The Grand Tour Page 12

  “You are not going anywhere near Sainte Chapelle,” he said firmly as we left the bookstore.

  “If this bookstore is nearby, I most certainly shall,” I replied. “You heard the gentleman; this place has one of the books Papa particularly requested. If you choose not to accompany me, I am sure Lady Sylvia—”

  “Absolutely not,” Thomas said. “You are every bit as bad as James warned me, and he would not approve of this. Not at all.” He paused a moment, thinking. “I’ll take you back to the house, and then you can give me your book list and I’ll retrieve your titles for you,” he offered at last.

  “You may have the list this very moment,” I said, digging it out, “but I do not think it will serve.”

  “Why no—Good God, this is writing?” He peered at Papa’s list. “De No … Nobis, or Novum? Or Nocturne?”

  “Papa’s handwriting is not the best,” I said. “Kate and Aunt Elizabeth are the only other people I know who can make any sense of it.”

  Thomas favored me with an intense glare. “And I don’t suppose you’re willing to write out a clean copy. You want an excuse to go poking about Sainte Chapelle.”

  “I don’t expect there would be much point to it, after you and James examined everything so thoroughly,” I said sweetly. “Now, are we going on to the Rue de Rivoli, or shall we finish our ride? I’m sure Kate and Lady Sylvia will be happy—”

  “You are not dragging Kate anywhere near the Île de la Cité, ” Thomas said flatly. “Not that dragging would be necessary; she’s as bad as you are. Very well, we’ll find this bookstore and get your father his books. How I’m going to explain this to James …”

  “I’ll explain it to him myself,” I said. Thomas only rolled his eyes.

  We turned our horses’ heads toward the river. Thomas sulked the entire way, and left it to me to locate the bookshop. Fortunately, the proprietor’s directions were quite clear, and for once someone was correct in saying a place was easy to find. It was much the same as the first in appearance, except that it had more custom. As we entered, I heard the bookseller speaking to someone near the far wall.

  “Monsieur, I have said I have only Volume IV of the Anciennes Pratiques; I cannot magic the books out of thin air. If you wish to buy Volume IV, you may do so, but more than that, I cannot sell you.”

  “That is not adequate,” said an unpleasantly familiar man’s voice.

  “If he doesn’t have them, he doesn’t have them,” a younger voice said. “Don’t make a fuss, Harry.”

  Although the speakers were hidden by the rows of bookcases, I was quite sure it was young Theodore Daventer and his oily tutor, whom James and I had met at the Temple of Minerva Victrix. Thomas had stopped in the doorway, still frowning ferociously. I gave him a reassuring nod and started forward.

  “I sent a note around requesting the Anciennes Pratiques,” the tutor replied. “I did not ask for Volume IV alone. If he does not have the set for sale, he should not have answered.”

  I came around the end of the bookcases, and the first thing I saw was Theodore Daventer, looking acutely uncomfortable. The tutor, by contrast, seemed to be positively reveling in the prospect of making as much fuss as possible. I smiled at Theodore and pretended not to notice the tutor or the distressed bookseller.

  “Mr. Daventer!” I said. “How nice to run into you again.”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Tarleton,” said Theodore Daventer, for of course it was him. “And Mr.—um.” He looked over my shoulder uncertainly.

  Thomas’s frown could make anyone uncertain. I turned. “Lord Schofield, may I present Theodore Daventer?” I said. “And—”

  “Harry Strangle,” Thomas said in a soft, dangerous voice. “What are you doing in Paris?”

  The tutor’s face went white. He took a step backward, stumbled, took another step, then turned and fled. Thomas surged after him, pushing past the shopkeeper and Theodore and knocking over a stack of books in his haste. The shopkeeper’s cry of distress did not slow him down in the least, but the overturned books did—enough to allow the tutor to dodge around the bookshelves and race for the door. Thomas followed.

  “What is that about?” Theodore demanded.

