Page 2 of A Gentleman of Sinister Schemes (The Lord Julian Mysteries #8)

Chapter Two

“I can’t say how long I’ll be gone, but a fortnight to a month should see the business concluded.” Unless, of course, Dalhousie was shot dead before I joined him.

Atticus, my erstwhile tiger, eyed me over the pages of his Shakespeare. “This ain’t—isn’t—a polite visit you’re makin’. I should go with you.” He was reading Lamb’s version of the Bard’s plays, simplified and sanitized for children. His literary education had been neglected, though the lad was painfully wise when it came to hard work and life’s injustices.

I had challenged him to make a serious effort at the liberal arts, and he had decided to give the schoolroom a try. For now. The transformation from stable boy to scholar was subtle and very much a work in progress. Atticus’s hair was more likely to be brushed of late and his boots clean, but he still wore the workaday clothes of the aspiring groom. He was also still growing like Jack Spriggins’s enchanted beanstalk and had the appetite of a steeplechaser in racing season.

“Lady Ophelia and Miss West will join me,” I said, tossing another square of peat onto the library’s hearth. “You need not fear that I’m on a solo mission.”

“You shouldn’t do that.” He pushed his Shakespeare aside and rose from the reading table. “The footmen count the peats, and they know when you’ve been doing their work.”

News to me. “I’m supposed to stand about shivering while I wait for one of them to heed the bell and do what I can jolly well do for myself?”

Atticus took up the poker and rearranged the peat and coals. “They can’t have you getting your hands dirty, because then you might touch the walls and make more work for the maids, and nobody does the maids’ cleaning chores no matter how cold he gets. Lord Dalhousie wouldn’t ask you to investigate if his situation wasn’t messy.”

“Why do you say that?” The boy had a keen mind, else I might have been content to leave him to the stable work, which he enjoyed and did well.

“Because Dalhousie’s a marquess, and you’re a scandal. Your family outranks his, but you don’t outrank him .”

Somebody was developing an accurate grasp of precedence and courtesy titles. “God willing, I never shall. You are to remain here, apply yourself to your studies, and if it’s not too much bother, keep an eye on Leander. He doesn’t appear to be a natural scholar, but we can hope his academic proclivities improve as he matures.” Was anybody under the age of seven a natural scholar?

Atticus studied the flames, which licked at the fresh fuel enthusiastically. “Lee don’t want a governess. Doesn’t, rather. He wants tutors, same as I have. The governess tries to treat him like he’s still in dresses, and he’s past that.”

I had no idea how old Atticus was, because the deprivations of the poorhouse had doubtless stunted his growth. He put his age between eight and ten and had convincingly played both older and younger roles in the course of investigations.

“We thought a governess might ease the absence of a mother in Leander’s life.” We being… myself, steward-at-large of the Waltham ducal affairs in Arthur’s absence and uncle-without-a-clue when it came to Harry’s by-blow. “Most boys have a governess until they reach the age of seven or so.”

“No,” Atticus said, replacing the hearth screen just so, “most boys don’t. Not most boys where Leander comes from. If they’re lucky, boys like Lee are apprenticed at seven or thereabouts. Miss Hunter is nice enough, and she means well, but she isn’t Leander’s ma, and she lets him get away with being a brat.”

I’d hired Miss Amelia Hunter because she’d seemed kind and sensible. Not a besom. I’d had experience with a besom or two in my own nursery years, and between me and Harry, we’d run them all off.

Millicent, Leander’s mother, had taken the sum of money Arthur had settled on her and made straight for a life of renewed respectability in her home shire, sans fils . She’d handed over guardianship of the boy to me, and not a single soul in all of polite society would judge her for those choices. The son she’d left in Caldicott Hall’s nursery would likely judge her until he drew his last breath, and my own feelings on the matter were complicated.

Harry had obtained a special license on his last leave in London and had failed to make use of it in time to give his son legitimacy.

“Has Leander thrown his porridge?” I asked.

“He eats as much as he wants first, then throws the mostly empty bowl. Wastin’ good food. Wastin’ honey and cinnamon .”

Miss Hunter had not reported the boy’s rudeness to me. “Does this happen often?”

Atticus replaced the poker on the hearth stand. “Ask Miss Hunter. I’m not a snitch.”

“You are a reliable reporter, and I appreciate that.” The lad was also in a temper, which years in service had taught him to control. “I will trust to your good offices in my absence and will expect regular dispatches from the third floor.”

“I don’t write well enough yet to be reporting much of anything.”

“You write well enough. It’s your spelling that needs work. Greater men than you have been defeated in that task.” I did not dare tousle the boy’s hair, but I’d given him bad news—he was to be left behind at the Hall, whereas before he’d begun his studies, I would have taken him with me nearly everywhere. I wanted to soften the blow, to offer consolation, except that my objective was to keep Atticus out of danger.

