Lady Osbaldestone’s Plum Puddings: Lady Osbaldestone’s Christmas Chronicles Volume 3

by Stephanie Laurens

  Perfectly satisfied with the results of her interrogation and very ready to shift tacks, the better to avoid further unsettling Honor, Therese smiled benignly. “No, you didn’t. Do tell.”

  Indeed, Therese couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate distraction. She wasn’t at all averse to discussing babies, especially in the company of a young lady who, in Therese’s opinion, ought to be thinking along similar lines. Being the amanuensis of an Oxford professor was laudable as far as it went, but in this instance, Therese now felt comfortable in concluding that Honor Webster remaining as nothing more than that would be a waste of a promising life.

  Therese did her part to encourage the conversation into wider spheres, allowing Honor to relax once more. Eventually leaving the other ladies to keep the conversational ball rolling, Therese reviewed the challenge before her. Should she promote a romance between Honor Webster and Callum Goodrich?

  Such a connection would be perfectly acceptable to both families and society at large assuming Callum wasn’t up to no good—that his aim in concealing his full name wasn’t something nefarious. Given he was a Goodrich and all members of that family were universally acknowledged as honorable to the back teeth, Therese felt reasonably confident that Callum’s reason for withholding his name would prove justified.

  She just needed to learn what that reason was.

  Consequently, over the dinner table, she turned her sights on Hildebrand Webster. She’d recalled that Callum Goodrich had been a highly regarded student at Oxford and, as it seemed his interest lay in ancient history…perhaps the reason for Callum hiding his true identity while in Little Moseley was staring her in the face.

  Over the soup course, she allowed the conversation to drift where it would. Having cut her eyeteeth in the hothouse of the ton, at formal dinners where one conversed only with those on either side, she appreciated the more relaxed ambiance of country dinners such as this, where speaking across the table was not just accepted but embraced.

  After the main course was served and the company had had a chance to savor the roast spatchcocks, Therese caught the professor’s eye. “Tell me, Professor, do you spend much time teaching, or is research your principal focus?”

  Webster swallowed and replied, “On occasion, I’m delegated to lecture to our undergraduates, but these days, I spend more time mentoring graduate students. I suppose”—he glanced at Honor as if seeking confirmation—“I would spend roughly half my time with students of one level or another and the rest on research.”

  Honor smiled. “More like a quarter of your time with students and three-quarters on research.”

  The professor looked faintly surprised, but then said to Therese, “She’s probably right.”

  “I see.” Therese smiled encouragingly. “And have you come across any particularly promising students over recent years?”

  The professor’s gaze grew distant, then he pulled a face and shrugged, as if to imply that he couldn’t think of any.

  At the head of the table, Reverend Colebatch leaned forward. “What about that fellow Goodrich, Hildebrand? You held high hopes of him.”

  Instantly, a choleric flush suffused the professor’s face. He set down his knife and fork and almost venomously growled, “Don’t mention the name of that traitor to me.”

  Therese blinked and widened her eyes. “Traitor?”

  That was all the encouragement the plainly aggrieved professor required to launch into a diatribe over what he labeled the defection of his once-star pupil to the shady side of the antiquities trade. “If he gets his hands on artifacts, he sells them! I was never more deceived in my entire life.”

  Frowning, the major ventured, “I take it he does so for personal gain?”

  “What else?” The professor flung up his hands. “He’s clever and astute, and God forgive me, I trained him. He finds antiquities, seizes them, and seeks out the highest bidder among the wealthy collectors. He’s a traitor to the scholarly cause—there’s no other way to describe him.”

  Therese was utterly taken aback. Could she have misread the situation? Was Callum Goodrich the exception that proved the rule of his family’s honor?

  Was he making up to Honor in order to inveigle details of the Little Moseley discovery from her?

  But no—that didn’t ring true. Honor wasn’t directly involved in the search, and Therese knew what she’d sensed burgeoning between the pair. She hadn’t been wrong about that.

