A Gentleman Under the Mistletoe (The Lord Julian Mysteries #7)

Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

“A sleigh handles differently from a wheeled conveyance,” I said, taking up the reins. “For one thing, the sleigh often has no springs.”

“Bouncier?” Atticus asked, climbing in beside me and piling the lap robe over his bony knees.

“Depends on the snow. A sleigh can also be quieter—no jouncing and squeaking, though bells on the harness are common. One generally shares the lap robe, Atticus.”

“One shoulda brought an extra. It’s bleedin’ cold.”

“Language, young man.” I gave Ladon the office to walk on. “In the stable, you can use colorful vocabulary for your own amusement and the entertainment of the grooms. You are not in the stable.”

He sighed mightily. “I’m not in the house. You said manners are for the manor. Make up your mind, guv.”

The complaint was valid. Atticus, as my tiger and sometimes general factotum, occupied an odd position. He was inside staff when I bided anywhere but the Hall, though at the Hall, he was attached to the stable unless the head gardener, housekeeper, butler, or sundry other domestic authorities had need of him.

“Fair point,” I said. “I should have been more clear. Knowing how to express oneself often comes down to the company one keeps rather than the location one occupies.”

“Declan knows all about that. About expressin’ hisself. He knows the Gaelic, and he’s learning Latin. Leander will know the Latin too, and French.”

“Declan knows nothing about how to drive a sleigh.” I handed the reins over, and Atticus sat up straighter. I then whisked the lap robe off his knees and spread it over both of us.

“That’s cheatin’, guv.”

“Mind the horse. He has a harder job with a sleigh, because the vehicle is more likely to slip all over the place. The solution if you get into a slide is often a slight, temporary increase in speed rather than a decrease. Ladon will understand that, and his natural tendency to sluggishness will ensure that he slows down when the going is safer.”

Generally within six paces or less. The old boy was getting on, and his temperament had been notably placid for his entire, shaggy life.

“Can I ask him to trot?”

“Not yet. In weather this cold, he’ll need a little extra time to get his joints limbered up. How are you coming with your reading?”

I put the question to Atticus in part to distract him from the task of driving. Yes, I wanted him to pay attention to the horse, the snowy lane, and any potential hazards, but he was staring at Ladon’s hindquarters with a focus excessive for the task at hand.

“Miss Hyperia has been busy lately. Miss says Lady Kerrick needs some respite, and Leander and Declan need supervision. I do some readin’ betimes. The newspapers predominantly.”

The last word was spoken carefully. A new addition to the word hoard for my trusty little dragon. “Declan and Leander are years your junior and haven’t your inherent common sense.”

“So what does it mean?” Atticus guided the sleigh around the sweeping curve of the drive and between the lime trees half clad in snow. “Flatus-face? Is that dog-Latin?”

“It’s pure rudeness. A flatus is a fart. Using that sort of language around Miss West was gauche in the extreme.”

“Gauche is rude?”

“Gauche is ignorance and rudeness rolled together. From the French for left-handed or awkward.”

“So it counts as both a French word and an English word?”

That mattered because when Atticus could navigate passably in both French and English, I would begin educating him in the use of weapons. As he rattled through his French vocabulary— merci, de rien, bonjour, bon nuit, bon chance , and so forth—I pondered the larger conundrum.

What was I doing putting notions of French and firearms into the head of a lad who’d very likely spend much of his life mucking stalls and grooming muddy equines?

In the alternative, what was I doing , consigning such a bright, canny young fellow to a life of mud and manure, when he was capable of learning foreign languages and would enjoy the process? There was honor and art in tending to horses—great honor and great art, for some—also danger and drudgery.

The third declension had never kicked anybody in the face with an iron-shod hoof. French pronouns weren’t known for biting off fingers.

“Can we trot now, guv?” Atticus asked after steering Ladon through the gateposts. “The longer we’re out in the cold, the more likely we are to get an ague.”

“Who told you that?”

“Aunt Crosby. She said I wasn’t to call her Lady Thomas, because that was formal address, and this was a family gathering.”

But you are not family. I would have expected Aunt Crosby to keep that fact squarely in mind. “Was Leander underfoot at the time?” He was family, albeit on the wrong side of the blanket.

“Leander and I were playing patience, waiting for Declan to finish setting up the Battle of Connor.”

“He does Irish battles too?”

“Edward Bruce was Robert’s brother, so it was a Scottish victory. Edward became high king and won lots of battles.”

“Edward lasted less than three years as king before he was defeated and killed. You may ease Ladon into a trot.”

“Declan knows all about battles. Ladon, trot on!”

Ladon plodded ahead at the same steady trudge.

“Ask nicely twice, then dangle the whip where he can see it.”

Ladon picked up his pace at the sound of my voice, or perhaps his horsey vocabulary included the word whip .

