CHAPTER ONE
“In spring,” Clarence Tenneby said, “a young man’s thoughts turn to horse racing. You know how it is, my lord. The grass is greener, the breeze freshens, and one longs to feel the very earth shake with the pounding hooves of a dozen eager steeds galloping for the finish line. The crowds roar their enthusiasm for favorites and forlorn hopes alike, and everybody has a fine time.”
Tenneby beamed at an elegant bay filly as if she were the belle of the ball, not the belle of Caldicott Hall’s horse barn. He fished a quarter apple from a pocket and fed the beast a treat without asking my permission. Matilda was rising three. She’d started light training in harness the previous summer, and had recently moved on to first steps under saddle. She was a favorite with the grooms and a hopeless flirt when it came to apples.
“Do say you’ll join us, Lord Julian,” Tenneby went on, ambling down the barn aisle. “From what I heard last year, you could do with some fresh air and sunshine.”
A year ago, I’d still been very much recovering from an ill-advised outing to Waterloo. I’d had no business struggling back into uniform to join that battle, but one did not ignore the commands of conscience.
One longed to ignore Clarence Tenneby, with his cherubic, beamish features, guileless blue eyes, and red locks styled a la Brutus. Based on what little I knew of him, Tenneby had been the boy last picked to join the schoolyard teams and the first to be pranked. He’d borne it all good-naturedly, according to the reports from those in his form. Through the vagaries of inheritance and fate, he was now in line for an earldom.
More than one younger son was likely regretting his treatment of Tenneby all those years ago.
“I appreciate the invitation, Tenneby, truly I do, but spring is a busy time on any country estate, and Caldicott Hall is no exception. With His Grace traveling on the Continent, I am expected to keep a hand in here.” More to the point, after recently enduring more than a fortnight in Hampshire, I looked forward to spending the next weeks and months at home . London was in the midst of its annual social whirl, while I thrived on the peace and quiet of the countryside.
“One must keep a hand in, of course,” Tenneby said, pausing outside the stall of my personal mount, Atlas, “but plowing is nearly complete, and it’s too soon for haying. Do say you’ll nip along to Berkshire and join us.”
The only place I wanted to nip along to was the Hall’s spacious, peaceful library, where I could pen my next epistle to my darling Hyperia.
“I must regretfully decline,” I said as Atlas hung his dark head over the half door of his stall. “Hello, Lord Layabout.” I held out a hand, which he delicately sniffed before turning a curious eye on Tenneby.
“The famous Atlas, I take it. Dalhousie was much taken with him. Elegance and power in equal generous measures, according to the marquess. A shame the beast was gelded.”
My sojourn to Hampshire had been at the request of the Marquess of Dalhousie. At some point in my visit to Dalhousie Manor, his lordship had mentioned Tenneby. The recollection roused in me a sense of vague unease, but then, my experiences in uniform had left me suspicious by nature.
“This is indeed Atlas.” I scratched a hairy ear. “Bought him on the Peninsula. Iberian sire, draft dam. Sweet-natured, exquisitely trained. Unbelievable stamina and will beggar his dignity for a carrot.” My horse was dear to me, and if that added to my reputation as an eccentric, so be it. I wore blue-tinted spectacles when out of doors to protect my weak eyes from bright sunshine, and my past included a dubious period of captivity in French hands.
The unkindest of the gossips labeled me a traitor, which I was not, but those who’d called me half unhinged by my ordeal were sadly close to the mark. With time, the support of my familiars, and a concerted effort on my part, I now estimated myself to be between one-quarter and one-eighth unhinged.
On good days, I presented as absolutely sound, and I had been having a notably good day before Tenneby’s phaeton had come tooling up to the Hall’s front door.
“Dalhousie said you let him ride Atlas.” Tenneby produced another apple quarter, and Atlas turned a limpid gaze on the new object of all his affections. “I was and am most envious. We don’t import enough Iberian bloodstock, in my opinion. That quality of hidden fire is underappreciated hereabouts. Back when Good King Hal married Catherine of Aragon, we brought in Iberian horses by the boatload, didn’t we? Now we must have our Thoroughbreds, and I am foremost among the breed’s admirers. Why hide the fire when you can send it blazing around a racecourse, eh?”
