Page 21 of A Gentleman in Possession of Secrets (The Lord Julian Mysteries #10)
We were surrounded by the ailing specimens that were not fit for display along the terraces or garden walks. A pair of anemic potted lemon trees. A peach tree with some spotty yellow leaves. A rosebush that looked to have more thorns than leaves.
The sole cheerful note was a pot of violets blooming like mad in the middle of the low table.
“Downing left London at least a month ago,” Lady Ophelia replied.
“He is received, but he is not sought out by the elite hostesses. The man is handsome in a Black Irish way and full of charm when he wants to be, but his father is not yet fifty and in roaring good health. Then too, the family’s means have dwindled considerably in the last few decades.
A younger brother is said to have emigrated to Boston. ”
“Taken ship ahead of creditors?” My tea was tepid, and I’d forgotten to sweeten it. I put the cup down after a single sip.
“Very likely. A younger son of an impoverished peer seldom travels to the hinterlands because he’s tired of clean linen and Continental vintages. You don’t care for the tea?”
“Tea should be hot or cold, not lukewarm, and why the silver service wasn’t trotted out in honor of your arrival, I do not know. At least then the tea would have been kept hot.”
Hyperia became fascinated with the pink roses climbing the trellis on the east-facing windows. Lady Ophelia narrowed her gaze on me.
“Have you been going short of sleep, Julian?”
“He’s been riding all over creation,” Hyperia said. “Up to Town and back, all around the shire, tiring even Atlas, and now he’ll doubtless wear out Beowulf.”
Her ladyship swiveled her gunsights to Hyperia. “Atlas is that great dark beast with the poetical eyes?”
“The very one,” Hyperia said. “Julian, don’t glower at me as if I’ve told tales out of school. Her ladyship knows when you neglect your rest just by looking at you.”
“I will get a good night’s sleep tonight, and my travels will take me only as far as Pleasant View tomorrow. When trying to find a young lady who has disappeared without explanation, a certain urgency attaches to the situation.”
I sounded as peevish as I felt, and neither lady deserved my ill humor.
“I’m sorry. I have doubtless exceeded my physical limits with this investigation.
At first, I was not sufficiently motivated to do much on Miss Stadler’s behalf, and now her circumstances worry me exceedingly.
Godmama, tell us what else you’ve learned regarding Mr. Downing. ”
I owed Hyperia an extended apology when we were private. I had hauled her down from Town and promptly abandoned her to MacNamara’s understated charms.
Not well done of me.
“Downing drinks to excess,” Lady Ophelia said, apparently willing to grant me clemency.
“He gambles, very likely to excess. He wagers at the horse races, and we may imply excess there as well. He did, though, part ways with his mistress earlier this year, and a young fellow generally does that only when he’s seriously contemplating matrimony. ”
A gust of wind caught one of the French doors and banged it closed. Hyperia rose and fastened the door latch.
“Or,” she said, regarding the darkening sky, “the couple part when the lady finds a fellow who is more regular about paying her expenses. The idea that the gentleman decides when the liaison is over doesn’t always hold water.”
How did she…? She just did, that’s how. “The timing is suspicious,” I said. “Downing leaves town, and a fortnight later, Hannah Stadler is escorted from the property by two men. Her family starts propounding falsehoods to explain her absence, and nobody has heard a word from Miss Stadler since.”
“You think they eloped?” Lady Ophelia asked. “With what money, Julian? One doesn’t get to Scotland in any kind of style without ready coin.”
“Hannah Stadler might have plenty of ready coin. She could simply snatch a bracelet or brooch from the family stash of heirlooms, have Downing pawn it, and away they go.”
Hyperia returned to my side on the settee. “You do think they eloped?”
“My instincts say no. MacNamara is an exceedingly shrewd man, and I cannot see Hannah duping him as to her feelings for either Downing or MacNamara himself. But if I were intent on kidnapping a young lady, the last thing I’d do is absent myself from public view, effect the crime, and remain out of sight when the young lady’s disappearance was noted. ”
Thinking like a criminal was becoming a habit.
“You’d be seen lounging about your clubs,” Lady Ophelia said.
“Assuming you recall how to lounge and still patronize any London clubs. Failing that, you’d lurk at Tatts or at least hack out in Hyde Park on fine mornings.
Well, Downing isn’t in Dublin, and he isn’t in London.
I will send a pigeon, so to speak, to Paris. ”
“Please do,” I said. “My plan for tomorrow was to confront Strother Stadler about the inconsistencies in his stories. Hannah is not taking the waters with one of her mama’s aging friends.