“Declan seems to know Scottish victories,” I observed, “which is a very different thing from knowing Scottish history. You will note his battles all date from centuries ago.”

“How many centuries?”

“Roughly five.”

“Five hundred years?”

“More or less. More recently, Scotland has had a bit of a rougher go, at least from the Scottish perspective.” I did not say that Scotland had been defeated repeatedly by her English neighbors and all attempts at rebellion savagely suppressed. “We’ll soon come to the bridge. A bridge covered with snow and ice will sound and feel different to Ladon than the bare wood variety. You don’t change how you’re driving. Eyes up, hands soft, and—”

“And nose froze.”

“—and steady as she goes. Pettigrew’s is less than a mile beyond the village.”

“Why call on him? Jamison says he’s a grouchy old besom, and we already have a whole broom closet full of those.”

“Her Grace asked me to invite him to join us at the Hall. Jamison should mind his tongue.”

“He should mind his toddies,” Atticus said. “They go down so easy but come at a price.”

That insight qualified as a victory on the road to adulthood if anything did. “Eyes up. The bridge is no reason to pull on the reins or to hold your breath.”

Ladon trundled onto the bridge, a plain plank affair over a glorified ditch that years of storms and snowmelts had turned into a year-round stream running a good six feet below. The horse stopped dead in the middle, the sleigh rocking forward awkwardly.

“He don’t like it,” Atticus said, a thread of nervousness in his words. “Ladon, walk on.”

The horse’s head came up, and he pawed at the snowy planks, which had the effect of sliding the sleigh back a foot.

“Don’t touch the whip,” I said quietly. “Give him a moment to find his bearings.”

“This bridge ain’t got no rails, guv.”

“You remain calm, and he will remain calm.”

Another pawing, followed by an attempt to sniff the ground, but the check rein, intended to prevent grazing in harness, also prevented Ladon from indulging his natural curiosity.

He instead took a step back, which canted the sleigh at an angle.

“I could get out and lead ’im,” Atticus said. “Ladon, walk on.” He clucked to the horse, to no avail.

Two more steps back and the runner of the sleigh would be sticking out over open air. The vehicle was small, which was fortunate, given how narrow the bridge was.

“Ladon,” I called. “Walk on, you silly beast.”

The pawing stopped, then resumed, along with another step back.

“Give me the reins,” I said, taking them from Atticus’s grip. “Out you go. Stroll up to his head, pat him, then saunter along in the direction we’re to travel. Don’t grab his reins or otherwise try to control him. Talk to him so he knows you’re on the move.”

Atticus scrambled down. “Ladon, you picked a rotten time to be contrary. It’s just a stupid old bridge with some stupid old snow on it, and we’re only going a mile beyond the village.” He patted the horse’s shoulder and gave him a scratch on the neck.

“Now walk the rest of the way across the bridge,” I said, “not a care in the world, then wait for us a few yards up the lane.”

Atticus got himself to safety, and all the while, Ladon watched the boy. That same boy had fed Ladon countless treats, had groomed him by the hour, and spent more hours on his back. That boy was a generally benevolent quantity in a large and dodgy world.

“Ladon, walk on,” I said, putting the slightest vibration on the reins.

He sighed and plodded forward. We paused to pick up Atticus and were soon trotting on our way. The whole business had been a two-minute delay on a mundane errand in the middle of a quiet afternoon, but the image of Atticus being dumped over the side of the sleigh, plunging through thin ice into frigid water…

Not to be borne. Not to be remotely imagined. The boy had guarded my honor and my welfare as fiercely as Cerberus had ever guarded Hades’s front door. He mattered to me.

The thought stuck with me all the way to Pettigrew’s front door.

I owed Atticus more than a life being ordered about from one taskmaster to another, a life beyond muck carts and merci . What that life would look like, I did not know, and perhaps it wasn’t entirely for me to say, but the debt had to be honored.

Had to be.

“Lord Julian.” Pettigrew eyed me up and down. “What brings you to my door?” Pettigrew had answered that door himself.

I’d sent Atticus around to the kitchen, and Ladon was enjoying some hay and a bucket of water with the chill taken off. A penny-pincher Pettigrew might be, but he hired only competent grooms.

“I come as an emissary of Her Grace,” I said, feeling foolish standing on the stoop. “I needn’t trouble you for tea, only for a moment of your time.”

He stepped back, and I was reminded of myself when I’d slunk off to London the previous year. My town house had been my covert, and I’d holed up there, prepared to die of regret, resentment, and sadness. Like Pettigrew, I’d let my appearance go—his white hair stuck out on one side, as if he’d not brushed it upon rising—and he’d swaddled himself in a lavender shawl that I suspected had once belonged to his daughter.

