Page 16 of A Gentleman in Possession of Secrets (The Lord Julian Mysteries #10)

“If Miss Stadler has been abducted, she is likely still in the vicinity.” Assuming she was alive.

I put a hand under MacNamara’s elbow and resumed our halting progress toward the house.

“The greater the distance an unwilling traveler is transported, the greater the likelihood they will slip a note to a chambermaid, draw the notice of an inn’s proprietress, and so forth.

“Then too,” I went on, “if Hannah was abducted by two men, she could not be removed from the surrounds without some sort of female companion. The entire shire knows what her brother and father look like and that the strange men accompanying her would answer to neither description. Either they’ve secreted her somewhere locally, or they had to recruit a decent-appearing female accomplice. ”

MacNamara stopped again and studied me. “Your mind, Caldicott, is like no other I’ve encountered. You can think like a kidnapper. You did not pick up that skill at public school.”

He tottered on, and my hand stayed under his elbow.

“Let’s not forget to also think like a disappointed suitor. I want to make Downing’s acquaintance, get his version of events, and assess the extent to which his disappointment might motivate him to ruin the lady who turned him down.”

MacNamara stiffened.

“That sort of revenge happens,” Hyperia murmured, getting her hand under the captain’s other elbow. “Elopements that begin as kidnappings are not strictly the province of lurid novels.”

“Hannah could have been kidnapped,” MacNamara said slowly. “I doubt she could be forced to speak vows against her will. Her sisters are married and beyond the touch of scandal.”

“But,” I replied, “her brother is not, and unless I miss my guess, Strother would be well advised to marry wealth.”

MacNamara muttered something ungentlemanly in his native tongue.

We shepherded him into the house, though the terrace steps were an insult to his dignity. He accepted the assistance of the first footman and decided on a tray for lunch.

“How are your eyes, Julian?” Hyperia asked as we stood in the Hall’s bright foyer. Midday sunlight flooded through the skylight, and white marble and gleaming parquet floors bounced the illumination against sparkling windows.

“My eyes are tired, as is the part of me that occupies the saddle, if you must know. Miss Stadler’s prospects are not improving, Perry. I could now kick myself for nipping into Town.”

“Julian, no matter what order of battle you follow, you cannot be everywhere at once, and in this case, you would not have learned the extent of the Stadlers’ wealth without consulting me. That information bears critically on potential motives, does it not?”

I took Hyperia’s hand and led her down the corridor to the cool, quiet confines of the estate office.

“The gold is complicated,” I said. “Downing might have kidnapped Hannah to get his hands on the gold. Very straightforward, simple, criminal thinking.”

Hyperia took the seat behind Arthur’s majestic desk. I settled into one of the wing chairs opposite.

“Anybody might have kidnapped Hannah to get that gold”—she picked up a stick of Arthur’s signature purple sealing wax and sniffed—“provided they knew of the gold. Go on.”

“Kidnapping can result in ransom paid, but whether the ransom is paid or the victim frees herself, scandal must inevitably follow her all the rest of her days.”

Hyperia set aside the wax, propped her chin on her hand, and tapped a nail against the blotter. I mentally sketched her thus, looking pretty, serious, and fierce. If she’d disappeared from my life without notice, I’d be turning the whole of England upside down until I knew she was safe.

MacNamara, poor, limping devil, needed me to do his turning upside down for him.

“You are saying,” Hyperia murmured, “that if somebody wanted only to ruin Hannah, kidnapping is the end in itself, and the gold has nothing to do with it. We’re back to Downing.”

“There’s another possibility. Two more, actually.”

“You don’t care for the viscountess. I grant you she’s something of a prig, but her lot hasn’t been easy. Why would she arrange for Hannah to disappear?”

“To ensure that Hannah does not marry the penniless, plainspoken captain.”

“He isn’t penniless,” Hyperia said, “and his prospects have improved since the war.”

“You know that, but this battle of wills between Hannah and her mother predates the war.” Predated civilization, perhaps. “If the viscountess is truly wroth with her daughter, then sending Hannah to live in disgrace in some Scottish croft is victory for the viscountess.”

Hyperia sat up. “Gracious saints, Julian. That is… credible. Convoluted, but credible.”

