Karen Harbaugh (7 page)

I pondered this, wanting to find a chink in his logic, but I could not. I sighed. “I suppose you are right. It seems I do
not
know much about society at all. All I know about the world is what I’ve read from books and from Emily Possett. She hears all about the ton, and gossips, you know.”

He shook his head. “Won’t do. Oh, books are well enough—have ‘em at Oxford, you know. In fact I—” He stopped dead and looked at me warily. “And you can’t very well get to know about the world from a dashed gossip!” he continued.

“ ‘In fact you’ what?” I asked, curious.

“Did I say that?” Lord Ashcombe said, looking around as if there had been someone else in the room who could have.

“Yes, silly! Now, what were you going to say?” I teased.

“Nothing important at all.”

“Now, let’s see. It has to do with books. You have them at Oxford.” I glanced mischievously at his harassed face. “In fact you ...” I allowed a look of mock horror to dawn on my face. “Oh, Lord Ashcombe! Could it be ... could it be that you actually . . .
like
books? Could it be that you are even—” I raised my hand to my forehead. “Bookish?” I was well aware that to be studious for a girl was certainly not the thing, but I did not fully realize that this extended to young men as well.

“Well, I—” he began.

“Oh, horror! Alack! Alas! That I have harbored an unfashionably bookish man in our house!” I clutched at my heart as if I were on the verge of palpitations. I received a pillow in my face for my pains. I peered over it at him, laughing.

He was grinning wryly. “Oh, stubble it! If you had been on the town like I have, you’d know it’s not something you’d want bruited about, unless you were looking to be a clergyman for the rest of your life. Which I am not! And it’s not fashionable, for another.”

“I am surprised that should be a consideration with you!” I said scornfully. “What, after all, is wrong about being well read and educated? I don’t scorn to admit it! Why, Mrs. Wollstonecraft said in her book—”

“Nothing wrong with it at all!” he said. “But it doesn’t mean it can’t get you in trouble. Discreet! That’s the word to remember!
Especially
if you have read Mrs. Wollstonecraft. Why, the woman’s a radical! Not saying that she doesn’t make some good points.” He paused thoughtfully here, then shook his head. “But she’s put up any number of people’s backs. You don’t want to pass yourself off to be more than you are—or more than some people think you are. Wrong way to make a point.”

I felt somewhat uncomfortable at that but said:

“Well, I’ll agree with part of what you said, but what should it matter if you show yourself to be better than what some people think you are?”

Lord Ashcombe looked uncomfortable. “Nothing again, if you are discreet about it. It’s vulgar, don’t you know, to trumpet your accomplishments all around town. I’ve said it can get you in trouble, and it can, I know!”

“From experience, no doubt!” I said.

“Yes, dash it!” he exclaimed, goaded. He sighed and looked at me. “I suppose it helps to have a few examples, doesn’t it? It’s really too bad you only have your mother and not a father as well— not,” he said hastily, “that your mama has not done a good job of it.” Lord Ashcombe paused. “You see, I remember everything I read,” he said simply.

I looked at him blankly. “Well, so do most people, I would think.”

He shook his head. “No, what I mean is, I only have to read a thing once, and after I am done, I only have to think of the book and it’s as if the thing were sitting there right before my eyes. It’s all imprinted in here.” He tapped his head.

I sat back in my chair, sniffed the posy he had given me, and looked at him warily. Either, I thought, he was making fun of me or he had something loose in the cockloft. He saw my skeptical look and became affronted.

“Well, I see you don’t believe me.” He looked around the sitting room and spotted a newspaper. “Here, give me that. Now, pick out any article you want, I’ll read it, then repeat everything in it word for word.” He slapped it down on my lap.

I leafed through it, chose an article, and gave the paper back to him, pointing at it.

He wrinkled his nose. “You
would
give me some boring piece about a charity ball.” He scanned it for a minute and gave it back to me.

“That’s all you are going to read of it?” I said, surprised. “You can’t have finished it!”

“I have,” he said shortly, closed his eyes, and recited: “‘The well-known philanthropist Lady Rotheringham gave one of the best charity balls of the season: lavish in entertainment, refreshment, and the presence of the beau monde, this function was a success of the highest order....’“

I listened with my mouth open as he repeated, word for word, the entire article. As he came near the end, he paused and said: “Surely you don’t want me to continue this stuff, do you?”

