Chapter Eighteen
Treaty between Westport and Pepperdon
Article One: Miss Poppy Granger is guaranteed safe passage and polite treatment to and in the House of Westport. Miss Pansy Granger is guaranteed safe passage and polite treatment to and in the House of Pepperdon. Both ladies may travel freely between the two houses as often as they prefer.
Article Two: Any resulting children of the two unions will be raised to know and respect one another as cousins. The cousins will travel to Chemsworth Hall over the Christmas season to know their grandpapa.
“Hah! I put that one in there!” the viscount said. “They will not abscond with my daughters entirely!”
Smuckers nodded approvingly. Then he continued on.
Article Three: A white rosebush is to be planted at the gates to Pepperdon Hall to signal peace between the houses. A red rosebush is to be planted at the gates to Westport House to signal peace between the houses.
Article Four: The Earl of Westport will greet Viscount Pepperdon peaceably. Viscount Pepperdon will greet the Earl of Westport peaceably. The viscountess and the countess need no direction as they are already very sensible in this matter.
Article Five: The two houses will, from this day forward, refrain from relitigating any past wars, Rose’s Wars or otherwise.
The two houses are to refrain from entertaining or encouraging any other person from relitigating, insulting, or crowing about any past wars, Rose’s Wars or otherwise.
What they actually think, privately and silently, will remain at their own discretion.
If any of the stipulations noted in the articles are broken, dowries are forfeit and are to be returned to Lord Mulholland at once.
“I put that one in there too!” the viscount said with glee. “I did not even put an end time on it so it goes on forever!”
Smuckers attempted to hide a small smile, but he was not very successful at it. He paused to sip his wine in congratulations to the viscount’s ingenuity, and then read the rest of the treaty.
A rejection of the terms by the earl and viscount will result in the immediate removal of Lord Burkhart and Mr. Lelander to unspecified locations involving earning a living in some capacity, living in squalor, never to return until the Peace Treaty is abided by.
This treaty is binding in perpetuity and is signed by all parties in the year of our Lord 1816.
“Gracious,” Poppy said, “I hope we do not have to go somewhere and live in squalor if there is a problem with the treaty.”
“Merely an empty threat,” Mr. Lelander said. “We will go nowhere and will ensure the peace treaty is abided by.”
“We will enforce it by any means,” Lord Burkhart said. “We will make it so. My bride will never be forced to leave Westport House.”
“Except for every Christmas forever!” the viscount said, sounding very satisfied with his additions to the treaty.
“Mama,” Bertie said to Violet, “are we to come every Christmas, then? Teddy will be here and now Aunt Poppy and Aunt Pansy too.”
Violet nodded. “I suppose the rest of us will do the same, as we have done in the past.”
“Yes,” the viscount said. “But not everybody comes every year. Now we will have everyone together. Lily too, even if I have to drag Knightswood out of London by his hair. I am very satisfied with it.”
Pansy was rather satisfied with it too. What a lovely conclusion to a day that had begun so dreary. She held Lord Burkhart’s hand underneath the table while the viscountess made a distinct effort to ignore it.
Life had become suddenly lovely.
“I think I understand the game now,” the eldest Wilderman brother said.
“Are you thinking what I am thinking?” the younger said.
“Precisely. We set off for home on the morrow. Then the challenge will be to press our father to sign a treaty with his arch enemy, Mr. Blightner.”
“Yes, and then we race back here to have the butler read it aloud.”
“Say,” Mr. James Wilderman said, looking round the table, “what’s the time limit on the whole thing? I reckon we have to be back in a certain amount of days to accomplish it successfully.”
Pansy stared at the two idiots. “Take as long as you like,” she said.
Smuckers was beginning to get the feeling that it was almost pointless to plan or predict anything. It was also beginning to feel pointless to develop an opinion on anybody, because they might go and do something that flew in the face of that opinion.
He was getting tired of being surprised!
Just days ago, he’d been nightly praying for both Lord Burkhart and Mr. Lelander to experience all the bad fortune in the world, including poverty, illness, and death. He had not wished for immediate death, only because he wished them to suffer. There was no fate too terrible for those two rogues.
