Page 15 of A Gentleman of Sinister Schemes (The Lord Julian Mysteries #8)

Chapter Fifteen

“I didn’t do it.” Lady Dalhousie’s tone was defiant and just a bit worried.

She’d accosted me during the predinner gathering in the family parlor, a toasty space recently done up in cheerful tones of blue and cream with green accents. Daffodils added a touch of cheer on the mantel.

I remained across the room from their scent. “My lady has me at a loss.” I was weak, wrung out, and holding my preprandial glass of champagne merely for show, though I’d watched Dalhousie pour it from the decanter myself. I would eat and drink nothing that wasn’t communally served. My belly simply could not handle spirits.

Hyperia had greeted me with a buss to the cheek and a hand on my sleeve, then glided off to accept her apéritif from the marquess. Her manner had been calm—her manner was nearly always calm—but I suspected she would chide me for leaving my bed when she had the opportunity to do so.

“You’ve been ill,” the marchioness said, sipping her drink with a great show of composure. “My lady’s maid had it from the first footman, which means the entire staff knows of your malady. I don’t suppose we can attribute this unfortunate weakness to your years racketing about Spain?”

“My symptoms were exactly the same as Dalhousie’s, and he was never privileged to serve in uniform. My morning pot of tea was apparently poisoned. I drank the entire contents. It’s a mercy my tiger—a mere lad—didn’t touch a drop.”

She scowled at the glass in her hands. “I want you to leave. I have no wish for you to die.”

“Why do you want me to leave?”

“You are determined to be tiresome. Dalhousie has promised me that he will wed this year. The Season has begun, and he is missing the best weeks for selecting and courting an appropriate bride. He said at lunch that a house party wasn’t out of the question, but house parties are tedious and expensive. You have convinced him that he is safer here at the Manor, but you cannot even keep yourself safe here.”

“The frontal assault lacks subtlety, but I do applaud your boldness. You have galloped straight to the point that supports your agenda most strongly.”

“I state facts. You were poisoned. You said it yourself. Dalhousie might well be next, and the Town household is much smaller, much easier to manage closely.”

“So small and manageable that somebody easily set the scene there for arson in the marquess’s apartment .”

The head footman appeared in the parlor doorway, suggesting the meal was ready. Lady Dalhousie had her back to the door, though, and was too interested in throwing me from the parapets to notice.

“My lord is insufferable.”

“I merely state facts . Is my lady suggesting I should remove to London with the marquess?”

I expected my suggestion to horrify her. She glanced around, saw the footman, and set aside her champagne.

“Come to Town if you please to. Lady Ophelia will doubtless join the whirl, and Miss West deserves a chance to gloat over her engagement, such as it is. Do me the courtesy of biding at a Caldicott property, though. I have seen enough of you to last me a lifetime.”

“You did not poison me,” I said quietly when the marchioness had paused to reload her verbal cannon. “You could not intrude belowstairs yourself, and you could not trust the staff to do your bidding and keep quiet about it. They obey you because they are loyal to their pay packets and to your son. However generous their compensation, it doesn’t cover the capital crime of poisoning a ducal heir. Your lady’s maid could not credibly condescend to carry the tray up two flights of stairs to my room—snobbish by association, poor dear—and she is the only possible minion you might rely on.”

In other words, the marchioness lacked the infantry to have accomplished this latest mischief, and mercenary forces weren’t to be relied upon in battle.

“You suspect Lady Albert, then?” The question was aimed with undisguised relish.

“One gathers information in the course of an investigation and allows the facts to guide any eventual conclusions. Your unenthusiastic support among the staff exonerates you. Beyond that, I have formed no other conclusions.”

More to the point, Atticus had brought up my tray, taking it from a customary location on the kitchen worktable. The tray had been waiting for him, as had become the morning routine. Had the marchioness or her lady’s maid been hovering anywhere in its vicinity, the staff would have been abuzz with curiosity.

Whoever had dosed my tea with a purge traveled regularly belowstairs or had loyal allies on the staff.

“Tamerlane is the most popular member of the family among the servants,” Lady Dalhousie observed. “They positively dote on him, what doting his own cousin doesn’t do. His mother would burn the village church for him, and she thinks nothing of intruding on the kitchen simply to vex me.”

Lady Albert likely vexed the cook exceedingly with that behavior too. She stood across the room in conversation with Susanna, and the malevolence in the marchioness’s eyes as she beheld that pair was appalling.