“Yes, I mean, no, oh, please go on!” I said, awed. That someone could memorize the printed page at a glance! I stared at him in wonder as he finished.

“Well, you don’t have to stare at me as if I were a dancing bear!” he said irritably.

“But how wonderful!” I exclaimed. “You probably did not have to study at all at Oxford, did you?”

“Not much,” he said glumly. “That was rather a problem, really.”

“How so?”

“How would you feel if someone you knew never had to study and got the highest honors in the class?”

“Amazed, I suppose, and somewhat envious.”

“Replace ‘amazed’ with ‘suspicious’ and you have the picture. I had to demonstrate my ‘talent’ over and over again to my professors just to convince them I hadn’t been cheating. It’s hard not to come to feel like a sort of freak,” he said morosely. “I once saw a mathematical pig at St. Bartholomew’s Fair, tapping out its answers to two plus two, and I thought, 'There but for the grace of God go I.'”

I had to smile at this, for Lord Ashcombe’s looks were the farthest thing imaginable from those of a pig. “But after you convinced your professors, where was the problem?” I asked.

“Wasn’t discreet about my ability, you see. It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Lord Ashcombe went on to tell me that many of his fellow students knew of his ability, and while some were envious, most relied on him for help in their studies. It came to pass, however, that he came to cuffs with a strict and rather unpopular professor; a competent and learned man, he was like most, human and prone to mistakes. He delivered his lectures in a dry and humorless manner, and this always caused his students to be restless; Lord Ashcombe only fanned the flames by correcting him whenever he made mistakes, large or small.

For all his dry and unemotional delivery, however, the man had his limits; one day, the professor had grossly misquoted Marcus Aurelius, and Lord Ashcombe eagerly, tactlessly, caught him up and quoted the passage correctly. The professor fell silent. He sarcastically asked if his lordship wished to teach the class instead. Abashed, he murmured a negative but insisted
his
quote was right.

The professor pinned him with a steely eye and said that unless Lord Ashcombe would like to lecture in his place, he suggested that he keep his ideas to himself. There was a hiss in the back of the room, and a ball of rumpled paper bounced off the professor’s balding pate. Soon the room was hailing balls of paper, and the professor, unable to control his students, fled.

Lord Ashcombe was soon summoned by the dean. While the dean was kindly, he sentenced him to a short suspension from the college. “We can’t have a disruptive classroom, my boy,” he said. “I realize the man is not the most popular teacher we have on this campus, but I think you knew this, and you must have seen that your undermining of his lectures was not going to make him any more popular.” He sighed. “The man is not unreasonable, you know. Could you not have been a bit more tactful? You could have talked with him after classes and discussed his lecture then; far less embarrassing for the professor and quite a bit less disruptive in the classroom. Well, for now, the man can’t stand the sight of you, and I think it best you leave until he can.”

“So you see,” said Lord Ashcombe, “I had to leave for a while just until things cooled down a bit.”

“But that was unjust!” I cried. “Why, if you were in the right about the passage, your professor should have owned up to it—you shouldn’t have been punished for it!”

He smiled and shook his head. “You still don’t understand. Wasn’t a matter of who was mistaken and who was not. The dean was in the right of it. I knew as well as anyone else that the professor was not popular, that the students in the class were restless. Knew my remarks about the lectures in front of all and sundry were a thorn in the man’s side. Knew it very well. I was just so puffed up about how brainy I was that I didn’t care if I interrupted the man or how he felt or even if I disrupted the classroom—which I knew could happen. Conceited. I
needed
a set-down. Good thing I got it
then;
won’t have to suffer the cut direct by anyone now I know better. That’s what being on the town is about, part of it, anyway. Knowing how to do the pretty, and being seen to your best advantage.”

I reflected on this and had to concede to him. It
was
important to know how to behave, if only to avoid hurting people’s feelings. For all that I had not grown up with a father, Mama
had
raised me with the Golden Rule, after all. I ruefully admitted to myself that it was something perhaps I needed help in; how many times had I snapped at poor Mama for no reason except bad temper? I sighed. “I see what you mean. But I don’t see how it will do me any good. I don’t see anyone except for Mama and, of course, you.”

