Miss Dauntless, page 16
“What else do you know about Tremont?” Harry asked.
“I never served under him, but we had some transfers from his regiment, and I was occasionally swapped around between the artillery and the quartermasters. Tremont’s commanding officer was a devil. Liked to watch as a man was flogged within an inch of life. A fellow did what he could to get free of such a monster.”
Something in Sparky’s tone caught Harry’s ear. “If you say he was a monster, he must have been a bad lot indeed.”
“He were the son of a lord, but even the other officers eventually got wise to him. Dunacre couldn’t touch Tremont because Tremont were a peer, but Dunacre could make his young lordship’s life ’ell.”
“Tremont’s life isn’t hell now. His cloak alone would keep me in fine lodgings for the rest of the winter.” And he had Matilda trundling along beside him, probably hoping to become his countess, poor thing.
Tilly was fated to harbor doomed ambitions. The dear woman thought life was about fairy tales and moonbeams. Men like Tremont could look much higher than a vinegarish widow when they sought a mother for their heirs.
“Tremont’s life were ’ell in Spain,” Sparky said. “The stories made the rounds. Dunacre would demand the use of Tremont’s horse and then ride the beast to death. Every officer set store by his cattle, and Tremont were no different.”
“Nasty,” Harry said, “and proof that my decision to stay the hell out of the war was the sensible choice.”
“Dunacre was like ye, ’Arry,” Sparky said mildly. “He had a talent for knowing how to get to people. Yer missus, for example, did not care a fig for her own good name, but to preserve her baby from scandal, she’d throw in with the likes of ye. Dunacre was like that. If he couldn’t catch Tremont up in insubordination or dereliction of duty, he’d go after Tremont’s men.”
The fire had caught properly and finally begun to throw out some heat. Harry’s feet were warm for the first time that day, but his belly plagued him. Chophouse fare washed down with blue ruin sat ill with a man of refined tastes.
“Why are you haranguing me with this ancient history?” Harry said. “Shouldn’t you be off composing poetry to your Mary?”
“Ye will underestimate Tremont,” Sparky said, “and I don’t want to be around to see that happen. Everybody underestimated him, but he was nobody’s fool. Amos Tucker tried to desert—half of us did—but stupider’n that, he tried to steal Tremont’s horse in hopes of getting to the coast.”
“Was he planning to ride it to death in the grand tradition?”
“He was planning to get to the seaside, sell the horse for passage home, and join the family that ’ad up and decided to emigrate without him.”
“Did anybody actually fight the French in this war, or was the whole business a lot of drama and public school foolishness?” Harry was honest enough to admit some guilt regarding the war. Not because he should have laid his life on the line for Fat George’s art collection, but because he’d refused to dally in war profiteering. Fortunes had been made thanks to Boney’s ambitions, but the notion of swindling soldiers out of decent rations or warm blankets had turned Harry liverish.
A smart man knew which rigs to run and which rigs to run from.
“Ye are contemplating foolishness,” Sparky said. “Ye think ’Aarry Whoever is smarter than everybody else. You’re so smart, ye had to fashion yer own death in Oxford, ye had to leave Bristol hotfoot, and ye’ve been run out of Dublin. Manchester won’t have ye, and the other port towns will arrest ye on sight.”
“Costs of doing business.” Harry tried for a cheerful tone and failed. Ireland had been lucrative for a time, and the port towns were a real loss. Strangers were part of the landscape in any busy port, and opportunities for the enterprising abounded.
“Costs of committing crimes, ’Arry. I will finish me parable where Tremont is concerned and leave ye to contemplate yer sins. Tucker took off with the earl’s horse. Hanging felony even in peacetime. Dunacre’s spies got wind of this, and Tremont was called to account for his man. If Tremont had said the horse was merely being taken out of camp for some decent grazing, Dunacre would have had Tucker dead to rights—no groom grazes a horse in saddle and bridle. Worse, Dunacre would have court-martialed Tremont for lying to his superior officer.”
“The army sounds worse than the church when it comes to rules, regulations, and stupid games.”