Lest Tenneby start regaling me with bloodlines and turf tales, I led my guest to the next stall. That we were wandering the stable aisle as opposed to gracing the formal parlor was only to be expected. Tenneby was horse mad and, more specifically, a member of the turf fraternity—the subset of the horse-mad throng devoted passionately to racing. When any other guest would have asked for a tour of the portrait gallery, Tenneby had begged to see the stables.
On a pretty spring day, I was willing to oblige him, and yet, his impromptu call also struck me as odd. I’d been well ahead of him at school. He’d not served in uniform. We were hardly loyal correspondents. He, along with half the peerage, had condoled me by post on the death of the previous Duke of Waltham, my late father.
And now, years later, here was Tenneby, unannounced and offering invitations to a private race meeting in Berkshire. Most odd. I was on very few guest lists and much preferred it that way.
“Surely you can spare me a few days, my lord? All the best people will be there. Berkshire is a quick hop out from Town, much easier to get to than Newmarket, you’ll agree.”
The distance was about the same in either direction. Newmarket lay to the east of London, in the direction of Suffolk, while Tenneby’s destination lay to the west, a day’s journey of sixty-five miles or so by coach, if weather and roads cooperated.
“Tenneby, I am flattered, but what you call ‘all the best people’ are, in general, parties I would rather avoid. As far as many of them are concerned, I am responsible for Lord Harry’s death, if not for Napoleon’s entire occupation of Spain. I keep myself to myself as best I can, and we’re all much happier that way.”
Mention of my late brother was a bit unsporting, even ruthless, as Harry himself had occasionally been ruthless.
A glint of mulishness flashed in Tenneby’s eyes. “I suspected you’d be reluctant, but how will you ever live down the gossip if you simply hide in the shires? That just makes you look more guilty. His lordship died while loyally serving his country, and no more need be said on the matter.”
Apparently, only blunt speech would do. “I have nothing to prove to those people, Tenneby, and I hope you don’t either.”
He studied the gray gelding lipping at his hay in the loose-box before us. “So you would think, what with me being Uncle Temmie’s heir and all, but that has only made the whispers worse.”
I knew I would regret asking. Knew it, knew it, and knew it again. “What whispers?”
“Nice quarters on that one. Perfect shoulder angle. He was likely a grand jumper in his day. Dalhousie didn’t tell you?”
The gray had indeed been a grand jumper, one of Harry’s winnings at the card table. I hadn’t much use for the gelding myself, but my brother Arthur, the current duke, wouldn’t part with him.
“Dalhousie had much on his mind when I visited him in Hampshire.” The marquess had been preoccupied by feuding family and multiple murder attempts, to hear him tell it.
“He neglected to mention that I was robbed of victory at Epsom several years past?”
That inkling of suspicion I’d been ignoring flared into a frisson of foreboding. “Dalhousie referred in passing to race results that weren’t what you’d hoped for.” Tenneby had refused to pay a marker for one thousand pounds owed to Dalhousie as a result of Tenneby’s horse losing. Perhaps it was one thousand guineas. The turf set bought and sold horses in guineas rather than pounds, for reasons unknown to saner mortals.
“The race was rigged, my lord. My colt, Excalibur, should have romped away with the purse, but he barely staggered past the finish line. Poor lad ought to have won the day, and the shame of it nearly killed him.”
Horses did not die of shame—wise creatures—but I nearly had. Shame, sorrow, melancholia, and exhaustion of the spirit. That experience stopped me from dismissing Tenneby’s indignation out of hand, because surely the horse’s owner had felt profoundly humiliated.
“Dalhousie offered no particulars.” I did recall that Tenneby refused to pay the wagered amount because he was that convinced the race had been thrown.
