Chapter 5 #2
His grumpy remonstration was balm to my soul, and he probably knew it.
“The point, sir, is that I believed the lies. I believed nobody would look for me. A reconnaissance officer—two of them—being snatched up by a random French patrol was the height of incompetence. I deserved to be captured. I saw Harry being taken and surrendered along with him, not a literal or figurative shot fired.”
“Loyal of you. Foolish, but loyal. Then too, a pair of soldiers can accomplish what one cannot. What has this to do with… Ah. You cling to the possibility that Dantry has not fled his creditors or lovers or tenants. He was taken captive, somehow, and cannot free himself unaided.”
“He’s no good to anybody dead. Even Sheldon probably benefits from having the earl strutting around in Society until Sheldon can take ship.
If Dantry dies, the estate affairs—his finances, any inchoate matters with legal ramifications— all become muddled up in the courts.
The creditors will never see a groat of the earl’s money, and tenants will never get the repairs they’re owed. ”
One of the hounds whined softly in his sleep. Sir Clive bent down to scratch a doggy ear, and the beast quieted.
“Dantry’s political foes will benefit enormously from his death, my boy.
He’s a thorn in their sides, a traitor to the aristocracy.
And he is very much an aristocrat in dress, bearing, and manner.
They hate that. Give them the unkempt arrogance of a Charles James Fox, and they could oppose him dispassionately—an upstart commoner, albeit from money, who could not manage his appetites or his finances.
But Dantry is one of the aristocracy, and they secretly wonder if he’s not the best of them. ”
I would not have gone that far. The best of the peerage paid the trades, to the penny, on time, with thanks and the occasional vale, while investing in their acres and their country.
“I should continue to search?”
“Discreetly. For now. We looked for Jamie, you know, searched until we found him. My wife once said it would have been kinder to let her think he’d run away to sea.”
“Your wife was wrong, meaning no disrespect.”
Sir Clive took his feet from the hassock and gathered up his boots. “Was she? On what authority do you make that confident and ungentlemanly claim?”
“I do not know how Harry died. Did he freeze to death on the damned mountainside days after being given his liberty? Did he starve? Rations were nearly non-existent. Did he taunt his captors until they did him the ultimate courtesy of ending his suffering? Did they toss his remains from the parapets to be picked over by wolves? I simply don’t know. ”
Sir Clive rubbed absently at his shoulder and rose. “But you have nightmares. Valid point. We must not allow Dantry to join the ranks of those who haunt us. Keep searching for now, though do be discreet about it.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll bid you good night. Get some sleep. Puzzles are not solved by neglecting one’s rest, young man. I speak from experience.”
He padded out in his stockinged feet, the dogs rousing themselves to follow him. I remained in the embrace of the wing chair, mentally composing the rest of my letter to Hyperia.
I fell asleep in the quiet, cozy study, and for the first time in ages, I passed the night in sound slumber.
“All the paths is done,” Atticus said, watching closely as I tied a borrowed cravat into a simple mathematical knot. “The grooms and gardeners always clear those first. The work goes quick because any path to the house is paved with flagstones on account of Miss Dulcie’s Bath chair.”
I would not have wanted to navigate even a shoveled-off flagstone path in a Bath chair. “What else are Lavelle’s minions up to?”
“Once the paths and steps and terraces is done, they’ll get out the sleigh and go help with the churchyard and shops and pensioners and such. Whyn’t you tie a fancier knot?”
“Because I’m trying to avoid drawing attention to myself.” First rule of rural reconnaissance. Blend in. “Then too, the mathematical is quick, once you learn the knack.”
Atticus took a casual bite of the slice of toast I’d left on my tea tray, seemed to realize he’d violated his own rule about never poaching before an audience, and put the slice down.
“If you’re avoidin’ notice, you should leave your blue specs in your pocket.”
“And get myself a headache fit to plague a stevedore the morning after he’s drunk his pay packet.” I’d drawn the curtains over my bedroom window because the sun was so mercilessly bright. “Come here.”
Atticus sidled away from the tray.
I positioned him by the shoulders in front of the cheval mirror.
“A cravate mathématique is understated, appropriate for every informal occasion, and even suitable for regular divine services. It insults no one, competes with no one, invites no comment. Its appeal lies in the exact symmetry of the ends, precisely positioned to form acute angles with the horizontal folds of the cloth against the neck. Hold still.”