“Let it go,” I said, without intending to speak, much less to tell this arrogant besom how to order her affairs. “Life is short. We have but a passing span on this earth, and you waste that gift in pride and antagonism. No sensible man would willingly bring a bride home to this elegantly appointed battleground. If you cannot put down your weapons for your own sake, then consider a cease-fire for your son’s.”

Lady Dalhousie glowered at me as if I’d spouted treason, blasphemy, and scandal at one go. She then crossed the room and took the marquess by the arm.

Dalhousie, who had been chatting with Hyperia, bent his head, his expression one of fixed geniality.

“Dinner is served,” he said as the footman opened the double doors to the informal dining room. “Ladies, Lord Julian, shall we be seated?”

The numbers were hopelessly lopsided. I escorted Lady Albert and left Hyperia, Susanna, and Lady Ophelia to manage on their own. For once, everybody—meaning Lady Albert and the marchioness—was on good behavior. I ate a few bites of buttered potatoes and allowed myself a taste of the beef and barley soup. At the end of the meal, I took a cautious nibble of bread pudding, but eschewed further indulgence when I encountered spirits in the sauce.

At the conclusion of a quiet meal, the ladies retreated in polite order, leaving Dalhousie and me at his end of the table as the footmen began tidying up.

“I keep a fine selection of brandies in the game room,” he said. “Let’s leave these good fellows to their appointed rounds, shall we?”

I followed the marquess up the steps to a predictably masculine chamber that boasted a billiards table, dartboard, chess set, and a pair of card tables. The fires had been lit in both hearths in time to ensure the room was warm, and a selection of cheeses and fruits sat on the sideboard.

Dalhousie had planned this meeting, in other words, or this cordial ambush.

“You were poisoned,” he said without preamble. “As your host, this troubles me deeply. As somebody who has recently endured the same ordeal, I am all commiseration. Whom do we suspect?”

I had spent the best part of the afternoon alternately heaving, sweating, cramping, and cursing while I’d considered that question. My latest theory would get me banished of a certainty, and yet, the marquess must be warned.

“The perpetrator fits a particular mold,” I said. “A knowledge of herbs—for example, of their effects and dosing—is central to the question.”

Dalhousie examined the cue sticks gleaming on a wall rack. “We have a very competent herbalist in Mrs. Wachter. Anybody could consult her.”

Resistance at the first fence. We’d be a long time cantering over the terrain I sought to cover. “And Mrs. Wachter, who likely lives on your land, would answer you honestly if you asked her who had procured a substantial dose of a purgative that causes further symptoms you and I know only too well.”

“Very well, but anybody can read a pamphlet, and I know we have them in the herbal by the dozen. Gout, headache, female complaints, depression of the animal spirits, fading memory, rashes… They all have their remedies.”

Depression of the animal spirits? I made a mental note to visit the Dalhousie herbal before being ejected in disgrace.

“Let us assume Mrs. Wachter was not consulted. I will establish that fact first thing in the morning by interviewing the woman myself.”

His lordship chose a cue stick. “If you must.” He rolled the cue stick on the table, then replaced it on the rack.

“The second fact we can imply regarding my poisoner is that they are a regular visitor belowstairs.”

“Or they are employed belowstairs.”

“We come again to the question of an accomplice, Dalhousie. Who on your staff would risk a noose for coin? I am the Waltham heir and the sole safeguard to the title’s succession. In the event of my murder, my brother would not rest until somebody was brought to justice.”

“You yourself have told me that my enclosure project will cost me the regard of the village and the gentry both. We might well be looking at an embittered footman whose family will lose access to the common land.”

I schooled myself to patience. “Your staff has no direct motive for poisoning me . You are correct that I have argued against imposing the enclosure scheme on the common land. Anybody averse to your ambitions—your employees, your neighbors, your tenants—would want to keep me in excellent health so that I could continue to advocate for moderation, compromise, or retreat. Motive matters, Dalhousie. Why take the enormous risk of harming me?”

He chose another cue stick, rolled it on the table, found no flaws, and replaced it. “Mama doesn’t like you. I admit that freely. She has her reasons, some of which are shared by others in polite society, but not by me.”

“Your mother could never have slipped poison into my morning pot of China black. The staff watches her as rabbits watch a crabby hound. She had no opportunity to poison me.”

“She’s tenacious as a hound, too, unfortunately.” Dalhousie left off playing with cue sticks and pulled a trio of darts from the thick square of cork surrounding the dartboard. “Lady Albert intrudes belowstairs at will, claiming she wants a word with the cook, or her cook at the dower house has a new recipe to share… Any pretext for trespassing. But I ask you, my lord, what would Lady Albert’s motive be?”

