A Gentleman of Unreliable Honor

Chapter One

I detested house parties and I was fairly certain my mother—known to society as Her Grace of Waltham—detested me. When she summoned me to join the gathering at Tweed House, I thus recruited reinforcements before following maternal orders.

“I don’t understand somethin’.” Atticus, my tiger, was perched beside me on the phaeton’s bench rather than riding on the seat fashioned to accommodate him at the rear. His unruly dark hair waved in the breeze, and his wrists stuck out two inches below his jacket cuffs. Life at Caldicott Hall was agreeing with the boy. “If them letters was written all so long ago, why is the duchess still haulin’ ’em about everywhere?”

How to explain sentimentality in a woman who seemed to harbor not a scintilla of that quality in her whole body? She referred to me invariably as his lordship, or Lord Julian, never simply by my name or as her son. When I’d returned home after Waterloo, she’d tolerated a kiss to her cheek, then declared a pressing need to shop for gloves, despite owning dozens of pairs.

“The letters doubtless put Her Grace in mind of precious memories,” I said. “They inspire thoughts of happier days. Take the ribbons.”

Atticus was learning to both ride and drive. His mounted skills had lurched forward in recent weeks, and thus the time had arrived to introduce him to the whip’s art. A single chestnut gelding pulled the vehicle, a sizeable equine hired at the last coaching inn. Jupiter seemed a steady sort and we’d reached a stretch of flat, dry road.

We managed the exchange of reins while Jupiter trotted along.

“If I had something that inspired thoughts of happier days,” Atticus said, “I’d keep it safe, not drag it ’round where any porter or maid might pinch it. My arms are already tired.”

“Because you are holding the reins too high. If you keep them near your chin, you will have no leverage should Jupiter decide to stretch his legs.” I helped the boy adjust his grip, the process being something of a challenge in a moving vehicle.

“If old Jupe takes off, I’m bailin’, and yer worship can do as he pleases.”

My merely a courtesy lordship rather than a worship of any sort. I’d begun life as a ducal spare, but upon the death of my brother Harry at the hands of the French army, I’d become my brother Arthur’s heir. I resented that honor—I’d much rather have had Harry alive and hale—and dreaded the day when I might become the duke.

I was neither mentally nor physically equal to the demands of a peer’s station, nor did I deserve the title.

“Sit up, Atticus. Posture matters as much at the ribbons as it does in the saddle, and you will please address me properly when we are in company.”

“Beggin’ your lordship paw-don,” Atticus drawled. “I’d rather we’d ridden.”

And if we’d made the journey on horseback, the contrary little scoundrel would have preferred we’d taken the phaeton. I’d found Atticus at the last house party I’d attended, my first social outing following my return to civilian life.

I’d come home from the wars in poor shape, physically, mentally, and emotionally. My reputation as an officer had been in no better condition. Some blamed me for Harry’s death, others considered me a traitor. I’d spent much of the last year coming to terms with the whole stupid tragedy of my years in uniform.

“Eyes up, Atticus. Look where you’re going, and the Jupiter will go where you look.” Or so every riding instructor since Xenophon had claimed.

“Unless he sees a bucket of oats,” Atticus retorted. “He’ll trot straight through fire to get to a bucket of oats if he’s like my Ladon. That horse is a right dragon about his tucker.”

Atticus was a dragon about his tucker too, but given the boy’s past—sent forth from the tender care of the poorhouse to be a general dogs body on the staff of a country manor—I rejoiced in his appetite and in his curiosity.

“Hands out of your lap, lad. If Jupiter thinks you’ve gone to sleep, he’s more likely to get up to mischief.”

“No, he ain’t. You nobs think everybody is like you, always looking for something you can filch without paying for it, or some rule you can break without gettin’ caught. Most folk just want a fair wage, and a plate and a pint. Jupiter ain’t fancy.”

Precisely why I’d chosen him for the final leg of our journey. A duchess could summon her son in the middle of a genteel gathering, but that didn’t mean the host and hostess, much less the other guests, would be glad to see him.

I had timed my arrival for early afternoon, when those guests were likely to be at their amusements, napping, or enjoying amusements that involved napping in the venerable house party tradition. My hope was to find Her Grace’s letters, and then to depart without fanfare.

My hopes were to be disappointed, of course.

“Atticus, you cannot squirm. Even if you think you are holding the reins still, Jupiter can feel you scooting about on the bench, and he will wonder if something is amiss.”

“Something is amiss. A lad’s got to piss from time to time.”

“We’ve had that discussion. You’re to step around to the jakes at the posting inns, and not inflict upon me a recitation of the state of your bodily processes.”

