Chapter 3 #2
He nodded to me as if to make certain I knew I had just been likened to a panting dog, then sauntered off.
Tiresome twit.
“Your expression puts me in mind of Arthur at his most ducal,” Hyperia said. “Henry’s not that bad. Tedious, but then, most fortune hunters are. It’s good to see you, Jules.”
“A fortune hunter?” The epitome of a slobbering hound in good tailoring.
“That’s according to unkind gossip. The Duquettes should come right eventually, but they invested a great deal in enclosures, and harvests of late have been poor.”
I handed Hyperia into the coach and took the place beside her by right of fiancé. “I’m on a mad dash home from Hampshire,” I said. “Leander would accuse me of going absent without leave by detouring into Town, but I missed you.”
I was prevaricating rather than lying, but prevaricating with Hyperia was somehow worse than an outright falsehood. I wanted to take her hand, and I wanted to demand satisfaction from Duquette simply for inspiring Hyperia’s laughter.
“You are suffering your winter megrims, aren’t you, Jules?” she asked. “I have been worried about you, but I could hardly invite myself to the Hall when Her Grace was not on hand to chaperone.”
The common sense of that explanation made me feel at once dimwitted and happy.
“The duchess is off in Hampshire visiting an old chum, Lady Clotilda Quiggan, with whom she plans to stay through the holidays. I looked in on Her Grace and am on my way back to the Hall. I worry about you too, you know.”
“The duchess left you alone for the holidays?”
I apparently hadn’t conveyed that state of affairs in my periodic notes. “As you are more or less alone, despite your brother’s nominal presence.”
Hyperia pulled down the window shade and took my hand. We both wore gloves, to my endless frustration.
“I hardly see Healy, and honestly, Jules, I prefer it that way. He stumbles home by dawn’s not-so-early light, falls into bed, and does not rise until late in the afternoon, then he’s off again for a rehearsal of his play, followed by dinner at the club.
I am so tired of holiday punch, at homes, and little shortbreads shaped like snowflakes and stars that I could howl. ”
I squeezed her hand. “More mistletoe festoons the Hall than remains in all the forests in Surrey. The giggling will drive me daft. Giggling maids, giggling footmen, giggling grooms, and I vow, even the pantry mouser chortles his way through the day.”
A silence arose, not quite comfortable. We traded these complaints in person, but why hadn’t we put them into letters?
“I’ve considered going home for the holidays,” Hyperia said. “That would cause talk.”
By home, she meant the West family seat, which lay a short distance from Caldicott Hall. “The gossips would note that you have abandoned your brother and are not in company with your fiancé.” Those gossips who even knew of our engagement. “Where would you like to be, Hyperia?”
She’d spent the previous Christmas with me at the Hall. We’d muddled through well enough, despite megrims, mysteries, and a few misunderstandings. We’d also had plenty of family on hand to occupy us.
“I would like to be in April,” she said. “When the wind blows fresh air through Town for a change, and my feet are no longer perpetually chilled. What of you?”
I would like to be married to you. “I am preparing for a short journey to Hampshire after the New Year.” By the time I’d finished explaining Carstairs’s situation to her, we had reached the ducal town house, and Hyperia was assisting me to do justice to a tray of sandwiches.
“I like Bryson Carstairs,” she said, finishing a mug of mulled cider, “though he seemed sad to me. This banishment explains his sorrow.”
We sat side by side, unchaperoned, and to blazes with the requisite twelve inches of separation, though the door to the family parlor was open. The rules for an engaged couple were relaxed, and Hyperia was no high stickler, thank Providence.
“Carstairs lost a younger brother during the war to influenza,” I said.
“If in vino veritas can be trusted, Carstairs has concluded that if he’d been home, if he’d been less cavalier about the hardships of military life, if he’d prayed harder or written more often…
the brother might have taken his illness more seriously sooner.
I could not leave a fellow soldier to be devoured by his regrets, Perry, which is one result of Carstairs’s exile to Surrey. ”
Some of this faulty logic, I’d gleaned on Carstairs’s recent visit, some I’d gathered during our previous acquaintance.
Hyperia peered into her empty mug, and though she said nothing and made no overt grimace, I knew what she was thinking: to perdition with all tragically expired brothers who left a legacy of guilt for their surviving siblings.
“You went to Hampshire on reconnaissance, then?”
“And to alert Her Grace to the fact that I’d be making a visit to a property that adjoins Lady Clotilda’s. Her ladyship is not on good terms with the Carstairs patriarch. She might also bear Bryson ill will.”
Hyperia grinned. “Complicated. You like complications.”
“I do not.”
She patted my knee. “You thrive on them. Would I be a complication if I joined the ladies’ gathering? I know Lady Clo—she used to spend more time in Town—and she would understand why the company of Healy and his fellow dissolutes has little appeal.”
“Is Henry Duquette dissolute?” I tried to sound politely interested rather than gloating.
“He can be charming,” Hyperia said slowly.
“But he’s turning up a little too frequently at the shops I prefer.
I’ve taken to allowing myself a weekly pilgrimage to Gunter’s, and there he was again this afternoon.
He was at Lady Alcester’s at home two days ago.
He’s not quite hiding from creditors if he’s racketing about Town, but he’s availing himself of free food and libation in the tradition of impecunious bachelors. ”
“Might he believe you enjoy his company?” He made you laugh. Truly laugh.
“What a man believes about me is no business of mine, Jules. You would rather I not join the investigation in Hampshire?”
“I would rather you did, emphatically.” And that was the unvarnished truth. I’d tried parsing a riddle or two without the benefit of Hyperia’s insights and instincts. Excluding her had left her hurt and insulted and left me with a much harder job, as well as apologies owed to the lady.
Whatever might be true of our engagement, we were a good investigating team. “Please get thee to Hampshire, Perry, if you can manage it without difficulties.”
“Consider it done.” She helped herself to a slice of apple torte. “I will make for Hampshire on the twenty-seventh, and Healy can ring in the New Year without me, assuming Lady Clotilda is amenable.” She held up the torte for me to take a bite.
Cinnamon, a hint of nutmeg, sweetness. “I have missed you,” I said. “But sending you the same report over and over—called on the neighbors, had Vicar over for Sunday supper, looked in on the pensioners, went for a pleasant hack on Atlas—has lost its appeal, Perry.”
“I know. This at home, that open house, singing carols, wrapping loaves of stollen for the church… laughing at Duquette’s stories even though I’ve heard them all before. I’m glad you came to Town, Jules.”
She kissed my cheek and took a bite of the torte.
“I’m glad too.” Also relieved. Duquette had bored her, despite appearances. I did not bore her, and I was not rackety, and we had an investigation to look forward to.
I told myself I was the most fortunate of fellows. Sitting beside my beloved, contemplating another investigation, and knowing Hyperia would enjoy the challenge, too, I almost believed my own reassurances.
Almost.