“I don’t believe she has one. She might know her purges and laxatives, but she has never been responsible for managing an entire household, unless you count the dower property. The traditional chatelaine’s role of household nurse would hold little appeal for her.”

“She might want to make the point that bad things happen in Tam’s absence.” Dalhousie tossed the first dart and came several inches from the bull’s-eye, but perhaps that’s where he’d been aiming.

If Dalhousie were a horse, he’d have tried to buck off his rider by now, but I persisted.

“The London fire happened in Tam’s absence. Her point was made without poisoning me.”

The second dart hit the board with more force. “Tam has a motive for prying loose any sort of bodyguard, investigator, or ally from my side. I don’t like to admit it, but he’s the obvious suspect, though perhaps his mother acted on his behalf.”

Now my lord was shying and curvetting before a puddle. “Lady Albert has no knowledge of herbs, and if having me underfoot annoys the marchioness, then it delights Lady Albert.”

“Out with it, my lord. You are intent on reaching some clod-pated conclusion that I will positively loathe, despite Tam’s obvious motive for wreaking havoc.”

Now he was insulting me, he who had insisted that I leave my home, travel frozen roads, and install myself under his roof.

“Susanna knows her remedies and tisanes. She moves freely belowstairs. She will lose status and possibly her home when you take a wife. She might well be reduced to keeping house for Tamerlane, in much humbler circumstances, and that is not a prospect to fill any woman with glee.”

The third dart hit the cork surrounding the board. “You are insane. This is what I get for ignoring Mama’s opinions. The fellows in the club said you’d be discreet, whatever else is true about you. Wellington insisted you served honorably. One of the best intelligence officers ever to grace the ranks. And now this outlandish, unbelievable, ridiculous… I brought you here in good faith, my lord…”

Dalhousie fell silent. He hadn’t brought me to the Manor in good faith. He’d all but dragooned me into giving up weeks of my time when I’d rather have been at the Hall. I had been put at risk of at least a bad fall from the saddle and had suffered real harm on Dalhousie’s behalf.

And only now was he well and truly spooked.

“You are safe,” I said to him as gently as I could. “If Susanna is determined to prevent you from marrying, then if you continue to pretend you are content with your bachelorhood—”

“I am content in my bachelorhood, more’s the pity.”

He was lonely, tired, longing for respite from the constant dunning of his unhappy family, and in need of children. Not for the blasted title, but children for his heart, for his old age, for his personal legacy. Middle age had come up on his flank, with Dalhousie all unsuspecting, and now he likely looked for gray hairs every morning and dreaded what they portended.

For an awkward moment, I understood why the marchioness was so desperate to see her son settled. She did not want him to end up as she had—aging, friendless, lonely, and irrelevant to Society’s greater aims while she serially redecorated a house she would never own.

Perhaps Dalhousie’s enclosure scheme was driven by a need to establish a legacy—a misguided need—which was just too rubbishing bad.

Now was not the time to be swayed by pity for mine host. “Susanna had means, motive, and opportunity to poison me and to poison you. She was present at the shoot. She has access to the saddle room. She is competent with a firearm. She is capable of wielding a hammer with sufficient force to smash through wooden spokes. She could certainly stash a note among your correspondence. She personally nursed you through your ordeal with poison and likely offered the exact teas and tisanes to ensure you recovered. More to the point, she is proud of her role in this household.”

Susanna was not proud of Tam, precisely, but she liked reviewing menus with the marquess, making peace with the elders, doing the rounds with the neighbors. She was the unpaid housekeeper, manager, accountant, nurse, ambassadress to the village, and consultant to the senior staff.

Settlements were important, but what Susanna had at Dalhousie Manor was a kind of power, and for a woman in her position—past her marriageable prime, looks unremarkable, connections few and attenuated—that power was precious.

The longer I’d considered her as a suspect, the more details had fallen into place, even to the lowering realization that I’d overlooked the obvious for the entirety of my investigation. I seldom hit the bull’s eye on my first throw, but in this case, I’d badly missed the mark at every turn.

Dalhousie pulled his darts from the board. “Caldicott, I thank you, truly I do, for all your efforts here. I know you have tried your utmost to resolve a vexing situation, and now my enemy has apparently become yours. My enemy, who could not possibly be Susanna, whatever your logic and evidence might tell you to the contrary. I will understand if you decide to depart on the morrow. In fact, in view of the misery you endured today, I must insist that you seek the safety of your own home with all due haste.”