“Decent of him,” Tenneby said. “The truth is, I made a fool of myself, demanding a rematch, accusing grooms, jockeys, and stewards of every imaginable offense. They all made allowances—up to a point—but nobody took me seriously. People don’t. Take me seriously. Even when I’m the earl, they won’t, meaning no disrespect to Uncle Temmie. They wouldn’t if I were made king. I’m turf mad, a bumbler, though I do run an occasional winner. Blind hogs and acorns. You’ve doubtless heard the talk.”
The gray sent us a sidewise look and took another bite of his hay.
I needed to stop Tenneby before he leaped the next figurative fence. “I do not hear the talk. I mind my own patch and ignore those who seek only to gossip. I suggest you do the same. We can return to the Hall by way of the yearling pasture if you’d like to see our younger stock.”
He gave me another half glower. The self-declared bumbler well knew he was being cozened. “Tentative Tenneby, they used to call me, because I was always so deferential and unprepossessing. You try being chubby, not too bright, and a plain mister sent along to public school with baby dukes and princes. It’s not my fault Papa was rich, and he was right in the end to see me properly educated. I’m the earl’s heir now, and those baby dukes will have to take notice of me in the Lords.”
To speak of inheriting a title was ill-mannered. I made allowances because I, too, had inhabited the margins at public school. Arthur, as the future duke and a naturally conscientious scholar, had seen smooth sailing in his academic ventures. Harry, the spare and a born charmer, had fared easily while earning mediocre marks.
Along I came, Lord Julian, nicknamed Extra in reference to being an extra spare. I was by turns engrossed by languages and indifferent to philosophy, keen on natural history, and disdainful of oratory. Headmaster had despaired of my wasted potential. I’d despaired of sunny matutinal eternities endured in musty classrooms.
“Tenneby, we are no longer schoolboys. Let the past go.” I headed out of the barn into the bright midday air. I got a stab of agony in the eyeballs for my haste and quickly donned my blue spectacles.
“You wear those because of the war,” Tenneby said. “You never minded bright light before.”
“I saw a powder wagon explode from too close a vantage point. I nearly went blind for a time.” A terrifying and humbling experience. “Now about your race meeting. I wish you every success, but I fail to see how my attendance would in any way aid your cause. Would you like some luncheon, or prefer to be on your way?”
He appeared entirely unoffended by my transparent attempt to send him packing. “Those same boys, the baby dukes and lordlings, all love the turf. One of them cheated me out of twenty-eight thousand pounds three years ago, and I want you on hand to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Say you’ll come, and I will make it worth your while.”
More desperation. Any fellow with pretensions to status did not discuss money or its near equivalents. “Tenneby, you are overset. If I were to attend the race meeting, I’d do so purely for enjoyment, not to antagonize half the peerage and their turf-obsessed heirs.”
“The best stallion England has ever seen is running in my colors, and if the ruddy earldom isn’t to be bankrupted by Christmas, that horse had better win. You disdain to help me because you don’t want to offend a lot of peacocks and highborn wastrels. Your timidity will allow a scoundrel to triumph over honest sportsmen once more.”
Every officer in the British army was instructed to ensure that his underlings felt as if the outcome of the entire war turned on their steadfast loyalty, their marksmanship, their stamina on yet another forced march. The argument was compelling and effective, but I’d ceased to be swayed by it five minutes into my first battle.
And I was not timid. “Wagering is no way to raise funds, Tenneby. Whatever else might have been said about you, you were considered to have good judgment.” The same could not be said of me. “Antagonizing one’s social superiors is always ill-advised.” Though sometimes necessary, as I’d found in my various investigations.
Tenneby tromped along beside me as I made for the yearling pasture. “I am being sensible now by recruiting you to attend this meeting, my lord. With you on hand as my guest, nobody will try any underhanded business. All I ask is that Excalibur run a fair race. Given your reputation for untangling mischief, he’ll get the chance to win that he deserves.”
An appeal to vanity should have been the worst insult of all, and yet, I was tempted. The job Tenneby described was not an investigation per se—no mysteries to untangle—but rather, the prevention of mischief. I could have a look around, perhaps walk the racecourse of a morning or two… but no.
