Page 3 of A Gentleman of Dubious Reputation (The Lord Julian Mysteries #2)

Chapter Three

The Valmond family seat had likely begun life as a prosperous farmhouse. The owner, in the dim mists of time, had done some overlord a favor, or possibly lent money to a grateful monarch. Fortunate marriages had followed, aided by some plundering of the French countryside, and thus the Valmonds had been among the winners in the peerage sweepstakes.

Clarissa’s father was an earl, though this realization had shocked me as a boy. Earls, in my juvenile opinion, were to be brave fellows mounted exclusively on white horses, broad of chest, noble of brow, never far from an assortment of gleaming, deadly weapons or some stirring martial poetry.

Clarissa’s father was never very far from some crumbling bit of parchment that purported to explain how to create flying machines or perpetual clocks. His countess, likely in defense of her wits, had taken up a career as an invalid. She demanded her spouse’s escort to various spa towns, which suited Lord Valloise quite well.

He disappeared to the nearest Druidic ruin or lending library—equally tantalizing to him—and left his wife to enjoy her afflictions among friends. The children had been raised by a succession of tutors and governesses, to the extent any adult had taken a hand in their upbringing at all.

My mother had occasionally intervened, and it had been she who’d first seen young Viscount Reardon’s artistic talent. A proper drawing master had been dispatched, with promising results.

“Very good of you to come by,” Reardon said, escorting Hyperia and me up the steps from the Valmond House guest parlor. Lady Clarissa had declared a pressing need to see to correspondence, which I took as a ploy to spare her yet another tour of Reardon’s collection.

“His Grace sends regards,” I said, though Arthur had done no such thing. “When does the London exhibition open?”

“In two weeks.” Reardon fairly jogged up the steps. “One must wait a respectful time after the Royal Academy’s annual show closes. My paintings are to be crated up and shipped to Town starting tomorrow. I will follow and oversee the uncrating. Clarissa will join me before opening day. I do wish the duchess could see the collection. She has always been a supporter.”

Reardon was the fair-haired boy of English lore, grown up into a cheerful, blond young man full of energy and good humor. He’d been a pest in childhood, tagging after me and Harry, getting stuck in trees while spying on us, and dissolving into tears when we would not wait for him to catch up.

I had resented him then, and I resented him now. He bounced along with exuberant high hopes, while the feeble remains of my optimism had expired on some freezing mountainside in France.

My knee began to ache as we rounded the landing—and old injury—and I mentally chided myself for such petty sentiments.

“How many paintings will you send to London?” Hyperia asked.

Reardon went off into flights about how many was enough, and what if somebody made an offer on the best of the lot? How many reserves to bring up and of what kind? If the battle scenes sold first, did one hang another battle scene to replace it, or would an endless supply of one subject devalue the articles still on offer?

As he prattled on, I silently admitted that the pesky tag-along had become a budding artist with a frank—almost plebian—grasp of the financial realities of his calling. Clarissa’s influence, no doubt. For all her fluff and smiles, she was shrewd.

Lord Reardon ushered us into a gallery that ran the length of the back of the house, perhaps eighty feet. Morning sunlight poured in through symmetrically spaced windows and a pair of central French doors. Fireplaces at either end of the room would have been inadequate to heat such a space, but comfort was irrelevant.

The gallery was a statement of elegant grandeur, a museum of family honor. The comparable room at Caldicott Hall wasn’t much larger, though the ceilings were higher. Caldicott Hall had retained no less luminary than Antonio Verrio to paint the ceilings of its public rooms, while the Valmond House renderings had been done by James Thornhill.

The work above our heads was all very allegorical. Fortune smiling down on Prosperity and Bounty while tromping on the head of Fury, chubby putti flying through clouds conveniently arranged to shield any privy parts.

Against that backdrop, Reardon’s work was starkly realistic. No gods or biblical figures filled his canvases.

“These are quite good,” Hyperia said, moving closer to an image of an exhausted boy in regimental colors. He sat on the ground, head drooping at a dejected angle. His wrists, draped over his knees, conveyed the lanky strength of late adolescence. His pallor created a stark contrast with the blood stippling his face and arm.

Comrades lay in the lush grass around him, some given the gray pallor of death, one lifting a beseeching hand to the sunny heavens. Begging for water, no doubt. The fallen always begged for water—or a bullet.

