A Woman of True Honor (True Gentlemen Book 8)

by Grace Burrowes

  Perhaps he should put that in a perishing unpublished book too.

  “You could have broken off the engagement by letter,” Emily said. “Could have sent your titled brother to inform me you’d departed for the capital. Another man would have taken the easier course. You are the most mannerly person I know, Valerian. Why confront me like this?”

  She was angling for some confession, for some bit of his soul that eluded his notice. “We are having a discussion, Emily, rather than a confrontation. I can only ask you to trust me. If you tell me to take myself off and cease troubling you, that is exactly what I’ll do.”

  “I lack your courage,” she said, toeing at the scattered nails with her slipper. “You face the truth, while I busy myself selecting a parasol to match my reticule, and my idiot father hides in his office.”

  Valerian had heard Osgood Pepper’s muttered insult—Coward—and had known it for a bitter old man’s Parthian shot. Still, the epithet had stung. How much courage did it take to translate recipes in a dark little cottage? To teach dancing to rural swains? To set up ledgers for a commercial venture carried out by others? To settle the village squabbles?

  “You think I’m brave?”

  “I know you to be,” Emily said. “You view life honestly, not through a lens of your own convenience. You deal in truth and don’t put on airs or suffer fools. You simply march forward into any situation, confident of yourself. I don’t know how you do it, but you inspire those around you to be a little better than they’d otherwise be. Or a lot better.”

  Emily’s somewhat grumpy benediction settled on Valerian’s heart like a warm blanket on a cold night. She cuddled against his side, drawing her feet up, and Valerian wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He could think now, could manage logic and reason once again. Emily would not play him false, but she was protecting somebody she cared for greatly.

  He mentally sorted through the shards of facts, emotions, and impressions, matching edges and puzzling over missing pieces.

  Well, of course. The obvious conclusion was upsetting, inconvenient, and better off ignored, but Emily had seen Valerian’s nature more clearly than he’d seen it himself. Some men had the courage to ride into battle, sabers swinging. Others treated illness without regard for their own health. Others stood up in the Lords, knowing they’d be ostracized by the peerage for speaking the truth.

  Valerian had been given the gift of wading through the messy, painful, complicated realities necessitated by ordinary relationships. His family was better for it, and Casriel had handed him the magistrate’s job as a result.

  The bloody, bedamned magistrate’s job. “You met your brother Adam in the livery, didn’t you? Met him and wished him farewell.”

  Emily nodded. He passed her his handkerchief—the soft old handkerchief that wasn’t for show—and then she began to cry.

  “Dorning is paying another call at an ungodly early hour.” Tobias had taken the precaution of shooing the clerks from the office, something Osgood was unlikely to even notice lately. “I suspect the almighty special license has arrived.”

  “The Earl of Casriel has pigeons,” Caleb replied, sprinkling sand across an offer to purchase cloth from an Italian silk trader. “We ought to have some pigeons if we’re to be stuck out here in Beelzebub’s hog wallow for much longer.” He rose and closed the door. “Have you confirmed that you saw Adam Pepper in the village, and if so, has he had the good sense to decamp for parts unknown?”

  Caleb clearly hoped that was the case, while Tobias prided himself on a more ruthless sense of order.

  “If Emily is ever to have any peace of mind, Caleb, if she’s to raise a family with her doting Dorning, she needs to know her brother won’t bother her again.”

  “Next, you’ll say we did Adam a favor by putting him on that transport ship, and I doubt Emily considers it a bother to lay eyes on her only sibling for the first time in five years.”

  A conscience was a fine thing, in moderation. “They had a touching reunion yesterday, and one can only hope they didn’t spend too much of their time together parsing out the details of Adam’s conviction. I’ve made arrangements for Adam to be escorted to Portsmouth, where he will be given the opportunity to sign on to a ship of the line as a landsman facing prosecution.”

  Caleb twiddled his pen between his palms, making the feather twirl. “And if he declines that option?”