  Yet could Callum Goodrich be a villain in disguise? Was he helping her grandchildren and Henry and his friends with their search purely so he could step in at the last minute and seize the find and make off with it?

  To Therese, that didn’t ring true, either, but she had to own that such a scenario was possible.

  Throughout the rest of the evening, she hid her troubled state; she was more than capable of maintaining a calmly serene façade in far more demanding circumstances.

  But she could now see that Callum Goodrich might have a much stronger motive for hiding his identity than simply to avoid the professor.

  To her mind, Callum Goodrich had a very large question mark hanging over his head—and he was here, in Little Moseley, consorting with her grandchildren, involving himself in the ongoing search for the source of the Roman coins, and intentionally or otherwise, inducing Honor Webster to fall in love with him.

  It was, Therese acknowledged, time she took matters in hand.

  At nine o’clock the following morning, Therese called her coachman-cum-groom, John Simms, to her private parlor and handed him a sealed missive. “Please convey that to Mr. Harris, Simms. He’s staying in the northernmost cottage opposite Swindon Hall. Make sure you place it in his hand.”

  “Aye, ma’am.” Simms took the note. “Will there be a reply?”

  “It’s a summons, so I expect he’ll return with you.”

  “Very good, ma’am.” Simms bowed and left.

  Therese stared at the closed door for a full minute, then huffed and turned back to her correspondence.

  As she’d expected, half an hour later, Crimmins knocked and announced that Mr. Harris had arrived.

  “Please show him into the drawing room, Crimmins. I’ll join him in a moment.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She took her time tidying away her writing implements, then rose, straightened her skirts and her spine, and walked regally out of the parlor, across the front hall, and into the drawing room.

  Crimmins, who had opened the drawing room door for her, closed it behind her.

  Therese wasn’t surprised to find Callum pacing rather nervously before the fire. On sighting her, he stopped and tried to assemble a suitable expression, but he clearly couldn’t decide how contrite he needed to be and ended up looking faintly sheepish.

  Therese walked to her favorite armchair and waved Callum to its mate. “Please, sit down.”

  He hesitated, then obeyed. However, he didn’t relax in the chair but sat forward, clasping his hands between his knees.

  Therese studied him for several seconds while he watched her through wary, mid-blue eyes.

  The professor’s claim that Callum sold artifacts to wealthy collectors had jarred loose several until-then-disjointed facts from Therese’s extensive memory, and they, in turn, had led to other connections, associations, and realizations. The picture she now had in her mind of Callum Harris Goodrich and his deeds—based on information from people whose opinions she trusted—incorporated the professor’s assertions, yet facts, nuances, and subtleties the professor hadn’t mentioned colored Callum in a very different light, at least from society’s perspective.

  Holding Callum’s gaze, she arched a brow. “Well, Mr. Harris—or should I say, Mr. Goodrich?”

  He sighed and hung his head. “You know.”

  “Of course I know. How many Callum Harrises—Goodrich or otherwise—graduating from Oxford with a deep and ongoing interest in antiquities could there be?”

  “If it wasn’t for you, no one here
would guess.”

  She tipped her head. “True. But it wasn’t a guess on my part—I do know quite a lot about you. So”—she settled herself in her armchair and looked at him expectantly—“I now want to know why you are here—what brought you to Little Moseley and why you’ve remained.”

  Callum held her gaze for a full minute, plainly ordering his arguments, then said, “I came here because I first went to Oxford. I was on my way to Guisborough and stopped in to meet with several friends.”

  Therese arched a brow. “Including two of the curators of the Ashmolean Museum?”

  He blinked, then inclined his head. “Indeed. We were in college together.” He blinked again, amazed, and stared at her. “How did you know I was meeting two curators?”

  “That,” she admitted, “was a guess. One of them is one of my godsons. He’s mentioned a treasure hunter who has been assisting in expanding the museum’s collections.”