A horse standing on three legs, the fourth cocked at an angle portending humane destruction, occupied a higher swell of the land. The horse’s weary despair was the echo of the boy’s.

“Accurate,” I said, “right down to how the smoke drifts about. When the smoke clears, the flies move in. Then the burial parties and the scavengers get to work. How shall you title it?”

Hyperia was looking at me oddly, while I moved on to another painting.

Reardon paced at my side. “Something somber. Aftermath , perhaps. When Day Is Done . Battlefield Requiem .”

“The expression on the lad’s face,” Hyperia murmured. “He has seen hell. You did that very well, Reardon.”

He’d done it very well, and at least half a dozen times over. I tried to ignore the accuracy of his battlefield renderings and focused instead on the portraits and landscapes. Reardon didn’t believe in prettying up his subjects, as the grand portraits of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s era had done, but he also saw the beauty of the countryside and the people in it.

“Your cook?” The painting gave me a much-needed smile. The Valmond cook was the essence of jollity, an ageless bulwark of good cheer and generosity. I’d enjoyed many a slice of bread and glass of lemonade in her kitchen, and she’d patched up more than one skinned knee.

“Mrs. Felders,” Reardon said. “The housekeepers come and go, the butlers retire, and the footmen run off with the dairymaids, but Mrs. Felders remains. Her eyesight’s beginning to go, and I wanted to paint this while she could still see it.”

“Such kindness in those eyes,” Hyperia said. “You captured the humor and patience, and, of course, the skill.”

Mrs. Felders had been painted in the company of her famous vanilla mousse, expertly garnished with orange slices and ripe red raspberries. To taste that mousse was to be transported to the realm of the gods.

“You can’t place this wonderful rendering in the same room with all the…” Hyperia waved a hand. “Tragedy.”

Lord Reardon preened, hands behind his back. “I thought I’d put the military subjects in a gallery of their own so the ladies and others of delicate sensibilities can spare themselves the more serious subjects.”

“You did not serve,” I said, moving on to a portrait of my own dear mama. “How is it your battle scenes are so accurate?”

“I kept in touch with every soldier I knew,” Reardon said. “Lord Harry among them. I asked them for descriptions, sketches, impressions. You’d be surprised how poetical the average soldier can be when you ask him about his calling. How bitter, how insightful. I’d like to collect those letters into a book, but Clarissa says I’d need to ask permission of every correspondent and of the families of those who did not come home.”

Hyperia pretended to study the duchess’s portrait, but I could tell she disapproved of Reardon’s scheme.

“Hang the battle scenes among the other paintings,” I said. “Don’t group them together, or they will lose their impact and be more easily ignored. Position that dejected, blood-spattered boy next to the duchess and title his painting The Price of Victory . That ruined lad is every bit as deserving of public appreciation as any duchess. Excuse me.”

I had seen enough, or more than enough. Had I been in Spain, the stink of gunpowder in my nostrils, the screams of wounded horses all around me, and the French prisoners of war being marched off the battlefields in their weary scores, I might have borne up better under the onslaught of Reardon’s artistry.

I had been swilling tea and cakes a quarter hour earlier, avoiding Clarissa’s smiles and wishing myself back in Town. To see the destruction and tragedy of my past staring back at me from silk-hung walls was more of an assault to my composure than had I been attacked by footpads at high noon.

I tossed off a curt bow and strode for the door. I kept going until I was sitting on the Valmond House front terrace, fumbling to buckle on my spurs, and blinking madly against the bright morning sun.

I held a short, rounded silver spur in my hand, the type gentlemen donned more for show than for any equestrian purpose. The second spur adorned my right boot—and nice boots they were too—and I was sitting on the hard steps of some genteel country manor. Bright sunshine stung my eyes, and an ache in my throat left me with the uncomfortable suspicion that I’d been crying.

I realized that I did not know who I was. No name came to mind when I considered who I might be. I rose and regarded the gracious facade behind me. No sense of homecoming accompanied the sight of gleaming windows and a closed door of carved oak.

Lions rampant. Oak leaves. This might have been any one of hundreds of aging manor houses dotting the English countryside. Though, for that matter, was I in England? Was I English?

I was thinking in English, so I took it as writ that I was English.

