The Peer’s Roguish Word

by Archer, Kate

  LaRue examined his carefully polished nails. “And yet, you ride through the neighborhoods of filth, pickpockets, and diseased ladies. Who is their butler?”

  That was true, of course. But for all his disdain of Sir John, he was a titled person. A low and foreign title, but title all the same. It seemed incredible that he would not employ a butler.

  LaRue, seeing his master’s dubiousness over his claims, muttered, “Les riches sont tellement stupides.”

  “I will pretend I did not hear the word stupid just now,” Giles said. “Rather than argue what servants are in the house, we will saunter over and see if we can have a look in the windows. If we can slip into the garden unnoticed, we can use those trees for cover. If someone spots us, I’ll say I heard the house was empty and being sold.”

  LaRue did not comment on the plan, though Giles was certain his thoughts were aggrieved. His valet would be affronted to be forced into doing two things he excessively disliked—walking and being out of doors.

  The street was not a busy one, and he and LaRue bided their time, strolling along the front of the house until Giles saw their opportunity. A couple had turned the far corner and a governess had just hustled her charges into their house. The street was deserted.

  Giles sauntered to the gate as if he had meant to go there all along. It was unlocked and they were inside the garden in a moment.

  Giles made his way to the front of the house, using the trees for cover and ignoring his valet’s various mutterings. He peered through a set of wide windows to a room lined with empty shelves in dark wood. There was a desk to one side, and a chair behind it.

  “Very odd,” he said.

  “Naturellment,” LaRue said, leaning against the house.

  “It is a library,” Giles said. “A library with no books in it.”

  “Nothing to read. A dream for you, yes?”

  Giles ignored this latest insult hurled from his valet and said, “Sir John runs round the town advertising himself as a scholar. What kind of scholar has an empty library?”

  LaRue shrugged and Giles made his way to the other side of the house. Peering through those windows, he saw a near desolate room. The only furnishings were a chair and side table pulled up to the fireplace. The only item in the room was a small book on the table.

  Behind him, he heard the whine of the garden gate swinging open. He pulled LaRue behind the trunk of the nearest tree.

  A charwoman carrying a bucket hobbled past them and to the doors. She took out a key and let herself into the house.

  “The butler?” LaRue whispered.

  Giles did not answer, but pulled LaRue from the garden. They decamped to their original post across the street.

  “It is extraordinary,” Giles said. “There is nothing in that house. He surely does not receive callers, there would be no place to sit. He cannot belong to a club, nobody would have him. Where does he meet people?”

  “Does he meet people?” LaRue said.

  “There is a book in there. I suspect it is his appointment book.”

  “That is how he meets people?”

  “I do not know, but I want that book.”

  “Tout simplement fantastique,” LaRue said. “The day becomes more and more wonderful. Now we will be housebreakers for a book. Why did I leave France?”

  “We will not break in,” Giles said. “You will pay that charwoman to hand it over.”

  “Pay with what!” LaRue cried.

  “I’ll sell some of my coats,” Giles said. He had no idea what the going rate was for a charwoman to steal possessions, but he would soon find it out. He was certain a book of appointments would reveal something underhanded about Sir John Kullehamnd.

  *

  Kitty sat with her mother and Frederick in the drawing room after breakfast. It was not the usual place to find Frederick, most days he would be on his horse already, gone off to nobody knew where. This day, however, they awaited a particular delivery.

  It was the day of Lady Blakely’s masque, an event taking place every year that both delighted and terrorized her guests. The lady wielded a terrific sense of wit and expressed that wit with a gift—all of her guests were expected to wear the mask that Lady Blakely had specially designed for them.

  One could hardly avoid the invitation—were one to stay away, the talk would fly round about what sort of mask it might have been that the lord or lady dared not don. It would not be a day before the details were known everywhere. Lady Penderton said it was far better to brazen it out and take the laughter that might come one’s way than sit home in a fit of temper.