The lunch bell rang, reminding me that I was famished. “I have another theory that isn’t nearly so convoluted.”

Hyperia rose. “MacNamara has no reason to subject the woman he loves to an ordeal, Julian. He’s a good man, bearing up under difficulties. I refuse to include him on a list of suspected felons.”

“Not MacNamara—or I can’t see a way to incriminate him yet—but look at the situation from Hannah’s perspective.

She wants to marry the captain, her mother objects, and her father is unwilling to contradict his wife.

Strother has no authority, despite posturing to the contrary, and tries to keep out of it.

What would make the viscountess view even the captain as a suitable parti? ”

“Oh dear. If the captain was the only option left, he’d become a suitable parti by default. Hannah is an intelligent woman, and she might well appear to ruin herself to get what she wants. Julian, I don’t like this.”

“I am less enamored of the situation by the hour.” Though I adored having Hyperia on hand to sort through theories and evidence.

“But your theory, that Hannah had herself kidnapped, isn’t supported by facts, Jules. If Hannah had herself kidnapped, why hasn’t she stumbled out of the hedgerow, breathless, disheveled, and ruined in name? A week in the company of kidnappers is long enough to wreck a reputation for all time.”

I left the comfort of the chair. “Precisely. Somebody’s best laid plan is going quite agley.”

But whose, and how?

Hyperia paused with me behind the closed door. “‘The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men… Gang aft agley…’ Robert Burns, ‘To a Mouse.’” She hugged me around the middle. “Be careful, Julian. Matters are taking a nasty turn, and you are but one man.”

One tired, hungry man. I hugged her back. “But I am not without substantial allies, and neither am I a mouse. We’ll find her, Perry, and soon.”

Assuming she wanted to be found.

I acquainted myself with every hostler, potboy, cook’s assistant, and groom in a twenty-five-mile radius of Pleasant View, and all for nought.

Almost for nought, rather. After three days in the saddle, some of my stamina was coming back to me. I was pushing past the bounds of exhaustion, relearning the need to drink from my canteen before I was thirsty. Perfecting again the art of snacking on horseback.

My marathon interviewing innkeepers’ wives and stable boys also took the edge off the ostinato of anxiety underlying my days and nights.

The trick to managing the fear that kept a reconnaissance officer alive was to stay just tired enough that fatigue raised a barrier to panic without inviting carelessness.

For two nights, I camped with Atlas, as I had so many times in Spain, the summer night sky providing a reassuring display of nocturnal grandeur. I sent regular reports of failure to the Hall, and that kept me humble and determined.

Nobody had seen a lady answering to Hannah’s description leaving the area in a vehicle of any kind.

I returned to the Hall on Sunday evening and sank into a bath with the relief of a soul restored to heaven’s graces.

Once I was thoroughly clean, I demolished most of a tray of beef and brie sandwiches, an entire bowl of fried pickles, two slices of gingerbread, and two tankards of Mrs. Gwinnett’s meadow tea.

“Nectar and ambrosia,” I said, leaving the last half a sandwich for Atticus.

While Atticus clucked and fussed about the state of my boots, I changed into comfortable attire, tied a cravat loosely about my neck, unearthed a lapel vase from my jewelry box, and appropriated a pink rosebud from the bouquet on my sitting room sideboard.

The flowers were fresh, doubtless a welcome-home gesture from Her Grace.

“You should join the discussion in the library,” I said, surveying my appearance in the mirror.

Atticus glowered up at me from the hearth, where he was swatting at the dusty toes of my riding boots with a badly wrinkled handkerchief.

“I shoulda joined your little jaunt all over the shire.”

I’d covered an average of fifty miles on each of three very long days.

Few horses would have been up to that test, and Atlas deserved several days’ respite to recover from his exertions.

Granted, we’d moved slowly and used every hour of the daylight.

I knew to look after my horse on forced marches, but how to explain to Atticus the decision to leave him behind?

“What is more memorable, Atticus—a toff passing through on his tired horse, or a toff passing through with a boy up on a cob beside him? Neither has any luggage to speak of, and they do not appear to be father and son. The man might be recognized as a lordling from one of the shire’s great houses, but nobody is quite sure who the boy is. ”

“You’re just saying that because you think I’da slowed you down. I wouldn’t. I rode practice gallops in Berkshire. I can stick on a horse, and you know it.”

