Page 27 of A Gentleman in Possession of Secrets (The Lord Julian Mysteries #10)

“We’ll find her,” Jimmy Dorset said, balling his callused hands into fists. He was a rangy blond, former infantryman turned gardener, and he walked with a slight limp.

“We ain’t looking fer the young miss,” the groom retorted. He went by the moniker Dutch, though I detected nothing of the Low Countries in his accent. He was shorter and thicker than Dorset, and his hair was flaxen. “We’re looking fer the gold.”

“We might find the young miss,” Dorset shot back. “She’s lively, in her way, and hauling her to parts distant would be a challenge.” Dorset was the better-spoken, but in a fight, I’d put my money on Dutch.

The groom, who’d been artillery until he’d lost an eye, wore a green patch over the socket, probably a nod to his former regimental colors.

“We won’t find anything if you two keep bickering,” the gamekeeper said. “My lord doubtless has orders for us.”

The gamekeeper, Carstairs, struck me as an academic sort. In addition to worn but well-made riding attire, he wore spectacles and a low-crowned beaver hat. Curling dark hair neatly trimmed, intelligent brown eyes. A gentleman’s son, perhaps. I wondered how much gamekeeping he actually did.

Former rifleman, MacNamara had said. A demon in battle and never missed a target, but wrote fairly good poetry too.

Carstairs did not appear demonic. He looked like a schoolmaster resigned to educating little heathens, with whom he half sympathized.

He was lanky and attractive in a lonely soul sort of way, and his smile struck me as sad.

He also outranked Dutch and Dorset, so they fell silent at his order.

“Dutch has a point,” I began, at the risk of causing dissension in the ranks.

“Miss Stadler might well be in the vicinity. All we know is that she’s missing, and the gold is missing.

The family will receive instructions regarding ransom money in the next several days, if our criminals can use a calendar, so time is short. ”

Dutch said something under his breath that sounded like German profanity.

“ Are we looking for Miss Stadler?” Carstairs asked.

The three of them, probably without intending to, had arranged themselves in a ragged line in MacNamara’s garden.

Carstairs lounged against the upright supporting a wooden swing wide enough for two.

Dutch had propped a hip against a dry birdbath, and Dorset stood loosely at attention on the other side of the birdbath.

MacNamara’s garden was hardly a showplace, considering that we’d reached the late spring/early summer season when gardens often showed to their best advantage.

Potted heartsease provided some color, and the lavender borders were in good trim.

Roses had been trellised to provide shade on a back porch, but the rest of the space boasted few flowers.

The beds looked to be full of spices, a few tomatoes, some beans… Half kitchen garden, half spice garden with a few ornamental touches as an afterthought.

A soldier’s garden, perhaps. Provisions and medicinals before all else.

“The gold could be anywhere,” I went on. “Miss Stadler could be enjoying the hospitality of some obscure hostelry over in Dorking. She might be housed in an abandoned tenant cottage, of which there are two. The weather is mild enough that amenities can be safely limited.”

Dutch snorted. Carstairs gave me his woebegone smile.

“Miss Hannah is a lady,” Dorset said, “but she isn’t any fading flower. The only amenity she needs is books. Captain says the same.”

“A born reader,” Carstairs added. “Nose in a book, and she’s happy.”

The rest went unsaid: If Miss Hannah was happy, the captain was happy, and thus his men were happy. How many of these little ragtag regiments had formed all over Britain, part veterans of the war, part refugees from a land that had no jobs and no homes for its former soldiers?

“She was reading when her captors came upon her,” I said.

“Think of yourselves as temporarily seconded to reconnaissance. We can’t spot a brooch tucked into a stone wall, but we can look for stones that, unlike the rest of the wall’s face, lack moss.

We won’t see Miss Hannah waving to us from some sunny back-garden, but we can note human footprints on a narrow game trail or spot an old well whose cover has been set aside. ”

“We are looking for anything out of place?” Carstairs asked. “Is that how you fellows did your jobs?”

“Part of it. We looked for who was riding a horse of better quality than his means would allow—there’s your informer.

We looked for stacks of fodder higher than needed for the livestock in view—there’s the man who will sell you a few head of cattle, provided the enemy doesn’t see him doing it.

We kept a sharp eye, or we never made it back to camp. ”

“Miss Hannah will make it back to camp,” Dutch said, “and the captain will marry her.”

