A Gentleman of Modest Ambitions

Chapter One

I should have been the happiest of men.

I had endured the Yuletide holidays on my own at Caldicott Hall—a milestone for anybody prey to seasonal megrims. Immediately thereafter, I had resolved a knotty problem for a fellow former soldier, who was now blissfully taking up residence on his own acres in Hampshire.

Over the past year, I had made a fairly good job of handling matters for my older brother, Arthur, Duke of Waltham, while that worthy enjoyed extended travel on the Continent with his devoted companion, Osgood Banter.

Best of all, I had secured the affections of Miss Hyperia West, and she had chosen a date not two months hence for our nuptial ceremony. My intended was busy in London, putting the finishing touches on her trousseau, and—I suspected—giving me a chance to change my mind.

Darling Perry was that good, that brave.

Or that uncertain of me.

I was neither good nor brave by nature. I did seem to have a knack for untangling society’s more delicate puzzles, though in my present state, puzzles did not interest me. Food did not interest me, even books had lost much of their appeal.

Melancholia and I were old foes, and I should have known that surviving the holidays without company was no mark of victory for me. The enemy had lain patiently in wait, and ambushed me when I was without allies, and winter still held the land in a merciless grip.

“Not entirely without allies.” I stroked a hand over my horse’s neck. Atlas was, like me, a veteran of the Peninsular campaign. His antecedents blended the power of the draft horse with the fire and refinement of the Iberian breeds, and I loved him dearly. We’d been through any number of battles together, and thus it was to Atlas that I turned when my mood was threatening to plunge.

The best tonic I had found for an inchoate bout of the blue devils was fresh air and movement. The cure was neither instant, dramatic, nor permanent, but any relief was better than a downward spiral, of which I was more than capable.

Atlas danced a bit then settled into a walk that covered ground without tiring his rider. Winter was at its most bleak, the sky a blue-gray quilt of overcast, the ground hard and bare. A frigid breeze pushed dead leaves around on the bridle path. Snow would have been an improvement, a pretty mantel over a dreary ensemble, but the elements refused to oblige.

And that was fortune, because my daily hacks about the property were keeping me sane. I was careful to avoid the village or the more highly traveled lanes. The only human company I sought was Hyperia’s, and in that regard, I had to content myself with epistolary comforts.

A noise on the far side of the hedgerow had Atlas pricking his ears. He wasn’t alarmed, merely alert, suggesting a few sheep, perhaps a stray dog…

“Lord Julian! Just the fellow I was intent on seeing. The very one, and I’m sure this encounter is Divine Providence taking a benevolent interest in my plight.”

Sir Clive Arbuthnot qualified as a plight on two booted feet. He was on horseback on this occasion—he was frequently on horseback—and wreathed in smiles. Sir Clive was the salt of the earth, if salt was voluble, jovial, inclined to retelling the same stories repeatedly, and very hard to dislodge once he’d found a seat in your informal parlor.

Everybody liked Sir Clive, but after about fifteen minutes in his company, people tended to recall a pressing appointment for which they were already late. He was a hale and hearty old specimen, tall, angular, white-haired, and energetic.

Merely beholding him exhausted me, though I could do worse than to become just like him in my later years.

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“Sir Clive.” I touched a finger to the brim of my top hat. “A fine morning for a hack.”

“’Tisn’t,” he said, his smile full of mischief. “Beastly wind rattles the bones. How is it spring and autumn last about a fortnight, and summer and winter drag on forever? A mystery for the ages.”

“True enough, and in such a brisk wind, you mustn’t let me keep—”

“We nonetheless gather rose buds while we may, as it were.” He steered his horse, an aging bay gelding built on the same rangy, angular lines as his rider, alongside Atlas. “I hope your mother is keeping well?”

One could not fault a man for being polite. “Her Grace yet bides in Hampshire. I expect her home before spring.”

“Do pass along my regards when next you write to her. Splendid woman, Her Grace. She’s left you to rattle around the Hall all on your own?”