One former reconnaissance officer against the collective capacity of the turf crowd for getting up to tricks was bad odds indeed. Highly qualified and experienced race stewards were hard put to achieve that end, and I was nobody to take on the job at a private meeting.
“Tenneby, I appreciate that you believe yourself to have been the victim of a crime for which nobody was held accountable. I grasp how that predisposes one to extra caution and to distrust of one’s fellows. Your concerns are valid, but I am not the party best situated to address them. I know nothing about horse racing and care even less for the sport. Now, shall you stay to lunch, or will you take advantage of this fine weather to continue to your next destination?”
He halted and made a visual inspection of the Hall’s lovely stables, a gray granite facility in the shape of a horseshoe two stories high. I’d all but grown up in the stable yard, and when I’d first mustered out, I’d spent hours in the barn simply grooming Atlas.
I loved the Hall, and the jewel in the Caldicott domestic crown was, to me, the stable.
“You won’t come, then?” Tenneby said, tapping his hat more firmly onto his head.
“I can’t see how my attendance would address the need for security that you describe.”
“So be it. I will be on my way, then, and thank you for hearing me out. Miss West will doubtless be disappointed that you declined my invitation, but she’ll rub along well enough without your escort. A lady with that much poise and charm is never at a loss for a gallant or two.”
Hyperia was attending the race meeting? My own dear Perry? Ladies did attend the public race meetings, though they were carefully kept away from the blacklegs and bookmakers and from the women on hand to ply a very old trade indeed.
Tenneby caught the eye of a groom and waved an arm in a gesture that requested that his phaeton be brought around. “A pleasure to have taken the tour, my lord. That gray is going to waste, though. He’s pining for a good steeplechase, and on this, I do account myself something of an expert.”
Bother the gray. Hyperia hadn’t said a word to me about attending any race meeting. “Tenneby, when, precisely, is this race meeting, and where exactly will it be held?”
* * *
Tenneby’s dilemma—a shortage of cash to go with an anticipated abundance of social standing—had become increasingly common. For the past century or so, England had been at war, with the last twenty years seeing a tremendous effort expended to defeat the Corsican menace.
Or—to echo the sentiments of cynical officers—to reopen Continental markets to British trade.
Fortunes had nonetheless been amassed as a result of all that wartime patriotism, or rather, all that determination to defend a worldwide mercantile empire. Many of those fortunes had been made by enterprising commoners keen to take advantage of the industrial advances the war effort had inspired. The aristocracy, by contrast, had for the most part kept its nose out of trade and had expected to be spared the postwar crash that had yet to come right.
A doomed expectation, as it turned out.
For the members of the peerage still earning wealth mostly from the land, a series of bad harvests, terrible winters, and rising competition from overseas markets put many a titled family in dun territory. From wool, to wheat, to wood, former enemies, allies, and even former colonies were producing more, better, and faster than Merry Olde could.
The Caldicotts had been lucky, in that our dukes tended to pragmatism. Grandpapa, Papa, and now Arthur had diversified the family holdings to the extent that the Hall was self-sufficient and even profitable most years, and the family wealth was securely invested in all manner of endeavors.
These musings accompanied me as I made a social call on the day following Tenneby’s visit.
“Where did Tenneby’s father earn his fortune?” I asked.
I’d found Lady Ophelia Oliphant sketching in her orchard, the space awash in pink, red, and white blooms. We walked beneath an outer row of damsons, their fragrance gilding a peaceful and damnably sunny afternoon.
“Not wool,” Lady Ophelia said, strolling arm in arm with me. “Guns, I think. The gun barrels used in tropical surrounds rust almost as soon as they arrive, so the need is endless. Or was endless. Hector Tenneby was the sensible sort, as younger sons ought to be. He lived modestly, had his sons well educated and his older daughters well dowered. The youngest girl—Emmaline? No. Evelyn. She’s said to be only modestly fixed. That wife of his…”
I’d paid this visit in part because Lady Ophelia was a living appendix to DeBrett’s Guide to the Peerage . She knew the titled families by heart, as most wellborn ladies did. She also knew the untitled cousins, the remittance men, the tippling aunties who’d been sent on extended travel after their first Season, only to return in much less wanton spirits a year later.
