Chapter Two
I chose to walk to the West family town house, a distance of about a dozen streets.
After my ordeal with the French, I’d been given leave to recuperate. I’d come home to Caldicott Hall barely able to shuffle from one room to the next. Upon my eventual return to the regiment, I’d been given a staff position, and even those sedentary duties had tried me sorely.
During the Hundred Days, I had managed to rise to the challenges put before me, but many a soldier overtaxed himself in anticipation of battle and realized his error only in hindsight. After Waterloo, I’d been a wreck, floating about in a sea of rumor, nightmares, and ill health.
I was clawing my way back to some semblance of fitness, grateful for every night of sound sleep, every meal that stayed down, and every hour I could spend on my own two feet or in the saddle.
Then too, I’d learned as a reconnaissance officer that walking and problem-solving were a good combination. The idle mind in an active body ranged far afield of its usual paths. I’d hatched many a useful insight while hiking the Spanish countryside, and Leander’s situation left me in want of insights.
My peregrination on this occasion yielded no such bounty. I rapped on the West town house door and was shortly admitted by a butler I did not recognize. The underbutler perhaps, if his supernumerary was enjoying a half day.
He took my card, glanced at it, and something in his expression became less cordial. “I will see if Captain West is in. If you’d like to wait in the blue parlor, my lord, this way.”
I had run tame in these premises as a younger fellow. The blue parlor occupied that terrain between the formal parlor, where dignitaries would be received, and the family parlor, where I would have expected to wait. Healy was only a couple years my junior, our family seats weren’t much distant from each other, and I’d regarded him as a friend.
A casual friend, but a friend nonetheless.
The man who greeted me a tedious quarter hour later was not friendly at all. “My lord.” He bowed first, as protocol demanded. “Good day.”
“West, thank you for seeing me.”
He closed the door and stood by it. “I didn’t want to. You dwell under a cloud of scandal, and that’s without mentioning your cavalier behavior toward my sister. Hyperia was nonetheless good enough to treat you civilly at the Makepeace house party, and you abandoned her there without a by-your-leave. She is dragooned by Lady Ophelia into visiting at Caldicott Hall, and more mischief and haring about ensue. I am not best pleased with you. State your business, and then you’ll oblige me by being on your way.”
I had become the next thing to a recluse rather than deal with the Healy Wests of polite society. He knew just enough about my circumstances to appoint himself the judge, jury, and executioner of my reputation, and I deserved better from him.
“I was not invited to the Makepeace house party in the first place,” I said, keeping my tone pleasant, “and Lady Ophelia’s dragooning powers are apparently already known to you. Had you bestirred yourself to attend—you having been invited—then you’d know exactly why I decamped when I did. As for the situation at Caldicott Hall, my reconnaissance abilities were needed to prevent scandal from befalling two families. Your sister enjoyed a pleasant visit, as far as I know. Please give her my regards.”
I was pulling rank, not as a former officer, but as a ducal heir.
“None of that recitation absolves you of nearly jilting Hyperia when you mustered out. She would have had you even then , despite your captivity, and now…”
“She deserves a man who can give her children,” I said. “I am not that man, and I might never be.”
Whatever West had expected me to say, it hadn’t been that. I’d surprised myself, too, though if the past had taught me anything, it was the futility of dissembling. I was not the fellow I had been—robust, confident, more than a trifle arrogant—and I was gradually coming to terms with my present incarnation.
Physically, I was unlikely to enjoy the strength and stamina of my war years ever again. Mentally, I was plagued by spectacular lapses of memory, odd fears, and strange quirks, but emotionally, I was knitting myself back into a more substantial fellow than I’d been before buying my colors.
Some days.
“You cannot…?” West stared at me, probably looking for evidence that I’d suffered injury to my breeding organs. “You aren’t capable ?”
“A problem with the humors. The lady has been made aware and does not question my decision. Besides, Hyperia and I were not engaged.”