I took a second cravat from the wardrobe and tied it about Atticus’s neck. To my amazement, he held still for this presumption.
“It’s too big on me.”
“Correct. A man preoccupied with fashion might have his cravats made to flatter the exact circumference of his neck, but Lord Dantry doesn’t appear to have been that far gone.
” I untied the cravat and left the dangling ends reaching nearly to Atticus’s knees.
“Learn to tie the mathematical, and you can instantly identify it on any passing gent. We’ll move on to the barrel knot, Osbaldeston, and so forth when you’ve mastered the mathematical. ”
He began wrapping the linen around his neck. “I’m to learn ’em so’s I can spot ’em?”
“In part. You might have only a moment to note the details of a stranger’s appearance, and how he ties his cravat, or any idiosyncrasies about his individual turn out, can be telling.”
The boy’s nimble fingers paused. “What’s an idiocy-syn-whatever?”
“Personal peculiarity. Idiosyncrasy. From the Greek for individual preference, very loosely translated.”
“Like which knot you tie?” He pulled one of the tails through the loop about his neck.
“Correct. I never use a whalebone stiffener with any cravat. I do not anoint my linen with my favorite eau de cologne. I prefer plain white linen, while many men prefer black or cream for daytime. For informal wear, I don’t bother with noticeable starch.
You will note that Sir Clive, whether he’s dressed for dinner or calling upon his ewes, sports a small lace edge on his cravats. ”
Atticus scowled at his reflection. “Lopsided.”
“Every art takes practice, and you’d be surprised at how many young gents arrive at university incapable of tying their own neckcloths properly because they always had a valet or older sibling on hand to do it for them.”
Atticus started over. “Who showed you how to do this?”
“I watched my father until I figured out the mathematical on my own, then I filched one of my oldest brother’s cravats to practice with.”
Atticus paused in his wrapping and wrinkling. “Nobody showed you how? Your pa was a perishin’ dook, and nobody showed you how to put on your kit?”
“Some things a fellow likes to puzzle out for himself. Don’t forget to return the tray to the kitchen, tie a hair around the door latch, and keep your ears open belowstairs and in the stable.”
“While your toffship does what?”
He’d managed to achieve perfectly symmetrical ends on the second attempt.
“I’m going for a sleigh ride before I lose my wits staring at Lord Dantry’s mail.
When you are being such a sweet, helpful lad in the kitchen, pay particular attention to any talk suggesting Lord Dantry had a female admirer in the vicinity. ”
He grinned at himself in the mirror and struck a hand-on-hip, nose-in-the-air pose. “A lady friend?”
“A woman who considered Dantry her beau, despite his lofty station. She could be in service, though she’s literate. She could be a squire’s daughter, a spinster, or running the local dame school. I doubt she’s married.”
I shrugged into my waistcoat and did up the buttons.
“The earl has done a bunk because he’s playin’ a lady false?”
“That is one theory, about which you are not to expound in the servants’ hall, young man. You are also not to let on that you’re finding out as much as you can about Mrs. Stoneham.”
He undid his finery and draped it back in the wardrobe, though a true dandy would expire of mortification before donning even a slightly wrinkled cravat.
“Mrs. Stoneham is Miz Lizzie?”
“The same.” I tried on one of Dantry’s waistcoats over top of my own—for warmth—but he was apparently narrower through the chest than I, drat the luck. I sat to pull on my boots.
“The maids and footmen like her,” Atticus said. “She don’t put on airs, she dotes on Sir Clive, and she don’t make extra work for nobody. Goin’ outside in them boots will be a cruel punishment of innocent footwear, guv.”
Spending one more hour with Dantry’s correspondence would be a cruel punishment of my sanity.
“I refuse to wear Dantry’s Hessians in this weather, assuming they even fit. These boots have seen combat and campaign, and they will get me into the village and back.”
Atticus peeled the curtains apart by a few inches and let in a shaft of sunlight. “You’re going into Little Middleton with the lads?”
“I plan to. Atlas can manage even this much snow, but I might have need of him later, and I’ll want him fresh.”
“Footmen say we’ll get a thaw now. Sir Clive’s the local weathercock, and he’s never wrong.”