I did not want Sir Clive cheering me up with a visit or two or three. “I’m enjoying the quiet. Soon enough, we’ll be busy with lambing, ploughing, and planting.” Lambing had in fact already started, always an occasion for good spirits at the home farm.

Though only sheep would think it a fine plan to drop their newborns on frozen ground.

“Not a pretty time of year,” Sir Clive said, surveying the bracken and bare limbs of the hedgerow, “which is why I often invite some company to the Knot after Yuletide. Your mama has the right of it—fill the den with friendly faces, and waiting for spring becomes a merrier undertaking.”

That was my cue to invite him up to the Hall for a toddy. Luckily for me, we approached the lane that led to the Hall’s home farm. “If you’ll excuse me, Sir Clive—”

“Won’t keep you,” he said, “but I did want to mention to your lordship a bit of a small contretemps that has me slightly flummoxed. Was on my way to look in on you at the Hall, as a matter of act. Her Grace said I must, and I have been remiss. It occurred to me: Lord Julian is the very man with whom I can discuss a situation requiring a touch of discretion.”

As a former reconnaissance officer in Wellington’s army, one with a talent for overhearing what I wasn’t meant to overhear in languages I wasn’t meant to understand, I noted two aspects of Sir Clive’s salvo. First, my mother had put him up to looking in on me. Whatever was afoot there? Second, Sir Clive was normally forthright to a fault.

He’d resorted to a bit, small, slightly, and a touch by way of verbal camouflage, which all but shouted that his situation was serious.

“Might you come by the Hall one day next week?” I asked, rather than court maternal ire by nipping the old boy’s litany in the bud. “I’m on the way to the home farm, and actually running a bit late.”

“I’ll accompany you, if you don’t mind. The matter vexing me grows both delicate and a trifle urgent.”

A trifle. I did not care for matters that were a trifle urgent, especially when my every instinct was to go up to my cozy apartment, shut and lock the door, and indulge in several weeks of staring grumpily into the fire.

In which case, my horse would lose condition, the housekeeper would report me to Her Grace, and Hyperia would decide I was a poor candidate for a husband’s honors.

“Say on, Sir Clive. What troubles you, and how can I be of assistance?” I regretted those words even as I spoke them.

“Well, you see, it’s about the earl. Lord Dantry. Appears I’ve misplaced him, and there’s Parliament about to start sittin’, and his lordship generally votes his seat, and he should have gone on up to Town, but he hasn’t, and he’s not at the ancestral pile in Kent, and he’s not at the Knot. Damned fool man has disappeared, but he disappeared on my watch so I am expected to locate him, and he is my cousin. One worries. A bit.”

Good soul that he was, Sir Clive was honestly concerned for his titled cousin, who had probably dodged down to Brighton for some brisk sea air with his light o’ love, or jaunted over to Paris for a change of scene.

My mother had insisted that Sir Clive look in on me. Could that possibly have been for my sake?

Atlas jigged two steps, ready for another canter if I was game.

“I’ll stop by the home farm another time,” I said. “Let’s have a run past the orchard, and you can explain the rest of the situation to me up at the Hall. Mrs. Gwinnett makes a toddy that will tempt you to compose poetry.”

Sir Clive tugged down his hat. “First past the orchard wins.”

We thundered off, and because I was trying to be polite, and respectful of my elders, and a good sport, I kept Atlas shoulder to shoulder with the bay. We came upon the orchard and galloped along its length. I was considering when to let Atlas have his head just as the bay sprinted forward with a blazing burst of speed, and then the orchard was behind us.

Sir Clive saluted with his crop as his mount slowed to the canter, and I was put in mind of the old soldier’s maxim about age and treachery besting youth and ability. Perhaps the better aphorism would be that experience has the power to outwit arrogance.

I patted Atlas, though he was cavorting a bit in protest of his loss. I left the winning move too late, and the old boy had bested me fair and square. I’d likely never hear the end of my defeat, and neither would the entire village.

The reasons to hibernate in my apartment were growing, and the temperature, if anything, was dropping apace.

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