Her ladyship, being my godmother, also knew me . “What of Mrs. Tenneby?” I asked.
“Not Mrs. Tenneby, Julian. Heaven forgive you that slip. Lady Chloe, born Lady Chloe Dearborn. Hector Tenneby married up, but then, he could afford to. Lady Chloe’s family made the usual trade.”
“A daughter’s happiness in exchange for a suitor’s wealth?”
“You needn’t sound so disapproving. Lady Chloe was kept in comfort and style for all of her days. A bit too much comfort, would be my guess. She had a penchant for wagering. My theory is that she gambled as revenge for a broken heart, but that is pure speculation.”
Lady Ophelia’s speculations were to be accorded considerable deference. She was a contemporary of my mother and in great good looks, given her mature years. I’d taken some time to realize that she had convinced all and sundry that she was merely an aging belle, ingenuous, voluble, and happy to waft from one social gathering to the next.
Godmama, in fact, missed little, forgot nothing, and kept a catalog of scandals at her mental fingertips. I had my suspicions regarding Lady Ophelia’s past, but she’d for the most part respected my privacy, and thus I returned the courtesy.
I paused with her ladyship at a corner of the orchard. “Tenneby told me the earldom is approaching dun territory. Is it possible that Lady Chloe borrowed from her brother-in-law the earl?”
“Of course,” Godmama replied. “Though ‘borrowed’ puts too fine a point on it. The earl would have covered his sister-in-law’s debts rather than see the family embarrassed by her excesses, and now her son is set to inherit the resulting mess. Old Temerity must see a certain justice in that.”
“Temerity?”
She resumed our progress. “The Tenneby family holds the Earldom of Temmington. Somewhere along the way, the present earl acquired the nom de guerre Temerity, though it’s meant to be ironic. Just as Sally Jersey’s incessant chattering has earned her the sobriquet Silence, the present Lord Temmington is self-effacing, retiring, and cordial to a fault. Always equivocating and explaining, poor fellow. The nephew has a bit of the same quality.”
As a schoolboy, perhaps, but my encounter with Clarence Tenneby the previous day suggested a quantity of resentment lurked beneath the self-effacing manners—resentment and determination.
“I am reluctant to attend this race meeting,” I said as a breeze stirred the branches above and sent a shower of blossoms down onto our heads and shoulders. “No good can come of it.”
Lady Ophelia stopped walking again, removed my hat from my head, and brushed the fallen petals from the crown and brim. “Have you agreed to go?”
My own dear mother would not have presumed on my person to such an extent, though Hyperia would have. Hyperia, whom I missed desperately.
“I have agreed to consider the invitation.” I accepted the return of my hat and replaced it on my head. “Tenneby swears on the grave of the sainted Eclipse that he was cheated out of winning at Epsom three years ago. One of the lesser races, but the sums changing hands on the outcome were enormous.”
“Aren’t they always? Is that what makes you hesitate to take on Tenneby’s investigation?”
“My reservations are myriad, Godmama. Tenneby claims he isn’t asking me to sort out what went wrong three years ago, which is fortunate, because that trail has doubtless been obliterated by now. He wants me on hand as a tacit deterrent.”
“Not exactly flattering to be cast as a glorified bullyboy, is it?”
“Damned near insulting, but also… recognition of a sort. I have solved a few of Society’s more vexing puzzles.” And I’d enjoyed doing so, to be honest. “I fear Tenneby overestimates the extent to which I could deter anybody from anything, though. In military circles, I’m the next thing to a pariah, and in social circles…”
“You are a pariah, and worse than that, you’re a pariah engaged to be married. One cannot even plead your bachelorhood with the hostesses looking to make up the numbers.”
I was also a ducal heir, but as Godmama had said, I’d chosen my prospective bride, and thus I was no longer of interest to even the matchmakers. Was I still of interest to my dear Hyperia?
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Godmama linked her arm through mine, and we resumed walking.
