Page 7 of A Gentleman of Sinister Schemes (The Lord Julian Mysteries #8)

Chapter Seven

“You came off of Dover ?” Hyperia said, frowning at me. “He’s the tallest of the riding stock. Named for the towering cliffs. It’s a long way down from his back.”

I’d put Dover at about the same weight as Atlas, but because Dover had mountainous withers, he seemed the larger horse. Then too, his posture was upright, and he wasn’t as short-coupled as Atlas.

“I did not quite come off.”

“But it was a near thing. I don’t like this.” Hyperia and Lady Ophelia exchanged a glance that spoke of conversations I’d not been privy to. We enjoyed the seclusion of Hyperia’s sitting room, a less formal space than Lady Ophelia had been assigned. The floral-patterned rug was a trifle faded, the curtains plain burgundy velvet. Not as many pillows on the sofa, and the hassock had been beaten into slouching comfortableness by the passage of time and a number of tired feet.

Lady Ophelia moved stitches about on her knitting needles. Her yarn was a periwinkle blue that went with her eyes. Hyperia’s embroidery sat neglected on the mantel, her sewing box adjacent to the hassock.

Her ladyship resumed knitting. “I’ve known more than one skilled rider who came to grief in the course of a routine hack, young man. Perhaps you should consider retreat or hiring Dalhousie some bodyguards.”

Dalhousie had been on the point of suggesting I quit the premises. I’d felt that wrongheaded notion germinating in the vicinity of his pride and hoped I’d ripped it out root and branch.

I lounged into the comfort of the wing chair angled to catch the heat from the hearth. “That feeling you have now, my lady, of unease, of anxiety, of a malevolent intent stalking unseen behind the hedges, that’s what Dalhousie has been living with for weeks. He doesn’t feel safe, and with good reason.”

“And thus you cannot abandon him,” Hyperia said. “ We cannot abandon him.” Her tone invited Godmama to challenge that conclusion. Godmama started a new row and held her peace.

“How is it you’ve made Dover’s acquaintance?” I asked.

“Tam and Miss Morton gave me a tour. Miss Morton claims that if she doesn’t get Tam out of doors regularly, he will spend days reading in the library or scribbling letters to other classical scholars. He’s working on some sort of rebuttal for Mr. Gibbon’s explanation for the fall of Rome.”

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire had made for interesting reading. “Gibbon blamed Christianity, if I recall correctly. He claimed the church sucked up enormous resources that had been available to the state previously and turned the aristocracy into spineless monks and nuns where before they’d been devoted citizens of Rome.”

“What of the Huns and Goths and Scythians?” Lady Ophelia muttered. “Mustn’t forget them.”

“Odoacer was a Christian,” Hyperia countered, “if you’re referring to the events of 476 AD. He was a German chieftain and a Christian.”

Which rather put Gibbon’s theory on the hind foot. “What is Tamerlane’s brilliant addition to this riveting topic?”

“He claims that Rome disintegrated in part because emperors had too much latitude in the matter of succession. If an emperor had no heir of the body, he simply adopted some promising young sycophant, or his sister’s latest husband, or a general who claimed to be loyal. Tam thinks the whole business would have been stabilized by stricter rules of inheritance. Less infighting, more preparing the heir for the job of ruling.”

“Said the man whom strict rules have currently put in line for a marquessate.” The same strict rules resulted in about one out of three peerages going extinct in the first three generations and the title and its holdings reverting right back to the crown. That—interestingly—did keep the crown in better fettle than if that same wealth had trickled away into the hands of the deceased peer’s family, or—echoes of the Black Death whispered—into the hands of a rapacious church.

“What does any of this ancient history have to do with Julian nearly bashing his head in?” Lady Ophelia asked, needles clicking steadily.

“I was nowhere near bashing my head in,” I said. “I didn’t even come off. One can ride without a girth securing the saddle to the horse’s back. A lot of military academies use that very exercise to teach balance and control.” Also how to safely fall. “It’s a matter of keeping your head and attending to matters in the proper sequence.”