“Pay attention, ’Arry,” Sparky said tiredly. “If Tremont had offered the predictable explanation—that Tucker were taking the horse to graze—then Dunacre woulda won. Tremont instead said he’d been trying to saddle his own mount, and the beast had got away from him. In that version, Tucker was risking his neck outside camp to save the horse. Dunacre’s hands were tied, and that story found wings.”
The swindler in Harry grudgingly admired Tremont’s quick thinking. “And this Tucker person probably turned around and deserted the next day anyway. Who’s the fool then, Sparky?”
“Tremont’s men didn’t desert in the numbers they ought, given Dunacre’s mischief. They looked after Tremont, and he looked after them. His lordship took to riding mules after Dunacre killed his horse. Tremont looked the fool to some of his fellow officers; the men knew different. Dunacre’s vanity kept him from trying to kill the mules, and his ’orsemanship wasn’t up to riding a Spanish mule into the ground anyway. Old Scratch hisself couldn’t outlast a Spanish mule.”
Harry, who had reason to respect the hardiness of mules, also admitted to himself the wisdom of Tremont’s strategy. He who controlled the appearances, controlled the game, usually. Tremont had figured out a way to appear foolish while, in fact, making a fool of a superior officer.
Then too, Tremont was apparently sweet on Tilly. Her finer qualities—loyalty, patience, low expectations of the men in her life—were easy to overlook, though Tremont hadn’t.
And that, too, would work to Harry’s advantage.
“I’m Matilda’s husband. His lordship can saddle up all the mules in England, and he won’t change that fact. Matilda will sign the house over to me, and she and I will come to some mutually agreeable arrangements. Tremont needn’t know anything about it, provided Matilda shares her pin money with me. If she wants to be difficult—and I sincerely hope she does not—then I will make her life hell.”
Sparky rose. “Ye already done that once.”
“I preserved her good name.”
“Such a saint, ye are, ’Arry Help Yerself. Ye should leave her in peace and thank the good Lord ye ain’t dancing on a gibbet.”
“Go write your poems,” Harry said, saluting with his flask and drawing his chair nearer the fire. “You can move the key back under the boot scrape on your way to the pub.”
“Why?” Sparky said, settling his hat on his head. “Why torment a woman who never done ye wrong?”
“I’m not tormenting her. I’m firing warning shots so she knows there’s a parley in the offing. Matilda will see reason, and I will be set up quite nicely. Dying on her was the best rig I’ve ever run.”
Sparky let Harry have the last word—unusual for old Sparky—and Harry settled in to refine plans that were already shaping up sweetly.
“If we might adjourn to the library?” Tremont asked. The entire table went silent, and a few knowing winks were passed up and down the ranks. He went on as if he were blind to the smiles and smirks. “The fires are lit in there, and the night grows chilly. We’ll want Mrs. Winklebleck and the rest of the staff to join us.”
Tucker stood. “The library it is. I’ll fetch the womenfolk. C’mon, lad.” He held out a hand to Tommie, who scampered out the door with him.
The men doubtless expected an announcement of forthcoming nuptials, but Tremont hadn’t Matilda’s leave to share that good news. The discussion with Tommie had yet to be handled, a special license to be procured, and some sewing to be done.
And more ledgers to review. A simple, happy list. Tremont offered Matilda his arm, and they followed the men down the corridor.
“I do believe Cook’s menus have improved,” Tremont said. “I know table manners are held in much higher regard than they were several weeks ago.”
“‘Please pass the salt’ isn’t complicated,” Matilda replied. “I’m also making progress with those who can’t read. Your men are quick-witted and determined—like you.”
Never in his entire existence had Tremont considered himself quick-witted, though the determination part rang true enough.
“When I’m in Shropshire, I miss them,” Tremont said as they waited for the queue to file into the library. “When I’m in London…”
“You don’t miss Shropshire?”