  Of course, Kitty thought her mother would say so, as she had always been treated very kindly by Lady Blakely’s hands. As for this morning, carriages and footmen had set off from Lady Blakely’s house in every direction and half of London sat in their drawing rooms, nervously waiting to discover what would be delivered to their doors.

  What the night was comprised of had already been revealed in the initial invitation. Some years, it was only a dinner and fewer people were invited. Other years, if Lady Blakeley were feeling particularly energetic on the mask-making side of things, it would be a ball. This was to be a ball and Kitty was grateful for it. More people meant she would just be one among many, even if her mask turned out to be ghastly.

  Kitty felt a little tremulous in the waiting. She and Lady Penderton had called on Lady Blakely weeks ago and she’d found the woman exceedingly kind. She’d even been encouraged to speak about her discoveries relating to Cornish eyebright, though later she wondered if she’d bored the lady.

  “Oh, mama,” Kitty said, breaking the silence, “what if Lady Blakely masks me as a bore? I should have tried to be more amusing when we called on her. I know everybody cannot be as interested in eyebright as I am.”

  “So true,” Frederick said.

  Lady Penderton laid down her sewing. “Kitty, Lady Blakely is a kind and intelligent woman. Had you worked to be more amusing, she would have seen there was something false in it. As you presented yourself as you are, I think you have nothing to fear.”

  “Good God,” Frederick said, dropping his newspaper. “I was seated next to Lady Blakeley at a dinner last week and I did work to be amusing. I hope I am not punished for it. Jost says that if she jokes about him not being terribly talkative with ladies he will not come.”

  “And so forever cement himself with the reputation,” Lady Penderton said. “Though I do not happen to think Lady Blakely would be so cruel to one so young.”

  The trio fell into silence once more. Kitty pretended to read, but for once she could not lose herself in a book. Lady Blakeley’s masque was only one thing on her mind. She could not dismiss Sir John’s behavior from her thoughts.

  Despite wishing to like him, despite feeling she should like him, she was becoming more and more convinced that, in fact, she did not like him. She had not at all liked the way he spoke to her at Mrs. Herschel’s salon. Their other conversations had made her feel he viewed her as his intellectual equal. That conversation, though. There had been so much condescension in it. Scolding, almost. As if she had been a child and did not know her own good.

  It was as if a curtain were pulled back and his real temperament revealed. He did not care to be questioned or crossed. In truth, he’d seemed surprised that she would pursue an avenue of inquiry that he had already informed her was pointless. He might have even seemed a little angry over it—as if she defied him and had no right to do it.

  Is that what life would be like with a person such as Sir John? Would she be free to speculate on intellectual notions, but only if they aligned with her husband’s opinions? His condescension had been palpable, and that had been in a drawing room with a lady only recently met. What stance might he take with a wife? Rather stronger, she feared. It felt a heavy yoke she did not care to wear.

  As she mulled it over, Kitty began to think that she must not trade everything away for intellectual stimulation. Yes, it would be a grand thing to discu
ss the findings of the day over dinner. But she must remain her own independent person. She would not be treated like a child and ordered about. Her father did not treat her mother so. Kitty Dell would need respect, and she would need to like the person more than she liked Sir John.

  Along with those ideas, Kitty could not quite push away the idea of Lord Grayson. Dashing, charming, and, as her mother said, fun. She doubted very much if Lord Grayson would be bothered if she held a differing opinion. He certainly had never spoken to her as father to a daughter. But he was also dangerous, or so it seemed. Danger or no, it was the lord who made her heart beat faster. Had he been a more reliable choice, she could not say where her feelings might have led her.

  Where was the man in the middle of those two? An intelligent, reliable man who was just a little bit dashing and fun? She had not met that man yet. She could only hope that she might.

  A loud knocking on the door pulled Kitty from her reverie. She waited with anticipation for Hidgson to answer it. She would very soon discover how she was to walk into Lady Blakeley’s ballroom.