If that meant he was also out of charity with me, I’d pay that price willingly.

“You said you’d take me with you when you went investigating.” The words were spoken quietly. The stare aimed at my chest was lethal. “Gave me your word.”

I could argue for the defense. I’d told him only that if an investigation required me to fly a kite in the park while on reconnaissance, I would involve him to the extent that a child’s presence would make my performance more credible.

Turning up lawyerish was a sure sign of weak moral ground.

“This investigation isn’t the usual inquiry, Atticus, and you cannot make progress with your education if you go at your studies only when the whim strikes you.” To take on Dalhousie’s situation would mean working far from home in the wilds of Hampshire. No busy house party would camouflage my presence or my purpose, and—not a detail—somebody was intent on murdering a peer.

A mind that contemplated not mere assault of a peer—a hanging felony in itself—but his intentional demise would think nothing of eliminating a child who asked too many questions or saw what he should not.

Atticus moved to the window, which overlooked garden walkways lined in drab privet hedges and lumpy piles of snow. “You think I can’t manage belowstairs in a marquess’s household? I manage here, and His Grace is a duke.”

Atticus had not contended all that well, and only the fact that he’d arrived as my tiger had gained him what tolerance he’d been shown. The boy hailed from Town, and that alone rendered him worthy of suspicion to the retainers who’d served at the Hall since Noah had gone sailing.

Atticus had also bounced between the house and the stable, a foot in both inside and outside staff camps, and that, too, had made him an alien quantity. Now he was dwelling on the third floor, semi-supervised, and semi-miserable, and I did not see how jaunting off to Hampshire for a few weeks would ease his adjustment to his latest billet.

“You will stay here,” I said as gently as I could without sounding apologetic. “You will attend your studies as you promised you would, and you will set an example for Leander in my absence. What lectures and punishments might eventually accomplish in terms of correcting his behavior, a bit of honest shaming-by-mature-example from you will achieve much more effectively.”

Atticus absorbed the blow to his pride and ignored the sop to his dignity. “Leander needs a good hiding, and I’ll not tend to that task for you, my lord. I daren’t, when he hasn’t the first notion how to defend himself. Enjoy your travels.”

He bowed—the governess wasn’t entirely wasted in the schoolroom—and withdrew, leaving Shakespeare faceup on the reading table.

I closed the book and set it back on the shelf reserved for youthful fare. An outing on horseback was in order. Nothing warded off a fit of the dismals like a good gallop, and the weather and my mood were both dismal indeed.

An officer subject to conflicting orders was in the worst possible position. Somebody might well die because he followed the wrong commands. The enemy might well gain. I felt honor-bound to keep Atticus safe, but in the boy’s eyes, I was guilty of betrayal. He’d joined me on previous investigations and served me and my missions loyally and well.

I had consigned him to simplified comedies and proper spelling instead of allowing him to continue assisting with my inquiries. Well, so be it. If harm came to me in Hampshire, I’d rather Atticus lived to curse my highhandedness than put himself in danger on my account.

“The personage who accompanied you into the room is not good ton , Dalhousie.” The Marchioness of Dalhousie hadn’t flicked so much as a contemptuous glance in my direction. “Have the footmen remove him.” A weighted beat of silence passed. “Please.”

Dalhousie met her stare for stare. “Lord Julian is here as my guest, Mama. He will be shown every courtesy.”

Two footmen, a matched set of Saxon-bred muscles, had turned to marble on either side of the double door. Dalhousie raised an eyebrow, and they withdrew in a gracefully choreographed allemande that ended with the doors closing in soundless unison.

Peers apparently went to Eyebrow School at some point. Arthur could clear a room in the same manner, and I’d seen my father do likewise on many an occasion.

“Dalhousie,” the marchioness began patiently, “you think nobody is taking notice of who consorts or disports with whom because we have not yet removed to London, but I assure you—”

“Wellington vouches for him.”

I mentally reviewed a map of Hampshire. We were perhaps ten miles from Stratfield Saye, the Duke of Wellington’s estate. A short hack for a marquess with a potentially lethal problem to sort out.

The marchioness turned her back on us and settled on a green brocade sofa adorned with lavender velvet pillows. Her spine touched neither the sofa nor the pillows. She was tall enough to appear imposing even when sitting, but one could not call her graceful.

She was too brittle, too poised for battle. Too tightly stitched, so to speak.

“I’m sure His Grace,” she began again, “being a consummate gentleman, murmured a few platitudes, but that does not signify in the least. This man has been all but accused of—”

“Somebody,” I said pleasantly, “is trying to kill your ladyship’s only son. I’m here to stop them before they make another attempt. Might we be seated? I’ve been traveling in winter weather for hours, and though I am bad ton in the eyes of many, I’m also prone to fatigue, hunger, and thirst, the same as any other person.”