“You might as well have been.” A grumbled rear-guard insult in the midst of a grudging retreat. “She suffered, you know. You came home on medical leave and didn’t bother to look in on her, then after Waterloo… You have much to answer for, my lord. She had other offers and gave none of them the time of day. Now William Ormstead is dropping around with predictable regularity, and she’ll send him packing as well.”
That was news to me. William Ormstead was another former officer. He was from a good family, cut a dash, and hadn’t fallen afoul of any French interrogators. I daresay he could sire children, too, damn and blast him.
“I esteem Lady Hyperia greatly, and she deserves to be happy. She is aware of the particulars of my situation. Might we leave the matter there?”
“I don’t want to.”
I was supposed to quake in my boots while anticipating a long-overdue and terrifying challenge to my honor. West was posturing, though—Hyperia would skewer him with her knitting needles should he engage me in a duel—so I schooled myself to silence.
“Hyperia defends you,” West said, finally quitting his post by the door. “You don’t deserve her loyalty, but she doubtless pities you.”
Another insult. I gave Healy marks for consistency and tenacity, but had to deduct a few points from his score for lack of originality.
“As it happens, I am here to discuss my late brother, Harry,” I said, waiting for my host to offer me a seat, a drink, or any sort of basic hospitality.
“What has his late lordship to do with anything?”
“A woman named Martha Waites, a military widow now deceased, claimed to have given birth to Harry’s son. The boy is orphaned, and I am trying to establish the truth of the mother’s allegation regarding his paternity. Her husband served in India, where he expired of a fever. I am trying to locate any who might know more of the mother. Where she was born, where the marriage took place, what her plans were upon returning to England.”
“Why come to me?”
“Because you know half the uniformed world, are universally liked, and do the hail-fellow-well-met in the clubs better than anybody else. Does the name Waites ring any sort of bell?”
Healy was on the tallish side, though not as tall as I, and he worshipped at the altar of Bond Street’s tailors, as all fashionable young men must. In addition to those unremarkable attributes, though, he had charm.
Of necessity. The West family was old and respected, also quite solvent, but not titled. They were wealthy gentry, the backbone of the nation, and a source of well-dowered brides for the aristocracy, but they were not of the peerage.
When I’d declined to propose to Hyperia, I had dashed the dreams of her whole family. Had she been able to bag a ducal courtesy lord in the person of my handsome self, her daughters could have aspired to lesser titles and heirs thereto. Doors would have opened for Healy—as an investor, diplomat, and suitor—that remained closed to him now.
All because I couldn’t… rut.
Healy took a wing chair and casually waved me toward the sofa. “Waites. First name?”
“Thomas, wife Martha. The boy is Leander. His looks might resemble Harry’s generally, but not specifically.”
“Age?”
“I put him at about five, though I’m hoping the nursemaid knows his natal day.” The whole matter might, in fact, revolve around that fact. Harry had been home on winter leave from the first of December to the middle of February for several years. That narrowed the window of possible birth dates considerably.
The boy should have been born between early September and mid-December, if all had gone according to the usual plan, though babies showed up early or late, according to the whims of providence.
“I want to tell you that the name Waites means nothing and send you on your way, but…”
“But?”
“I cannot. It’s not that common a name, and I seem to recall talk, a wisp of gossip, a bit of tattle. He served in India?”
“Would have gone out about ten years ago, didn’t last long, and not from a family of any great means.”
“Then somebody should see what some of the old hands at Horse Guards have to say. They all served under Wellington at Seringapatam, to hear them tell it. But what’s your interest in Waites if he was dead long before the boy was conceived?”
“I am looking for Martha Waites’s maiden name and for any general details of her situation and origins. She safely returned from India, and in the normal course, her husband’s family would have been expected to take her in. Failing that, her own people should have offered her a welcome.”
“You are looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.”
“Correct, but you are a reliable magnet, so I entrust general inquiries to you.” I rose, having stated my business . “My regards to your family. I can be reached at Waltham’s residence. I will see myself out.”
In the spirit of the general rudeness West had shown me, I expected him to remain seated and leave me to make my own way to the front door.