His jacket was unbuttoned down half its length, and a fingerless glove peeked out of a pocket. For all his dishevelment, his appearance still had a leonine quality, a fierceness that harked back to handsomer, more vigorous days.

“Fire is lit in the study,” he said, shuffling from the foyer. “Close the door lest you let out all the heat.”

What little heat there was. I could see my breath despite closing the door. I did not remove my coat, nor did he ask me to. I followed him down a corridor characterized by dinginess. Dingy carpet, dingy paintings, dingy windows. How could he stand to live in this gloom, like a rat scurrying around beneath porches and sheds?

“Damned cold,” he said, waving me into a cramped cave of a room redolent of coal smoke. The space was marginally warmer, also cluttered with books, ledgers, newspapers, and pamphlets. A desk sat by the window, equally strewn with documents, the lot topped by a fiddle and bow.

A decanter at low ebb sat on the mantel, along with a glass half empty. Was I the only man not drinking his way through the holidays?

“What has Dorothea put you up to, young man?”

I had taken time to consider strategy, and thus I half dissembled with my reply. “Her Grace is challenged by the presence of Aunt Bertha, Aunt Crosby, and Uncle Terrence at the Hall. They will bide with us through the holidays and possibly beyond.”

“Guests.” Pettigrew spat the word. “Freeloaders, though that lot is well-fixed enough they don’t have to rely on charity.”

“We consider them all family.” Crosby was family by marriage, as was Bertha at some vague remove, while Terrence was not family, but as good as.

“Heard you also acquired a relation in the nursery. Young lad, Lord Harry’s get.”

“You hear correctly. Leander is a son Harry acknowledged in writing. Harry intended to marry the boy’s mother but was called back to Spain before the ceremony could be scheduled.”

Pettigrew barked, which I gathered was as close to an expression of humor as he was capable of. “He dodged off, did our Lord Harry. He was a great one for dodging off. Came by it honestly. Can’t blame him entirely. You’ll do right by the lad?”

Why was that any of Pettigrew’s concern? “We have legally bestowed the Caldicott name upon him, and he will be raised with every advantage we can give him.”

Pettigrew’s rheumy gaze wandered the room, coming to rest on the violin on his desk. “But some advantages he will never enjoy, even if Waltham were to ascend to the throne itself. All you can do is stand by the boy when the insults start. The term ‘polite society’ is often a fine example of irony.”

“How is your mare?” I asked, rather than belabor Society’s many shortcomings or Leander’s illegitimacy.

“Mare? She’s pigheaded, if you’re asking after Una. She’s coming around nonetheless. If we give her an apple mash when we soak her foot, it hides the scent of the vinegar. How did you know she had the thrush?”

“I was in the livery stable when you consulted MacNeil. Blentlinger explained your errand.” The coal smoke fumes were giving me a headache and bothering my eyes. The chimney needed cleaning, clearly, as did the whole house.

“Did you notice the ponies?” Pettigrew pushed some papers around on his desk. “A dapple gray and a bay? MacNeil didn’t know what they were about, taking up a stall and going through stacks of hay. Very few livery customers have need of a pony. Which one is for the boy?”

Both, and what business was this of his? “How do you know either one is intended as a gift for Leander?”

Pettigrew located a pipe, the stem much bitten. “Because the little beasts were being pampered. Both of them brushed to a high shine, not a burr in the mane or a knot in the tail. ‘Bound for the Hall,’ I said to myself. One or both. I know the look of a Christmas pony.”

Because he’d favored his daughter with one, or because he’d procured such a pony himself for the orphan at the Hall? I could not see Pettigrew exercising such largesse toward a boy he’d only spotted a time or two in the churchyard, but Pettigrew had doted on his only child.

And she had been half orphaned from a young age. Interesting. “If you had to choose one of the two ponies for a small boy, which one would you give him?”

Pettigrew rummaged further, opening and closing desk drawers, then peering into the depths of a cabinet. When neither location yielded what he sought, he tore off a page of newspaper and twisted it into a slender spill.

“The tobacco is on the mantel,” I said.

“So it is.” He crossed the room and pinched out enough to fill the bowl of his pipe, then used a nail from his pocket—the one not sporting a fingerless glove—to arrange the tobacco to his liking. “Most would say the dapple gray is the prettier of the two, and that’s true, but pretty isn’t everything. Told my Mandy that over and over. Pretty fades. Pretty can lack bottom. Pretty isn’t brains or heart or common sense. Women think men set too much store by pretty, but the ladies idolize it.”

Quite a diatribe, but then, pipe-smoking seemed to lend itself to philosophy. “You wouldn’t favor the dapple gray?”

“I’m sure the gray is a fine beast, but he’s small. The boy will outgrow him in a year—you Caldicotts run to height—and then you’re left with a creature very few can ride. Your gray will be able to pull a market cart driven by a child, and little else. Go with the bay, if you must choose. Not as flashy, but the better bargain.”