Hyperia looked inordinately interested. “You’ve ridden without a girth?”

“Practiced it a few times. One very quickly learns that the first order of business if in danger of falling is to get both feet out of the stirrups. The second priority is to protect your head.” The third was to pray for soft ground and a horse nimble enough to avoid stepping on the fallen rider. “Why are you both looking at me as if I’ve announced a notion to take up the bagpipes?”

“Please, not the bagpipes,” Lady Ophelia said, coming to the end of her row. “Hyperia and I have noticed another sequence of activities that might interest you.”

I waved a hand amid more exchanged glances. The decision was tacitly made that Hyperia would do the enlightening.

“At meals, Jules, when it comes to desserts, the footman places trays of individual servings on the sideboard and then hands them around one by one.”

I recalled this little ritual. The desserts were brought in with something of a flourish, the first serving set before Lady Dalhousie, the second before the ranking lady guest, down the honor roll until the host was served… last.

“Dalhousie gets the final serving,” I said slowly. “Anybody who had observed a few dinners at the Manor might have picked up on that.” Though I had not.

“There’s more to it,” Lady Ophelia said. “In a household of this caliber, the cook will be aware that Lady Dalhousie avoids salt, that Tamerlane is partial to ginger, while Miss Morton dislikes it, and so forth. For a family meal, the serving order would be both simple and predictable. The footman can look at a tray of nearly identical compotes, for example, and be sure to give Lady Dalhousie the one without brandy in the sauce and Tamerlane the one with extra honey.”

“All the footman has to do,” Hyperia said, “is serve in the same order every time, and Cook places the individual dishes on the tray in accordance with that order.”

“Do all kitchens use such a system?”

“Or something like it,” Hyperia replied. “A cook tires of hearing that her soup was too salty for this one, not salty enough for the other. She can only make one pot of soup at a time, so individualizing servings makes for fewer critics.”

“Many footmen cannot read,” Lady Ophelia added. “They thus enjoy the prodigious memories of the unlettered. Seating arrangements are fairly standard, and standardizing the arrangements of servings on a tray would make sense to any fellow who’d watched a few formal meals.”

This all amounted to more evidence that Dalhousie sheltered a traitor within the Manor itself.

“Henceforth,” I said, “we will direct the cook to place two extra servings on every tray and tell no one of the change.”

“I can do that,” Lady Ophelia said. “Harmless, eccentric old thing that I am, though anybody with brains enough to run a marquess’s kitchen will grasp the sense in your suggestion, Julian. Dalhousie should have thought of it himself.”

“Dalhousie has a lot on his mind, Godmama. Recall, too, that he’s anticipating bringing a bride home in a very few months.” Assuming he lived to speak his vows.

“What if people want seconds?” Hyperia asked, and we spent a few moments puzzling over how to prevent the most-easily-poisoned servings from being consumed in the future. Vigilance seemed to be the only real course open to us, assuming Dalhousie’s foe would resort to the same tactic twice.

“If somebody asks for seconds,” Lady Ophelia mused, “and only one serving remains on the tray, is that person exonerated from attempting to poison the marquess?”

“No,” I said, having already parsed this puzzle. “That person might well be the only one at the table who knows for a certainty that the last serving is safe to consume on that occasion. That said, I doubt our enemy will attempt poison again.”

“It nearly worked the first time,” Hyperia said. “Miss Morton told me the marquess was deathly ill, though he recovered fairly quickly. She’s the head nurse in addition to her other duties.”

“A thankless task,” Lady Ophelia observed, “and often unpleasant. If she married a man appropriate to her station, she would be spared such drudgery. Miss Morton has the blunt to attract respectable offers. She’s pretty enough, sensible, not that old… Some women simply don’t feel the need, though.”

