Emilie's back straightened. She was perfectly prepared to make allowances for the duke's misfortunes, which might make anyone hard and abrupt, and for the subservient relationship she bore to him. Remember, Miss Dingleby had said, schooling the three sisters in Olympia's attic last week, that you are not princesses anymore. You are commoners. You are employed to perform tasks to your superior's satisfaction. You will be subject to his demands and his unvarnished opinions, and you must submit to them. Emilie had repeated those words to herself last night and again this morning, as she attached her whiskers to the sides of her face with the special glue Miss Dingleby had given her.
You must submit to him.
Still, she didn't have to enjoy it.
"There is one thing, sir," Emilie said stiffly.
"Yes?"
"Apart from my duties, may I consider my time my own?"
Ashland fingered his pen. "I suppose so."
"I may, for example, venture into the village from time to time?"
"As you wish. I regret there is not more to entertain you." Ashland's voice grew a touch silkier, a touch more pointed.
The blood began to simmer in Emilie's ears. "As for entertainment, I require very little, sir, other than a book. But I do have affairs of my own, which require my attention from time to time." She stood and stared down at Ashland's white head. "If you will excuse me, I believe I shall begin work at once."
"Admirable, Mr. Grimsby. Good morning." Ashland returned his attention to the desk before him.
The scratch of pen against paper dismissed her.
FOUR
Frederick Russell, Lord Silverton, sauntered into the schoolroom at half past ten o'clock, dressed for riding. "What ho," he said, flinging his scarlet jacket on a nearby chair. "You're up early, Grimsby."
Emilie removed her spectacles, wiped them, replaced them on her nose. She took out her pocket watch and tilted it toward the window. "It is half past ten o'clock, your lordship. Your lessons began at nine. I regret you have missed them all."
Freddie's eyes popped wide behind his own spectacles. His hair was askew, clearly unbrushed, and the bones of his thin shoulders propped up his white shirt like tent poles. "I beg your pardon?"
Emilie slid her watch back into place. "Have you broken fast, sir? Before we begin each morning, I require you to have eaten. One cannot properly concentrate on an empty stomach."
"I say, Grimsby . . ."
"Have you, sir? Eaten?"
"Why, yes, but . . ."
"Then sit down and we will discuss your plan of study. I understand you drink coffee. I have instructed Mrs. Needle to have a tray sent up at eleven. And Lord Silverton?"
Freddie slumped into the chair. "Yes, Grimsby?"
"It is Mr. Grimsby. Please put on your coat and fasten your necktie properly."
"Dash it, Grimsby . . ."
"Dash it, Mr. Grimsby."
"Dash it all, Mr. Grimsby," Freddie said, but he reached for his coat.
By the time the coffee arrived at exactly eleven o'clock, borne on a silver tray by a simpering Lucy, Emilie had confirmed what she already suspected. Lord Silverton was clever, brilliant really, quick to grasp ideas and connect them with one another. He was also undisciplined, studying what he enjoyed with obsessive fervor and avoiding what he did not. He did his reading at night-into the morning, if absorbed-and took no notes. If a concept proved particularly difficult or unruly, he moved on to the next.
In short, his examiners would shred him to pieces.
"Your examiners will shred you to pieces, your lordship," Emilie said. "Thank you, Lucy. You may go."
Freddie leaned back in his chair and pushed a hand through his hair. His eyes wandered to Lucy's departing derriere. "Rubbish. I daresay they'll all be sleeping in their chairs."
He was probably quite right, but Emilie knew better than to agree. "Your Greek is not unworthy, but your Latin is execrable."
"My mathematics, however, are excellent." He reached for the coffeepot and filled his cup to the brim. "Coffee?"
Emilie eyed the black liquid with suspicion. "Perhaps a little."
He filled the other cup and picked up the cream pot. "That's how I win at cards, you know. Mathematics." He tapped his temple with a teaspoon. "I keep track of what's played, calculate probabilities. Easy enough, once you have the knack."
"But not without risk. You must have known they'd think you were cheating." Emilie added a careful splash of cream and a lump of sugar. She sniffed the results hesitantly. It did smell rather nice. Earthy, rich.
"Go on. It doesn't bite. Unless you take it black, of course, as Pater does. Ah, that's the stuff. Particularly handsome when one's been up late."
Emilie sipped and shuddered. "He drinks this black? With nothing at all?"
"He's the do-or-die sort, you know. He probably thinks it's dishonorable to add cream. Muddying the purity of the coffee or some such. Is that lemon cake?" Freddie stretched one gangly arm over the tray and snatched the cake.
"Plate and napkin to your left, Lord Silverton."
"Oh, right. He's not a bad sort, Pater," Freddie said, somewhat muffled by cake, "but he's rather implacable. Take his face, for example."
Emilie dabbed her mouth, remembered herself, and wiped with gusto. "What about his face?"
"Ha-ha. What splendid manners you've got, Grimsby. Mr. Grimsby, that is." He winked. "I mean, of course, that hideous mug of Pater's, the one that makes children scream in terror and angels faint away. For twelve years now, since he returned home from whatever godforsaken adventure blew his face apart and took his hand for good measure, he hasn't left Yorkshire, hasn't received visitors, hasn't attended a single event of a social nature. And do you know why?"
"It's no business of mine, your lordship," said Emilie, ears straining for more.
"Of course it's not, but I'll bet you're desperate to know, aren't you? You might think it's pride-that's what I used to think, and I daresay that's something to do with it. But as time dragged on, and I began to acquire a bit of wisdom"-here Freddie gave a worldly sixteen-year-old shrug-"I began to realize it was nothing more than sheer bullheaded stubbornness. He'd begun by not going out, and by God he wasn't going to change his mind midstream. And then my mother bolted . . ."
"Lord Silverton, really. These are hardly confidences for a stranger." Emilie ventured another sip of coffee. How strange; she was feeling rather dizzy.
"Rot. Someone's got to tell you, so you don't go about making awkward remarks. Nobody likes an awkward remark, Mr. Grimsby." Freddie grinned. "I was only four years old at the time, so I hardly remember anything, only that she was quite remarkably beautiful. Or perhaps I don't even remember that; it's just what people have said. Oh, the duchess, she was beautiful, she was legendary. Well, they put it about that she'd gone abroad for her health, but the fact is she bolted, pure and simple. And if there were any possibility of changing Pater's mind about entering society again, it died right there. Cake?"
"No, thank you." Emilie set her cup aside. The clouds had blown in, deadening the sunlight that had spilled so cheerfully through the window at nine o'clock, and the room was turning chilly. She rose and went to the coal scuttle. Clearly the schoolroom was not in much use. The lemony scent of a recent scrubbing could not quite disguise the mustiness, the old-wood smell of a space unaccustomed to human habitation. "She is still alive, however?" Emilie heard herself ask, as she tossed a few pieces of black coal atop the sizzling pile in the grate.
"Oh, I don't know about that. You'd have to ask Pater." Freddie's voice was thick with additional cake.
"Of course I shan't ask your father. It's not my concern."
"I don't personally care one way or the other, really. I daresay she's not losing sleep over me and Pater, wherever she is."
Emilie sat back down and straightened her lapels. "Then she is a fool."
"I do wonder what she was like, though." Freddie leaned back and drained the last of his coffee. "They were most spectacularly in love at first, I'm told. Honeymoon in Italy, though as I was born nine months after the wedding I don't suppose they saw much of the sights, if you see what I mean. Then Pater's regiment was called up, and that was that."
Beneath her whiskers, Emilie's cheeks burned. "That will be quite enough, your lordship."