Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Some of the most critical intelligence I’d gathered in Spain and in the midst of my recent investigations had come from children and older people.
Those relegated by Society to lower status were inclined to keep a close eye on their supposed betters.
The typical earl, by contrast, took his footmen, porters, maids, and shopgirls for granted, if he noticed them at all.
More than once, Atticus, a mere stable boy in the eyes of most, had brought a pivotal insight to an otherwise vexing puzzle. I was thus keen to confer with him, but my attempts to make a quick exit from Lady Clotilda’s gathering were thwarted.
“You must listen to Wren,” Philomel Delaplane said, still clutching my arm as she marched me across the stuffy parlor. “She has all the best on-dits and knows positively everybody. I am singing your praises, sister. His lordship must be prepared for the Twelfth Night banquet at the Keep.”
Wren offered me her hand. I dutifully bowed over her pale knuckles.
“Everybody attends,” she said. “The Keep puts on a buffet with dancing. We call it a banquet. Always have. The younger guests typically go orchard wassailing around midnight, but you needn’t join us. We simply like to get up to nonsense.”
“Pagan nonsense,” Philomel added. “Pouring cider over the tree roots and banging pots in hopes of a larger crop of apples. You will think us quite backward.”
“We observed the same tradition at Caldicott Hall when I was a child. We in the nursery viewed the orchard wassail as the last opportunity to stay up past bedtime in the name of holiday merriment.”
Also a chance to make noise, run around the entire orchard, and bellow a few orchard wassailing ditties in the dead of night. What child would not find that ritual worthy?
“At the banquet,” Wren said, “we sit where we please. You must be on your guard.”
No warning necessary. Philomel still had a press-gang’s grip on my arm. “Do I assume that Lady Clotilda’s household figures on the baron’s guest list?”
The sisters exchanged a look portending gossip.
“You may assume as much,” Philomel said. “At all the public functions, the baron and her ladyship are quite civil. Makes life much easier for Algernon, Miss Quiggan, and her brother.”
“Does anybody know the origins of the baron and Lady Clotilda’s dislike for each other?” My arm would have bruises before this cordial tea was done, and where was my dearest Hyperia when I needed rescuing?
A footman materialized with a tray full of tarts. Philomel took three, Wren two. I waved the dratted fellow away.
“You must not quote me,” Philomel said, “but the feud has to do with Lady Clo’s forest. The baron keeps trying to add it to his hunting fixtures, and her ladyship refuses his offers. Her patch of bracken intrudes on his acres like a sort of dock sticking out into the middle of the pond.”
“Centuries ago,” Wren said, having dispatched one of her tarts, “the forest was a dower property when the two families intermarried. The baron wants it back, or so that line of thought goes. Philomel, if you need to explain to Mr. Quiggan that you cannot sit with him at the banquet, you’d best make your excuses now. ”
Philomel became absorbed with her remaining tarts. “He caught me in a weak moment. I can’t very well say that to the man’s face.”
Sandy Quiggan struck me as agreeable company with agreeable prospects, and yet, Philomel had apparently been hoping for an offer from some other escort.
Bryson, perhaps? Algernon?
“Mr. Quiggan is idling by the bookshelf,” Wren said. “You could tell him now. Say you forgot that somebody else had already offered to sit with you.”
“I need some more punch to wash down these delicious tarts,” Philomel said too brightly.
“My lord, excuse me. I would linger, but one must mingle, mustn’t one?
I tell you, Lady Clotilda invites too many people to these teas, but then, we all want to get to know our most delightful duchess and her handsome son, don’t we? ”
She swanned off, and I resisted the urge to rub my abused arm.
“Don’t judge Philomel too harshly,” Wren said.
“Robin married five years ago, and in this neighborhood, we still observe the custom that the oldest is supposed to marry first. If Algernon doesn’t come up to scratch, Campbell Hooper might be an option for Philomel, though he is a widower.
They can be set in their ways. Isaac Lovelace is young, but he’s charming, and he’ll be nicely fixed once his uncle cocks up his toes. ”
Blunt speaking, but then, I was in the countryside, where folk were pragmatic of necessity. “Is Algernon Carstairs out of the running?”
Wren popped the second tart into her mouth, which struck me as a delaying tactic.
“Algernon is a delightful fellow,” she said, “and will make somebody a wonderful husband, I’m sure.”
A non-answer worthy of any Mayfair sniper. “Why hasn’t he already done so? The succession is far from secure, and Algernon is the heir.”