And then, those very gentlemen had returned with a peace treaty and proposals.
How on earth was he to be expected to predict a peace treaty between two gentlemen who could not stand the sight of one another and who had left the twins in the lurch in such a disgraceful manner?
How was he supposed to guess that their intentions were honorable and they would shortly return?
And how, precisely, was he to imagine that the viscount knew about it all along?
He’d wished them tortured and then dead because that was the only sensible thing to do with the facts he’d had on hand.
Perhaps it was for the best that he had not spoken aloud any of the horrendous fates he had concocted in his mind.
Nevertheless, he knew it. He knew he had wildly misjudged the situation.
He stared into his sherry, contemplating the mysteries of life, as the coals glowed in his grate and Dandy lounged in front of it.
His butler’s closet was warm and snug and all was right with the world above stairs.
He ought to feel very satisfied with things.
And yet, this idea that he’d been wrong, yet again, was gnawing at him.
Did not years and experience count for anything?
Was not a butler to be depended upon for his keen judgment?
“I just do not see how I did not sense that something more was afoot when the gentlemen abruptly left for no reason,” he said. “I might have noticed that the viscount did not seem perturbed over it. Had I sensed it, I might have encouraged the twins to keep up their spirits.”
He said this to Mrs. Featherstone, who was occupied with pouring her second glass of sherry. She appeared blithely unconcerned over recent events.
“Oh aye,” she said. “For myself, I never heard of a peace treaty between houses. I reckon it don’t hold.” Mrs. Featherstone let out a rather satisfied sounding sigh. “Not a chance of it, in my opinion.”
“Whether or not it holds, I feel I have let myself down in not even suspecting the gentlemen had something in mind when they left.”
“Now that I reflect on it, I did say it looked suspicious,” Mrs. Featherstone said. “I did say that I wondered over it because the whole situation seemed rather deep. Was there more than met the eye, as it were.”
Smuckers gently raised his brows. She had not said anything of the sort. She’d said a lot of other things, like “I knew it, didn’t I say?” and “Didn’t I say disaster was runnin’ down the road toward us?” And the phrase she liked best, “It was never going to end well.”
He did not bother correcting her, as the lady took umbrage to corrections and it would accomplish nothing as she would never take on a correction.
“Look on the bright side, Mr. Smuckers,” Mrs. Featherstone said, “Before you know it, it will be Christmas time, and they’ll all be back to darken our doors. You always like that sort of thing. More work for us, but you seem to like it.”
That was true. The viscount had ensured that their house would be full for the Christmas season, in perpetuity. Lady Knightswood would bring her newly-arrived little girl, Rosamund. And then, did he not still have Teddy? And now Bertie too? There might be even more children coming over the years.
He really ought not be so glum. He was allowing his feelings on seeing the twins prepare to leave the house get him down. There was much to look forward to.
“I wonder,” he said softly, “if I will not be called on to defeat another housebreaker sometime in future.”
“Oh aye,” Mrs. Featherstone said. “Once you got one, more are bound to be on the way.”
As much as he often disagreed with his housekeeper’s prediction of doom, this idea might be true.
It could be that they were a marked house.
Did these fellows have some sort of network of thieves?
If so, they would all know there was a Patinir for the taking, hanging on the drawing room wall.
Were there even now housebreakers who were biding their time, waiting for the house to let down its guard. Then they would strike.
If that was the case, they would find the jest was on them! Tiberius Smuckers would be ready for any and all intruders. There would never be a moment, unluckily for those rogues, in which he let down his guard.
Already, through his heroic actions against the false baron, he had become part of the family lore. Might there not be future opportunities? Future generations would know his name.
Did not Lord Hemmings suggest he write down his actions against the false baron for posterity? No, Smuckers believed that elevated gentleman had gone so far as to absolutely insist he do so. A marquess had insisted. Who was he to defy the gentleman?
He would do it and have it properly typeset and bound in fine leather and gold embossing. Certainly, somebody could be hired for that. Or if not, he’d write it out in an elegant hand and work out how to bind it himself. It would be in the library for anybody to read it for hundreds of years.