  “I am not perfectly sure,” I replied, not altogether truthfully. Kate had told me a good deal about Mr. Strangle in the letters she wrote during her London Season. In addition to his disagreeable personality, he had been in league with Sir Hilary Bedrick’s colleague Miranda—more than sufficient reason for Thomas to wish to cross-question him regarding Sir Hilary’s recent demise. “Perhaps you should ask your tutor when next you see him.”

  Theodore looked down. “I suppose.”

  “I take it Mr.—Strangle?—prefers not to confide in his students,” I said. “I believe it’s not uncommon behavior for tutors.”

  “It’s not that,” Theodore said. He sounded just like my brother, Oliver, and I gave him my best encouraging smile. “It’s just—I don’t think my father would—Even if Uncle did recommend—I—I don’t think I like Mr. Strangle very much. And he doesn’t know nearly as much history as he pretends. His lessons are much too easy.”

  I blinked. Oliver and his friends did a good deal of complaining about their tutors while we were all growing up, but I had never heard any of them grumble about lessons being too easy.

  My surprise must have shown more than I intended, because Theodore blushed slightly and waved at the bookcases. “I suppose it’s well enough for the other fellows, but—well, you heard him going on about the Anciennes Pratiques.”

  “He did seem quite set on getting hold of it,” I said carefully.

  “Yes, he wants me to read it.” Theodore snorted. “I tried to tell him, I’ve already read it. Well, looked at it, enough to see that it’s all secondary and tertiary sources strung together with a lot of metaphysical nonsense. But he won’t listen. The only worthwhile reading he’s given me is Monsieur Montier’s monograph on the history of the Île de la Cité. And his ‘practical applications’ aren’t teaching us anything, even if we do get to see—” He stopped short and reddened, from which I assumed he had been about to say something completely unsuitable for a lady’s ears.

  Despite the brevity of my acquaintance with Mr. Strangle, it did not surprise me in the least that he would encourage his pupils in such a fashion. To avoid embarrassing Theodore further, I turned to the shopkeeper and inquired about the books Papa had requested. He was evidently a trifle deaf, for he had some trouble in understanding me, but Theodore was of considerable help in making him understand my wishes. The man did not have quite everything Papa wanted, but I crossed several more items off the list.

  “Thank you,” I said to Theodore when the shopkeeper had gone off to collect the titles I required. “My father will be so pleased.”

  “I am happy to have been of service,” he said with a formal little half bow.

  “Will you be in Paris long?” I said. “I’m sure my husband would be as delighted to see you again as I am.”

  “Only a few more days,” he said. “Harry and I are heading east.” He scowled. “I wish the other fellows were staying with us, but there’s been some mix-up or other, so it’ll just be the two of us for a while. My uncle is meeting us somewhere along the way. Milan, I think.”

  “What a pity,” I said. “James will be sorry to miss you. But perhaps he could stop by your lodgings tomorrow, before you leave?”

  Theodore brightened at the prospect, and gave me his direction, which was what I had wanted all along. I arranged for the delivery of my purchases, made my adieux, and left the shop, wondering what I would do if Thomas did not turn up soon. But he had arrived, apparently, only a moment before I did. His cravat had been somewhat disarranged by his exertions, and he looked quite grim.

  “He got away,” he said without preamble. “It’s quite clear that he’s been here some time; he knows the streets—especially the alleys—in this part of town much too well.”

  “That’s a pity,” I said as he
threw me into the saddle. “Still, I expect you and James can catch up with him at the Pont du Gard Auberge tonight or tomorrow.”

  Thomas flipped the horse boy a franc, mounted, and looked at me with narrowed eyes. “Indeed? And why would you think that?”

  “I asked young Mr. Daventer for his direction,” I said. “So that James can call on him. And since Mr. Strangle is apparently bear-leading the unfortunate boy, I presume they are both to be found in the same lodgings. You’ll have to go tomorrow, though; they’re leaving Paris in a few days, Theodore says.”

  “Theodore seems to have been remarkably forthcoming.”

  “Theodore Daventer is a pleasant, studious young man who deserves much better than to have that dreadful man as a tutor,” I said. “I can’t imagine what his father was thinking. Though perhaps he was not in a position to turn off a man recommended by Theodore’s uncle.”

