Page 29 of A Gentleman in Possession of Secrets (The Lord Julian Mysteries #10)
Chapter Twelve
“The goldsmiths report no sightings of any ancient Irish gold artifacts,” Hyperia said, pouring me a cup of steaming tea.
She added a dash of honey and passed it over.
“The fancy shops, the less savory dealers, the pawnbrokers who regularly trade on the Continent… According to Lady Ophelia, not a speck of suspicious gold in the past year or so.”
The tea was ambrosial. I had tarried only long enough to change into dry attire, which hadn’t chased the chill from my bones. Coombs had laid a wood fire on the hearth, the scent reminding me of myriad campfires and winter bonfires on campaign.
Hyperia fixed her own cup of tea. “If the treasure is intact, the kidnappers have no excuse for harming their victim. That has to be good news.”
“I hope it’s good news. Quite possibly, Lord Standish liquidated the family gold twenty years ago, and the theory that Hannah hid the gold is more posturing.”
I watched Hyperia gracefully presiding over the tea tray, offering me warmth, companionship, and a friendly ear at the end of a long, hard day. She was every good, domestic, delightful thing my heart desired.
I love you. To offer her the words usually cheered me, but in my present mood, weary in body and spirit, the dismals hard on my heels, the joy that was my love for Hyperia was tinged with misgiving.
The heart’s desire and the body’s desire were both deserving of acknowledgment and, within the bounds of matrimony, designed to amplify each other.
“Is the inn acceptable?” I asked.
“Surprisingly so.” She held out a plate of shortbread. “Lady Ophelia was impressed.”
Despite not having eaten for hours, and having walked mile after mile, I now wasn’t hungry, but that, too, was a symptom of inchoate melancholy. One compounded the issue by ignoring food, blending ennui and physical sluggishness into a pervasive torpor.
I took two pieces and popped one into my mouth. “I am surprised the captain didn’t escort you.”
“He’s in pain, Jules. The compresses help, but he refuses the poppy. Says he cannot afford a dull mind. He stares at Hannah’s miniature and broods.”
I’d had no miniature of Hyperia when I’d been in Spain. Too incriminating, for a tinker’s assistant, drover, or shepherd, to be larking about the mountains with a likeness of a pretty English miss in his pocket.
“We found nothing today,” I said, “and that puzzles me. We found no sign of gold, or of a prisoner being kept in one location then moved to another. We found no sign that Hannah frequented any favorite place with her books and lap desk either.”
“How could you tell if a young lady preferred to read on a bench by the stream or in a half-finished hermit’s grotto?”
“Scuffed ground beneath the bench, heel prints in soft earth, pencil shavings, an absence of dust wherever she routinely sat for any length of time. Game trails widened by repeated human use. Broken vegetation along the narrower trails, suggesting skirts or a cloak had swept past…” The usual signals that a closer look was in order, and we’d found none of them.
A tattoo of rain spattered the panes of the captain’s cozy parlor, causing me to startle sufficiently to slosh tea into the saucer.
“You will find her,” Hyperia said, kindly ignoring the mess I’d made. “You will find her, and she will be well, and she and the captain will marry.”
Will we marry? Will we marry happily? “They deserve some joy.”
Hyperia finished her tea. I was well aware that she and Lady Ophelia had gone to considerable trouble to see that I had all the intelligence from Town. A note would have done, but the ladies were putting on a show of support.
I appreciated their efforts, even as I resented them, and resented the whole tangle I’d taken on at MacNamara’s request.
“This arrived for you at the Hall,” Hyperia said, withdrawing another missive. The letter was small, the wax seal a mere white drop.
I slit the seal.
No word of the lad or anybody who knew of him, but half the town is off to the coast. I shall remain vigilant.
H. MacInnes
PS The blue specs work a treat.
“MacInnes sent a null report from Chelsea.” I refolded the missive and felt a mixture of relief—I hadn’t time to dash back up to Town at the moment—and despair. The trail leading to Atticus’s sibling was cold and obscured by time. A better tracker than I would have difficulty following it.
“No news is good news,” Hyperia said, “though when people fling platitudes at me, I usually find them anything but consoling. If Tom can be found, you’ll locate him, Jules.”
“The operative word being ‘if.’ I’ll accompany you back to the inn,” I said, finishing my second piece of shortbread. “Will you return to the Hall in the morning?”
“Lady Ophelia is restless.” Hyperia rose as another gust of wind roused the fire in the hearth.