I thought back to Miss Morton’s comments about marriage. “She claims to honor the institution, but said she’d rather drudge for the devils she knows.”

“Marriage for her should not be drudgery,” Hyperia said. “Lady Ophelia is right, though. According to Tam, both he and Susanna are comfortably fixed. Their respective mothers’ settlements were set up to ensure that all children of the union were well provided for.”

“And all turned out to be a mere one apiece,” Godmama observed, finishing another row. “Why is that the way when a substantial fortune is involved, but royal dukes and princesses burden the nation’s paltry exchequer by the dozen?”

I was glad to know that Tam and Miss Morton were financially secure. They had options, in other words, and chose to stay at the Manor with their cousin, which spoke well for Dalhousie and the family as a whole.

“I’m off to inspect the pantries,” Lady Ophelia said, tucking her knitting into a workbasket more ornate than Hyperia’s simple quilted box. “I’d best inspect the cellars while I’m being eccentric. They often tell an interesting tale.”

I rose and offered her a hand. “You like impersonating an eccentric.”

“I do. One has so many examples of the genuine article in polite society. That Dalhousie hesitates to choose a bride from among them is understandable.”

She wafted off and left me behind a closed door with dear Perry. I took the place beside my intended on the sofa.

“What is it?” she asked, lacing her arm through mine. “You have turned up positively brooding, Jules, and that worries me.”

“Nothing in particular. I would simply rather sit beside you.” Would rather be touching her. “I missed that bit about the serving order. Seems obvious when you point it out.”

“Obvious in hindsight. Something troubles you, Jules.”

I explained about the note Dalhousie had received, written on the most common sort of paper in the shire, in a hand without distinguishing features, and delivered among a heap of correspondence with no sign of a sending address.

“Was the page clean?” Hyperia asked.

“Very.”

“Then the note was likely sent after your arrival, Jules. Mail doesn’t sit about for long in a mailbag or behind the bar of a posting inn and remain pristine.”

“In the alternative, the note was written here at the Manor and slipped into the morning stack by somebody who dwells here. You’re right, though. That note was definitely delivered after I arrived and probably written after I arrived as well. Our opponent is determined.”

Hyperia took my hand. “Our opponent is continuing his campaign even after Dalhousie has summoned reinforcements. That suggests recklessness, Jules.”

We fell silent, both no doubt musing on the mixed blessing of having a desperate and determined foe. On the one hand, such a person was more likely to make a revealing error. On the other, they would not stop until they succeeded, a troubling thought indeed.

Nothing less than an innocent life in danger would have motivated me to take on the task I faced, but Dalhousie was clearly in peril. With that thought in mind, I rapped on the door of the marchioness’s sitting room.

“Enter.”

I found her ladyship working at her embroidery, the pattern stretched on her hoop a tidy repetition of pink rosebuds on pristine pink linen. The project appeared to be a pillowcase and of a piece with the soft hues and understated grace of the sitting room as a whole.

Where would the nation be without the labor of the ladies with their needles? Naked and unembellished with flowers, at least.

Her ladyship’s wallpaper might once have been a commanding Prussian blue, but had faded to the color of summer skies. Her mahogany escritoire was a tribute to delicate inlays and piecrust edging set atop ball-and-claw feet on elegantly carved legs.

Lace curtains, even at this chilly time of year, admitted what sunlight was available. Touches of brightness came from candelabra, gilt picture frames, and a cheval mirror set opposite the windows. The floor was pale oak parquet polished to a gleaming shine, and the whole room bore the soothing fragrance of orange blossoms.

The marchioness glanced up from her perch on a tufted pink sofa and went right back to her needlework. “Is my lord lost?”

I bowed. “I am where I intended to be in the company I sought to find here. Might I sit?”

“Why? I have nothing to say to you. You are held in contempt by most of Society, and what Dalhousie expects you to do here, I cannot imagine.”

