on her feet, she rang for Minnie, and as soon as she was dressed she let Jasper lead her to the guest room where her father had been taken.
“I am Dr. Braeburn, my lady,” said the russet-haired man who stood at Lord Upperton’s bedside. He stepped back to the foot of the bed so that Hermione could stand near her father’s head. “Your father is a lucky man.”
How Lord Upperton would regret the missed opportunity to try that luck at the tables, she thought wryly.
He was quite pale in the lamplight. With a wide white bandage wrapped around his neck.
“So someone tried to cut his throat?” she asked gravely.
“Aye,” the physician said matter-of-factly. “The cut was shallow, however. He lost a great deal of blood, but so long as he is kept quiet and receives a daily diet of red meat to enrich the blood, I think he can make a full recovery.”
When had her father begun to look so old? she wondered, stroking her thumb over the thin skin of his hand. It was as if the attempt on his life had turned him into an invalid over the course of a few hours.
“He should get as much rest as possible,” Dr. Braeburn said to Jasper, who had come to stand beside her. “And I cannot stress enough how much he should be kept calm. His body needs time to rejuvenate itself. And too much excitement could inhibit that process. I understand he was found outside a gaming hell. It goes without saying that he should refrain from cards or games or any activity that might raise his heart rate.”
“We will see to it that my father-in-law receives the best care possible,” Jasper assured him, while Hermione continued to observe her father. “And I can assure you there will be no gambling while he is in this house.”
When the doctor had gone, Hermione sank greatfully into the chair Jasper brought for her at Lord Upperton’s bedside.
“I’ve never known him to look so frail,” she said softly, tracing the outline of her father’s bushy eyebrows. “For all that I was so frequently frustrated with his behavior, it never occurred to me that he might be harmed in some way. That he was as vulnerable to danger as the next man. He was always my invincible Papa.”
“It is difficult to see them for the fragile beings they are,” Jasper agreed, placing a strong hand on her shoulder. “Especially when they spend a great deal of their time trying to convince us that they are anything but. A man like your father spends his days bluffing—that is, pretending to be richer, more clever, more prosperous, wiser than the other men at his table. It is part of what makes a successful gamester. You musn’t chide yourself for believing the lie. Men far more attuned to such practices have been fooled.”
Something occurred to her. Looking up at Jasper, she saw that he was, for the moment, utterly without guile. And the look of naked pain in his face nearly broke her heart. “You’re speaking of yourself, too,” she said softly. “You believe that you are just as guileful as he is. But you know that’s not true.”
“I know nothing of the sort,” he said sadly. “We spend a comparable amount of our lives at the tables. And there is not all that much difference in the way we play cards.”
“There is a vast difference,” she said, turning to really look at him. “You once told me that you use mental calculations to choose which card to lay down, which to discard. I don’t think Papa could do that to save his life. He hasn’t got the mathematical skills to do what you do. The only weapon in his quiver is guile. Don’t you see?”
“That doesn’t mean that I am somehow nobler than he is,” Jasper returned. “I am a cardplayer just as he is. It’s true that it has not become as necessary to me as breathing, certainly not as necessary as it has become to him. But do not make the mistake of judging me less harshly, Hermione. I am culpable for my own behavior. Perhaps more so because I have the ability to leave it without looking back, but I choose not to.”
He stepped away, far enough out of reach that she could not touch him. “I will leave you to spend some time with him,” he said sadly. “Perhaps I can find out something more about the man who tried to kill him.”
Before she could object, he was gone. And though she turned her gaze back to her father, her mind was on Jasper.
* * *
“I believe there is some merit in what you say, my lord,” said Mr. Rosewood as Jasper stood before him in the tiny office in Bow Street.
After he left Hermione at her father’s bedside, he’d put on his hat and coat and gone in search of the runner. It was obvious to Jasper that Hermione’s erstwhile neighbor was the likeliest suspect in the murders of both Lord Saintcrow and now the attack on Lord Upperton. And since Rosewood had been hired by Fleetwood, he already had the man’s trust.
“So, you will agree to work for me instead of Fleetwood?” Jasper asked the investigator. He had come to the conclusion that the only way to lure Rosewood to his own side would be to offer the man twice what Fleetwood was paying him. “Not only is it in your best interest with regard to your pay, but it also will save you from knowing you’ve aided and abetted a murderer.”
“All right, my lord,” the other man said with a brisk nod. “You’ve convinced me. I will do what I can to help you.”
“And I do not wish you to inform Fleetwood of your decision,” Jasper told him. “Indeed, you must behave as if you are still doing your best for him. I wish for Fleetwood to be unaware that you and I have had any dealings with each other.”
“If that’s what you want, my lord,” the other man said with a shrug. Clearly he didn’t understand what Jasper was intending. Which was just as well.
“Now,” Jasper said firmly, “I want you to go to Fleetwood today and inform him that Lord Upperton has been murdered. He is still alive, of course, but Fleetwood doesn’t know that.”