  Offering a stint in the Navy in lieu of a criminal sentence was a common practice among rural magistrates. Everyone benefited, in theory—the miscreant avoided incarceration, the Navy avoided the distasteful practice of impressment, and the local jail was spared the burden of another mouth to feed. Peacetime meant the press gangs had less to do, but because of Britannia’s determination to rule the waves, willing recruits with some experience at sea could still find a berth.

  “If Adam rejects a post on a naval vessel,” Tobias said, “then he has chosen to take his chances with the law. A few years in the Navy never hurt a fellow in good health. The seamen are reasonably well fed, the Navy isn’t fighting any wars at present, and Adam is well acquainted with life at sea.”

  Caleb set aside the pen and rose. “Sailors die of scurvy, Tobias. The poor sods are always dying of scurvy, or plague, or typhus, or whatever scourges afflict foreign ports. They are lost at sea, they are taken captive by pirates.”

  “Your belated display of conscience ceases to be entertaining, Caleb. Adam is healthy, and he’s spent plenty of time in foreign ports already. If he was going to succumb to disease, he would be dead by now. My men will accost him on the road to Portsmouth this afternoon, and we needn’t fear any awkward father-and-son reunions.”

  Caleb took the place behind Osgood’s massive desk. “Why not allow that reunion? They can agree it was all a misunderstanding, Adam can be about his business, and nobody need die of a dread disease. I don’t think Adam will implicate Emily, not at this late stage.”

  “Of course he won’t.” Tobias spoke as gently as he could when addressing a dunderhead. “He will implicate you.”

  “I didn’t sign anything,” Caleb retorted. “I doubt you did either, but you were the one who suggested Emily was at fault. I’ve had five years to consider the matter and five years to consider Emily. She’s not a thief. It’s more likely you spun that tale to cover up your own criminal wrongdoing.”

  “By the throne of heaven, I ought to call you out for that.”

  Caleb picked up a silver letter opener engraved in Celtic knot patterns. “You are planning on having a man all but impressed, a man whom we strongly suspect to be innocent, whose downfall gained us much good fortune, and now you want to meet me on the field of honor?”

  He turned the letter opener end over end, the silver gleaming. “The country air is making you daft, Tobias. I did not forge Osgood’s signature, you claim you didn’t either, and Adam is also likely innocent. That leaves Emily—whom I personally have come to doubt as a suspect—or Osgood himself as the author of this drama. The question is why, and what shall we do about it now?”

  Caleb was a glib liar and a competent forger, at least where Osgood’s signature was concerned. Nonetheless, if he had falsified that bank draft all those years ago, he should have been well away from Dorset on any pretext he could summon, given Adam’s reappearance.

  And yet, Caleb had much to gain by sticking to his guise of innocence, if he was the guilty party.

  “Who signed the bank draft matters little at this late date,” Tobias said. “Somebody wanted Adam out of the country five years ago, and they achieved their aim. For his own sake, the sooner Adam is sent packing the better, before he can point any fingers at you, me, Jacob, or Emily.”

  “Good of you to think of the lady now, Tobias. I own I am touched by your consideration.”

  Before Caleb could embroider on his insults, Osgood pushed through the door. “Where are my clerks, and why are you two idling about when there’s work to be done?”

  Caleb rose from the seat behi
nd the desk. “We were discussing a remove to London, though of course, we defer to your judgment on the matter. Emily’s nuptials are likely to be uppermost in your mind, but I’m sure you’ll be returning to Town once she’s settled. I am happy to trot up to London and ensure the warehouse office is in readiness for a resumption of business from that location. The weather looks to hold fair for a few days, and I’m happy to make the journey now.”

  “As am I,” Tobias said. “In fact, Caleb and I could travel together. Just say the word, and we’ll be packed to leave in the next hour.”

  Hawthorne and Margaret had taken the children into Dorset for a day of shopping, meaning Valerian had only one brother left in whom he could confide—the worst of the lot for present purposes.

  “I must speak in hypotheticals, Casriel, but your full attention would be appreciated.”

  “I’m listening.” Casriel continued to sort through a stack of correspondence.