“Your horse, milord.” A groom led a big, sturdy, dark gelding to the foot of the steps. A second groom led a mare wearing a sidesaddle over to the ladies’ mounting block.

The first fellow had spoken to me in English and referred to me as a lord—unless he was being cheeky, in which case his milording was an insult. Who the hell was I, and why couldn’t I recall my own name? Was an excess of drink to blame? I did not feel as if I’d been taking spirits—no sour taste in my mouth, no vertigo, no roiling belly—but something had wiped my memory clean of all meaningful information.

“My thanks.” I came down the steps, ignoring the urge to dust off my backside. “I must await the lady.”

“Miss West is in good looks as always,” the fellow said. “Will you be staying in the area long, milord?”

The man holding my horse was a groom, rather than a footman, and grooms were a generally less deferential lot than the indoor staff.

How did I know that? The fellow was also older than most footmen and addressing me with some familiarity.

“The duration of my visit is uncertain,” I said. “You might as well walk him. Miss West could tarry a while inside.” Whoever Miss West is.

I took in my surroundings, which were verdant and bucolic. Sheep grazed in a grassy park on either side of a slightly raised carriageway. Off to the east, the park gave way to a wood, while to the west, a lake mirrored the morning sun.

Summer, then, and the terrain had the look of the Home Counties. My mind apparently retained some sort of bedrock from which to reason, but few specific facts. I had the sense that surmising information through deductive processes was familiar to me.

But what did I know? Did I regularly misplace my wits? Why was I permitted in public if that was the case? I was attired as a gentleman. I had my own mount and silver spurs, and the scent of some sort of shaving soap wafted from my person.

The groom tugged on the reins, but the horse thwarted him and extended his nose in my direction. I held out a hand to the beast—he was a handsome fellow, though a bit on the inelegant side—and he ignored my gloved fingers, instead nuzzling the pocket of my riding jacket.

“Perhaps Atlas wants a tipple from your flask, my lord.” The groom good-naturedly discouraged the horse’s explorations.

I patted my pocket and felt a lump. “He smells this.” I withdrew a piece of carrot and with it came a calling card of some sort. I passed the horse his treat—Atlas, a good name for such a substantial equine—and peered at the card.

You are Lord Julian Caldicott. You have written this card to remind yourself that your memory sometimes fails in its entirety. The lapses pass within a few hours . You have merely to be patient, and all will be well.

The card further informed me that my brother was no less than a duke, and my Town dwelling could be found on thus and such street. Town referred to London, and even in my diminished state, I knew I was nowhere near the Capital. The air was much too fresh, the sky too bright.

The card informed me that I had only to be patient, and my mind would right itself. I was not reassured in the slightest.

At that moment, a tidy, fashionably dressed young woman emerged from the manor house.

“At least you waited for me. Are you all right, Jules?”

Any lady presuming to refer to a ducal son by his given name was a familiar or some sort. Miss West, so not my wife. That conclusion left me oddly disappointed. The lady was only modestly attractive by fashionable standards—brown hair, a trifle curvaceous when Society favored blond sylphs—but her eyes were lit with keen intelligence, and her smile conveyed warmheartedness rather than frivolity.

“I was reading my card,” I said, passing it over. “I assume you are familiar with my condition?”

A gamble on my part to entrust anybody with proof of what was apparently a chronic malady, but Miss West was the sort to inspire trust.

“Ah,” she said, tucking the card in my pocket. “You were overdue for a forgetful spell, I’m thinking. The malady hasn’t troubled you since you mustered out.”

I was former military, then. Perhaps a war injury accounted for my lapse. “Might you get me away from this place? I know not who I am or where I dwell, but I’d rather not be parading about in public when I’m half-witted.”

“We’ll be off directly,” she said, greeting her mare at the ladies’ mounting block. “You are safe, Jules. You and I are old friends, we are barely a mile from your family seat, and by suppertime, you will be entirely yourself. I promise you that. You have blue spectacles in your breast pocket. You’d best put them on, because bright sunshine bothers your eyes.”

Bright sunshine did not account for the lump I’d had in my throat, but I found the blue spectacles and donned them. They felt familiar, as did Atlas’s gait when Miss West and I trotted down the drive.

“Don’t fret,” Miss West said. “The lapses of memory are as rare as they are complete.” Her tone had the forced good cheer I associated with sickrooms and infirmary tents.