“Not as I once did. It’s home, and I will delight in showing it to you, but Mama has the place quite in hand. I feel more useful here in London, haranguing Parliament, wheedling the parsons to spruce up their churchyards, and teaching Tommie to skip rocks. I will be content to dwell wherever you please to make our home, but London does have its attractions.”
Matilda gave his hand a surreptitious squeeze.
The rest of the company had shuffled into the library. Tremont remained in the corridor with his intended.
“I did not say this before…” Matilda still had him by the hand, and she had lowered her voice.
“Matilda?” Tremont steeled himself for any announcement—conditions of the betrothal, a change of heart, a request for more time. Matilda had been gracious but distracted all through supper, and Tremont hoped it was his lovemaking on her mind.
She was doubtless fretting over that damned key and that narrow house on the tired lane.
“I am all ears,” he said, taking her free hand. “Though in about one minute, the staff will thunder up the steps, and we will have no privacy whatsoever.”
Matilda leaned near. “I love you.”
Tremont waited, for the but… For the nonetheless… For the however. Delivering good news or compliments first was a rhetorical strategy for ensuring the hearer was paying attention to the subsequent bad news. Good news first also ensured the hearer regarded the speaker benignly when the inevitable reservations or criticisms came along. No fellow tasked with managing subordinates ignored the tactic of delivering the good news first.
“And…?”
“And I cannot wait to be your wife. I love you. I want you to know that. I think, ‘Now, I will tell him. Now when I am overcome with his tenderness or his consideration for others,’ and then you say something brisk and self-possessed, and the moment passes. But I love you, Marcus. You value my son, you value these men. You know your mother enjoys running the family seat, and you give her the latitude to do that even if you’re homesick. I wanted you to know. I say the words to Tommie, but I haven’t given them to anybody else.”
Tremont could not have surrendered his hold on Matilda’s hands for all the rhetorical devices in antiquity, and thus when Mrs. Winklebleck and her maids trundled past along with Cook—the maids bearing tea trays—he remained right where he was.
Which occasioned more smirking.
“The men will want their tea,” Tremont said to the housekeeper. “We’ll be along in a moment. I take it Charles is entertaining Tommie?”
“Teaching him card tricks,” Cook said. “And doubtless pinching biscuits from the jar.”
The corridor was again deserted, though the library door remained open. Tremont led Matilda a few steps away, though for all he cared, the whole world could overhear what he had to say.
“What provoked you to share your sentiments now, Matilda?” He wanted to understand this, because inspiring similar declarations had become his second-fondest aspiration after frequent shared reviews of the ledgers.
“You could sit upon your lordly fundament in Shropshire,” Matilda said, “the ranking title, the ranking bachelor, literally lord of all you surveyed. You could spend your days as your father apparently did, socializing, terrifying the game, and riding his acres. That’s a blameless existence.”
Papa had also loved his family and his homeland.
“If you’d rather…?”
Matilda plastered herself to his chest. “You have more regard for your fellow beings, more decency, more generosity of soul in your smallest finger than my ordained father had in his whole life. Get that special license, Marcus, please. I don’t care where we live, or how we live, as long as Tommie is with us and well cared for. You are my home, and I love you.”
Tremont held his intended—his beloved—and despite the gloom in the corridor and the chilly wind soughing through the eaves, warmth and light suffused him. He knew what to say—a veritable commonplace for some—but it was the truth, and the truth was sufficient for any moment.
“I love you too, Matilda Merridew, and you are my heart.”
They held each other, and thoughts of luscious kisses, skipping rocks in the park, and a carefully drafted letter to Mama all drifted through Tremont’s mind. His body hummed with pleasure—Matilda was a delight to hold—and his imagination began to embroider on all manner of happily ever afters.
“Tea’s served!” somebody called out.
Tremont bussed Matilda’s cheek. “For courage and joy.”
They joined the smiling, winking, nudging crowd in the library, and while people found places to sit and Matilda poured herself a cup of tea, Tremont mentally shook himself. This was a briefing, not a round of family charades.
“Mrs. Merridew,” Tremont said when Matilda was seated at the head of the reading table, “you have the floor.”
The smiles subsided, and the library grew quiet.