On this, the whole battalion agreed.

We consulted the maps MacNamara had drawn, and we discussed, as military people would, how to implement the orders given.

I did not expect us to stumble across Hannah Stadler, but the possibility bore consideration.

If nothing else, we could find clues as to who had taken her, and then we might pick up their trail.

Miss Stadler had likely hidden the gold in every hollow log and stile on the property. Golden needles—and bracelets, circlets, tiaras, and necklaces—in an endless haystack.

The butler, MacNamara’s former batman, would man headquarters in our absence. He was a former gunnery sergeant answering to the name of Coombs. Spare, quiet, and watchful, he could hear out of only one ear unless a storm approached, and then both ears temporarily functioned.

A storm was approaching, figuratively, and—given the time of year—probably literally. Dutch and Dorset left the garden on foot. Carstairs took the captain’s extra mount.

I climbed into Atlas’s saddle and prepared for the disagreeable task of once again doing battle with Viscountess Standish.

“I don’t understand.” The viscountess sank onto the formal parlor’s tufted sofa. “If Her Grace has arranged for funds, why must these, these… menials swarm over the property? We pay the ransom, Hannah is returned, and nobody will know she was ever missing.”

Strother sent me a pleading look from across the room.

He lounged against the mantel, the picture of young manhood at his rural leisure.

His riding attire indicated that he’d been hacking his familiar route.

The dust and spurs on his boots suggested he was too rattled by his sister’s situation to have attended to basic courtesies upon returning to the house.

“My lady,” I said, resisting the urge to pace before her, “kidnappers are felons. Felons are seldom honorable. They have taken your daughter, and she might well have fared very badly at their hands.”

The viscountess turned an outraged eye on me. “You mean, MacNamara won’t marry her now? The impudence of that man. He all but jeopardizes her good name, strolls all over creation at her side, allows her to gambol unescorted about his property, makes a nuisance of himself here at—”

My patience deserted me. “My lady, the captain has personally dispatched me and his staff to search for your daughter. My comments implied that Miss Hannah might have been murdered by her captors.”

I despised the word— captors . Captivity was worse, prisoner worst of all.

“Murdered? That is preposterous. Who would murder…?” The viscountess fell silent, and for the first time, she seemed to grasp that the present situation was not intended as a mean joke to vex her tireless campaign on behalf of propriety and standards.

She put a hand to her throat. “Strother, please ask his lordship to leave. He’s spouting nonsense.”

“Mama, he is not. I will ask him to leave, though, so that he might search for Hannah. My lord, I’ll see you out.”

I went with him gladly. “Your mother has had a shock. Best send her to bed with a tisane.”

“She doesn’t send to bed very well, my lord. Won’t be seen to tipple before the servants either.” Strother escorted me down a spotless corridor, scowling ancestors glowering down from the walls. The runner beneath our boots was clean, but going thin in the middle.

“Then send for her physician,” I said, “and have him order her some patent remedy for the nerves. We may have worse news yet to impart.”

“What’s worse than Hannah missing, our fortune disappeared, and the captain’s little army of the halt and the indigent roaming the property?”

I stopped several yards short of the sunny, cavernous foyer. “Those indigents lost eyes, feet, and their lives so that you could sleep safe in your bed, Stadler. You impugn them in my hearing at your peril.”

“Do forgive me, my lord. Meant no offense. Profuse apologies. Not myself lately.”

He was himself. Sly, self-absorbed, and smart enough to retreat when necessary, exactly like his father. Cook stinted on the mustard. Strother stinted on sincerity.

“The men are looking for Hannah,” I said. “They will also keep an eye out for anywhere your gold might be hidden. I frankly hold little hope that your fortune can be recovered unless Miss Hannah is extant to tell us where it is.”

“But you will recover Han eventually, because your dear, gracious, generous mama has sent to London for the funds.”

He glanced over his shoulder, as if he feared a footman overhearing that part.

“The kidnappers specified that some of the ransom was to be paid in gold. Assuming the Caldicott solicitors and bankers can assemble a fortune and get it to us by the day after tomorrow, we still won’t have it in the form demanded.

We also might not have it in time. His Grace is on the Continent, and cash reserves between planting and harvest are generally low. ”

“But he’s a duke. You’re his heir. Surely the bankers comprehend the order of precedence?”