Lord Ashcombe shrugged. “I suppose you’ll get into the way of things in your come-out.”

“Yes! Thrust in the midst of activity and muddling everything dreadfully because I do not know how to go on. I don’t know if I could bear it if I embarrassed poor Mama.”

His lordship pondered this at length while I absently nibbled on a biscuit, imagining all the terrible scrapes I would fall into just because I knew nothing about life in the ton. “Practice!” he said suddenly.

I was startled out of my reverie of horrors, and the biscuit fell from my hand, breaking in crumbly pieces in my lap. “Now look at what you’ve done!” I exclaimed.

Caught up in his thoughts, he ignored me. “Practice!” he repeated. “That’s what you need. Practice now, and when the time comes, you’ll go on as smooth as cream! I’ll help.” He beamed, pleased at himself.

My heart hammered in excitement, but I said cautiously, “How can you do that?”

“Take you out and about, show you the sights, let you know what’s what. That’s how!”

I shook my head. “If you think that is the way to make Mama believe we have not a
tendre
for each other, you are mightily mistaken, my lord!”

This silenced him for a while as he thought his idea over. He brightened. “Got it! I have a sister. Actually, I have four sisters.” His pleased expression wilted somewhat, then revived. “All but the last ages older than I am. Samantha’s the one I’m thinking of, just as old as you are, not quite out of the schoolroom yet; bound to like an outing or two. Propose an outing, have m’mater issue an invitation to you, and there we are!”

I still felt dubious. “I still think Mama will see you as being most particular in your attentions.”

He threw up his hands in disgust. “Do you want to do this or
don’t
you? I don’t see that it matters what your mother thinks at this point, especially since she already thinks we’re as close as promised to each other and nothing will convince her to the contrary!”

I agreed with a sigh that this was true. “But what will your mother think?”

“Nothing at all,” he replied promptly. “Probably grateful to get Samantha off her hands for a while. You’ll like her, I know. Samantha, I mean. I do myself.”

I could see no real flaws in his plan. I grew excited again to think I would no longer be tied only to reading and being walked by a maid to and from shops. Certainly his idea was as good as—perhaps better than—any I had had! I looked admiringly at Lord Ashcombe. “Oh, it’s a wonderful plan! And so kind of you to help me in this way! I know I will enjoy myself excessively!”

He blushed and disclaimed, “Not at all, not at all. Just returning a favor. After all, if it hadn’t been for you, I might have found myself leg-shackled to your mother! Not that it’s not what a man would want, but I’m rather a bit young for that sort of thing, you know! Still want to kick up a few larks before I settle down, after all!”

Impulsively I clasped his hand, briefly raised it to my cheek, and lifted my eyes to his. “Oh, but you are too modest, I know! How kind you are! I am so grateful! I know I shall like meeting your sister!”

He opened his mouth and closed it, staring down at me for a long moment before saying, “Yes, well, er, yes. N-nothing, really, trifling service, no need to make anything of it.” He seemed to shake himself a bit. “It’ll be a treat for my sister, too; good to know more people her own age, eh?” He let out a puff of breath and straightened his waistcoat with a brisk air. “Well, that’s that, then! I shall see if I can set something up for next week, if that is all right with you?” I nodded.

A thought seemed to strike him. “Good God, Samantha will probably be in transports over this— hasn’t been out and about for months! I’ll have to keep my distance when I tell her, or she’ll be casting herself at my waistcoat and rumpling my cravat no end! Never knew such a one for hugging and petting her relations. A man’s not a curst spaniel, you know!”

He shook his head. “Sisters!” he uttered disgustedly.

Chapter Four

Mother handed me the invitation from Samantha with raised brows that said “I told you so” as clearly as if she had spoken. I ignored this. I, at least, knew the true state of affairs, if Mama did not. That would suffice until such time as Lord Ashcombe became seriously attached to someone else; then she would know she had been mistaken in the direction of his affections. Meanwhile, I would enjoy his company and that of his sister in our outings, all with Mama’s approval.