  “You have been busy,” Thomas said. “Very well; let us go and inform James of the arrangements you have made for his time tomorrow.”

  Unfortunately, by the time James and Thomas paid their call, Mr. Strangle and Theodore had departed. They cross-questioned the servants, who said that Mr. Strangle and his charge had left the city. James was willing to believe them, but Thomas insisted on continuing the investigation in the hopes of at least discovering their destination, if they had indeed left Paris.

  From the commonplace book of Lady Schofield

  5 September 1817

  Paris

  At Lady Sylvia’s house

  N.B. No pomegranates or figs. T. hates them. T. likes apricots and raspberries. Also marrons glacés.

  6 September 1817

  Paris

  At Lady Sylvia’s house

  This morning Thomas said, “I like this chaise longue.” He had been reading bits of the news aloud to me while I answered letters. “Let’s purchase one for your boudoir at home.”

  “I like it, too.” I could not help but admire the picture he made, stretched the length of chaise longue with his nose in one of the many gazettes and journals he’d accumulated around him. “Shall I truly have a boudoir when I live in your house?”

  Thomas didn’t look up from his reading. “Oh, I insist. I had no idea what I was missing, staying out of boudoirs. You shall have the boudoir of your dreams. Mine, too, for that matter. I quite like it here, watching you pull out your hairpins while you compose your missives.”

  “You’d pull more than hairpins over this one. It’s to Aunt Charlotte.”

  Thomas shuddered elaborately and kept on reading the newspaper.

  I thought it over. “I never dreamt I’d have a boudoir. It seems unlikely somehow, after all those years when my great ambition was not to share a room with Georgy.”

  The paper rattled as Thomas turned the page. “Lord, I don’t wonder. Share your room, share any little possession she fancied, from the sound of it.”

  “That was at its worst when she was gaming. I’m sure she’ll grow out of it, now we know she’s taken after Grandfather. She’s not to be permitted any gambling at all. She was always most generous with her own things before.” In an effort to be fair, I added, “To do her justice, Georgy has many fine qualities. I was ill-situated to appreciate them sometimes, that’s all.”

  “I suppose.” Thomas’s voice had taken on a preoccupied tone, a distinct note of inattention.

  To test my analysis, I asked, “What color is my boudoir to be?”

  Thomas turned the page. “Any color you please, my sweet.”

  Of all the absurd terms of endearment that Thomas employs, perhaps my sweet is the one I care for the least. I waited until I was perfectly certain he’d grown absorbed in his reading. “Puce, then. It’s settled.”

  In a distant voice, Thomas replied, “I said any color and of course I meant it. Whatever you like, Kate.” Then, in his usual crisp tone, he added, “You do realize your cousin will say puce makes you look quite twenty years older? Distinctly washed out? Perhaps even pulled down?”

  “I was sure you had stopped listening.”

  No trace of absentmindedness lingered in Thomas’s voice. He was all virtue and vigilance. “I hope I know better than that, now that I am an old married man. I hope I am awake to the perils of not listening to remarks intended to be provoking, no matter how artfully sweet the voice that utters them.”

  “You are a married man, aren’t you?” I marveled all over again at this phenomenon. Thomas, a married man. And married to me at that. Incredible. “I am a married woman. How very odd.”

  Thomas dropped his newspaper, sprang up from the chaise longue, and came to stand behind me, his hands warm on my shoulders. “How fortunate it is we are married to each other. I couldn’t bear it otherwise.”

  I tipped my head back to look up at him as I covered his hands with mine. “Nor could I.” Aunt Charlotte’s letter went unanswered that day. But it went unanswered for excellent reasons.

  From the deposition of Mrs. James Tarleton, &c.

  James and Thomas spent most of a week attempting to discover Mr. Strangle’s whereabouts. It reached the point where Kate and I hardly ever saw either of them. I was, consequently, rather surprised when Kate and I returned from shopping to discover the pair of them ensconced in the sitting room with a lovely woman of perhaps twenty-five. Her walking-dress was plainly several seasons old, and of only middle quality even then, though her spencer had been turned and retrimmed with cheap braid in a creditable attempt to bring it up to the current mode. Her black hair had been carefully dressed in the very latest fashion, and she seemed a trifle flushed.