What I knew was that clinging on for ten minutes of a fast canter wasn’t at all the same as enduring hours in the saddle, despite heat, dust, flies, and unrelenting sun.

“I would have preferred to take you with me,” I said, pulling on a pair of comfortably worn Hessians.

“Your ability to wrest information from those in service and in the stables far exceeds what I can accomplish. But tell me, Atticus, which horse in our stables could have kept up with the punishing pace that was a mere romp across the countryside for your boy Atlas? Mare, gelding, colt… Name me the horse who is his equal.”

Atticus ceased abusing the dusty boots. “He ain’t got an equal. Atlas is the best in the shire, maybe the best in England. I keep him fit for you, and there’s none coulda matched his pace.”

“Precisely, and time is increasingly of the essence regarding Miss Stadler’s disappearance.

Prudence and practicalities demanded that you guarded the fort while I covered as much terrain as possible.

The exigencies of war must take precedence over our petty conceits.

It’s damned hard to tend the fire at headquarters when the patrols are out and the enemy approaches.

That said, without somebody keeping watch behind the lines and ensuring every map and report is current, battles would be chaos. ”

Battles generally became chaos after the first quarter hour or so. I prayed Atticus would never learn that lesson.

“I don’t like it when you leave without me. Miss West don’t like it neither.”

My tiger was developing a natural talent for strategy and discretion. What he left unsaid was that one of my memory lapses could have befallen me while I’d been on my solo mission, a truly disquieting thought.

Which I pushed aside. “I don’t like leaving the Hall without you here to ensure Miss West has an ally, but you explain that to the lady at your peril, young man.”

He studied the boots. “That brother of hers is a turbulent sort. Has a fine opinion of hisself, does Mr. Healy West, though mayhem follows him everywhere.”

“He wants you to think he has a fine opinion of himself, but watch him closely, Atticus. He’s a new recruit obsessed with putting in a perfect appearance at parade inspections. He hasn’t found a path forward in life, and many worries press upon him.”

“He’s skint. Lady Ophelia told me that. She said gents hate being skint, and they hate anybody knowing they’re skint, so they dress like lords, and ride lordly horses, and buy lordly snuffboxes, and generally waste what little blunt they have pretending they ain’t skint. Foolishness, if you ask me.”

I wanted to tousle his unruly hair. “Nothing but, and the tactic generally works in reverse. A fellow making wild wagers at the card table while his boots are down at the heel is letting all of Mayfair know he’s short of coin.”

I considered my reflection in the cheval mirror.

My eyes were tired, and that showed, as did a certain planed-down quality to the way my clothing fit me.

I’d shaken off the creeping dismals, though, at least for the present, and I’d completed the largest task on the list of items that might help locate Miss Stadler.

“Onward,” I whispered. “For true love, Miss Stadler, and truth.”

“What you muttering about, guv?”

“A gentleman does not mutter. You will please take Atlas out in the morning for a very quiet hack. A mere toddle to ensure he doesn’t stiffen up.

You may hop two logs at the trot if he’s willing, but no more, and I do mean logs on the ground, Atticus.

No stiles, streams, or standing wagons. No mad gallops and very little cantering. That horse has earned his rest.”

Atticus grinned and saluted with a boot over his right hand and forearm. “Two little bitty logs, guv. I’m yer man.”

“Don’t wait up for me, though I will be early to bed myself. My thanks for manning the parapets.”

He huffed out the door ahead of me, boots in hand. They would reappear in my dressing closet without a speck of dust upon them.

Some of my good cheer ebbed as I made my way to the estate office.

I could put Atticus off with excuses about Atlas’s prodigious stamina, but in truth, I could have hired a fresh hack for the boy at any and every coaching inn.

I simply hadn’t wanted him to slow me down or intrude on a solitary mission.

I should be flattered that both Atticus and Leander sought my company—and I was—but they were also both complications in my life, and in my present condition, I did not feel up to the challenges they represented.

Though perhaps I might also lay some of that feeling of inadequacy at Miss Stadler’s elusive feet.