“I cannot leave tomorrow.”

“Still not feeling quite the thing? I sympathize, but I cannot have you bruiting about ridiculous and insulting theories regarding a family connection who has devoted her life to the happiness of others.”

“I have not yet mentioned my theories to even Miss West, who is very much in my confidence. I wouldn’t bruit them about. I am discreet , please recall. I cannot leave tomorrow because it’s Easter, Dalhousie. Of all Sabbaths, that’s the one I am least likely to disrespect with nonurgent travel.”

I took the darts from his hand and stepped back some eight feet from the board. “I will depart on Tuesday, after the ladies have had a chance to pack, and my health is sufficiently recovered. I wish you the joy of your circumstances, though I also wish you’d reconsider that blasted enclosure.”

I pitched the darts into a tight grouping at the center of the board, bowed, and left mine host to his excellent brandy and to his stubbornly, even dangerously, closed mind.

The hour was not yet that late by Society’s standards, though I was tired, discouraged, and overdue for a report to the ladies. I stopped by Hyperia’s sitting room on the off-chance that she’d excused herself from scandal-broth duty. I found my beloved reading.

“Dalhousie has issued a writ of eviction,” I said, taking the place beside her. “We are not to have even a week’s grace. What are you reading?”

“Mr. Addison’s play. The Americans are very fond of it, though they seem to forget that for all his rousing speeches, Cato never did confront the tyrant or do a blessed thing to save Rome from the tyrant’s vile ambitions.”

I did not want to debate the politics of ancient Rome. “Hyperia, Dalhousie has given me the sack.”

She set the bound volume of plays aside. “Then he has given us the sack, hasn’t he?”

I was too consumed with my bungled disclosures to Dalhousie, with his nigh predictable reaction, to at first catch the cool note in Hyperia’s question. I should have been more patient with him, should have laid out the evidence more carefully, should have suggested Susanna’s culpability as a mere theoretical possibility considered only out of excessive thoroughness.

“We have until Tuesday,” I said. “We’ll accomplish nothing tomorrow, save to admire a lot of new bonnets and consume a quantity of ham. I am nonetheless determined to consult with Mrs. Wachter regarding purges and laxatives even if I have to do it in the very churchyard. Mrs. Wachter is the herbalist. She’s apparently very competent and much trusted.”

“I know who Mrs. Wachter is. Susanna and I met her outside the dry goods shop.”

Only as I reached for Hyperia’s hand did I realize that she hadn’t hugged me, hadn’t touched me, hadn’t even smiled at my arrival.

A skein of foreboding threaded through my frustration. “Will you be relieved to quit this place, my dear?”

“Will you keep your promise to look in on Healy with me when we leave?”

I hadn’t exactly made a promise. “If that’s your wish, of course. Hyperia, is something amiss?”

She gave me back my hand. “Why is Dalhousie dismissing us?”

“Because Susanna has engineered this whole debacle, and Dalhousie won’t admit it. If he takes a wife, she loses what little consequence she has, along with considerable influence as the de facto manager of the Manor, its tenants, its denizens, and—not a detail—its marquess. She’s subtle about it, but her hand is omnipresent, and she had means, motive, and opportunity at every turn.”

Why did I then feel no sense of triumph at having caught her out? I still wanted the villain to be Tam. “She herself tried to cast blame on Tam,” I went on. “All roundabout and earnest, she said I must investigate his involvement if for no other reason than to exonerate him. The woman is clever.”

“Some women are.”

The foreboding roiling in my vitals became dread. “Hyperia, have I given offense?”

“Julian, you come here at a questionable hour to discuss your frustrations with the investigation. At the holidays, you read to me. You left poems on my pillow. You toasted me at supper before your family, and… I had hoped that our courtship was developing into the sort of friendship that could withstand all shocks.”

I was shocked. My darling was informing me that I’d bungled badly, despite our earlier conversation about the past. I had consigned that discussion to a duty done, put a line through it, and heaved a sigh of relief.

“Hyperia, I do apologize. I have been preoccupied, and I promise I will be more attentive in future.”

Her gaze dissuaded me from taking her hand, much less assaying any placatory cheek kissing.

“Dalhousie should trust you,” Hyperia said. “You accuse Susanna based on logic, evidence, and your considerable experience solving difficult puzzles. You are correct that she treasures her place here at the Manor above all else. Despite her attempts to remain invisible, you see that she is quietly running the staff, managing the tenants, keeping relations with the neighbors in good repair, and otherwise enjoying a vital role, all without causing offense or earning notice. That is a more impressive motive to keep Dalhousie from going to London to take a bride than most men would credit.”