  He grimaced. “They insist on calling me that—I wish they wouldn’t.”

  “So you met with your friends the curators, and…?”

  He refocused. “Our meeting was purely touching base, but later, I thought…” His gaze drifted to the window beyond Therese, and he drew in a breath and let it out on a sigh. “Well, it was the festive season, the season of goodwill, and I thought it was time to see if Webster had calmed down enough to hear me out. But he wasn’t there. The housekeeper told me he’d upped stakes and left in a rush, and she gave me the Colebatches’ address.”

  Callum returned his gaze to Therese’s face. “That’s what brought me to Little Moseley. If Webster left in a rush like that, it could only mean he’d learned of some find. So I came to see what it was.”

  Therese nodded. She swiftly debated how to phrase her next question. “I’ve heard that you have been engaged in selling artifacts you’ve found to wealthy collectors. Explain to me how that works.”

  He huffed cynically. “You’ve been speaking with Webster. He’s never got beyond that step—every time I try to explain what comes next, he erupts and refuses to hear me out.”

  “I’m listening.”

  He regarded her as if assessing the truth of that statement, then nodded and went on, “Artifacts—treasures of whatever sort—are valuable in many ways. Not just in their monetary worth but in their inherent ability to teach us of the past and also to inspire artists, scientists, and the like. In my view”—his jaw hardened—“such valuable artifacts belong in museums, where the greatest number of people can view, study, and appreciate them. That’s what I work toward—what I’ve always worked toward. But the critical point to understand is that it’s not simply a matter of finding a treasure and handing it over to a museum. Taking care of treasures and properly displaying them costs money, and in many instances, our museums lack appropriate funds. So without a sum of modern-day cash going to the museum along with a major treasure, the museum is forced to hide the treasure away.”

  Callum paused and met Therese’s eyes. “I saw a way around that problem. You know my family—my background, the circle into which I was born. I had the connections—I knew whom to approach, and they would agree to speak with me. I had the entrée to wealthy, aristocratic collectors, and I knew which of them were more interested in using their collections to make a name for themselves, rather than hiding their acquisitions away from all others. I sell only to those wealthy, well-born collectors who see acquiring treasures in their chosen fields as part of their legacy to future generations and are therefore more than happy to see their names on plaques beside displays on show to the wider public.”

  Therese felt thoroughly vindicated—and not a little impressed. “So you find treasures.”

  He dipped his head in agreement. “Sometimes, on commission.”

  “And once you’ve found one, you sell it to a wealthy collector with the proviso…?”

  “With the proviso that they gift—or at the very least, permanently loan—the treasure to an appropriate museum. I then hand eighty percent of the sale price to the museum to fund the care and display of the antiquity, and I keep the other twenty percent to both live on and fund my next expedition.”

  Therese considered him, then stated, “That’s quite ingenious. I thoroughly approve.”

  His features relaxed, and he muttered, “Thank God for that.”

  She smiled. “Indeed. As it happens, I had heard something of your efforts from Lord Longridge—you recently brought back a Grecian vase for him, I believe?”

  Callum nodded. “It’s now gracing the Acropolis display in the British Museum.”

  “Very well. With your bona fides established, you may now explain to me the professor’s stance.”

  He pressed his lips together and, after a moment, said, “You should ask him.”

  “But I’m asking you, and I would appreciate having your view.”

  He hesitated, then, plainly reluctant, said, “The professor holds that all treasures—for want of a better word—belong in the learned colleges, available only to dons and professors and possibly selected students to study. As I’m sure you know, that’s the way it’s been for decades, possibly centuries. The colleges sometimes loan items to the museums for display, but many of the best and, archeologically speaking, most important pieces remain hidden away, under lock and key, and are never seen by the public.” He fell silent, then shifted and said, “That’s really all I can say.”

  She inclined her head in acceptance; she had to give him credit for refusing to say a word against his erstwhile mentor. “How long were you with the professor?”