“And by supper, I will be myself.” I circled Atlas and drew him to a halt, the better for me to behold the place we’d come from. “We were calling on the neighbors?”

Miss West turned her mare so we both regarded the manor house in the distance. No recollections stirred at the sight of it, no heartstrings vibrated. Perhaps I did not care for these neighbors.

“That is Valmond House,” Miss West said. “Family seat of the Earls of Valloise. You and I are well acquainted with the earl’s grown children, Lady Clarissa and her younger brother, Viscount Reardon. There’s a younger daughter due to make her come out next year, Lady Susan. Reardon is preparing to exhibit a number of his paintings in London, and he’s quite talented. We were admiring his work when you abruptly departed.”

The house was pretty enough from a distance, but the potholes in the drive should have been filled in—summer storms would only make them worse—and the entire top floor of the house lacked curtains. Two lonely pots of some straggling greenery sat on either side of the front door, and the overall impression was one of creeping neglect.

“Was I angry when I decamped?”

“I’d say you were overwhelmed. Many of Reardon’s works depict military scenes, and his style will be too realistic in the eyes of many.”

“Gory,” I said, instinctively concluding that I’d seen a fair amount of gore in real life. “We will wish Lord Reardon every artistic success, but somebody needs to take that house in hand.”

Did I always notice details, or was my acumen a result of the near panic caused by the blank canvas of my recollection?

“I’ve always liked Valmond House, as Greek Revival structures go,” Miss West replied. “Modest, but then, we can’t all dwell in ducal palaces.”

“That wood is overgrown,” I said, gesturing to the east. “The park is overgrazed, and the place wants flowers. It’s summer, for pity’s sake, and if I’m not mistaken, that side terrace is beginning to subside.”

Miss West looked from the sunny facade to me and back at the house. “For a man in the throes of a mental lapse, you see quite clearly. Shall we head to the village for a pint, or would you like to return to Caldicott Hall?”

What I wanted at that moment was to have my memories back. Then I realized that I’d been a soldier—infirmary tents were familiar only to soldiers—and realistic depictions of battle scenes had upset me, according to Miss West. Perhaps I did not want all of my memories back.

“Everybody will know me in the village. If you would please see me home, I will retire to someplace private and await the return of my powers of recollection.”

Miss West turned her mare down a shaded farm lane, and I had little choice but to follow after. I had no idea in which direction my home lay, and if I lost sight of Miss West, I’d be as lost in reality as I was mentally.

She kept her mare to the walk, and after another hour of toddling along a placid stream, then through a wood, across a cow pasture, and up a hill, a large, stately edifice came into view below us.

“Caldicott Hall,” I said. Not a guess. I beheld my boyhood home and the woman to whom I had once been almost engaged. “You were right, Hyperia. My memories are back. You wandered the estate with me in hopes they’d return sooner rather than later, didn’t you?”

“And because I am not keen to answer Lady Ophelia’s questions when she well knew we intended to be gone for half the day. Are you truly well?”

“Unaccountably tired, a tad disoriented, but well. Years ago, we tobogganed down this hill, and I had a spectacular crash into that oak over there. I was forbidden to toboggan for the rest of that winter, and Harry eschewed that pleasure out of loyalty to me.”

“You remember Harry?”

“And I recall that he died and how. Let’s have that pint, and then I am to accompany you to the shops, where we shall spend enough to be appreciated, not enough to insult.”

I urged Atlas onto the sheep track that doubled as a bridle path, and we were soon approaching the village in all its summer glory. A proper fuss was made over us by the innkeeper—the most recent in a long line of Mr. Foresters to hold that office—and the fare was as wonderful as ever.

As Hyperia complimented Mrs. Forester on the lemon cake, I was visited by another memory.

At the Makepeace house party, I had kissed Hyperia—with her permission—as a sort of experiment. Had my dormant manly humors stirred at all?

They had not, but neither had the encounter been distasteful. I’d taken encouragement from that much progress.

Sitting on our horses an hour past, assessing Valmond House as if I’d never seen it before, and my own name unfamiliar to me, I’d had the stray thought that this Miss West person taking such a kindly interest in my situation had a very pretty mouth.

Deranged as I had been, I’d noticed that, and I had been right.