“Good question. I could attend, suffer the usual slurs and indignities, and be completely ineffective as Tenneby is once again fleeced of his last groat.” The absolute worst thing would be if Hyperia publicly snubbed me because she resented my presence. A gentleman would never break off an engagement, but Hyperia and I had encountered some headwinds in Hampshire, and I was less confident of her esteem than I’d been previously.
“You’re convinced Tenneby was fleeced three years ago?”
“He’s convinced. He simply can’t prove it.”
“I’m the Queen of England. I simply can’t prove it, but you believe him.”
I mentally rummaged around among hunches, intuitions, observations, and inklings. “Clarence Tenneby has always been an ideal victim. Basically sweet-natured, avoids confrontation, has enough standing to circulate among his betters, and even more standing since his cousin fell at Waterloo. Bullying Tenneby can be done under the guise of humor, teasing, bonhomie, pranks. From pranks to schemes is a short step, and, in fact, Tenneby has done nothing about the loss three years ago, except grumble.”
Grumble loudly and refuse to honor the larger markers, probably because he needed the funds elsewhere.
“You never could abide a bully. Your headmasters referred to you as solitary, but that wasn’t the whole story, was it?”
“I am solitary by nature, and as a reconnaissance officer, appreciation for my own company was an asset.”
Lady Ophelia brushed a stray petal from the sleeve of her cloak. “You weren’t Arthur or Harry, a very great failing, but you made your peace with it. Tenneby wasn’t as wise as you, and now he’s to be an earl. I suppose it’s natural that he’d want to get back some of his own before the title befalls him. Stand on his own two common gentlemanly feet, so to speak. From a certain perspective, he’s brave to even try.”
“You’re saying I should go.” Godmama wasn’t entirely wrong to cast Tenneby’s stubbornness in an honorable, even heroic, light. “I know nothing about horse racing, except that it has ruined lives and marriages and left men who were in good health at breakfast dead before sunset.”
“Rather like war, isn’t it? So much good and bad fortune turning on last night’s rainy weather. Not a very inviting prospect to one with your history.”
We’d made a complete circuit of the orchard and come back to her ladyship’s blanket, basket, and easel. From a distance, Godmama still had the slender, lithe grace of youth. The spring sunshine told another tale, in fine lines about her eyes and mouth and silver threads at her temples.
Tempus fugit. “Hyperia will be there,” I said. “I suspect that’s what gave Tenneby the notion to recruit me.” That, and the Marquess of Dalhousie’s enthusiastic satisfaction with services rendered.
“Ah. Well, then. You had best not go after all.”
“Why?”
She patted my cheek, which annoyed me exceedingly. “Because then you might have to resume repairing the damage with dear Hyperia that your outing to Hampshire caused. You might have to court your intended as she wishes to be courted and not only as you prefer to court her. What a dreary prospect.”
“Godmama, tread lightly.”
She raised her eyebrows in what might have been genuine surprise. “If you’re that unsure of Hyperia’s affections, then you must attend this race meeting, Julian. Sort matters out. You and Hyperia have been engaged only since the Yuletide holidays, and breaking it off now would hardly cause a scandal. She’s a plain miss and on the shelf, et cetera and so forth. You’re… you . If she’s no longer enamored of you, better to find that out now, isn’t it?”
Better to never find that out at all.
“I’ll go, but not to interrogate Hyperia about her intentions. She is articulate, intelligent, and more than capable of knowing and speaking her mind.” She was also unfailingly kind, at least to me, and that bothered me. Kindness and pity were close kin.
“Then why go?” Lady Ophelia asked, enthroning herself on a stool before her easel. “You will be surrounded by loud, drunken fools taking unpardonable risks and treating it all as if it’s a lark.”
Much like the army. “Tenneby claims his stallion is unbeatable, but the last time he made that claim, he ended up an impoverished laughingstock. He needs…”
Her ladyship took up a pencil. “Yes?”
“He needs allies.” More to the point, he’d asked for my help, at great cost to his pride. I respected him for that, enough that I would try my best to assist him.
And the less said about my own pride, the better.