When we had no audience, she was consistent in her antipathy. “What I hope to do is prevent your son from being murdered.” I wandered about the room, indulging the habit of reconnaissance.

The music box on the mantel played the lilting opening theme to Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus.” The violin on the wall was ever so slightly dusty. A bouquet of daffodils on the reading table by the window blended their unique fragrance with the warmer citrus scent pervading the air.

The fire in the grate was wood, to my surprise, an extravagance that also kept the stink and nuisance of coal dust from befouling the room.

No newspapers, pamphlets, fashion magazines, or books cluttered any surface, and the escritoire was similarly ruthlessly organized. Three quill pens in the stand were set at exact angles from one another, ink bottles lined up as neatly as toy soldiers. The same tidiness was evident on the sideboard, where three decanters sparkled in the precise middle of the surface, brass trays flanking them in exact symmetry.

“When you finish snooping, my lord, you may leave.”

“You aren’t in any hurry to throw me out,” I said, taking the wing chair closest to the sofa. “You like this room and want me to appreciate it.” I liked it too. The space was peaceful, pretty, and pleasing to the nose. The ample cushions were pleasing to the body, and the light and fragrance soothed the heart.

“I should like this room,” her ladyship said. “I directed its appointments. I do not like you, though I assure you my antipathy is impersonal. One must be discerning about the company one keeps.” She drew her needle through the fabric in a relaxed rhythm, finishing one prosaic little bloom and moving on to the next.

“You need not hide from Lady Ophelia,” I said. “She lost two children earlier in life. She will not strike at you when you have reason to fear for your only son’s life. She joined me at the Manor because Miss West could not travel out from Town without a chaperone.”

The needle hesitated, then resumed its work. “Her ladyship will not strike at me now, perhaps, but one avoids Ophelia Oliphant if one wants the past to remain out of sight.”

“Godmama has a prodigious memory.” A tremendous asset when attempting to unravel polite society’s arcane riddles. “She is not your enemy.”

“Perhaps I am hers.”

“Are you your son’s enemy?” I rose and tugged the bell-pull twice. “Somebody wants him dead, and I don’t see you taking any steps to preserve his life.”

She was accounted a good shot “back in the day” by Squire Northby. She certainly had command of the serving habits in the dining room and would know her son’s preference for sweets. She was a needlewoman and probably a seamstress, meaning she could have worked at the stitching holding the girth billets to Dover’s saddle.

Means and opportunity were hers to command, though what her motive might be—other than discrediting Tam—eluded me. Though discrediting Tam mattered to her.

The needle paused again, and this time, the marchioness lowered the embroidery hoop to her lap. “Why on earth would I threaten my only son’s life?”

“ Appear to threaten him.” I resumed my seat. “You could scare the Dandridge cousins off to some other venue with repeated attacks on Dalhousie—or the appearance thereof. Tam is the logical suspect if Dalhousie comes to harm, and the best way for him to avoid suspicion is to quit the scene and remain out of pocket until the culprit has been caught.”

“Tamerlane is too lazy.” She stared hard at the painting over the mantel, Dalhousie Manor in high summer. All sunshine and potted geraniums, stately oaks in full leaf, and deer grazing at the edges of the park. “Tam is occasionally decorative and nobody’s fool. Witness, his step-cousin dotes on him as if he were three years old. Tam has merely to sigh, and he finds a tea tray has arrived without him lifting so much as a manly finger.”

His step-cousin , not Miss Morton or Susanna, and certainly not Suze. A theory I’d tossed onto the table mostly to annoy the marchioness into conversation took on new possibilities. Perhaps her ladyship wanted Miss Morton, usurper of the role of chatelaine, off the premises? Wither Tam goest, Susanna would likely follow.

“If you do not suspect Tam, then who is our culprit?” I rose at a tap on the door and took the tray from a startled footman. I closed the door with my foot and set the tray before her ladyship. “I can pour out if you’re still enjoying your tantrum.”