“She’s talking about returning to London to learn what she can about Sylvester Downing.
Her network doesn’t include many of Dublin’s notables, so she’s keen to check her traps before the Season ends and what few Irish connections she has go home for the summer. ”
I pushed to my feet as well, hips and ankles protesting the effort. “Does her ladyship seem to be declining to you?”
“‘Aging’ might be the more accurate word. Mentally, she’s as sharp as ever, but physically, time or the social Season is taking a toll. She says Hannah Stadler reminds her of somebody, especially about the chin.”
“Hannah has her mother’s nose,” I said, extracting a likeness from my jacket pocket. “What do you think?”
Hyperia took the paper from me. “Hannah is taller and more robust than her mother. Her father has some height, but not Hannah’s… sturdiness.”
We peered at the likeness for a quiet moment.
“She doesn’t resemble her father at all,” I said, and now I had the sense Lady Ophelia was right. Hannah Stadler’s features were vaguely familiar.
“Jehovah’s nightgown, Jules. Hannah has Harry’s chin. His jaw, his eyebrows. She looks more like Harry than she does her own brother.”
An odd tingling skipped over my nape and down my arms. “I cannot ignore the similarity. I want to blink and have it disappear, but Harry’s eyebrows in particular… swooping, symmetric, and positively intimidating when arched… And you’re right about the chin, too. That has to be a coincidence.”
Hyperia set the sketch aside and slipped her arms around me. “No, it does not. Your papa was no saint. Your Uncle Thomas had a wicked streak and an eye for wives susceptible to temptation. This would explain why a pair of titled families two hours’ ride apart barely nod to one another.”
“The Stadlers’ relative penury might explain that as well.”
Hyperia gave me a squeeze and stepped back. “If a young and unhappy Lady Standish frolicked with a ducal Caldicott, she might well be ashamed of her past.”
Uncomfortable insight. “She might have become a high stickler as a result. I concede the theory has merit.” The theory had intuitive appeal as well.
“I’ve been puzzled as to why Lady Standish is such a Tartar, so uniformly vexed with life.
Perhaps she fell in love with her straying Caldicott, and he cut off relations. ”
Hyperia’s gaze went to the sketch. “Perhaps the straying Caldicott did not secure Lady Standish’s consent.
Perhaps a flirtation meant to arouse her husband’s jealousy turned into something sordid, very much against her ladyship’s will.
She could hardly hold a Caldicott male accountable for such a lapse, could she? ”
My intended put forth her hypothesis with a studied detachment very much unlike her. The topic was distasteful, true, but that did not account for the bleakness of Hyperia’s expression.
“Only Lady Standish knows,” I said, “and we might be speculating about a coincidence of appearances common to an inbred aristocracy.”
“True.” Hyperia beat me to the door. “Jules, would you like me to return to London with her ladyship?”
Yes. No. Of course not. “You must do as you wish. I know I’m neglecting you terribly, but MacNamara appreciates your company, and I was under the impression Healy might soon show up at the Hall.”
“You’re right. I don’t want to be a burden, though.”
I caught her hand as we approached the foyer. “Never, never, ever could you be a burden.” But what exactly would I call a wife who wanted no intimacies with a husband who desired her madly?
“The investigation isn’t going well, is it?”
I draped her cloak around her shoulders and put on my own less-than-dry shooting jacket. “We still have some time, and Lady Ophelia’s news from Town is more heartening than otherwise. I suspect Sylvester Downing has much to answer for.”
“The scorned suitor?”
“The scorned suitor of limited means probably thought he could charm himself into a pot of gold. If he’s half the strutting cockerel I think he is, that arrogance would not have sat well with Miss Hannah.”
We made the short coach journey to the posting inn, and I kissed Hyperia good night. Before decamping on foot in the rain for headquarters, I nosed about for Jem Bussard, but that worthy was off duty.
I thus made my way in the rain back to MacNamara’s abode, where I fell into a fitful slumber and dreamed of Harry’s chin on Atlas’s horsey face.
“If this is what reconnaissance entailed,” Carstairs said, gathering up his reins, “it’s no wonder you fellows were such a peculiar lot. You stare at dog shit as if it’s a fortune-teller’s pile of tea leaves. You sniff the ground, you shuffle through bracken… Are you even listening to me?”
I led Atlas along the edge of the Pleasant View home wood, Carstairs and his borrowed mount trailing behind me.
“You’re a gamekeeper,” I replied. “Do you have hounds to track game or fetch the birds you drop?”