Precisely. “Uncle Terrence would argue for the gray. A boy would cut a dash on an elegant gray.”

“Terrence Tuttleby? That braying sot cares only for fashion and fribbling. What he doesn’t know about horseflesh could fill the Channel at springtide.”

Pettigrew’s observation was interesting for its vehemence. Most of his grumbling was of the chronic, casual variety. Mention of Uncle Terrence had provoked true scorn.

“Terrence would argue that a man’s mount is a fashionable statement.”

“Tutt-Tutt would argue whether a flea can hop farther than a fairy can leap, and he has probably lost that very wager more than once. Your mother must have been in a very charitable mood when she invited him to bide at the Hall.”

“She has also invited Aunt Crosby and Aunt Bertha, and they are already in residence.”

Pettigrew looked up from filling his pipe. “That is a recipe for misrule right there. Tuttleby will harangue the ladies without ceasing about that time Spring Breeze fell at the St. Leger twenty yards shy of the finish line. Tutt-Tutt Twaddle-By will reminisce the ladies daft in a sennight.”

“Mrs. Gwinnett’s toddies aren’t helping.”

Pettigrew passed me his makeshift spill. “Old knees…”

I hunkered to light the paper from the flames on the hearth, then handed it back, a little torch amid the gloom. Pettigrew tended to his pipe and tossed the spill onto the andirons.

“Her Grace means well,” he said, taking a puff. “Mrs. Gwinnett means well, and her toddies are legendary.” Pettigrew began to pace. “Legendary, not to overstate the matter.”

“Uncle Terrence is rather fond of those toddies.”

“Uncle Tiresome. I suppose Dorothea gets dragged into making up the fourth for whist, poor thing. Hardly seems fair. She attempts to be kind to an old reprobate and ends up having to partner him while he tries to cheat—clumsily, I might add.”

If only we had another reprobate… “The holidays are very busy for Her Grace. You are right about that. She tries to do too much. I am inundated with estate business in Waltham’s absence, and the aunties aren’t all that patient with me to begin with.”

“Tuttleby uses up all the patience they have. I suppose the neighborly thing to do is lend a hand.” He sucked on his pipe and released a surprisingly fragrant cloud. Vanilla and cherries.

“Lend a hand? We wouldn’t want to impose, but Her Grace is hoping you’ll at least call from time to time. The aunties would appreciate it, and so would I.”

“I can do better than call for a spot of tea, young man. I can pay a visit .”

I adopted a conflicted expression—hopeful, but duty-bound to demur. “That would be asking too much. An occasional respite from Uncle Terrence’s monologues would gain you the undying gratitude of both aunties, the duchess, and my humble self.” To say nothing of Hyperia, Kerrick, Ginny, and the entire toddy-swilling staff.

“Nonsense. Terrence Tuttleby has made a career out of imposing on his betters, and both Lady Thomas and Bertha Higgins deserve reinforcements. If Tutt-Tutt wants to reminisce about his stupid horse races, I’ll recount every day of my crossing to Canada back in ’83. We wet the sails to catch the wind, and the damned things froze overnight. Never seen the temperature drop that quickly and hope to die without repeating that experience. Nearly sank in the North Atlantic for our cleverness.”

I had heard that tale at least half a dozen times. “You’re sure a short visit wouldn’t be too great an imposition?”

“Never more certain in my long and distinguished life, young man. Tell Her Grace to expect me tomorrow afternoon, but don’t tell Tutt-Tutt or the ladies. I want to see the look on his face when I remind him that Spring Breeze never ran in the St. Leger. He fell in the Oaks. Saw it myself. Shouldn’t have run ’em in the mud like that, but the stewards weren’t about to disappoint the crowd.”

“The Oaks?”

“I’d bet Una on it, and I set great store by that old mare.”

“No wagers, please. That would be taking unfair advantage, what with the toddies.”

Pettigrew blew another cloud. “Penny wagers, then. For the principle of the thing. Miss Bertha would agree with me.”

Miss Bertha? Well, well, well. “We’ll expect you tomorrow, then, and thank you for giving Mama a day to tidy up another guest room. Very thoughtful of you.”

“Ladies.” Pettigrew growled the word. “As delicate as Toledo steel, and they do like to keep us on our toes.”

“I go on my way a happier man for knowing we’ll have fair odds at the whist table tomorrow night. Until we meet again, Pettigrew.”

He saw me to the door, and when I left, he was muttering about the Oaks, and the St. Leger, and Tutt-Tutt-Twaddle-By. The mutter sounded a bit gleeful to my ears, but then, what did I know? I had either just finessed a delicate negotiation or sealed my holiday doom.

Perhaps both.