The marchioness waved a hand, and Dalhousie took the place two feet from her on the sofa. I chose an upholstered wing chair and thanked heaven for well-stuffed cushions.

“Perhaps,” her ladyship said to nobody in particular, “his visiting lordship has taken leave of his senses? Even the best families are sometimes dealt low cards when it comes to the mental faculties of the younger sons. One pities them, of course, but one does not befriend such persons.”

Insults to me were fair game. Sneering at my family would not be tolerated. “Dalhousie, you will please tell your mother what’s afoot, just as soon as you ring for a tray. Madam, you will listen to your son and cease insulting me for the sheer pleasure of bullying those too mannerly to correct your rudeness. When I am fed and rested, I will happily take you on, but you enjoy an unfair advantage at the moment. That makes you unsporting, by the way. Keep it up, and I will form a bad first impression of you.”

Dalhousie stared at me as if I truly had taken leave of my senses. Then he rose and gave the bell-pull a double tug.

Her ladyship was at least looking at me. “Your father lacked a certain sense of decorum,” she said. “He most definitely knew his own consequence, but he could be shockingly informal. Your brother, I am pleased to observe, did not inherit that unfortunate tendency.”

No wonder Dalhousie had avoided marriage, if his mother was any example of what a wife became when married to a marquess.

I gave her my best imitation of Arthur’s bland smile. “If you refer to the present Duke of Waltham, then surely you mean ‘my only surviving brother’?”

She had the wits to swing her cannon to port. “What is this nonsense about somebody trying to kill you, Dalhousie?”

His lordship resumed a seat even farther down the sofa from his mother. “I have been shot at and poisoned.”

“Shot at? Why haven’t I heard of this?”

“I did not want to trouble you.” He recited that bouncer with a straight face, which made it worse. In point of fact, Dalhousie had not wanted his dear mama troubling him, either by hovering or by dismissing his suspicions. Thirty-four years old and still under petticoat government.

That thought brought Leander to mind. He’d made me promise to write to him, and I’d made him promise not to throw his porridge even once while I was absent. When he’d equivocated, I’d threatened to hire two more governesses to abet Miss Hunter’s efforts.

My avuncular skills wanted polishing, no doubt about it.

“This was at the Northbys’ shoot?” the marchioness asked. “Somebody got tipsy and confused?”

“Somebody confused me for a grouse on the wing,” Dalhousie replied. “That must be why my sable top hat now sports extra ventilation.”

The duchess merely nodded. “Tamerlane was invited to that shooting party. He’d think it a great lark to knock the hat off your head, but that doesn’t prove murderous intent. Unforgivable stupidity, yes, but in his case, that is hardly news or his greatest fault. He has reliable aim with a firearm, as a gentleman of country habits must.”

Over any distance, reliable aim with a fowling piece was nonexistent. The whole point was to bring down a bird in flight, and thus scattered shot rather than a single bullet was the preferred ammunition.

“How do you explain the poisoning?” Dalhousie asked. “If aiming a bullet inches from my head was simply a lark, how do you explain that I nearly expired after eating that trifle?”

Her ladyship twitched at her elegantly draped skirts. “Stomach ailments strike where they will. Nobody else fell ill. Ergo, you were not poisoned.”

“Ergo,” I said, “the poisoner had access to the marquess’s individual serving of trifle and knew he particularly liked it.”

“I do like trifle,” Dalhousie said. “Have since boyhood, but I’ve given orders it isn’t to be served here until further notice.”

“Who else was present at the table?” I asked.

Her ladyship glowered at me. “Half the shire. The hunt gathered here the following morning, so we hosted a number of overnight guests. Annual tradition, and one my late husband fully enjoyed.”

Ergo, the present marquess was condemned to enjoy it as well. “I’ll want a list, as well as a list of the kitchen staff, the footmen, the whole lot.”

“You cannot ,” her ladyship said, a hand to her throat, “you cannot possibly intend to cause talk regarding his lordship’s fanciful notions. I forbid it.”

I was tired. My bum ached from too many hours in the coach, and Dalhousie had failed to enlist his mother as an ally when that option had been remotely possible. Now she was my sworn foe, determined to overlook even His Grace of Wellington’s endorsement of my character.

I had nothing to lose by taking a firm line with her—she’d already plastered the walls with her figurative porridge—and much to gain.

“Very well,” I said. “I’ll rest for a day or two and then return to Caldicott Hall. When Dalhousie is murdered a few short weeks before he is to begin searching in earnest for a bride, we will all, especially his lordship’s loving and devoted mother, be very glad I didn’t run the risk of causing any talk .”

She blinked, and then a soft tap on the door heralded the arrival of the tea tray. Whatever might be true of the marchioness’s hospitality, the kitchen was on its mettle.