He rose. “Very odd business for the boy to surface only now. Lord Harry—God rest his soul—was not exactly a monk. Wouldn’t have pegged him for the sort to trifle with regimental widows, though.”
“He might have set her up for a time, might have been courting her. I simply do not know, and Waltham has tasked me with getting to the bottom of the matter.”
“The duke is in Town?” That query translated to, Will you tattle to His Grace about my earlier poor manners?
Of course I would not. I took perverse satisfaction from demonstrating courtesy in the face of those rude to me. “Waltham is much taken up with travel plans for this autumn. He’s off to tour the Continental capitals.”
West accompanied me back to the front door. “A journey in the autumn? Who will oversee the harvest at Caldicott Hall? Waltham has been perennially absent from the Little Season because he’s always minding his acres.” A sly implication underlay that observation: Waltham used harvest as an excuse to avoid Town.
When had Healy become such a brat? “I have promised Waltham I will bide at the Hall in his place.” I was, after all, Arthur’s heir presumptive, lest West forget that detail. I tended to forget it myself, whenever possible.
“I’ll shortly be off for the grouse moors,” Healy said. “I prefer to let the weather moderate before I go shooting. Even Scotland can be beastly hot this time of year.”
Also swarming with midges and armed, drunken Englishmen. “I will bid you farewell,” I said, collecting my hat and walking stick from the butler who had materialized from the porter’s nook. “My thanks for any assistance you can offer.”
West was shrewd, and now that he’d delivered the scolding he believed I deserved—and now that he’d realized Arthur was in Town—he changed tactics.
“You know, I might curse you to perdition for any number of reasons, but that business…” He waved a hand near his falls. “I’d not wish that on anybody, save perhaps the Corsican monster.”
How comforting to know I hadn’t quite reached Napoleon’s equal in the ranks of demonhood . “Your solicitude is appreciated. Thank you for your time.”
“My regards to His Grace,” West called after me as I took my leave. “Best of luck with your inquiries.”
So kind of him to alert half of Mayfair to my undertakings. I moved along the walkway at a deliberately relaxed pace, though my mood approached furious. I understood why the Healy West and his ilk felt entitled to judge me. For all they knew, I had betrayed my brother, my king, and my honor, and such lapses must be punished by all and sundry, no matter how extenuating the circumstances.
Arthur’s influence had gained me tolerance in some circles. In others, where soldiers could consult their own wartime memories, I might even find understanding. West—a soldier himself—had shown me neither, until he’d learned of the dysfunction with my manly humors.
Then he’d offered me a sort of backhanded compassion, and for that, I nearly hated him.
“My lord, a moment.”
A footman had waited until I’d turned the corner to catch up with me. So lost had I been in contemplation of life’s injustices, I hadn’t realized he’d been following me. A lapse like that could have seen me killed in Spain.
“A note, my lord, from Miss West. I will convey your reply directly to her.”
The footman stood about six feet and had the blond hair and handsome features required for his post. If Hyperia had entrusted him with a note, he was also possessed of loyalty and discretion.
Hyperia’s epistle was succinct. Hype Park. Seven o’clock tomorrow, weather permitting.
“Please inform Miss West I will be happy to oblige. She will know where to find me.” By a certain tall hedge, where she and I had been meeting since the year she’d made her come out.
“Very good, sir.” He trotted off, and I continued on my way, my mood greatly improved.
Healy West’s behavior had left me sulking and seething, but Hyperia sought a moment of my time, and that prospect improved my spirits significantly.
“My lord, good day.” Hyperia nodded at me from atop her mare.
The sight of Perry by the park’s early morning light was unaccountably dear. To the casual observer, she was no great beauty—a touch too curvy, hair merely brown, eyes merely green, no willowy height to lend her consequence.
But those eyes were bright with intelligence, and when they snapped with righteous ire or softened with compassion, classical panegyrics would not have done them justice. She had the heart of a warrior queen and the stubbornness of a seasoned artillery mule, and I treasured her for both.
Hyperia had become adept at being overlooked, by design, but I was finished—finally, now when it was too late—with overlooking her.