  “Thomas?” Kate said uncertainly as we paused in the doorway.

  “Ah, come in, Kate,” Thomas said. “Madame Walker was just leaving.”

  But for the torrent of impassioned French that erupted from the visitor, I might have thought that I had imagined the faint emphasis Thomas put on the word Madame. She spoke very rapidly, but I could make out the words “ responsabilité,” “respectable,” and “acte de mariage” as she jerked at the knotted strings of her reticule.

  “Yes, yes,” James said. He sounded rather grim. “Come along.”

  “One moment,” I said. “What is this about?”

  “Nothing,” James said in the unconvincing tone he uses when he thinks I ought not to be involved in something. Since he is invariably wrong in this regard, I persisted.

  “Madame, if you would slow down a little—”

  “I speak the English very well,” the woman replied. “And I am a respectable person, me; I have my acte de mariage.” She pulled a paper from her reticule and waved it at me, and I realized she meant her marriage lines.

  “I’m sure you do,” James said even more grimly. “Cecy, if you will just—”

  “Madame Walker?” Kate said. “But surely you are French?”

  “My husband was of the English,” the woman said with dignity. “He was killed at Waterloo, and his family did not want to have to do with a French person. So I am in Paris.”

  “But why are you here?” I said. “James, was this Walker one of your army friends?”

  “No,” James said. “Cecy—”

  “I came because of Monsieur Strangle,” Madame Walker informed us.

  “Mr. Strangle?” I said.

  James rolled his eyes. “That’s done it.”

  “What have you to do with Mr. Strangle?” Kate asked.

  Madame Walker shifted uncomfortably. “I have nothing to do with him. Only, it is very hard to feed un bébé when one has no money, and one must be practical, no?” She glanced at James and then down at the document she clutched so tightly.

  “You have a baby?” I said. “But if your husband died at Waterloo—”

  “Annalise is four years old,” Madame Walker said proudly. “She is at a convent school in the Loire Valley. They are very understanding, but one must pay something.”

  “But then why did you come here?” Kate asked.

  “I heard the talk, t
hat Milord and Monsieur were trying to find Monsieur Strangle,” Madame Walker said simply. “I thought perhaps they would pay a few francs for what I knew.”

  “And what do you know?” Kate said, holding her eyes.

  “That he has left Paris with the young gentleman,” Madame replied, “to complete their circle of Europe.”

  “The Grand Tour, yes, we’d more or less come to that conclusion ourselves,” James said.

  Madame Walker shrugged. “I do not think, me, that it was any such thing. For the English do not make so much of a mystery when they come to see the statues and the paintings and the buildings in Paris.”

  “What mystery?” I asked.

  Madame hesitated and glanced at James and Thomas again. Then her shoulders slumped. “I do not entirely know,” she confessed. “But he made a great show of not allowing me to see his visitors, which was entirely foolish since I usually saw them in the street outside.”

  “Visitors?” Thomas said. He and James exchanged looks. “The concierge said nothing about visitors.”

  “But I have told you, Monsieur Strangle was very secret about them!” Madame said. “Even the one who was, I think, only un commerçant come to collect some bills. I know les commerçants, ” she added darkly. “It was only the small gentleman who was truly important. I myself only saw him once. Monsieur Strangle, he pretended that the small gentleman would have to approve his hiring me, though I am quite certain that he never said anything about me to him at all.”

  “Mr. Strangle wanted to hire you?” I said, frowning.

  James made a choking noise. Madame Walker drew herself up indignantly. “He tried, but I am not like that other woman who visited him. I am a respectable person, me. Only—” She looked down suddenly. “Only I did not tell him so all at once, you understand, because he would sometimes buy the dinner. Sometimes I thought, perhaps, for Annalise’s sake … But he was so, so—” She waved her hands expressively and shuddered.