  “About seven years in all—through my undergraduate and graduate studies, and after that, I was his assistant for several years, until just over four years ago.” He glanced down at his clasped hands. “We first argued about where an Egyptian urn should go—Webster got his way, of course, and it’s now buried in the cellars of Brentmore College, and no one other than him and his colleagues can gain access. Not even the Ashmolean curators have been able to view it—at Webster’s behest, the dean insists it’s too precious for general viewing and can only be studied by those in the college.” He sounded disgusted.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but under your system of placing treasures in museums, scholars like Professor Webster can still gain access for study, can they not?”

  “Yes—by arrangement with the museum. It’s all quite straightforward.” He paused, then went on, “Subsequently, while on a break—my first solo excursion—I discovered a bronze figurine with links to Stonehenge. When I refused to hand it over to Brentmore, as Webster assumed I would, he saw red.”

  “I see.” Indeed, she felt confident she now saw it all. Professor Webster’s favored path might have been the one that had existed for centuries, but the course espoused by Callum Goodrich was undoubtedly the way of the future. Sadly, it appeared Professor Webster was too set in his ways to accept that.

  Therese considered, then fixed Callum with a direct look. “Should our search for the source of the three Roman coins bear fruit and we discover something that qualifies as a treasure—a Roman hoard, for example—assuming you were given the chance to place the artifacts with a collector, who would you approach?”

  Immediately, he replied, “Lord Lovett or Lord Lynley.” He tipped his head consideringly. “Or possibly both, depending on the size and composition of the hoard.”

  Therese knew both gentlemen. Each commanded significant wealth and was an avid collector of coins and ancient gold and silver artifacts.

  “And as we’re talking of Roman artifacts, I would stipulate the Ashmolean as the museum to which the treasure should be gifted.” Callum smiled faintly at Therese. “I happen to know that the curators there are looking to expand their Roman collection.”

  Therese allowed her lips to curve. “That sounds a wise and sensible plan.”

  Callum gazed at her, and his smile faded. “So what do you intend to do now?”

  An excellent question. Sobering as well, Therese studied
him; he bore her scrutiny without flinching. Eventually, she nodded, more to herself than him. “I won’t reveal what I know of you, at least not yet. However”—she held up a finger and forced her expression into stern lines—“regardless of the outcome of our hunt for a Roman hoard, you must promise to reveal your true name and your connection to the professor to Miss Webster by…” She paused and counted the days, then said, “The evening of Monday next—the twenty-first.”

  He frowned. “Why by then?”

  “Because that’s the evening of the carol service, and I and my brood will be departing the village first thing the next morning, and I will not leave while that poor girl is falling in love with you while you’re using an assumed name.”

  Therese felt rather pleased by the stunned look that overtook Callum’s features. After he’d spent several seconds staring mutely at her, his lips formed the words “falling in love,” but no sound came out.

  She struggled to keep her lips set in a severe line and bent a commanding, demanding look on him.

  Eventually, he refocused on her and blinked. Then he straightened, cleared his throat, and inclined his head. His voice sounded slightly strangled as he said, “By the evening of the carol service. You have my word.”

  “Excellent!” Therese beamed at him and rose.

  He got to his feet, still looking as if she’d taken a plank to his head. “I’ll, ah, be on my way, then.”

  She continued to smile as she showed him to the front door.

  Closing it after him, she turned and stated, “And that was an excellent morning’s work.”

  Chapter 6

  Mr. Moody tapped his baton on the top of his music stand. He’d spent the first hour of Saturday’s practice putting the choir through their paces with “The First Nowell,” “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” and “This Endris Night.” Jovially encouraging, he beamed at his choristers. “Now, as we discussed on Thursday, I see no reason not to take advantage of the additional choristers we’ve been blessed with and perform the same duet and solo sections as were sung last year. So many of the congregation have commented on how much they enjoyed ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ especially”—Moody beamed at Melissa and Dagenham—“that I’m sure you won’t want to disappoint them.”