“Sit down, my lord, and stop baiting me.”

She was inviting me to sit. I took that as progress and forbade myself to gloat. “I prefer mine plain, unless you’re serving jasmine gunpowder, in which case a dollop of honey suits.”

Her ladyship took the lid off the pot and sniffed delicately. “China black. We’ll let it steep.”

I helped myself to a petit four draped in cinnamon icing. “Who wants Dalhousie dead?”

“You were accusing me a moment ago. Most insulting.”

“I was positing a hypothetical. If you were bent on murder, you would not bungle, much less three times in succession, and I agree that you lack a motive to kill your son. Just the opposite. If he dies without an heir of the body, you lose your place in Society to Lady Albert. I cannot envision you embracing that change enthusiastically.”

“Then why aren’t you questioning Lady Albert?” She peered into the teapot again, though she’d clearly enjoyed firing off that broadside.

“I’m saving that delight for later in the day, but be assured that her ladyship will be interrogated, as will Cressida Northby, the innkeeper in charge of the post, the grooms, and Tamerlane. He was in the stable earlier today and had plenty of time to tamper with Dover’s saddle.”

“ Miss West was in the stable earlier today, and tampering with a saddle isn’t so easy, young man. The place is awash in grooms and stable boys. The home farm lads come and go from the stable. Even the footmen bring messages there to order the carriage and so forth. Sawing away at stitching takes time, even with a sharp knife.”

This little lecture told me three things. First, her ladyship had a keen appreciation for the stable as a place with little privacy. She’d observed the foot traffic closely, though for what purpose? Second, she was already apprised of the smallest details of the day’s mischief. Third, she was mentally absorbed with the threats to her son’s life, and yet, she had not named a suspect when asked.

What was she hiding? As she passed me a cup of steaming tea and put two petits fours on a serving plate, I inventoried what I knew of her thus far.

She was organized to a fault—as most successful criminals tended to be—and indulged herself regarding the comforts of her station. She had no friends. She might intimidate servants fearing to get the sack, but she had no true loyalty from anybody save her son.

“I ask myself,” I said as her ladyship poured her own cup of tea, “why now? Why come after Dalhousie at this moment rather than when he was larking around London in the spring, or overseeing harvest in autumn? Why not plague him when he was in Paris over the winter and far from familiar surrounds? Why is he in danger at this moment?”

She stirred honey into her cup. “And what answer does the oracular Lord Julian provide?”

“Somebody is trying to keep his lordship from going to Town, but is he to bide in the country to make a murderer’s job easier, or were the earlier attacks intended to scare him off of a trip to London?” That question had been vexing me since Dalhousie had shown me the threatening note.

Her ladyship looked up from her tea cup, a hint of real worry lurking in her gaze. “Keep him from going to Town? He must go to Town. What are you talking about?”

Her dismay appeared genuine, but then, her ladyship excelled at displays of dismay. I had made the tactical decision to share news of the note with her mostly to spare Dalhousie from the same chore. Also because I wanted to gauge her reaction for myself.

“His lordship received a note on plain paper, no postage marks, clerically impersonal penmanship: ‘Hampshire’s woods might be dangerous, but for you, London’s streets shall be deadly.’ He received it just before we went riding. He offered to show me the parcel of land he’d like to enclose, and I agreed to the outing.”

She set down her tea cup silently. “He receives a threat like that, and you parade him around the countryside for any fool to use for target practice? If that is your idea of protecting another man’s life, the French must have been delighted to have you in a British uniform.”

Had she been male, that remark should have seen her called out. She was not a man. She was a mother sorely vexed and trying to hide her upset from even herself.

“Over any distance, my lady, the day’s fresh breeze would have foiled even an expert marksman. Then too, I’d rather have Dalhousie trotting about with my escort than alone, and at the last minute, I had us switch horses, which should have made his lordship safer still.”

While putting me in danger, a detail I chose not to mention.