I was not quite as enthusiastic about her companion. “Lady Clarissa.” I tipped my hat. “A pleasure to see you.” Also somewhat of a surprise. Lady Clarissa had figured prominently in our recent adventures in Sussex and sundry other points, as had her artist brother, Viscount Reardon. “I’m surprised you are still in Town.”
“Reardon’s exhibition has resulted in some commissions,” she said, her bashfulness at odds with her usual coquetry and confidence. “He claims the summer light lasts so wonderfully long, he’ll be able to complete the portraits in no time.”
Thus putting much-needed coin in the family’s coffers. Reardon could serve as his older sister’s chaperone in Town, while she avoided the bucolic boredom of country life in high summer.
“You must call on us at Waltham House,” I said. “I’m biding with His Grace, who is all awhirl with his Continental plans. You’d think he was making his come out.”
In a sense, he was. Arthur was dutiful to a fault and had used ducal obligations, ducal parliamentary duties, ducal anything to distract him from his own loneliness. He’d been fast becoming a ducal automaton, until recent events had given him the courage to think of the man separate from the peer.
“His Grace will have a grand time racketing about on the Continent,” Hyperia said. “It’s his turn, so to speak, but I thought, given that he delegated a certain task to you, you might want to consult with Lady Clarissa on some ancient history.”
Hyperia had been present when Arthur had received Mrs. Danforth’s note. I had few secrets from her. Arthur, too, regarded her as a trustworthy and formidable ally, though he was shy and cautious in her presence.
His Grace was astute, in his way.
“My history with Lord Harry isn’t that ancient,” Clarissa muttered, tapping her heel against her mare’s side. “Shall we enjoy the fresh air?”
A bid for privacy. I turned Atlas to walk in step beside Clarissa’s horse, and Perry fell in behind us. Dawdling along to the rear, she ensured nobody took up the post in our wake, overhearing what was not for public ears.
“Harry appeared to court you before he joined up and when on winter leave,” I said. “If you think back, say, six years, does anything about his winter leave strike you as odd?”
“That would be the year Elizabeth Jane Hammond ran off with Lord Jeffrey Marks,” Hyperia added. “They decamped in late autumn, but Parliament did not rise for Christmas, so the talk circulated longer than it should have.”
Clarissa sent a puzzled look over her shoulder. “You remember these things?”
“The Regency Bill was under discussion, Napoleon was rebuilding his navy, and Healy had joined the militia. Yes, I remember. Nobody could leave Town that winter because Parliament remained in session. The hostesses were in alt, while the monarch was in a sorry state.”
“Harry was home by St. Nicholas Day,” Clarissa said slowly. “He was full of news of this and that neighbor who’d remained in Portugal for the winter, the bearer of good news, welcome everywhere. I believe he went down to Caldicott Hall at some point.”
Hyperia’s recitation had jogged my own spectacularly dodgy memory. “Arthur remained in Town. He had concerns for the Regency Bill, both because Parliament needed to pass some sort of law as a result of the king’s infirmity and because everybody and his MP’s brother was trying to get an oar in as to the specific wording.”
George, Prince of Wales, yet ruled as Regent, his old pater apparently more durable than sane, God help him. At least my ailments were mostly private matters, not grist for an entire nation’s gossip and prayers.
“Where were you?” Clarissa asked me. “I don’t recall you in Town, and Harry hadn’t said anything about you being down at the Hall.”
“I remained abroad.” In the Spanish countryside, impersonating a tinker of French descent, an itinerant shepherd, or a deserter variously from French or British forces. I learned a lot that winter, not about French battle plans, but about how to do reconnaissance as I could do it best, not as Harry instructed me to do it.
“We missed you,” Hyperia said. “Arthur stood up with me when our paths chanced to cross. I took his attentions for an offer of mutual comfort.”
Very likely exactly as they’d been intended, unbeknownst to Arthur himself.
“I’m most interested in Harry’s movements. Was he in company with any other ladies? Did he show attention to any particular actresses or opera dancers? Did any woman appear to take him into inexplicable dislike?”