Perhaps if Fleetwood believed everything had gone according to plan, he would relax a bit, and make a mistake.
“I want you to watch his reaction to the news,” he continued. “And send me word of what his response is. And if he leaves at all, I want you to follow him. I suspect he will go to his partner and inform him that this latest mission has been accomplished. So take note of who he is going to see.”
“Aye, my lord,” the investigator agreed. “I’ll do exactly as you say. And if I can’t get away, I’ll send word to ye.”
“Good.” Jasper picked up his hat, gloves, and walking stick. “Now, I must be off.”
When he was back out on Bow Street, Jasper handed the urchin holding Hector’s reins a coin and threw himself up into the saddle.
There was something about those horses. Something that was worth killing one man for and nearly killing another. And now that they were in his own stables, he would take every precaution to ensure that he and his family remained safe. To that end, he’d arranged with Mr. Rosewood to post runners at his London residence, and before he left that morning, he’d instructed Greaves not to let any of the ladies leave the house today.
They would not be best pleased, but when the choice was for them to remain indoors but safe or venture outdoors at the risk of their lives, he would choose indoors every time.
He made his way to Tattersall’s in record time, and since there were no auctions taking place today, he was able to speak to the head auctioneer, Mr. Sam Vernon, without fear of taking the other man away from his business.
“I’d like to know whatever you can tell me about the sales history of a pair of matched grays that were purchased from here a few months ago,” he said, showing the man the bill of sale for Hermione’s grays, by name Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. It listed Tatt’s as the seller, and Jasper had a sneaking suspicion that they had not originated at the auction house.
Putting on his spectacles, the dapper little man examined the paper and nodded. “That was the pair bought by Mr. Wingate, for Lady Hermione Upperton, correct?” At Jasper’s nod of assent, he stepped over to a large filing cabinet and began to search through documents.
Finally, he found the page he was looking for. “I recall that sale quite clearly,” Mr. Vernon said with a brisk nod. “I believe Lady Hermione is a driver and was in need of a coaching pair.”
“Those are the ones,” Jasper said, trying to curb his impatience with the man’s laconic manner. “What can you tell me about the horses? How did Tattersall’s come to broker the sale?”
Shuffling through the documents before him, Vernon nodded. “I recall now. We purchased this particular pair from a gentleman here in London, who said he had bought them from a breeder in Yorkshire. Poor lad could no longer afford to keep them. And young gentlemen being young gentlemen, he had no kind of pedigree papers for them. But they were such fine horses, and so easy to drive that we took them without. Which is unusual for us, but a bird in the hand and all that.”
“In fact,” Vernon continued, scratching his chin, “there was another man who’d heard about them from a friend, and he came the day after the sale went through in hopes they’d still be for sale. When I told him they’d already been sold, he was that angry.”
“Can you recall the man’s name?” Jasper asked, his senses on alert.
“I’m sorry, my lord,” Mr. Vernon said mournfully, “but I cannot. I know he was a titled gentleman, but I speak to so many in the course of my work.”
Jasper almost groaned in frustration. “Then can you tell me the name of the young man who sold them to you?”
“Of course,” Vernon said. “His name is right here in the record. Robert Fleetwood. I thought perhaps he’d have tried to come buy them back again, but he never did. I suppose he was on to other things and had his eye on some other pretty bits of horseflesh by then.”
Or he’d wanted those horses in particular back so he killed Saintcrow in order to get them. It was the fellow’s reason for selling them and wanting them back again that made no sense. What was it about those horses in particular that made them special enough to commit murder for? And who was the man who had come the day after the sale to inquire about them?
Why did it feel as if this case were becoming more complex and not less?
* * *
“My dear, you must not stay here in the sickroom all day,” the dowager Countess Mainwaring said to Hermione late that afternoon. “You will be of no use to him if you wear yourself down while he is unable to even know you are here.”
Hermione had been surprised but touched when her mother- and sisters-in-law had come to inquire if there was anything they might do to help her while her father was ill.
The dowager had even suggested that Hermione go for a walk in the garden for a short while just to get her out of the sickroom. “I don’t know how much my son told you about his father’s death,” she said in a low voice, once her daughters had gone. “He did not die immediately following the accident, but lingered on for several days before he passed. It was an awful thing to see the vibrant man I’d married waste away like that.”
“No,” Hermione said, aghast. How hard it must have been for Lady Mainwaring to stay by her husband’s side during those days. “I am so sorry.”
“I have made my peace with it,” Lady Mainwaring said with a sad smile. “It was a trying time for all of us. And I’m afraid I took a great deal of comfort in the running of the estate once my husband was gone.”
Hermione thought back to her conversation with Mainwaring about his conflict with his mother.
