Chapter 11 #3
Wrecking his boots in retaliation would have afforded me no satisfaction whatsoever and might have given him a pretext for escalating the whole business.
“You were at a house party,” I said, trying to think as Harry would have. “The second week. Everybody a bit bored, plenty of libation on hand, the rules relaxed, the chaperones easing their vigilance. Harry was sympathetic and available. Duquette was among the other bachelors.”
Hyperia poured herself more tea and forgot to add either cream or honey.
“Harry bitterly envied you the deductive powers you enjoy in such abundance. In hindsight, I think he decided to make a game of seducing me. Set a challenge for himself. I made a game of leading him on, but then one very late night, after a bit too much brandy, he poured us each a glass of absinthe. I am honestly not clear on what happened next.”
I knew all too well what Harry would have done. He’d boasted of his seductions among the Spanish and Portuguese ladies, to my disgust. Harry seemed oblivious to the notion that one of those ladies might have been seducing the handsome English officer for the benefit of her French contacts.
“What do you recall, Hyperia?” I asked the question for her benefit, not because I sought to torment myself with details. She was making a confession, despite the fact that I had no qualifications as a confessor. I knew, though, that telling the whole tale was necessary if she was to move past it.
“I woke in my chemise, in his bed. He was entirely cast away, wearing nothing but breeches. When I realized where I was and with whom, my belly went into full revolt. Whether shame or absinthe was upsetting my digestion, I do not know. I have been tipsy, Julian, but on that occasion, I was not myself in a very odd way.”
She sipped the tea, which had to be tepid. “I had the thought: ‘He snores like a bovine,’ and before my eyes, while he slept on, all unawares, he seemed to grow cow ears and horns, and the vision was real at the time.”
“You were hallucinating. The absinthe might have been doctored with some other potion.”
“I have no recollection of getting out of my clothes or getting into that bed, and I wasn’t about to waken Harry and ask him what we’d got up to.
I could not bear the sight of him, though our paths did cross a few times thereafter.
He seemed contrite, which impressed me not at all.
He left the house party the next day, and I hope that was out of deference to my sensibilities. ”
Harry had self-preservation instincts, give him that. “Where does Duquette come into this?”
“He was at the house party, and lately, I’ve been running into him too often.
He always brings up what good friends he and Harry were, and when last I encountered him, he mentioned that you would be very surprised to know how close Harry and I had been while you were kicking your heels in Spain.
Either Harry was indiscreet, or Duquette saw me leaving Harry’s room. ”
Would even Harry have been that indiscreet? I hoped not. “Duquette might well be weaving innuendo and threats from suppositions he cannot support with facts. Have a look at his letter.”
“You read it, please.”
Hyperia had given me an order. I took that as a sign of her returning self-possession. I slit the seal and scanned the contents.
“Polite drivel, with a postscript informing you that Duquette is in possession of a note of hand from Healy, which Duquette is happy to surrender to you for the modest sum of fifty pounds. The debt itself totals sixty pounds.”
Hyperia set down her tea cup. “Fifty pounds? That would keep a small family in a modest situation for a year.”
“And would probably keep the tailor from commending Duquette to the sponging house. I doubt Healy owes him anywhere near this much money.” Six pounds perhaps, the actual vowels conveniently edited with a well-placed zero for extortion purposes.
“Healy is trying to turn himself around, Julian. His play opens next month, and Duquette could make Healy’s life very difficult, either by slandering me in the ballrooms or claiming Healy owes him a substantial debt.”
I rose, the better to pace and think. “Duquette will not slander you.”
“Julian, you promised: No duels.”
A gentleman did not go back on his word, not even when faced with a sordid, grasping, opportunistic weasel in fine tailoring preying on the gentleman’s fiancée.
Think like Arthur. “Duquette is betting that you would never confide the nature of your difficulties to me. He believes that you will do anything to keep the past from sight. Does the duchess know what occurred between you and Harry?”
Hyperia smoothed a hand over her skirts. “I told her in general terms that you might hear unkind gossip connecting me to your late brother. I wanted you to learn the details from me rather than from anybody else, if you had to learn of them at all.”
The winter parlor was cozy, also small. Too small for useful pacing. I resumed the place beside Hyperia.
“If the duchess heard of the situation only from you, then Harry kept his mouth well and truly shut. Her Grace knows everybody and has the confidence of every matchmaker and bachelor uncle in Mayfair. Lady Ophelia’s network is even wider, and she hasn’t mentioned any unkind talk to you.”
“Never so much as hinted, but then, her ladyship is privy to many secrets.”
“Not this one.” She would have warned me in some roundabout way. Godmama excelled at the casual hint, the veiled warning, the implied conclusion. “Duquette is bluffing.”
“Julian…”
“Yes, I know. What if I’m wrong? A contingency plan suggests itself. Hear me out.” I sketched a simple means of muzzling Duquette, one Arthur would have approved of as both discreet and effective. Healy’s thespian talents might play a part, as would the Caldicott solicitors in London.
“This is why Wellington would not let you come home on winter leave, isn’t it?” Hyperia said. “Your mind works like a puzzle box, all the parts connecting and moving together unseen. Wellington could not afford to let you leave the Peninsula for even a few months.”
“My superior officers would have approved any leave I requested. I asked for none because I was more effective in my duties if I did not disappear from the Spanish countryside exactly when all the British officers were sailing home between campaign seasons.”
Hyperia took up her tea cup again, and a silence sprang up, thoughtful on my part. I knew not what on hers.
We’d neither of us expected to end up raking over Hyperia’s past when we’d been beaming at each other in the presence of Lady Clo’s grouchy old butler. Then I’d pressed Hyperia for a wedding date, and Duquette’s letter had set a match to a powder keg of issues.
“Shall I cry off, Julian?”
Arthur’s influence, the duchess’s pragmatism, and my own common sense suggested an end to the engagement might be best. Hyperia carried a burden of guilt regarding her incident with Harry—incident, not liaison—that might never be resolved.
I had my own feelings to deal with, and they were many, varied, and contradictory.
Hyperia had withheld material facts from me and accepted a proposal of marriage while flying, if not false colors, then misleading colors.
She might have meant well at every turn, hoping to spare me as well as herself unnecessary drama and pain, but my faith in her truthfulness had weathered a substantial disappointment.
“You are taking too long to answer,” Hyperia said gently. “I’ll cry off.”