“You were a little boy once, perhaps, that you are expert on the matter?”
She leveled a reproving look at him, which he noted between bites of potato.
“There is more to a boy’s education than drilling into him the dates of ancient battles, Mr. Grey. More to history than the Greeks, the Romans, and the British. More to languages than five declensions and four classes of verbs.”
“You know Latin?” She was an intelligent woman—and he did not mean that insultingly, to his surprise—but Latin?
“Latin and Greek. Once you get the knack of the structure of the one, the other isn’t so difficult to grasp.”
“Good heavens.” Ethan set his utensils down again. “What else has been stuffed between those ears of yours?”
“Astronomy is among my favorites,” she confessed, casting a bashful glance at Ethan’s half-eaten potato. “Mathematics, of course, including geometry and trigonometry, though only the rudiments of calculus. History, though I fear European history defines the limits of my command of the subject at this point. I am competent in French, but my command of modern languages is lacking. I read voraciously when I’ve the time.”
“And what of needlepoint?” Ethan pressed, knowing he should have made these inquiries several days ago. “Tatting lace? Watercolors? A little piano or voice?”
She waved a dismissive hand. “I can mend what needs mending, and I’m a passable accompanist, but it hardly signifies.”
“And why should the refinements of a lady hardly signify?” This bluestocking quality made perfect sense, given what he knew of the woman, but it impressed him as well. He liked a woman who didn’t attempt to trade solely on her face and figure.
“They are not useful, Mr. Grey. The world does not need lace from me, though lace is charming. The world does not need a note-perfect rendition of the simpler Haydn sonatas at my hands, though music is a gift from God. The world does not need another vague rendition of some fruit and a towel, could I manage it, though painting is another gift from God.”
“What does the world need?” He genuinely wanted to know.
“From me,” she said, studying her plate this time, “it needs education. Were I proficient in those ladylike pursuits, I’d be a finishing governess. That is not my gift. I am far more interested in cultivating the minds of my charges than I am in assisting some schoolgirl in her quest to snatch up a spotty young swain of a few weeks’ acquaintance.”
Ethan propped his chin on his hand and surveyed her. “You are an anarchist, Miss Portman. And here I’ve placed the care of my sons in your rabble-rousing hands.”
Her blush was all the more enchanting for being unexpected.
“You are teasing. Do you have all those books in your library for show, then, Mr. Grey? I hadn’t taken you for a man driven by appearances.”
“I’m not. I love to read.” This was not a matter of pride; it was a simple truth. “One can’t be managing business affairs every hour of the day, and reading is a solitary pleasure, suited to my nature.”
“If you say so.”
That was a governess’s version of casting a lure. Even so, Ethan took the bait. “What?”
“You don’t live alone here, Mr. Grey.”
“Of course not. I dwell with my sons, and the servants and staff in my employ, and now—heaven be praised—with your very useful self.”
“Have you seen your sons since the coach pulled up here today?” she asked in the same peculiarly quiet voice.
“I did, actually.” He was pleased with himself to be able to say it. “Out the window, as they dragged you around the rose gardens. A charming tableau, made blessedly quiet by the distance involved. Better you than me, Miss Portman.”
“They miss you,” she said flatly. “Though God knows why, Mr. Grey, as the concept leaves me quite at a loss. Now, if you will excuse me, I find I am intolerably fatigued, and though the meal has been appreciated, I must seek my bed.”
She pushed back from the table and left the room before Ethan was halfway to his feet. He sat back down, his meal lying uneasily in his gut, and thought over the conversation.
He’d said something to push her past her limit, something… not funny. Cruel, perhaps, from her perspective. Well, there was no decoding the whims and fancies of females, bluestocking or otherwise. He eyed the table, intent on helping himself to more food, then changed his mind.
He’d been sitting too long, and this made for dyspepsia, so he took himself through the house, his wineglass in his hand, and headed for the back gardens. A man needed to stretch his legs from time to time if he was to have a prayer of remaining civilized.
Except his sons had been stuck in the coach for two days, and they had needed to stretch their legs. Alice Portman had reasoned that out; Ethan had not, and he wanted to smash the damned wineglass on the flagstones as a result. Because he was an adult, and civilized, he did not give in to the urge but wandered around in the moonlight until the shadows and breezes and pretty scents had soothed him past his anger.
Three floors above him, on her balcony, Alice watched the dark figure moving along the gravel paths. Moonlight suited him, though in daylight, he was deceptively golden. His hair was more burnished than Nick’s wheat blond, and his features more austere. Still, he gave the impression of light, with his blue, blue eyes, light hair, and quiet movement.
He wasn’t light, Alice concluded as she took down her hair. He was dark, inside, in his heart and soul. It still surprised her after she’d had days to observe him, but he looked so much like Nick, she still expected him to laugh like Nick, smile like Nick, flirt like Nick.
She missed Nick, and because it wasn’t any kind of sexual longing, she could admit it. She desperately, pitifully missed Priscilla, and worried for how the child was going on.
In years of governessing, Alice had dealt with enough overly tired, cranky, distraught, fractious children to know if she didn’t get herself to bed, posthaste, she was going to treat herself to an undignified, unproductive, useless crying spell. She was already hungry again, exhausted, in need of a bath, and facing a situation she should have examined more carefully before leaping into it.
“You’re just discouraged,” she told herself. “Braid your hair, get to bed. Things will look better in the morning.”
But in the morning, things didn’t look at all better.
In the morning, things looked much, much worse.
“You will leave in the morning, Hart, and you will not come back in my lifetime.” The Baroness Collins had never taken that tone with her son before. Not when he was a child, not when he’d been a young man, and not now, when inchoate middle age and a dissolute lifestyle were making him look like an old child, an aging boy becoming less and less attractive with the passing years.
Predictably, Hart bristled. “I’ll damned well come and go from my own property as I please, madam. You would do well to recall upon whose charity you survive.” He tossed back another glass of brandy, adding to the amazing amount that had disappeared in the course of the conversation already.
“You are not safe here.”
Somewhere in the depths of her maternal heart, the baroness could not allow her son to knowingly court danger, regardless that it was danger of his own making. “Your scheming and violence, your disregard for proper behavior, your disrespect of every woman you meet will be the end of you if you stay here in the North. I am not asking you to leave, Hart, I am insisting.”
He paused before putting his empty glass down on the harpsichord. That harpsichord had belonged to the baroness’s grandfather, and yet, she did not rise and remove the glass—not while Hart was in such a mood.