Chapter 3
Beau woke early, as was his habit. His limbs were loose and heavy, given over to the comfort of a place long-familiar after only one night. Dawn had just begun to break, and he dragged the thick brocade curtains apart, letting in what little light there was as the sun slowly rolled over from the other side of the world. Beyond his window, the dirt paths wending through the Italian garden were sodden from overnight rain.
He took up the book of poetry from the desk near the window and flipped until the little hollow in the middle was exposed. There were hidden compartments in most of his clothing and many of his belongings—the soles of his shoes, the brim and crown of his hat, his snuff box, and other sundry items, including books, his walking stick, and his pocket watch.
From the empty space between the pages, he plucked the letter from the Home Office and reread it.
In light of the incident which took place at the Viennese ball hosted by the Archduke Rainer and the subsequent injuries to your person resulting from human error—Beau winced at the words; he still had no idea where the ladybird had hidden the knife or how she’d so quickly been able to access it—the office requests your immediate return to England with the strong recommendation to remain at your ancestral estate for the duration of your recovery, where invigorating fresh air and quiet may aid in the restoration of your health. In due course, you may be permitted to return to work. A letter will follow with additional details. Do nothing which may otherwise jeopardise your hardiness until further advised.
The word nothing was underlined twice. Between the lines he was being punished for bungling the mission. Antwerp was a rare, unwelcome blemish on his pristine record. He would have died had Saunders not followed him from the ballroom to the parlour. Perhaps such a fate would have been the better alternative to being reprimanded by his esteemed commandant, Lord Duffy, and sent to the place he’d actively avoided for years.
Beau refolded the letter and placed it back inside the book. Once a fire was lit in his grate, he would burn it. After ringing for his valet, he sat patiently while Saunders executed a perfect close shave, then descended to the breakfast room several minutes before ten. Within, he found his mother and his ward, the latter dressed in a rich green woollen riding habit and filling a plate with generous portions of ham, eggs, toast, and plum jam.
‘Have you tried a Mirabelle plum, Miss Doubleday?’ he asked, coming to a stop at her side before reaching for the bacon. ‘They feature a more delicate sweetness and contain no pit.’ Then, more to himself than the other occupants of the room, he added, ‘I’ll talk to Walker about growing a few trees in the hothouse. Pineapple too.’
‘Walker is no longer with us,’ chimed his mother from her seat at the table.
Beau whipped his head around. The dowager’s focus remained on the bread she was buttering. He was on the verge of demanding to know why no one had informed him the head gardener had expired, when a low, silvery voice said, ‘Pensioned off, is what your mama means.’
‘Yes,’ the dowager confirmed, cutting the air around her with a casual wave of her small knife. ‘That.’
Beau ignored his mother and turned towards his ward. Her black eyes caught him in their unfathomable depths and his thought broke in two. She blinked, and he recovered himself. ‘Walker cannot be more than five-and-fifty.’
The young lady lifted her chin, and her mouth pursed with impatience before she answered, ‘Fifty-seven, and with the arthritic hands of a man decades older.’
The plate each was holding forced them apart. At the edge of awareness, Beau heard the shrill whine of bone china biting bone china as he leaned into their discussion. ‘Who replaced him? How long past? No one thought to seek out my opinion or at least inform me of such a change within my household?’
Miss Doubleday’s features tightened just enough for his keen eye to discern the change. He’d been observing and reading people for so long; it was a skill turned habit turned instinct.
When it became clear neither his mother nor his ward would respond to his questions, he stepped back and moved towards the table. ‘Allow me,’ he said, pulling out a chair for Miss Doubleday.
‘Oh, you mistake my intentions,’ said she, backing towards the doorway. ‘I’m already returned and wouldn’t dream of leaving dirt on the chairs.’
There was not a speck of mud or grime to be seen on her riding habit, and he wondered how she managed to look so pristine after a damp morning ride. When she left, he watched her go, pretending not to notice how the thick fabric swayed about her hips.
‘You need not have come down on my account,’ said Beau to his mother, although his attention was still on the empty doorway.
‘I didn’t. I stopped taking a tray in my room several months after your father passed.’
He said nothing but moved to take the seat at her right.
‘Your correct place is there now,’ replied his mother, with a nod to where his father used to sit at the head of the table.
‘Yes, but so much further from you. Have we not enjoyed enough distance between us?’ Distance he’d created by choosing work over duty, work his mother knew nothing about.
The dowager flicked her eyes in his direction before setting down her toast and picking up The Morning Post.
‘Is Louisa still abed?’
‘No. She rode out with Emerald. I suspect half of what was on her plate will get eaten by your sister. Very likely Louisa has already changed for some lesson or other.’
Beau looked at the small silver clock on the mantel across the room. ‘Rather early for a ride, is it not? I don’t recall Lou having any partiality for the morning hours.’
‘It took some encouragement from Emerald, but I daresay Louisa has learned to enjoy being up with the sun. She’s certainly benefited from both the exercise and the education.’
