Page 23 of A Gentleman in Possession of Secrets (The Lord Julian Mysteries #10)
Chapter Ten
I returned to the formal parlor and cracked a window that gave me a fine view of the viscount setting a brisk pace down the lane that led to the stables.
A footman trailed behind him with a valise.
Lord Standish had likely timed his escape for the part of the day when the viscountess regularly reviewed menus or tended to her correspondence.
Not a stupid man, but prone to living to fight another day.
His circumstances saddened me, and I formed a resolve that if Hyperia and I ever found ourselves dodging around each other, sneaking into the hedgerows, and hiding in our figurative clubs, that I’d face the situation squarely and do all in my power to repair it.
“Rubbishing hell.”
Strother Stadler emerged onto the path a dozen yards behind his father, another footman lugging another valise in his wake.
I pushed the window the rest of the way open, dropped to the ground, and trotted across the garden, keeping to the grass lest my quarry detect my pursuit.
By the time I fell in step with Strother, we had passed the privet hedge that kept the stables and carriage house from the view of the manor proper.
“Suffering saints, Caldicott. Must you sneak up on a man?”
Farther up the path, the viscount forged onward, oblivious to my rear-guard action.
“You’ll want to take that back to the house,” I said to the footman holding Strother’s valise. “The viscount might well be off to London, but Mr. Stadler has pressing business to attend to here at Pleasant View.”
To his credit, the footman looked to Strother for confirmation. That worthy nodded, and then I was alone with the viscount’s heir.
“I ask myself, has your sister followed the family tradition and taken flight on her own initiative? Losing a sister is not well done of you, Stadler, and Captain MacNamara is most concerned, as am I.”
“Lost? Hannah? I say, that is… Well, on second thought. Oh dear. The very notion confounds… But this is Hannah… and…”
“And without her to bail you out of the River Tick, your creditors will soon descend on the family seat, and thus you thought to hide very discreetly in plain sight in London or to squat in the rooms of some chum who has left Town early. In either case, you are a very poor excuse for a brother.”
An antique traveling coach, two bays in the lead, the wheelers a pair of sturdy chestnuts, lumbered around to the stable yard.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” I said, ready to make my point with my fists if necessary.
“Your sister is missing in action. We either retrieve her from her captors, find her among the wounded, or locate her body. Every shred of evidence I’ve come across suggests Miss Stadler has been kidnapped, and you are deserting your post.”
The militance of my words surprised even me, but a gently bred young lady, no matter how resourceful or well-heeled, wasn’t safe for long on her own in the English countryside, much less in the hands of kidnappers.
“She’s not dead,” Strother said, though the words seemed to annoy him. “I can’t see that it’s any business of yours.”
“I am making it my business. You either accept the aid I offer, or all of London will soon know of your troubles.” Bruiting about Miss Stadler’s difficulties figured nowhere on my agenda, but getting through to her blockheaded brother sat at the top of the new business list. The lady had been missing for nigh two weeks, and I could see no sign that her family had made an effort to find her.
“Mama won’t hear of you becoming involved.” A lament rather than an objection.
“I am involved. I’ve been searching for any word of your sister, any sighting of her, for days.
She’s disappeared, and before you send me on a goose chase, she is not biding with Mrs. Witherspoon.
You’ve lost her or sent her away, and neither Captain MacNamara nor I will rest until we know she’s well and happy. ”
MacNamara’s motivations included love and loyalty. I was inspired by guilt. If I’d gone straight to work, and denied myself a jaunt to London, would Hannah Stadler be home, safe and sound?
Strother must have sensed that now that I’d accepted my orders, I would not abandon the mission. He regarded me with rare seriousness.
“We’ve had a ransom demand, and they sent us a lock of her hair. I compared it to the lock Han gave me when I went off to university, and it’s hers, or as near as.”
My relief was enormous. “Back to the house,” I said. “ Now. I assume your father remains in ignorance of the entire situation?”
“Blissfully so. I thought it best, and Mama concurred. Papa isn’t stupid. He knows something’s afoot, and as usual, it’s not something that bodes well for the family. Let him have his furlough, Caldicott. The reprieve will doubtless be temporary.”