  He was half listening, which was perhaps meant as a sop to Valerian’s dignity. “I am faced with a choice. I took an oath as magistrate to uphold the law without respect to a person’s station or standing. I have also offered marriage to a woman whom I esteem greatly. I cannot uphold my magistrate’s oath without serving that lady a devastating blow, which I am loath to do. She has entrusted the matter to me, and I hardly know… Have you heard a word I’ve said?”

  Casriel propped his boots on the edge of his desk and tossed a folded and sealed epistle across the blotter.

  “Before I forget, that came for you yesterday from Worth Kettering. I didn’t realize he was investing on your behalf.”

  “He would be, except I haven’t sent him any funds to invest.” Valerian stuffed the letter into his pocket, because the missive was very likely from Jacaranda rather than Worth. She was doubtless exhorting her brother to jaunt up to Town and admire her offspring. “Grey, the contretemps I’m in is serious. If I betray my oath of office, I bring shame upon myself and my family.”

  Mention of family ought to inspire Casriel to put aside his damned bills and letters. Instead, he hefted a package wrapped in heavy brown paper. The paper was torn, and no ribbon or string held it closed.

  “This came for you too. It’s your manuscript.”

  Valerian paced before the desk, even knowing that a gentleman did not pace or fidget lest he disturb those around him.

  Casriel could use some damned disturbing. “I do not care to discuss my book just at the moment.” Nor to speculate on why his brothers had returned it to him.

  “You don’t?” Casriel spared him a glance over the rims of his glasses. “I started reading your tome—not simply skimming a page here and there. I ought not, when I have work to do, but you did put in a few hours with the writing of the damned thing. I’ve never regarded manners in the light you present them, as consideration, as kindness to one’s fellows, a duty of decency and respect to all of the Creator’s handiwork. I like that notion much better than a set of arbitrary rules by which we judge each other.”

  “Grey, for God’s sake, forget the rubbishing book!” Valerian snatched the manuscript away from his brother, who was grinning at him like a sibling much in need of pummeling.

  “You shouted,” Casriel said. “At me.”

  Valerian set the sheaf of papers on the mantel rather than smack his brother with it. “Consider hypothetical facts: A man is transported for felony theft. He forges a ticket of leave two years before his sentence is up, travels under false colors, and returns to England, ostensibly to bid farewell to his dying father.”

  Casriel was no longer smiling. He sat up, his boots thumping to the floor. “Go on.”

  “The father is not, as it happens, dying, but that hardly matters. His death did at one point appear imminent. The punishment for the transported fellow’s return to England is a noose. If I do as the law requires, I will break the heart of a woman who nearly lost her father not long ago and who has very little family to call her own. She maintains that the convict is innocent, but she cannot tell me who the real culprit is, and that hardly matters once a sentence has been passed.”

  Casriel held his glasses up toward the window, then polished the lenses with an embroidered handkerchief. “So as long as I use the correct fork, I can say anything I damned well please at table?”

  “What are you going on about?”

  “Yonder book.” He gestured with his glasses. “The author makes a good case that gentlemanly deportment is not a set of behaviors, but rather, a set of values that inspire behaviors. Seems to me if a man’s been wrongfully convicted, then sending him to the gallows for being a dutiful son is rather harsh.”

  “The law is harsh, the better to deter malefactors.”

  “How many times did Sycamore steal from Oak’s collection of nude drawings?”

  “Countless times.”

  “And yet,” Casriel said, donning his spectacles again, “Papa punished our baby brother severely. Made him memorize Bible verses by the score, confined him to the countess’s sitting room by the hour, put him on bread-and-cheese rations, denied him time in the saddle. Did Sycamore stop peeking and snitching?”

  Casriel was making a point with this parable. “Cam grew diabolically clever at his sneaking and peeking.”

  “Precisely, so let us dispense with the fiction that harsh punishments serve some higher purpose, particularly when applied to those who are innocent. You can simply turn a blind eye to this man’s violation of parole, and the world will be no worse off.”