“I began to see it as the only thing keeping me from falling back into the pit of despair that had nearly consumed me when Philip died,” the dowager said sadly. “And when Jasper reached his majority and—as was reasonable—tried to take control of the estate, I fought him. It was not well done of me. And I fear that I may have said some things that I’ve come to regret.”
“But why have you not told Jasper this?” Hermione asked, knowing that he would be grateful to mend fences with his mother.
“Because I haven’t wished to remind him of it,” the dowager said with a shrug. “I have tried to stay out of his way, and let him do whatever it is he feels is best. Though I fear I did not help matters by ripping up at him when he informed us of his forthcoming marriage to you.”
Not something that came as a great surprise to Hermione, considering the uncomfortable visit the dowager had paid in Half-Moon Street.
“I was wrong then, too, Hermione,” her mother-in-law said with tears in her eyes. “My only excuse is that ever since I lost my husband, my nerves have seemed to be strangely out of joint. And I have felt things more deeply than other people seem to. It’s as if my skin has suddenly disappeared and I am moving through life with all that raw viscera exposed to the air.”
Hermione had never heard emotions described in such a way, but there had been times in her life when she had felt just as the dowager said. She couldn’t imagine just how painful it would be to spend days, weeks, months feeling that way, rather than just hours like Hermione had done.
“I know it is probably too little, too late,” the dowager Countess of Mainwaring continued. “But I do hope that one day soon you will be able to find it in your heart to forgive me. I think this attack on your father has served to jolt me from my self-indulgent bubble. And I mean to show both you and my son that I need not be a burden on you. I hope you’ll let me start by allowing me to relieve you for a short time in your sickroom duties.”
Unable to hold herself back, Hermione threw her arms around the older lady and hugged her. “You cannot know how relieved I am to hear that you don’t despise me, as I thought you must on that day you called in Half-Moon Street. I have no wish to come between you and Jasper. Or Jasper and his sisters.”
“Of course not, my dear,” said the dowager. “And I feel sure my daughters, now that the marriage is a fait accompli, will come around.”
“I hope so,” Hermione said with a shy smile. “I’ve never had sisters, you know. And I lost my mother when I was but a girl. I would be grateful to know I’d gained both with my marriage to Jasper.”
With one more grateful hug for her mother-in-law, Hermione hurried out of her father’s sickroom, and fetched her pelisse and hat to prepare for a turn in the garden.
Since there had been no time last night, Jasper hadn’t given her a tour of the back garden of the Mainwaring town house. Like the house in Half-Moon Street, this one also backed up to a mews. But this house was far larger, and the carriage house and stables were twice as big as Hermione’s had been.
The garden itself was also larger, with landscaping in the romantic style, which meant that it looked on the surface as if it had been allowed to grow wild, but in actuality had been carefully cultivated to look that way.
But though she appreciated the loveliness of the greenery, she gravitated, as she always did, to the stables for her comfort.
She found, to her surprise, that for a man who did not enjoy the sport of carriage driving, Jasper owned multiple vehicles and many more horses—both coaching and riding.
“My lady,” said one of the grooms, who was busy repairing a bridle just inside the entrance. “How can I help you?”
“I’ve just come to say hello to Queen Mab and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,” she said to the young man with a smile. “I know where they are, you needn’t let me interrupt your work.”
And with a nod, he let her wander along the row of stalls, crooning and scratching the noses of curious horses until she came to where Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were housed side by side.
“Hello, my beauties,” Hermione said with a grin as the two grays nickered in greeting to her. Standing before the wall that divided the two stalls, where she could pat and scratch each horse at the same time, she laughed when they shook their heads and snuffled against her hand in search of treats.
“I’m afraid I wasn’t able to bring apples this time,” she told them mournfully. “But I assure you that I shall bring them next time. I promise.”
As was his habit, when she tried to scratch Rosencrantz on the top of his snout just below his eyes, he shook his head in annoyance. “All right, all right,” she told him with a frown. “I won’t do that. I’m sorry.”
For a few minutes, she talked to them in nonsense words and crooned and had a lovely time of it. What was it about animals that could so help one regain a sense of balance, a sense that there was hope in the world? Perhaps it was because animals were so helpless when it came to taking care of themselves.
Oh, she had little doubt that if Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were set loose on Dartmoor they’d soon enough learn to get along well enough. But even out there, where they were free to feed themselves, there were still those tasks that were beyond them. Like removing a stone from an injured hoof, or brushing out their coats with a curry comb.
How much darker her life would have been if she’d never discovered just how much she could rely on these marvelous creatures.
Even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in particular, who had been the cause of one man’s murder and another’s near murder.
What on earth about these horses inspired such violence?
“All right, pretty boy,” she told Guildenstern with one last pat on the nose. “I must be off before Lord Mainwaring comes home and finds I’ve left the house.”
But before she could turn around, she felt a hard object connect with the back of her head, and she desperately struggled to remain upright while the reality was that her body was sliding slowly to the ground.
And her last thought was that she wished she could have seen his face.