Clarissa slanted a look at me. “Is somebody trying to blackmail you? Claiming Harry disported with her and she’s prompted after all this time to spoil his memory?”
I knew Clarissa’s family woes, but I was uncomfortable trusting her with the Caldicott linen. “Something like that. Allegations have surfaced regarding Harry’s conduct during that winter. Anything you recall might be useful.”
“Then talk to the servants at Waltham House,” Clarissa said, turning her mare down a shady path. “The servants know everything.”
A good suggestion. “I’m mostly concerned with Harry’s socializing. When he wasn’t squiring you about, with whom did he stand up?”
Clarissa brushed past a low-hanging branch of maple, which swung back to smack Hyperia gently in the shoulder. Perry rode on without comment.
“He stood up with everybody,” Clarissa said. “My job was to dance the supper waltzes with him so he’d not have to spend a meal with an ambitious young lady, or fend off the advances of the widows. I was also to be available for the carriage parade when the weather permitted, and Harry occasionally needed me for informal gatherings. He wasn’t wrong to pay for my escort. Some women see a dashing fellow in uniform, and all they think of is how to get him out of it. What is all this about?”
“I need to account for Harry’s whereabouts that winter and to talk to any women with whom he might have been keeping close company.”
I dropped back, because we passed another pair of riders, the first of whom was known to me. William Ormstead acknowledged me with a nod, while the sight of Hyperia inspired him to a beaming smile.
“Miss West, good morning. A pleasure.”
Because Ormstead drew his horse to a halt, the fellow a few yards behind him on the path—they did not appear to be hacking out together—also had to halt, and Clarissa, likely the better to eavesdrop, brought her horse to a stop as well. Short of sending my horse bounding up the bank in an awkward retreat, I was hemmed in, with no means of extricating myself from a face-to-face encounter with the rider on the path behind Ormstead.
“My lord,” he said, “good morning.”
My body reacted before my mind grasped the truth. That polite voice, with its hint of a hard-to-place accent, belonged to an Englishman who’d come of age in France and dwelled exclusively among the French for years. Like me, he’d probably heard both languages from the cradle. Like me, he’d joined up because that had seemed the only thing to do, though he’d joined the Grand A rmée , while I’d fought under Wellington.
“St. Clair.” I nodded, grateful for the blue spectacles that would hide the shock in my eyes. “Good morning.” I would not be rude. To give this man even the cut direct would acknowledge the havoc I felt at the sound of his greeting and the sight of his face. His polite voice haunted my nightmares. Thoughts of revenging myself upon him had sustained me during the miserable, shivering weeks when I’d lived like an animal on the slopes of the Pyrenees.
“I am glad to see you enjoying good health,” St. Clair said, “and good company.”
No irony laced his words, and no contrition that I could hear. “You appear to be thriving.” I tried for equal dispassion. St. Clair was trim but in good enough weight—he’d been spectrally gaunt when I’d fallen into his hands—and as well turned out as an English lord should be.
“I am tolerated,” he said, “by some. One accepts what cannot be changed. Excuse me, Ormstead, my horse grows restless.”
Was St. Clair asking me to accept the past? To let go of it? Whatever else was true, I doubted he’d succeeded with either challenge any better than I had, and the thought yielded a grim sort of consolation.
“You are biding in London?” I asked.
“Sometimes. A moving target is harder to hit, and Englishmen do so appreciate a test of their sporting skills.” He nudged his horse forward, touched a gloved finger to his hat brim as he passed Hyperia, and disappeared around a bend in the path.
“Was that him?” Clarissa whispered, swinging her horse across the trail. “Was that the Traitor Lord?”
“That was Sebastian St. Clair,” Hyperia said. “The Traitor Baron, or the Traitor Lord, and I’ve heard worse as well.”
“I felt the temperature drop when he rode past me,” Clarissa said. “Napoleon’s prize interrogator, right here in Hyde Park. Too delicious for words. A man with his reputation should be little and hunched and sniveling.”