She offered me a winsome smile. “Peter and Robin are doing their best, and Lord Dunsford is still quite hale. He might take a young bride and surprise us all.”
Something arch in Wren’s tone suggested she might be that young bride. She’d make a dutiful wife for the baron’s remaining years and possibly upstage her middle sister as mother to the next titleholder.
The baron could be charming, in a testy way, and he was in good health. I understood the tactical advantages, but still… Wren was young, and Dunsford was a trial to the nerves of all in his ambit.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Wren said, “I believe I’ll find some more sustenance. Two tarts will never do, and the local young men make locusts look abstemious. One must be assertive or resign oneself to an empty belly. Enjoy your visit, your lordship, and my regards to your mother.”
She joined her sister at Sandy Quiggan’s side, and I chided myself for underestimating two women in the same hour.
Lady Clotilda was a garden-variety social schemer, but Wren Delaplane had all the earmarks of a matchmaker.
She might be waiting for her oldest sister to wed first, but she had her eye on the main chance, and I wished her the joy of that ambition.
Certainly a lady who’d set her cap for the baron himself would have no motive for keeping Bryson from his home shires.
I hadn’t suspected Wren of orchestrating Bryson’s banishment, and neither did I suspect Philomel.
She was edging toward spinsterhood and, if anything, should welcome another bachelor to the available selection.
As far as Philomel went, I had no doubt that her talons would still be digging into my arm were I not engaged to my dear Perry.
I spied that good lady by the window, keeping company with an older woman with a decided squint. Both were seated, and I made my way toward them. Hyperia was wearing a forest green brocade ensemble that flattered her coloring, though in the crowded parlor, she had to be quite warm.
“Miss West, might you favor me with an introduction to your friend?”
“With pleasure, my lord. Mrs. Fipps, may I make known to you Lord Julian Caldicott, who is visiting at the Keep with Mr. Bryson Carstairs. My lord, Mrs. Ethelberta Fipps, wife of the late vicar of St. Aelfred’s. If the two of you will excuse me, I will see about some refreshment for us all.”
She slipped away on a smile, and I commenced an exchange of small talk with the widow. Mrs. Fipps poked gentle fun at the young people in the room, spoke respectfully of the new vicar despite his tender years, and asked me why I had not yet set a date to marry my fiancée.
The women in this part of Hampshire were a formidable regiment. “That very question should be put to the lady,” I said, though Hyperia had not yet returned. She’d left the room, in fact, and in our fleeting exchange, I’d felt something off.
My intended was in a tangle, and she had not applied to me for assistance. That she’d carry any burden all on her own bothered me exceedingly, and I was abruptly impatient with Bryson Carstairs, his rubbishing neighbors, and his feuding family.
I quit the assemblage and penned a note to Hyperia, begging the favor of her company on tomorrow’s excursion with Leander.
Darkness was falling as I tramped along the path to the Keep and with it a light snow borne on a frigid breeze.
The bitter weather was a backhanded comfort to one accustomed to dwelling in various wildernesses.
No stars overhead, not even moonlight to illuminate the way, and yet, I knew where I was going.
I did not know where the mystery of Bryson Carstairs’s exile was going, but a private chat with Algernon seemed like a useful next step. I was also determined to have some time alone with my intended on the morrow, and not even a howling January snowstorm would deter me from that objective.
I found Atticus on a bench in the saddle room, a brazier near his feet as he used a tallowy soap on Atlas’s bridle.
“You about wrecked them boots, guv. For shame.”
I closed the door behind me, wanting both privacy and warmth. “The leather in these boots was frequently wet when the original owner was extant. If boots cannot withstand some winter dampness, they aren’t worth the name.”
Atticus turned a gimlet gaze on my footwear, which was muddy as well as wet. “You’ll be coming down with an ague, and no use to anybody if you do. How was her ladyship’s tea?”
I took the place beside him on the bench. “News travels fast.”
“Her ladyship is always having teas and breakfasts and such. She don’t got a ballroom, though, not like the Keep has. The baron’s having a big do on Twelfth Night. That’s the day after tomorrow.”
Meaning the baron reckoned by the church calendar that counted Christmas as the first of Yuletide’s twelve days. Some traditions started the count on Boxing Day.
“Don’t stay up too late, young man, and mind the punch—all of the punches—no matter what the scullery maids or potboys tell you.”
“I can hold me grog.”