  After what seemed an hour but must only be a minute, a footman opened the door and Hidgson came through with four beribboned boxes.

  “Lay them on the table, Hidgson,” Lady Penderton said.

  Hidgson looked far more animated that was his usual countenance. Kitty was aware that the entire household waited with bated breath to discover the contents of the boxes. Lady Penderton said they were firm in their belief that the masks were a direct reflection on themselves. They would not rest until they knew their fates.

  Hidgson laid down the boxes and slowly walked toward the door. Exceedingly slowly, Kitty thought. Two of the footmen were standing just outside, looking as if they hardly knew how they got there. Nobody was doing anything usual.

  “Hidgson,” Lady Penderton said kindly, “you’d best stay in case we need something. You may leave the drawing room door open.”

  Hidgson stopped in his tracks and did his best to hide his smile, as he had long advertised the opinion that a butler ought not smile more than four times a year.

  Kitty was handed her box and opened it hurriedly. The entire morning had been one long wait, she would not delay longer.

  The mask was sequined and the design was of two very wide purple eyes that sparkled in the sunlight pouring through the drawing room windows. The lashes were of the same color and broad, like the petals of a flower. “It is lovely,” Kitty said, “but what can it mean?”

  “Those eyes look as if they’ve seen a ghost,” Frederick said.

  “When you have gone to enough of Lady Blakeley’s half-masques, you will be quicker in divining her meaning. I believe I know it—read the note, Kitty.”

  Kitty unfolded the small paper included in the box. For the lady who studies flowers. Fondly, Lady B.

  “Flowers. Eyebright,” Kitty said. “The mask is eyes made bright?”

  “Just so,” Lady Penderton said. The baroness turned to her son, who was tearing open his box. Kitty suppressed a smile. It was possibly the only time eyebright had been mentioned that Frederick had not teased her over it. He was far too taken up with discovering how he would be portrayed.

  He pulled out the mask and said, “It is a depiction of an empty chair. Blast! She finds sitting next to me is akin to sitting next to an empty chair! I really did try to be amusing!”

  “I very much doubt you are correct in that assumption,” Lady Penderton said. “I find you very amusing.”

  Frederick scrambled to unfold the accompanying note. His shoulders relaxed and he heaved a sigh of relief. “It says: Empty chairs all round, as no lady sits out thanks to Frederick Dell.”

  “She has observed your good nature at more than one ball,” Lady Penderton said. “She once commented to me that every hostess in London must seek out Frederick Dell, as his efforts surely must stop tears in retiring rooms and otherwise bruised feelings.”

  “Does it ever really come to that?” Frederick asked. “Crying because one has had to sit out?”

  Kitty did not think she would cry over it, but then, she had not experienced it. It certainly would be uncomfortable to be so publicly left behind.

  “It most certainly does come to that from time to time,” Lady Penderton said. “It is not the lack of dancing that stings, it is the many pitying eyes while the lady sits that does it. Now, let me see what your father and I have got.”

  Kitty was just as interested as her mother. Lord Penderton did not attend very many functions, but he was a particular admirer of Lord Blakeley’s liberal politics so he would rouse himself, and even don a mask, to encounter the gentleman.

  “Ah yes,” Lady Penderton said. “I am to be Gaia and your father is Zeus. He is the god of the sky and I am mother of the earth. She writes: Like a kite on a string, every philosophical man must be pulled down to earth for dinner eventually.” The baroness clapped her hands in delight. “Oh, how very apt!”

  Kitty let out a breath she did not even realize she’d been holding. They were to arrive to Lady Blakeley’s masque unscathed.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sir John Kullehamnd, as he currently called himself, sat in his empty drawing room. He held the book in his hands, though he did not read it. He had memorized every page and found that just holding it gave him comfort.