“That man has never sniveled in his life.” Hyperia was not offering a compliment.
“Tall, dark, and diabolical.” Clarissa gave a mock shiver. “Who would have thought? Julian, if you are done nosing around Harry’s ancient indiscretions, I must be getting home. I am famished, and I have a fitting first thing this morning. One never goes to a fitting on an empty stomach.”
“Take the groom,” Hyperia said. “Julian will accompany me home.”
Clarissa cantered away, the groom in tow. She had seen the Traitor Lord himself, and by noon—according to her hushed recollections—she would have suffered a greeting from him. By supper, he might well have offered insult to her person with his bold gaze, or perhaps attempted to charm her with his smile.
Though as to that, I’d never seen St. Clair smile.
“Jules, are you well?” Hyperia had brought her mare alongside Atlas.
“I find I am.”
“Was I right? That was St. Clair?”
Nobody had introduced him, though I had referred to him by name. “One and the same. I knew him as Girard. He looks well.” Not happy, not thriving, not at peace. As if some part of him still bided in that rocky fortress rattling about in chains of suffering and secrets.
“What did he say to you?” Hyperia asked.
“We exchanged civilities.” I assessed my reaction to the conversation, if one could call it that. Not relief, to have faced an old enemy with my manners intact. Not fear, certainly. St. Clair was no threat to me now.
“And?”
I urged Atlas forward at a relaxed walk. “He seemed to convey that his days are numbered, and I need not trouble myself over his continued existence much longer.” Typical of the odd politesse St. Clair had wrapped about himself like a shroud.
“You would not condescend to end his days,” Hyperia said, “though you are among the most entitled to bear him a grudge.”
“I escaped, in theory, or St. Clair let me go because his cause was lost and he was not by reputation a murderer. A torturer, yes, but not a murderer.”
“Then how do you explain Harry’s death at his hands?”
We rode along in silence, while I pondered the mystery of Harry’s passing. My French captors had told me only that he’d died honorably, which I’d taken to mean he’d died without yielding strategic military information. I had not seen Harry’s remains, and I did not know where he’d been buried.
“I cannot explain Harry’s death, unless torture ended in murder.”
Which again flew in the face of St. Clair’s reputation. A British officer was to prefer death over dishonor, and St. Clair’s method had withheld death by design.
“But then,” I went on, “I’ve seen men die for no apparent reason. A hard march under a hot sun wouldn’t kill them, but they’d lie down on a bedroll beneath a pretty summer moon and never rise. A kick to the head from a fractious horse would leave them cursing and finishing the day with nothing more than a headache, and yet, they, too, would fall asleep after supper and be gone by morning. I simply don’t know what Harry’s exact fate was.”
St. Clair did know. I had to face that fact now in a way I hadn’t when his presence in London had been little more than rumor.
“What of Lady Clarissa?” Hyperia asked. “Was your discussion with her at all useful?”
We rounded another bend, and the Serpentine lay before us, sparkling in the morning sun. “Useful, yes. Everybody recalls the year without a Christmas, the difficult business of putting the Regency in place, the arguments over a Council of Regency and who should be on it. Arthur claims the merchants and hostesses were delighted to see Town so lively through the winter.”
“While Clarissa has only generalities to impart.”
“Yes, but I gave her only generalities to consider. Will she respect a confidence?” I trusted Hyperia’s judgment more than my own, at least in this.
Hyperia watched as a family of ducks trooped down the bank and went honking across the water, Mama in the advance, Papa bringing up the rear. A prosaic, oddly touching sight. Everybody paddling madly beneath the surface, all the while appearing to make a placid progress across the water.
“Harry might well have a son,” Hyperia said, “conceived at a time when Harry was very publicly keeping company with Clarissa. If she doesn’t want rumors to start up that she’s the boy’s mother, she should be both more forthcoming with you and very discreet with others.”
I voiced the thought Hyperia was too polite to state aloud. “And if the boy is Clarissa’s, foisted off on an old school chum or convenient acquaintance in need of coin, will Clarissa find it more expedient to tell the truth or to continue lying?”