Chapter 15 #2
I wasn’t about to join the rogues on the sofa, so I kept to my feet.
“Her Grace was poisoned, and thus she, you, the boys… All of you need to quit Hampshire, the sooner the better. Ill will aimed at me is within the usual rules of combat, and Atticus’s fall through the ice might have been a genuine mishap.
To involve Her Grace defies all bounds.”
Four other people munched their biscuits as if waiting for dotty Uncle Julian to drink his tisane and cease ranting.
“You must admit,” I said more quietly, “poisoning a duchess is a desperate measure.”
“The poison might have been meant for me,” Hyperia said, her tone suggesting she speculated on whether forest green or celadon would be more flattering to her coloring. “If the footman was told to take the drink to Lord Julian’s dearest lady, Her Grace might have been the victim of a mistake.”
“She’s right,” Mama said. “The explanation is plausible, in which case you are dealing with a malefactor who is indeed growing desperate, but who is also having to rely on minions of indifferent discernment to carry out plots of questionable efficacy. My guess is, if we had let my drink sit in a cool windowsill, syrup of ipecac might have settled out from the cider and wine and whatnot.”
Leander made a horrified face. Atticus finished his biscuit and gazed at the remaining treats on the plate. Her Grace sipped placidly, and I wanted to howl.
Into the traveling coach with you all. Now. Before I could commence pacing and shouting, the door opened. Miss Wren Delaplane stood on the threshold, looking surprised.
“Sorry to intrude.” She dipped a curtsey and tried for a smile. “I was looking for Bryson? I was told he was in the cardroom, then… I suppose I’ll ask a footman to have a look in the smoking room, shall I?”
Hyperia was on her feet, the plate of biscuits in hand. “The retiring room would be my guess. Looking to sit out an interminable allemande. Biscuit?”
Wren accepted. “Apologies for interrupting.”
“Grandmama looks like a fairy godmother,” Leander chirped from around a mouthful of ginger sweet.
“You’ll spill crumbs,” Atticus muttered, elbowing Leander in the ribs.
Her Grace smiled indulgently. “You catch us in the midst of a Caldicott family tradition. On fancy occasions, the children are permitted parade inspection of the adults in our finery. The result is supposed to be a calmer bedtime in the nursery.”
The boys ceased squirming before outright fisticuffs ensued.
“I’ll leave you to it.” Wren gave a self-conscious wave and glided off, biscuit in her gloved hand.
Hyperia fastened the lock in Wren’s wake. “What proper young lady searches for a bachelor in his own rooms between the first and second sets?”
“In this household,” I replied, “the answers might be numerous. Perhaps she’s tired of waiting for her oldest sister to wed and considering a spot of compromising behavior. Do I take it the assembled wisdom weighs against any hasty departures?”
“He means we’re not leaving,” Atticus said. “Got that right, guv. I’d like another biscuit, please.”
“You aren’t supposed to ask,” Leander retorted, punctuating his instruction with an elbow jab.
“You are both taking an intermission in the nursery,” I said.
“If you are queried about the duchess’s disappearance from the ballroom, please note who is posing the question and inform them that Caldicott adults have long observed the habit of stopping by the nursery at the start of a formal entertainment.
We made impromptu use of Mr. Bryson’s sitting room because it’s nearer the ballroom than the nursery is. ”
“One more biscuit apiece,” the duchess said. “A reward for stalwart service in support of a lady in distress.”
Atticus grabbed his biscuit with undue haste. Leander dithered.
“Atticus, you will bide in the nursery tonight,” I said. “Miss Hunter will need a friend in the household when all the maids and footmen are run off their feet.”
His scowl faded. “Aye, guv, and I’ll bring up the trays in the morning.”
Trays, plural, meaning he’d return to temporary headquarters in my apartment once he’d done justice to the lavish porridge offerings in the nursery.
“Until morning, then. Make your bows.”
I escorted the boys into the care of a sleepy Miss Hunter and alerted her to the duchess’s bad fortune in the ballroom. Miss Hunter was a canny female and would keep an extra-close eye on her charges.
I returned to Bryson’s sitting room, determined to keep an equally close eye on my charges, assuming they permitted me that honor.
“I will be fine,” the duchess said quite firmly. “My constitution is resilient, and the poison is gone. I will neither eat nor drink except from communal sources. Until the supper waltz, I need not risk a twisted ankle or broken toe on the dance floor.”