We watched as the coach rattled off, using the lane that led directly to the village rather than taking the longer drive that swept graciously past the house.
“March,” I said, gesturing in the direction of the manor, “and prepare to be very, very honest.”
He marched. I prayed for patience. Tread lightly, Hyperia had said. I wanted to boot dear Strothie in the arse, hard, and speak to his mother as no gentleman ever addressed a lady.
I dispatched one footman to fetch the viscountess, another to bring a tray of lemonade and sandwiches. Strother chose the library for our conference, which led me to believe that the informal parlor or family parlor had likely been retired from active duty.
So many families, gentry and aristocracy both, were hanging on by their fingernails and counting on the Corn Laws to prop up their situations.
That the same laws were swelling the ranks of the wretched poor and providing a military-minded government an excuse to oppress the “unruly” masses was, to the likes of Lady Standish, an acceptable price for new curtains.
I did not envy Arthur his responsibilities in the Lords.
Lady Standish paused in the doorway. “Young man, that is a singularly ungracious expression. One does not greet a lady with less than his best manners, most especially when he is intruding into her home without an invitation.”
As artillery barrages went, that one failed to impress. “Neither does a loving mother threaten her adult daughter with banishment simply because that lady hopes to marry for love as well as security.”
Strother stared resolutely out the window. Her ladyship stepped into the library and closed the door quite firmly.
“Strother, either summon the footmen to eject his lordship bodily, or explain to me why he thinks he can disrespect your mother while you do nothing.”
Strother turned, though he remained near the French doors. “Lord Julian knows , Mama. He knows we’ve lost track of Hannah and that she might be the victim of foul play.”
For the merest instant, her ladyship’s features showed consternation, then her impassive mask slipped back into place.
“We have no idea what has befallen Hannah. For all we know, she’s tormenting us with a very nasty prank.
She reads too many novels, and novels inflame the imagination.
Pamphlets are even worse. I have told her and told her that a lady reads her Book of Common Prayer , improving tracts, or the Society pages.
But no, not for Hannah. She must have poetry, and Shakespeare, radicals, and philosophers.
Don’t blame me if the girl has come down with a brain fever.
I have done my best by her. More than most mothers would do. ”
“By threatening her with banishment to the Western Isles? By insisting that she marry an Irish lordling who bored her silly? By disapproving of a suitor who could make Hannah happy?”
Strother unlatched the French door, letting in a slight breeze.
“You impudent young man,” Lady Standish said, fisting her hands.
“You know nothing. You have no idea, not the first, earthly notion, of the suffering Hannah will endure if she persists in her wrongheaded, outspoken… I will not be made to listen to your insults when all I want is to see my daughter take her place in Society and derive contentment from it.”
That Lady Standish would bicker with me was interesting. She revealed a degree of upset that felt somehow off. I could believe she was worried for her daughter, but the focus of her concern wasn’t Hannah’s immediate whereabouts.
“Contentment,” I countered evenly, “as you are content?”
The viscountess advanced on me. “I comport myself as befits my station, which is more than one can say for you, my lord. The next thing to a traitor, perhaps worse than a traitor. Does your late brother haunt you? Some say you went mad after Waterloo, and that—”
“Mama, this gets us nowhere. We need to find Hannah.”
The viscountess waved her hand. “She just wants the gold. Hannah is stupidly fixated on that gold, which we should have turned into coin years ago.”
Too late, the viscountess realized what she’d admitted before my impudent self. The Stadler family had gold, and that gold was urgently needed. She gave the bell-pull a defiant jerk, probably hoping to have me tossed from the premises.
I had called Wellington’s bluff when necessary, though I’d done so carefully and politely. Viscountess Virago wasn’t half as formidable as the duke.
“Let’s assume your groundless theory is correct,” I said. “If Hannah is essentially blackmailing you into parting with the family treasure, then locating her is the simplest way to thwart her schemes. If she has been kidnapped by malefactors, the situation might well be life or death.”
“I tell you, she has done this to us. You don’t know my daughter, sir, and speaking as her mother—”