“The marquess must go to London,” her ladyship said. “He must. If I could summon all the heiresses on offer here for his inspection, I would. Dalhousie would never put innocent lives in danger like that, but, my lord, he must marry and soon.”

One hoped Dalhousie would not conduct his courting like a horse auction. “He has been warned to stay home, though, of course, that could be for the murderer’s convenience.” If we were dealing with a murderer. I was beginning to have my doubts. “Why can’t he take a bride next year?”

She took up her embroidery. “He has had nearly fifteen years to kick up his heels, indulge his manly humors, and disappoint the matchmakers. Dandridge men do not enjoy long lives, my lord. They seldom live to see fifty, and if Dalhousie were to become a father today, he’d be unlikely to live long enough to see his son’s majority. I will not tolerate… That is, a boy needs his father, especially a boy upon whom a great deal of responsibility will rest.”

A great deal of responsibility—and wealth.

“You dread the estate falling into the hands of solicitors, guardians, and trustees.” She herself could live to see that grim day. She’d be north of her three score and ten before her grandson came of age, and she’d have little ability to legally safeguard the family’s interests. “Surely, Tam would prevent the worst disasters.”

“Tam is a Dandridge too, my lord. Who is to say that he won’t also succumb to a stomach ailment, as my husband did? A peer yet in his minority is a goose to be plucked, and Dalhousie has finally promised to do his duty. Not a day too soon, for me. If I could deposit him in wedding finery on the steps of St. George’s tomorrow, I’d do it.”

I wanted to dismiss her fears as fanciful, but she was expressing concerns that ought to press upon Dalhousie sorely.

Arthur and I were both abundantly aware that the Waltham dukedom could revert to the crown on our collective watch. Arthur had moved the family wealth where royal paws could not touch it, but that still left the Hall itself and a significant trove of funds, goods, and revenue for plundering.

Lady Dalhousie was trying to protect her husband’s legacy, and what widow could be faulted for that?

“Given recent developments,” I said slowly, “would you advise your son to bide here or journey to London?”

She stabbed the needle through the linen. “I’d advise that man to marry, my lord. To marry by special license and secure the succession with all due speed. The sooner he marries and has a child, the sooner killing him will do nothing to further Lady Albert’s schemes. Even a daughter would safeguard the earldom—it’s Scottish—but better still if Dalhousie has a son.”

Better a Scottish earldom than a family who’d lost their title altogether.

I snatched up the two petits fours I hadn’t yet eaten and rose. “On that dire note, I am off to see Lady Albert. I have left to Dalhousie the decision to bide here or travel to Town. I conclude that his enemy is either a family member or a member of the household. Changing venues might result in no increase in his lordship’s safety. I’m inclined to think the issue is the enclosure, though, and not Lady Albert’s old grudges.”

“You don’t know her, my lord. She strikes you as a bit of aging fluff, going from harebrained to dotty, but she is more calculating than you can possibly believe. The late marquess had well and truly decided not to marry her—he didn’t need her funds, and she was too silly much of the time. For thirty-five years, Lady Albert has ensured that polite society’s hostesses are as rude to me as they dare to be, and that is not the work of a frivolous woman.”

“She wants Tam to inherit?”

“She is desperate for Tam to inherit. Depend upon that, if you believe nothing else I’ve said.”

I took my leave of the marchioness, the interview having given me much to think about. Shooting at a man in Dalhousie’s situation might send him pelting to the altar, but by his own admission, he would not bring a bride into a perilous situation.

The effect of Lady Albert’s campaign—if it was hers—was to ensure that Dalhousie avoided marriage so long as he believed himself to be stalked by danger. A note warning him to stay away from Town also seemed designed to keep him from marrying rather than to prevent him from enclosing half the heath.

Too many suspects, and now, too many motives. I turned my steps in the direction of Lady Albert’s sitting room, prepared to be chatted half out of my wits.