Beau paused mid-chew before swallowing the bite of eggs in his mouth. ‘Education?’
The dowager tipped the top half of the paper down, looking directly at Beau as she spoke. ‘This morning I believe they were inspecting some work being done on a new bridge to replace the rickety old one washed away after the last big storm.’
A muscle twitched in his jaw. ‘If the steward is no longer able to do his job, perhaps he ought to be replaced with a man more competent and capable.’
His mother snapped the paper back up, saying from behind her printed wall, ‘I wouldn’t wonder that Mr Sims went with them, as is typical.’
‘This is a regular occurrence then?’
Behind the fine black print he could hear his mother sniff, take a sip of tea, and replace the cup on its saucer.
‘Louisa is sixteen, and Miss Doubleday?—’
‘Your sister is seventeen, and there’s no need for you to finish your thought.’
Beau set his fork to the side of his plate. ‘There’s no need for me, is what you really mean.’
‘Beauden.’ The paper came down once more, his mother’s countenance displaying not a trace of emotion. ‘What would you have me say?’
‘I would be pleased to have an honest conversation.’ So much of his work was half-truths, secrets, disguise.
‘You do not get to turn up without warning, years late and spent doing who knows what—certainly nothing I care to imagine—and disrupt my breakfast with your demands for a conversation I’ve no interest in having with my tea and toast. You may take yourself off somewhere conducive to sorting out the ills that plague you and leave me in peace.’
A hard pang of frustration grabbed at Beau’s jaw as he stared at the paper dividing the space between him and his mother. His mouth opened, but no retort was forthcoming. Instead, he pushed back from the table, turned on his heel, and left the breakfast parlour behind him in three long strides. He intended to return to his room, but with a hand on the smooth mahogany stair rail, he changed course, stopping a footman he passed on the way to his study and requesting a fresh pot of coffee be brought round before slipping into the dim room.
It was an odd sensation, closing the door behind him but not seeing his father awaiting his arrival in the tufted chair behind the grand desk dominating the space in front of two tall windows.
The room remained just as Beau remembered—all cherrywood and rich worn leather that groaned when sat in. He drew in a slow, deep inhale. The scent of tobacco and bergamot he associated with his father had faded to nearly nothing. In its place was something sweet but citrusy. On the wall across from the desk hung the painting of his grandfather. As a youth, it had been nothing more than another silly portrait of an old man with his horse and dogs. As the master of Oakmoss, he wondered how his father had been able to work with his own looking down on him.
The shelves were crammed full of books, much as they always had been. He brushed his fingers over their spines, their varied titles proof of the breadth of knowledge his father had possessed in economics, poetry, and history. There were back issues of the Annals of Agriculture, and some titles unfamiliar to him—books on herbal remedies, kitchen gardens, cultivating different types of apples.
He turned away from the long wall. Facing the desk were the same two chairs that had been a staple of the room since Beau was a child. The left was more worn than the right from all the time Beau had spent ensconced there.
Sitting in that chair, Beau had laid out his life for his father to understand—what kind of work he did, the pleasure he derived from it, the feeling of satisfaction from having found something to call his own. The row following Beau’s revelation had been terrific. What he saw as opportunity, his father had seen as negligence and dereliction of duty to the family name. If something happened to Beau, the Calverleigh family line would end. The interminable and at times onerous efforts of nine generations would be for naught. The estate would go to a second cousin, and his mother’s life as well as his sister’s would be upended.
‘It’s been years,’ Beau had defended himself, ‘and nothing has happened to me, as you can see for yourself.’ So long as he’d kept the scars on his body covered.
‘Yet. Nothing has happened to you yet. It’s only a matter of time. All it takes is one person, one mistake, one ill-judged choice…’ His father’s voice had tremored with bridled emotion, but Beau’s anger had been too strong then for him to question why. He’d accused his father of being selfish—and worse, jealous—because Beau was bold enough to find meaning in life beyond what had been foisted upon him while his father had been anchored to Oakmoss, forced to accept a legacy not of his choosing.
Standing behind the chair, Beau rested his hands on its high back and pushed the ugly memory from his mind. The leather creaked under the pressure of his fingers as they squeezed. With a determined nod, he made his way to the desk.
On its corner, the odd little figurine that Beau had loved as a boy—a snail with a shell made of silver and pearl and a small rider perched on its back holding a bow and arrow. He picked it up to feel the weight of it in his hand, the cold of the silver against his bare skin, and noticed for the first time the papers in front of him organised into neat little stacks. Setting the sculpture down, he picked up the top sheet—a receipt of sale for cow’s milk. Next to it was a list of purchases to be reviewed, and atop that, a note to inspect the linens. He picked up the paper and stroked his thumb along Miss Doubleday’s decisive, elegant handwriting. It would be impossible to forget her script when he had reread the letter announcing his father’s death so many times it was thinning at the creases. On a sigh, he released the page, watching it nest among the others as the implications of her presence in the room settled over him.