Atticus was blessedly quiet for the duration of half a mile. Harvest was approaching completion in Kent, and the countryside had the mellow, tidy look of land at rest. Pastures were green with lush autumn grass, and while the maples were mostly bare of leaves, the occasion oak still stood in golden glory.

“You always talk fancy when you’re out of sorts,” Atticus said, guiding Jupiter around a long, sweeping curve.

While Atticus’s diction tended to deteriorate when he was upset. “And?”

“You been talking fancy since we left Caldicott Hall this morning. You should be glad you still got a mama, beggin’ your toffship’s pardon. Some of us got neither sire nor dam nor litter mates.”

He’d mixed his metaphors, but as usual, made his point. “The last place I want to be is among a lot of idle peers and their admiring gentry friends, my day scheduled like a recruit in the hands of the drill sergeants. With His Grace soon to leave for France, my place is at the Hall.”

“If the duke’s own mama isn’t at the Hall, why should you bide there?”

Because the Hall was my home and my refuge, the one place where I wasn’t Lord Julian, traitor, disgrace, and—I’d known some truly dark times, and still had serious memory problems—aspiring half-wit.

“The duke’s departure means much of the responsibility for Hall will fall to me,” I said, though I should have told Atticus to mind his infernal tongue. “I’ve been away from home for most of the past five years. If I’m not to make hash of the whole undertaking, I should be at my brother’s elbow, cramming my head with his instructions.”

“Right, and Himself doesn’t have an army of footmen, stewards, butlers, maids, housekeepers,  tenants, shopkeepers, farmers, and assorted other layabouts ready to point you in the right direction. Of course, he don’t. You’re worried he won’t come back is the trouble, and here your mama thinks she’ll distract you from all your frettin’ with some harmless silliness, and you have to go and fret about that too. Oh, the Quality.”

“Her Grace wants those letters found, and that is why you must keep a particularly sharp eye out belowstairs.”

“I allus keep a sharp eye out.”

In fact, he did, and I’d benefitted from his vigilance. “Let Jupiter walk a bit,” I said, when my sharp-eyed tiger was once again holding the reins near his chin, slouching, and watching a skein of passing geese rather than the road.

“He ain’t sweatin’.”

“Because the day is cool and overcast.” My favorite kind of weather, given my weak eyes. “He covered five miles in good order, and the road is wide enough here that we can be safely passed by vehicles traveling at speed.”

Then too, we were nearly at the Tweed House gates by my reckoning, and if I tooled up the drive with my tiger at the reins while I sat idle beside him, eyebrows would be raised. My plan was to have Atticus negotiate the turn through the gate posts at a sedate walk, and then to commend him to his proper place on the back perch.

“You are puttin’ off seeing your own mama.”

“She has put off seeing me is more the case.” Though now that Her Grace needed to find her precious letters, and now that I had a modest reputation for discreetly solving polite society’s more embarrassing problems, she had issued her summons, and I had started packing.

One did not ignore a duchess with impunity, especially if she was one’s own mother.

“I like house parties,” Atticus said. “Lots of food, everybody in a good mood, at least at first. We get run off our feet belowstairs, but it’s all for one and not so strict.”

“Atticus, gather up the reins and let Jupiter walk.”

“Jupe, walk!” Atticus bellowed, reins loose in his lap. The horse, preoccupied with whatever passed for equine thoughts or perhaps keen to get to his oats, trotted on.

“Lad, if you don’t take up the reins, he’ll trot until Domesday, we’ll miss our—”

A gunshot sounded from the trees off to our left. Gunfire would never again be just another aspect of the rural landscape for me, but while my body panicked my mind knew that we were in the midst of shooting season, and the quarry was likely grouse rather than British officers.

The noisy explosion nonetheless had Jupiter picking up his pace, and Atticus did nothing to check the horse’s speed.

“That were a gun,” Atticus said, gaze slewing about. “Are there highwaymen in this part of Kent? We’re near the sea, ain’t we? Smugglers always have great, big pistols.”

“Take up the reins,” I said, sternly, but without shouting because Jupiter might react to a raised voice.

Atticus fumbled with the reins and a second shot had Jupiter breaking into the canter.

I was torn between the urge to grab the ribbons from the lad, to let him muddle on and experience the consequences of his inattention to my guidance, and real worry. One more shot and Jupiter might bolt in truth. Any horse stabled at a coaching inn was likely in good condition, and Jupiter was still fresh enough to gallop for some distance.

To say nothing of the fact that gunfire inclined me to bolting. “Atticus, take up the reins.”

