Chapter 13 #2
“Except he’s not,” Hyperia observed. “I made the acquaintance of his horse, a splendid creature whom the grooms say was purchased at Tatts for a very pretty penny.”
“Good work, Perry. I also ran into Lord Huffnagel as I returned home. His lordship apparently took a fall. Both he and his horse were adorned with mud, but his good cheer was none the worse for the mishap.”
Her Grace frowned. “Some of these hounds-and-horses types simply aren’t blessed with a good seat. They actually do better for the occasional nip because they are more relaxed in the saddle when tipsy.”
Interesting theory. “He is looking forward to your call, though be aware that his favorite hounds have the run of the house. One other thing: The gates to the Fletcher estate’s main carriageway were closed.”
“Good heavens.” Her Grace sat back and considered her empty plate. “The cut direct has been raised to a new rural height. I don’t know whether to be amused or insulted.”
“The gates to that Retreat place are always closed,” Hyperia mused. “Perhaps the point is to keep old Mr. Fletcher in rather than to keep callers out?”
“Then we wish Mr. Fletcher the joy of his own company,” the duchess replied. “I will be at my dazzling best when we call on Lord Huffnagel. Miss West, Miss Weatherby, I suggest you acquit yourselves likewise.”
“I will cry off,” Miss Weatherby said, wheeling herself back from the table. “Travel has been a challenge, and a restful afternoon is in order. My apologies.”
“We would cry off if we could,” Hyperia said. “Use your afternoon to observe the staff and to inspect the house. Look for any indications of poor finances, discord, or mischief of any sort.”
Miss Weatherby smiled faintly. “You lot are relentless. I like that.” She made her way from the room—wheel forward, open the door, push the door wide, wheel through the doorway, and onward.
I closed the door after her. “I have disappointed her, despite our relentlessness, and that is intolerable to me. Did either of you get the sense that Sheldon might be harboring a tendresse for Miss Weatherby?”
Her Grace cut herself another small helping of torte. “If so, that is a motive to dispense with Dantry. If Sheldon pines for the lady, and the lady has eyes only for the earl, Sheldon has one more reason to wish his brother to perdition, perhaps the most compelling reason of all.”
“Unrequited love is no excuse for fratricide,” Hyperia observed, “though I think Julian is on to something. Sheldon clearly does envy his brother, however tacitly.”
“Why do you say that?” I hadn’t quite reached the same conclusion.
Hyperia set a small serving of torte on my plate. “He sat at the head of the table. He wears the signet ring to take his nooning. He rides the best horse in the stable. He gets on slavishly well with his neighbors. He’s trying to be the earl.”
Trying and failing. “I thought imitation was the sincerest form of flattery rather than proof of envy.”
The duchess paused in the demolition of her second helping.
“I believe you are both right. He covets the earl’s friendship with Miss Weatherby, which is genuine, and he doesn’t understand that Miss Weatherby finds Dantry himself interesting, not the fine clothes, jeweled accessories, or Elizabethan family seat. ”
And now Dantry had taken French leave on her, or been sent on French leave. “Enjoy your calls, ladies, if you can. I am off to lose my way belowstairs and in the family wing.”
“I brought a collection of bills and letters from the Knot if you’d like to look those over,” Hyperia said. “They are all in the same vein as the ones you’ve already read.”
My soul rebelled, and my eyes weren’t any too enthusiastic either. “Needs must. Where will I find them?”
“In my traveling desk beneath the second false bottom.”
How I adored her. “Of course. Ladies, good day and good hunting.”
Hyperia had selected about two dozen dunning notices, invoices, and “reminders” and wrapped them all with Sheldon’s note about barbarians at the gate.
The stack was curiously uniform. All written on good paper, all in black ink, all folded twice and sealed with plain white sealing wax.
Perhaps all proper dunning notices conformed to those specifications, but I found the sameness peculiar.
Not a watermark to be found, and no mistaking the exasperation of Dantry’s creditors.
I took them up to my sitting room, only to find that the hair I’d wrapped around the door latch had been broken. I’d taken the precaution after breakfast—meaning after the coal had been brought up, the bed made, and the usual domestic tasks completed.
“Sheldon,” I muttered, letting myself into my quarters. “Thinking himself clever.”
The sitting room itself showed no signs of invasion, but in the bedroom, my shaving kit occupied a slightly different location on the vanity than where I’d left it.
The wardrobe had been hastily rifled, if two clean, disarranged cravats were any indication.
Sheldon had also neglected to completely close the drawer on the little table beside the bed.
“Tiresome.” The one bit of evidence Sheldon might have found useful was my notebook, which I carried on my person, though even those jottings wouldn’t have told him much.
I poked up the fire in the sitting room, lit some extra candles—the overcast was not dispelling—and made myself review the homework Hyperia had assigned me.
“Claude-pate. Clodpate. Clumsy humor, if that.” The sort of humor I’d expect from a boy who would bully a lame girl. Meant to hurt rather than amuse. A reminder that the earl had once been an older brother who perhaps hadn’t excelled at his studies.
The merchants were politely wroth with Dantry. This one wanted payment for candles to stock the hunting box near Oxford. That one was refusing to deliver more peat to a cottage in Swaledale.
The sums were reasonable, but to a chandler with a family to support, the delinquency from a peer was unacceptable.
And yet, the whole litany bothered me. I had been handling Caldicott Hall’s books for the past year, and had this deluge of unhappy epistles befallen me there, I would have looked for a systemic solution. Dantry seemed to allow every other bill to age.
Provisions for the stable, larders, and wine cellar were apparently paid promptly, because none of the correspondence that I’d seen referred to such items. Most of the overdue invoices were for orders in support of distant properties…
“Something rotten in Denmark.” I laid the two dozen or so letters out on the bed, side by side in four rows, and put Sheldon’s at the bottom of the last row.
What obvious factor was I overlooking? Dantry was a man who loved his estate deeply, who had made it his life’s work to tackle hard, unpopular problems, and yet, here was this… inexplicable mess.
The answer came to me as I studied a terse, chiding note from a Mr. Theophilus Brabbington, who’d replaced springs on the dog cart kept for use at that North Yorkshire grouse cottage.
The T in Theophilus exactly matched the initial T of The barbarians are at the gate…
An odd chill prickled over my nape and arms and settled uneasily in my guts.
Hyperia had seen the solution and not realized how accurate her insight had been.
The notices did all have a sameness to them.
The penmanship was the same, not because clerks learned a uniform hand and a uniform tone for dunning notices, but because Sheldon wasn’t clever enough to disguise his penmanship.
“Sheldon Arbuthnot would disgrace a company of larcenous weasels.” I gathered up the evidence, intent on returning the documents to Hyperia’s traveling desk for safekeeping, except that I heard the brisk thunder of hooves coming up the drive and coach wheels spinning over wet ground.
I had pondered the evidence at such length that the ladies were back from their reconnaissance. While they doubtless had interesting impressions of Lord Huffnagel’s establishment, they’d been on a goose chase.
Dantry’s detractor was his own brother, who had all the motive in the world for dispatching his older sibling to parts distant, if not murdering the earl by dark of night.
A confrontation was in order, but first, I would consult with my superior officers.