Her Grace sent her figurative pigeons to Bath and Lyme Regis, and they confirm that Miss Stadler hasn’t been sighted in either location.
“She is not on a repairing lease with Mrs. Witherspoon,” I went on. “Strother left Town in disgrace, and his own mother threatened Hannah with regular banishment. If I beat those bushes hard enough, I might startle some answers from him.”
Lady Ophelia made a face that suggested a whiff of bad fish had tainted the air.
“Lady Standish is not a pleasant woman. The Town tabbies make a regular joke of referring to her residence as Unpleasant View, when they refer to her at all. She prefers to be queen of the shire rather than compete with the leading lights of London. They disparage her for that too.”
“I don’t care for these tabbies.” How odd that Lady Standish and I both avoided Mayfair’s so-called polite society, and for similar reasons.
Godmama smiled. “The tabbies don’t care for you either, young man. All that havey-cavey business with the French, locking yourself in your town house week after week when you mustered out, your hair gone ghostly white. They dined on your poor bones until I put my dainty foot down.”
They were still dining on my poor bones, though they had sense enough not to snack on my reputation where Lady Ophelia could get wind of it.
“What if Strother merely plays ignorant with you, Jules?”
A crack of thunder had me nearly jumping out of my boots. The ladies appeared unruffled—they excelled at appearing unruffled, bless their dear hearts.
I needed a moment to consider Hyperia’s question. “Strother well might continue to prevaricate or claim he knows nothing. That is why I’d like you ladies to drop around to Miss Stadler’s favorite lending library tomorrow and catch Lady Dewar on her regular rounds.”
“Lady Dewar is nobody’s fool,” Godmama opined. “Or she wasn’t. Time steals the wits of so many.”
Captivity in a French garrison could make off with one’s wits too. “How is your Scots Gaelic?” I asked.
Another bad-fish face. “Passable. Lady Dewar is quite fluent in English.”
“So is her companion and lady’s maid. She resorted to Gaelic with Her Grace out of what I fear was desperation.”
“Then Hyperia will have to distract the toll keeper while I slip past the turnpike. Honestly, Julian, not every mission is best accomplished alone and on foot.” Her ladyship rose in the manner of the elderly or the injured, in stages, without pride, intent on getting the job done however undignified the appearances.
I knew how it felt to move like that. MacNamara probably prayed for the day when he could move in any other fashion.
“I am off to my quarters for a lie-down,” Godmama said. “Travel is wearying, and that you, Julian, do so much of it pleaseth me not. Miss West will have her hands full with you.”
She swanned forth, leaving me with Hyperia in the uninspiring confines of the conservatory. A slap of rain spattered against the panes, and I almost leaped behind the settee, so badly had the sound startled me.
“You should nap too,” Hyperia said. “Atticus will scold you for overdoing, Julian.”
I wanted to stay with her and wanted to get away from the dreary, malodorous half-outdoors space we occupied.
“See me to my door?” I asked, rising and extending my hand to her.
When she rose, I tugged her into a hug that shaded closer to clinging on my part. A welter of unpleasant sensations—dread, anger, resentment, sadness, grief, I could not name them all—threatened my composure from out of nowhere.
I felt as I had after a battle, knowing more battles were to come, knowing them all to be pointless and tragic and inevitable.
“The storm doesn’t help,” Hyperia said, stroking my back. “I hate that. We used to love storms when we were children. We’d play in the rain and vex our nannies, and they’d fix us nursery tea and scold us with shortbread.”
I wasn’t a child. I was a grown man who needed rest and answers, in that order. I let go of Hyperia.
“You don’t mind a trip to Hannah Stadler’s library with Lady Ophelia?”
Hyperia brushed my hair back from my brow, a caress I usually treasured. The same touch annoyed me now, and I had no idea why.
“You could send Her Grace,” Hyperia said, stepping back. “She has passable Gaelic if anybody does.”
“The duchess is too conspicuous, and she and Godmama are not the easiest companions.”
“Ah. Former rivals, possibly, or your not-so-sainted papa made them so. We will probably never know, and thank goodness for that. Julian, is something wrong?”
Many things, but I had no specific answer for the question she was truly asking: Was something wrong with me ? I was in a frustrating phase of an investigation, true, but we had many places yet to look for answers and no reason to believe the worst had befallen Miss Stadler.
“I have neglected you and snapped at you.” I brushed a kiss to Hyperia’s knuckles. “Badly done, and I am sorry for my behavior.”