Atticus sent me a blank look, and a third shot decided the matter. I took the reins from him, or tried to. The lad was brave but had reached the limit of his courage. When he should have surrendered control of the vehicle to me, he instead fought as only a boy who had scrapped for his existence since birth could fight.

“Atticus, let go. I have the reins.” To speak calmly while the phaeton bumped along, and Jupiter’s canter gathered momentum was a skill born in battle. To my great relief, that commanding officer tone penetrated Atticus’s thick skull and he let go.

And promptly clutched my arm. “He’s runnin’ off, guv. Bastard’s goin’ see us killed!”

“Jupiter, halt.” I hauled stoutly on the reins, and Atticus hauled just as stoutly on my arm.

Jupiter went merrily on his way. The horse was not spooked, but he was certainly ignoring me. His naughtiness was abetted by a pair of plough horses at grass in the field next to the road, who lumbered along parallel to him on their side of the drystone wall.

“Jupiter, halt.” Perhaps because the plough horses had broken to the trot, or because Jupiter himself had tired of the game, the horse slowed and then abandoned the canter for the trot.

“Halt, blast you.” Another hard tug that did not relent, and Jupiter finally did as he was told. I eased the reins forward and to the extent the harness allowed it, the horse hung his head. “Walk on, you rogue in chestnut livery.”

I put him through the walk/halt sequence several times, turned him at another widening in the road, and brought him again to a stop.

“You can let go of my arm, Atticus.”

The boy complied and sat up straight, gaze on the horse’s broad rump. “I think I’ll get down and stretch my legs for the rest of the way.”

Like hell he would. “You are right that I have put off spending time my mother. She has conveyed in no uncertain terms that she has no use for me. Harry was her favorite, and every time she sees me, I have no doubt that she’s wishing he’d lived and I’d died.”

“Yer own ma thinks that?”

His incredulity buoyed my daunted spirits. “I’d been home less than a day when she asked if I’d be biding at my London townhouse. Her question implied that no other venue would be open to me, and I haven’t seen much of her since.”

“Shoddy. Duchesses ain’t supposed to be shoddy.”

“Mothers aren’t supposed to be shoddy either, but I suppose she had her reasons. You will drive to the gate posts which we passed about a mile back. Jupiter may walk or trot, and at the gate posts, he will halt and I will resume driving.”

Atticus took the reins from me and adjusted them to a safe, proper length. He sat up, he looked where we were going, and we gained our destination without mishap and with a few yards of sedate trotting.

“Well done, lad. Well damned done.” I tousled his hair so he’d have an excuse to grouse, and took the reins from him. “Ready to make our entrance?”

He scrambled onto the tiger’s perch. “Ready, your worship. Ready for some tucker too and I gotta piss something powerful. I still wish we’d ridden horseback.”

The distance from the Hall would have been too far for the aging Ladon, but one did not denigrate a pony in the eyes of his enthralled boy.

“Atlas will be along by tonight, and if you’d look in on him from time to time, I’d appreciate it.” I gave Jupiter leave to walk on, and we tooled into the Tweed House park as calmly as any pair of dowagers returning from divine services.

“I were proper scairt,” Atticus said apropos of nothing. “You wasn’t scairt at all. Does soldiering march all the fear right outta ya?”

“I was worried too, Atticus, and your fear was justified. Jupiter is an unknown quantity, the shooting might have gone on, and the smallest bump in the road if taken at speed can result in a spill. Handling equines in any regard is not for the faint-hearted.”

“You weren’t faint-hearted. You were nigh bored.”

“No, I was not. I was unnerved by the gunfire, worried for you, angry at the horse, and wishing we’d stayed the hell home where we belong.”

“But you were a soldier, so you kept your eyes front and forward marched. Right?”

How many questions could one boy ask? “I am a gentleman, and thus your safety and Jupiter’s were a higher priority than was indulging in any display of nerves. I will expect you to present yourself tomorrow after breakfast for another driving lesson.”

Atticus considered that as the golden sandstone façade of Tweed House came into view. Willows dotted the approach, another touch of lightness when compared to the usual oaks, or even Caldicott Hall’s venerable lime alley.

“So you learned not to give in to your nerves as a soldier?”

“Something like that.” I turned Jupiter along the circular drive before the wide front terrace. Potted geraniums splashed red and white color in tidy rows, and a groom stepped forward from a mounting block at Jupiter’s approach. “Look sharp, lad. Listen more than you talk, watch closely, and we need not bide here for long.”

Or so I prayed. In fact, the house party dragged on interminably, and before my mother’s situation was resolved, I would do a great deal of keeping my eye front and marching forward, and spend significant effort not giving in to my nerves—or my temper.

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