A twisted ankle? A broken toe? My imagination galloped off to scenes of the duchess bedridden or worse. What if she dies?
Hyperia touched my sleeve. “Her Grace will be in sight of the whole gathering. She knows to be on her guard. We will keep an eye on her, and our villain can hardly send her another poisoned chalice.”
I took the sofa the boys had vacated. The ladies were calm, resolute, and even slightly amused at my determination to keep them safe.
“Young man,” Mama said, “I sent two sons off to war, and for a time thought I’d lost them both.
You and those rubbishing French put me through that, and then you came home little more than a wraith.
Rather than recover properly from your ordeal, you went haring off to Waterloo to wreck what little progress you’d made toward regaining your health. ”
“But, Mama—”
She held up a hand. “Then you came home again, a walking shambles, staring off into space for hours, pretending to read. Eating nothing. Sleeping little, and I was informed you’d be removing to your London town house rather than bide with family.
Informed. Not consulted, not asked for my opinion.
Did I gainsay your decision—gainsay any of your decisions?
And lately you involve yourself in every looming scandal and intrigue Society throws at you rather than conduct a proper courtship, and once again, I hold my peace. ”
She rose and tossed back the shawl to drape down her back like a queen’s train.
“Who are you, Julian Caldicott, to tell me I cannot sit in a crowded ballroom of all places merely to exude the outward calm I have learned to don through the hard-fought battle of parenting you and your siblings? I vow I have raised a pack of clodpates. They take after their father, the boys especially. I will tolerate your escort as far as the staircase, sir, and no farther.”
This peroration had left even Hyperia subdued.
I would not have said my mother was angry, exactly, but exasperation certainly underlay her words.
We walked with Her Grace to the head of the steps.
She kissed my cheek, patted my lapel, and gave me one of those half-amused, half-resigned smiles I’d seen her aim at my father so often.
“You get your tender heart from His Grace too,” she said. “Your common sense originates on the distaff side of the family tree. See that you keep that trait handy.”
We watched her descend, her dignity at its most luminous and splendid.
“She’ll go to the ladies’ retiring room,” Hyperia said. “Standard procedure following an awkward absence from public view. She’ll return to the ballroom chatting with some old acquaintance, and nobody will think anything of her coming or going.”
While I could think of little besides Mama’s departure from the mortal sphere. “Have I broken my mother’s heart, Hyperia?”
She slipped her hand into mine. “Repeatedly, from about the age of six weeks, I’d say, and yet, she loves you ferociously, and woe unto whoever pushed you off that bridge.”
“My mother has been disguising herself and going on intelligence maneuvers since before I was born. I simply hadn’t noticed.”
“And now that you have?”
“I am sad for her. Gathering information while pretending to be something you are not is lonely, grueling work that often comes to nothing.” When it didn’t result in harm to one’s person or one’s reputation.
“Her Grace does little pretending,” Hyperia said as we returned to Bryson’s sitting room.
“The duchess is genuinely gracious, somewhat aloof, and concerned mostly with the happiness of her children and close friends. The rest of Society’s nonsense interests her little.
This, of course, makes her more intriguing to the gossips and gives her a power over them that the ostentatious hostesses and bon vivant peers can only envy. ”
Rule by indifference. Another trait Mama shared with Wellington, who cultivated an air of being very much above the touch of lesser mortals.
“We can put the tea tray in my room,” I said, hefting said tray. “If you’ll get the doors?”
“We were seen in Bryson’s chambers,” Hyperia replied, leading the way. “Why bother moving the tray?”
“Wren might tell Bryson she was poking her nose into his private quarters—not that I’ve seen her in conversation with him generally—but she should be more concerned that we will tattle on her.
Bryson considered courting her before he bought his colors.
I don’t sense any particular tenderness in her direction from him now.
” But then, he was no longer a callow swain, and he would not wear his heart on his sleeve.
Particularly not when he’d been sent off to war with a flea in his ear for even entertaining romantic thoughts in Wren’s direction. A memorable rejection for a man with any pride.
“Wren is restless,” Hyperia said, opening the door to my sitting room. “A fellow who wanted his face slapped might say she needs a husband and family to settle her humors.”
“Fortunately, I am not such a man. I do think Wren longs to see Philomel wed so a household of her own becomes a greater possibility for Wren.”