“Thank you, my lord.” She let a moment of silence stretch—rhetorical devices were not the exclusive province of parliamentarians, apparently. When she took up her narrative, she spoke quietly.
“I have reason to believe that somebody has intruded into my house.” She explained about her late husband’s peculiar habits where door keys were concerned and went on to allude to his dodgy circle of acquaintances.
“I am worried that some ne’er-do-well acquaintance of Mr. Merridew’s has decided to make free with the premises. He might not have taken anything yet, but by dark of night, he could load up a whole wagonload of parlor furniture in the alley, and nobody would be the wiser. Harry was not very discerning in his choice of friends.”
“Harry Merridew?” Mrs. Winklebleck asked. “That was yer man’s name?”
“Yes,” Matilda replied. “He’s been gone for several years, but he traveled around a fair bit and had connections in odd places, both in London and elsewhere. After all this time, I suspect one of those connections has decided to see if Harry’s widow has anything worth stealing. For myself, I don’t much mind, but that house is Tommie’s birthright and the only part of my trousseau that Harry couldn’t take to the pawnshop.”
From the looks on the faces of the men, Harry Merridew was fortunate to be dead.
“Women set store by their bridal finery,” Biggs said. “My sisters was sewing tablecloths and whatnot for years.”
“My mother’s china,” Bentley said, “come to her from her great-grandmother. This Merridew fella pawned your china, missus?
“He did, and what silver I had, but then, Tommie had to eat. I could hardly object.”
“If the weans need to eat, then the papa ought to find work,” Cook observed. “This husband of yours had no trade?”
Tremont resisted the urge to leap in and steer the conversation back to the business of securing the house itself. That topic needed airing, but Matilda also needed to know that nobody judged her for the sins of her late spouse—or for marrying him in the first place.
“Harry was a confidence trickster,” Matilda said. “He told me he was a man of business—and he certainly looked the part. I thought that meant he was credentialed as a solicitor. He was making his way to London where all the opportunities were. Within a fortnight of speaking my vows, I realized that I’d made a mistake, but some mistakes can’t be unmade.”
“Ye learn from ’em,” Cook said. “No use crying over spilled milk.”
“If you dropped one of your cream pies,” Amos Tucker said, “I’d cry.”
MacIvey cuffed him on the back of the head. “What are our orders, missus?”
Matilda looked to Tremont, who wasn’t about to relieve her of command, though he would offer suggestions.
“Surveillance?” he said. “Regular patrols? We replaced the key where we found it, and our inspection tour took place at sunset, meaning we probably weren’t observed.”
“Surveillance,” Matilda said, “but also… be on the alert. Listen a little more carefully on darts night. Tell the crossing sweepers to keep an eye out for strangers who don’t sound like they’re from London, but who ask after me or my house. For God’s sake, keep a close eye on Tommie and, for that matter, a close eye on me.”
“Could there be a house-stealing swindle afoot?” Mrs. Winklebleck asked. “The cheats present themselves as the owner of the premises and accept coin for its sale. You are left with a lawsuit on yer hands and squatters in yer house. T’other house-stealing rig sees you snatched off the street. You aren’t set free until you sign the papers giving up the house.”
“Bad business, that,” Cook said, “but London is the place to try such a scheme. Houses come dear here, and there aren’t enough of them for all who need shelter.”
Matilda, clearly, was not shocked by Mrs. Winklebleck’s suggestion. “Harry attempted something like that once. I wasn’t supposed to know about it, but I overheard him berating a… a colleague for bungling some bit of deception. Nobody is to risk injury or worse over this situation, but something is afoot, something unsavory, and I would appreciate your assistance getting to the bottom of it.”
“MacPherson used to make up the assignment schedule for picket duty,” MacIvey said. “We know how to take a gander without drawing notice.”
“In twos, then,” MacPherson said. “Every ninety minutes? That’s once a night for each of us if we start at half past ten in the evening and work in pairs. The crossing sweepers generally work until ten-ish, and Charles will know who minds the corner nearest the house.”