  When he’d first discovered the book, he’d realized it had been sent to him by God to lift him from his misery. He’d spent his life educating himself, ready to take over his father’s small estate in Peterborough when that gentleman passed on. He intended to increase the family’s holdings and take his place in fine society and, therefore, he must be educated, erudite, a person of standing that one wished to have at one’s table.

  As fate would have it, his father had not managed well. The old man might have done better had his wife still lived, as he remembered his mother as a sensible sort of person. As it was, his father had made disastrous investments and was deep in debt. No possible mortgage would cover the mountain to be paid. All of that, and the fact that the estate must be sold, was unknown to him until after his father was laid in the ground.

  What was he to do if he was not to be the master of the hall?

  He was a landowner with no land.

  He’d taken a lease on a small property nearby, though with no money coming in, he knew that could not go on forever.

  He’d ruminated for months, certain he had been badly used. His fate could not be what it was. A mistake had been made somewhere.

  His days and nights blended together as he walked the small, rented house searching for an answer. He rarely slept. Who could sleep with the world closing in upon one? His options dwindled away, one by one. He thought he might marry and regain his footing that way. But to who? The only eligible girl, Miss Agnes Rosings of Rosedale Farm, had laughed in his face and told him he was both poor and a bore. He would have slapped her had her mother not been in the next room. As it was, he’d been forced to admit to himself that he had not that charm that might make a girl blind to his financial shortcomings.

  He thought he might buy some small plot of land with the money he had left, he might work his way up again with diligence, making a profit and buying more land.

  That possibility had faded to nothing. He’d had too many pressing needs to fulfill—rent, food, drink, firewood, and especially, laudanum. That helpful draught was the only thing that kept him sane. He must have it. And yet, it took up so much of his resources.

  One day, as he searched the little rented house, always hoping to discover some cache of coins somebody had forgot about, he’d found a book. It was small in size and tucked neatly above a rafter. Certainly, it must be of some value if someone had hidden it so well. He might sell it.

  He’d sat down in front of his woefully small fire and read it from beginning to end. It was a diary, by he knew not who. It was only signed A faithful servant to Sir John Hill.

  There, he’d read a story very like his own. This faithful servant det
ailed an intelligent and resourceful master who’d made many contributions and was cast aside by the very place that should have welcomed him—The Royal Society of London.

  The parallels to his own life were unmistakable! Sir John Hill had been wronged, as he had been wronged! John Hill had not been allowed to take his proper place, just as he had been barred from it! In truth, he had fared even worse than John Hill—he’d been rejected by everybody. Nobody asked him to dine anymore, they just gave him pitying glances and avoided his eye.

  It was then that it became clear to him that the whole of society was rigged. The powerful made certain that the ones with no power never got any. A duke might be foolish beyond measure and mortgage his estates, and yet he was still a duke and ate a fine dinner every night. Money and credit were thrown at those who did not need it and denied to those who did. A man like himself always teetered on the brink of disaster. One small push was all it took to send a man flying down a pit he could not climb out of.

  The laudanum, as he increased the doses, helped him see how things were in the world even more clearly than he had before. He had not lost everything and been sent to this house only to die in misery. He had been sent to find the book, as the only person who could understand its significance. He had been sent to revenge John Hill and raise himself up in the process. John Hill had been wronged by Martin Folkes and Lord George Penderton. Neither of those fellows were responsible for his own losses, or even alive at this late date, but they were the keys to his rise. Like Jesus, he would be born again, and the descendants of those two criminals would pay for his restoration to life.

  Once he’d realized that God had sent him on a mission, that he was meant for great things, the plans came to him fast and quick. It was not a month before he’d sold all of his furniture and rented the house hard by St. George’s church.

  As he read and re-read the book, he was more and more encouraged that the wrong would be righted through him. He would take his place as a rich man, given courtesy and inspiring fear. Further, he would do it in a rather elegant fashion—he would rip back his fate with the help of John Hill. Society would know the tables had been turned, certain persons would know that every crime had its price, though the bill had been a long time coming due.