The three gleaming silver epergnes held sandwiches, macarons, shortbread, and both sweet and savory tarts. Two teapots in matching floral patterns, one pink, one blue, were swaddled in snowy linen. I had just taken in the fact that the service was intended to accommodate a party of four when a young blond lady followed the footman into the parlor.

“I heard we had company,” she said. “You must be Lord Julian. I’m Susanna Morton. Everybody calls me Suze, but I suppose that’s much too informal for a first acquaintance.” She offered me her hand, which I bowed over politely, and a smile, which I returned.

All the starch and sniffiness the marchioness worked so hard to impose on each moment evaporated like so much fog rolling up the mountainside on a summer morning. Susanna Morton’s smile conveyed good humor, intelligence, and genuine graciousness.

She was tallish for a lady, but not overly so, and about the mouth, she bore a resemblance to smiling Renaissance madonnas. She was pretty rather than beautiful, and her eyes were her best feature. Gentian blue with an air of gentle, humorous inquisitiveness.

“Shall I pour?” she asked, sidling into the space between the marchioness and his lordship. “Do you prefer China black or gunpowder, Lord Julian? Early in the day, Dalhousie likes his black with a hint of bergamot. Her ladyship is partial to gunpowder with lemon.”

I had met Susanna Morton two minutes ago, but I already felt as if I knew her and could trust her. She was the voice of reason, the uncomplaining, sensible presence that steadied the more tempestuous natures in any gathering. Her family doubtless overlooked her, and she preferred it that way.

Freedom to organize her own affairs was ample compensation for playing peacemaker, companion, good neighbor, as well as partner to a procession of aging bachelors at whist and on the dance floor. She doubtless ran every committee she sat on, though she was never the chairwoman, and she was universally liked, though she would choose her few friends carefully.

She would have made an excellent officer, and I could offer no person higher praise than that.

“I’ll have a cup of China black,” I said, “and any and everything edible you choose to put on my plate.”

“Traveling builds up an appetite.” Miss Morton poured the marchioness’s cup first, then passed mine to me. “You’ve come from Caldicott Hall?”

“I did, though Lady Ophelia and Miss West will be coming from Town.”

The marchioness’s saucer clattered to the table. “I beg your pardon.” She hadn’t spilled a drop. “Lady Ophelia Oliphant?”

“She is my godmother, and Dalhousie has invited both her and Miss West, my intended, to join us here.” I took particular delight in referring to Perry as my intended.

“Hyperia West?” Miss Morton asked, handing Dalhousie his cup. “You are a lucky man, my lord. I needn’t tell you that, I’m sure.”

“Very lucky.” Also very curious. The marchioness had picked up her tea and was sipping away, but mention of Godmama had thrown the ogress off stride. No small feat, that.

Miss Morton steered the talk to winter’s interminable dreariness, the upcoming quarterly assembly, and an amusing anecdote involving a nanny goat and some local luminary’s Christmas bonnet. Even as I silently applauded a masterful performance, I wondered what Miss Morton thought of the attempts on Dalhousie’s life.

She’d doubtless be aware of the incidents, but did she attach lethal intent to them? Was she worried that her step-cousin logically figured at the top of the list of suspects?

As if my imagination had summoned him, Tamerlane Dandridge burst through the double doors without knocking.

“He is here! Lord Julian the Snoop, when he isn’t Lord Julian the Traitor, though we’re not supposed to say that part out loud.” He grinned and bowed in my direction. “I’m Tam Dandridge, which if you say it fast enough, becomes Damn Dandridge after a pint or two. I mean no offense. I’m simply the black sheep up to my usual mischief. We have that black sheep bit in common.”

I rose and bowed. “You are also the heir to the title, something else we have in common. Do you find that burden as uncomfortable as I do?”

Tamerlane was quick, but not quick enough to hide a flash of truth: He shared his pretty step-cousin’s canniness, which blazed for an instant before disappearing in a grin that would have lit up all of Piccadilly.

“Burden?” He took a sip of Miss Morton’s tea. “What burdens have I? Dalhousie is about to choose a bride, so this heir business won’t be troubling me much longer. I shall be an uncle within the year. Depend upon it.

“I have my competence,” he went on, “and Suze spoils me rotten. Not a care in the world, unless you count a great deal of frustration with sources relating to the mining of lapis porphyrites. Pliny the Elder mentions Egyptian origins, but that doesn’t narrow the possibilities as much as you might think. His son is even less forthcoming, except on the topic of his dear pater’s many literary accomplishments. Very frustrating.”

Tamerlane prattled on, and Miss Morton overlooked his casual larceny. I was supposed to think the jester had made his entrance, but as I ingested nearly impolite quantities of sandwiches, I wondered if I had, in fact, met the villain of the piece.