She offered not a compliment, but more evidence against me, though I still did not know with what I’d been charged.

“What’s wrong? Whatever it is, I will address the problem to the very best of my ability.”

“I fear you already have, Julian.”

Hyperia merely glanced at the mantel clock, but that was enough to devastate me. “Hyperia, please don’t be coy. I have apparently mis-stepped, and I will do anything in my power to put matters right between us.”

“ You do not trust me , Julian, and I fear you cannot put that right simply by interviewing a dozen neighbors, having a good gallop on Atlas, and noting who was over-imbibing at last Tuesday’s card party.”

Hyperia was not only wroth with me, she was hurt. Very, very hurt, to be denigrating my investigative skills.

“I am sorry,” I said, sliding to my knees before her on the sofa. “I am abjectly, desperately sorry, Perry. I have transgressed, and—”

“Do get up. Begging becomes nobody.”

What did I care if begging flattered me, provided it worked ? Except it hadn’t. I resumed my seat beside my intended, though in her present mood, Hyperia could easily set me aside.

“Julian, when you were so ill, did you even once think of sending for me?”

Julian, not Jules. Only Hyperia called me Jules now. Harry had, too, but he was dead.

“Yes, I thought of it,” I said, bewildered. “But the ailment affected my bowels and guts, and the whole apartment bore the stench. You haven’t had dysentery, Hyperia. The sheer, reeking shame of it is nearly as deadly as the malady itself. The infirmary was always set up downwind of the camp itself, and one learned not to visit the afflicted because they were too humiliated to receive… Suffice it to say, I did you a favor by leaving you to pass the afternoon in peace.”

“No,” she said, picking up doomed Cato’s story. “You did me no favors. You did us no favors. For all I know—for all you knew—you were fatally and maliciously dosed. I am a competent nurse. I nursed both of my parents in their final illnesses. If we married, I’d expect to nurse you from time to time, and if I fell ill, I’d hope you wouldn’t abandon me over a little stink. I’ve visited the jakes on occasion, Julian, and lo, I have not fainted from mortification as a result. Do you suppose the ladies’ retiring room is uniformly scented with roses?”

While she paged through the book, my mind became a chaos of misery, despair, rage, and confusion.

I had meant to preserve her from… me , in all my reeking mess.

“I am sorry,” I said again, rising. “Please find it in your heart to forgive me. The next time I am ill, I will entrust you with my care, assuming circumstances allow me that boon.”

“It’s late,” she said, running her finger down the margin. “I will be here in the morning, Julian, and make a decorous departure with you on Tuesday, but don’t convince yourself that all is well between us. It isn’t. You have valid and serious reasons for withholding your trust from life at large, and any couple must weather some mutual disappointment, but this goes beyond disappointing me, Julian.”

She looked up from her book, eyes glittering by the firelight. “ Your life was in danger , I was in a position to give aid, and you never even thought to ask me for it. You relied exclusively instead on one very worried boy. You have disrespected me, and that, I cannot abide.”

“I am sorry.” I bowed and left, nearly colliding with the doorjamb on my way out.

I was guilty as charged. The complaint was not that I’d decided against relying on Hyperia’s care, but that I’d never seriously considered summoning her, not in the sense I’d automatically assumed I would have Atticus’s loyalty and support.

A very worried boy… Ye gods and flaming failures.

I felt again as I had when I’d learned of Harry’s death. Wartime provided constant reminders of human frailty, and being taken captive by the French had brought my own vulnerability into constant view. But when the punctiliously polite commander of the French garrison had condoled me gravely on the loss of my brother, I’d been unable to believe him. Not unwilling, but rather, unable.

No. Not Harry. This must be another of Girard’s diabolical games. Never Harry. Harry is alive and being told a foul lie about my demise. Girard is fiend enough to wield such weapons against us.

Some realities were too awful for the mind to absorb, and I still, on occasion, expected Harry to emerge from his dressing closet, cursing because he could not find his favorite pair of cuff links or singing some naughty ditty in anticipation of a night of carousing.

Harry was dead, and Hyperia could leave me. She would be kind about it, but implacable. As I sat on my bed, knowing I should undress or build up the fire or do some damned thing, all I could think was, my behavior, the evidence I’d given her, justified her decision absolutely.