  “No, I cannot. I took an oath and a man’s word is his bond. I am not wealthy, Grey. I am not particularly learned. I have not studied for the bar like Ash. I cannot paint wondrous canvases like Oak. I have no aptitude for husbanding the botanicals, as Hawthorne does, and God knows I cannot turn one penny into three, as Worth Kettering manages to do in his sleep. I am merely that unremarkable species we refer to as a gentleman, but my honor has value to me. An oath is an oath.”

  “You are a capital fellow—” Casriel began, rising.

  “I did not take an oath to be a capital fellow!”

  The earl sat back down. “That’s twice now you’ve hollered at me. Very well, I shall holler back, albeit figuratively. Papa told me that you are the only one of his offspring—the only one of the nine of us, Valerian—whom he never worried over. He was convinced you would succeed at anything you turned your hand to, and forever be a credit to his house. I will deny the admission in the company of our siblings, but Papa was in this regard absolutely correct.”

  Valerian stared at him, even as he wondered what this recitation had to do with bringing charges against Emily’s brother.

  “When did Papa—?”

  Grey waved him to silence. “On any occasion when he’d had more than a bit to drink, and our brothers had been particularly troublesome. Valerian is a son any father would be proud of. Why can’t you lot be more like Valerian? I heard that question frequently, and resolved to become more like my mannerly, decent, self-possessed, younger brother.”

  Valerian sank into the chair across from the desk, an unexpected warmth filling his heart. “He saw me. He knew I was there.” Perhaps Papa hadn’t known Valerian had been spying in that tree all those years ago, but Papa had seen him, nonetheless.

  “We all see you,” Grey continued. “You are a capital fellow who always seems to know how to go on in the midst of controversy. You sort out the haying crews before they come to blows. You sort out your brothers while they are coming to blows. You are universally liked and respected, but you don’t appear to share in the general opinion of your own worthiness.

  “Be that as it may,” he went on, “whatever choice you make in the present instance, I will support you and proudly claim you as my brother, as you have claimed us in return, no matter how vexatious we are. I suspect your Emily has chosen the same course, which explains why she confided in you.”

  Grey hadn’t raised his voice, but he’d raised an interesting point.

  “Emil
y once said that I always look for how to be of service.” Valerian had not regarded that as much of a compliment, likening him to an overeager footman, but he’d been wrong to be so dismissive. “I believe the greatest service I could render to my prospective wife and in-laws, and also to the cause of justice generally, is to determine who ought to have been on that transport ship, if Adam Pepper was not the appropriate party.”

  Casriel once again propped his boots on the desk and resumed sorting mail. “If I were this hypothetically transported fellow, I’d be on the fastest ship out of Portsmouth I could find. He likely knows more about the situation than he thinks he does, not that you ever mentioned him to me by name.”

  Valerian rose, grabbed his brother by the ears, kissed him on the crown, and marched for the door.

  “Adam who? I know of no Adam. Please inform me when the special license has arrived.”

  His hand was on the door latch when Casriel picked up a thick epistle. “I do believe this is it.”

  “Guard that document with your life, Casriel, and prepare to stand up with me before sunset tomorrow, or get me mortally drunk in the alternative.”

  Casriel saluted with the license. “Your servant, Valerian, as ever.”

  Valerian didn’t bother bowing. He made for the stables at a dead run.

  To determine what was needed in a situation meant studying that situation, not merely spouting platitudes and bowing to a proper depth. As Valerian galloped back to Pepper Ridge, he sorted through what facts he had and what answers he needed. Rather than take the turn that would lead Clovis down the bridle path connecting to the Pepper Ridge property, Valerian instead sent his horse onto the road that led to the village—and to Adam Pepper’s last known whereabouts.

  Thirty yards later, Valerian encountered Mr. Prentiss Ogilvy and a trio of his disreputable minions. One of the fellows held the reins of a dog cart, his compatriot beside him on the bench, while Ogilvy and the fourth man were mounted on skinny hacks. The four of them were lounging in the shade around a bend in the road half a mile outside the village.