The Tutor (House of Lords) (5 page)

“...and then he was made Lord Protector. But he was dead little more than a year later. And two years after that, the Council of State restored Charles II to the throne.”

“He was the one who had all the mistresses, wasn’t he?” Charles asked, hoping for a blush or even a falter from Miss Endersby.

But she just stared at him. “Yes, I believe he was. He had...oh, let me think...at least nine or ten natural children he acknowledged. Certainly an embarrassment for the crown, although he ended up making most of the males dukes and earls eventually. One of the benefits of being king, I suppose, is being able to raise the obscure and the deserving alike to positions of wealth and rank.”

Was that meant to be a stab at him? Feeling rather frustrated, he said, “When do we get to the important parts?”

“The important parts?” Miss Endersby asked. “It’s all important, Your Grace.”

“I mean, when do we talk about the rules of Parliament and how I win allies in the Lords? It seems to me that power is the whole point.”

She scoffed. “
Men
. Is that all you think about? There is more to Parliament than power, Your Grace.”

“Is there really?” he asked, entertained by her consternation.

“So much more,” she said. “Parliament is a hallowed institution, to be sure, but it is also the voice of the people in the government, the only redress for the weak and marginalized. You have a great opportunity, Your Grace, to do something on the behalf of those who suffer. It is your duty to help them, and Parliament is the tool you can use to do so.”

Charles frowned. “That word again,” he grumbled.

“I’m sorry?”

“I despise the word duty, Miss Endersby, and I have been hearing it a great deal more than I would like.”

“Perhaps you need to hear it a few more times,” she snapped, and the instant the words were out of her mouth she flushed bright red. “Oh, I am sorry, Your Grace. I didn’t mean—”

But he held up a hand to silence her. “No,” he said, feeling chastened. “Perhaps you are right. Either way, I have certainly learned a great deal today.”

She looked at him rather intently for a few moments. Then she glanced past him to the clock on the desk. “It is nearly four,” she said. “I must be going.”

He rose, watching as she put on her bonnet. When she had done so, he said, “My sisters would be pleased to make your acquaintance before you take your leave.”

She seemed to consider it. “All right,” she said at last. He led her out and down to the drawing room which, at this late hour, was mercifully empty save his sisters. He would not have liked to have to explain what Miss Endersby had been doing in the library for the last two hours to a group of guests.

“Miss Endersby,” Imogen said sweetly, rising to greet her.

“My sisters, Lady Imogen Bainbridge,” Charles said, and when Gilly had reached him he added, “and Lady Gillian Bainbridge.”

Miss Endersby curtseyed prettily. “It is a great pleasure to meet you both.”

Imogen took her hand. “Charles, go away now,” she said. He bowed his head, trying to hide his smirk.

“Until Thursday, Miss Endersby.” Then he took his leave, escaping into the silent hall.

The drawing room door closed silently. Cynthia turned and gave the duke’s sisters the smile that said she was no threat to them, the smile that said she was someone they
wanted
as a friend. She had practiced this smile, just as she had practiced all her public expressions, for hours in her looking glass under the careful tutelage of Miss Cartwright, the governess her father had selected to teach her the social graces she would need to gain power in this mercenary world. They had worked over each glance, each smile and nod, until they expressed perfectly the sentiments Miss Cartwright had felt Cynthia would need to convey. Now they were second nature. Sometimes Cynthia even forgot which she was, the society belle or the girl hidden behind the mask.

“Will you take some tea, Miss Endersby?” the elder sister, Lady Imogen, asked. “I’m sure my oaf of a brother can’t have offered you anything.”

“That would be very welcome,” Cynthia said, for she had been talking almost nonstop for the last two hours, and it was true that the duke had not offered her any refreshments. She wondered if she could expand her lessons to cover social graces as well. “But I have no wish to intrude, and the hour is very late.”

“Oh, we don’t worry about such things,” Lady Gillian said. “And we have been so eager to meet you.” Ah, Cynthia thought. Here is the rebel in the family. There was one in every set of siblings, she had found, and it was often not the child who most wished to appear rebellious and disobedient.

Cynthia took the seat they offered on the expensively upholstered sofa and watched as Lady Imogen poured. “What a lovely set,” she commented mildly.

Lady Gillian wrinkled her nose at the statement. When her sister looked pointedly at her, she said, “Oh, no more tea for me, Imogen, or I shall flood. Tell us, Miss Endersby, what is it like being so frightfully clever?”

“Gilly!” Lady Imogen hissed.

Cynthia took the cup Imogen held. “It’s quite all right, Lady Imogen, I assure you. I don’t consider myself clever, Lady Gillian, though I will lay claim to an excellent memory. And I had an exceptional teacher, too, you know.” It was a pack of lies, but the ladies did not need to know that. Cynthia could be honest with their brother, whom she had no desire to impress, but the ladies were her link to future clients, and it was essential that she not alienate them.

“Your father was once an Oxford professor, was he not?”

“Yes, and I certainly felt the benefit of it.”

“It sounds heavenly,” Lady Gillian sighed. “Being allowed to read whatever you like, to debate the ideas of the day.”

Cynthia fought to suppress a cynical remark. She wondered what Lady Gillian would say if she knew what it had
really
been like, being assigned a treatise or an essay each day, being quizzed on them at night, being berated if she hadn’t understood well enough to please her father. “It was pleasant,” she said.

They spoke of useless pleasantries for a while. Then Lady Imogen, signaling that the afternoon was at an end, stood. “Miss Endersby,” she said, “I wonder whether you might like to accompany us to the Strand tomorrow afternoon. We are making our first trip to Wright’s of the Season.”

“Thank you, Lady Imogen,” Cynthia said. “That would be lovely.”

“Excellent. Shall we call for you at one?”

Cynthia agreed readily, gave them her direction, and allowed them to show her out.

As the footman handed her into the ducal carriage, which had been called for her, she reflected that her greatest worry was not whether her father would believe that she had formed a friendship with Lady Imogen and Lady Gillian, but whether he would be suspicious of the partiality they were showing her.

FIVE

January 8, 1834

“I don’t know what you did to Viscount Sidney,” Beresford said the following morning when he and Charles were preparing for their fencing sessions at Spitzer’s. Charles had belonged to the club since he had first come to London, and regularly attended on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. Beresford was, as in most areas of his life, a less devoted attendee, and Charles had been rather surprised to see him this morning, since he had also seen Beresford long after midnight at Lady Jack’s, settling in for a few more hours’ carousing. “But the man was either angry with you or with me yesterday, and I haven’t seen any of the Chesneys in
weeks
, so it must have been you.”

Charles kept his attention grimly focused on fastening his jacket.

“Very well,” Beresford said. “I can take a hint.”

Herr Spitzer himself came forward to greet Charles, his foil tucked under his arm. “Your Grace,” he said in his heavily accented English. “How good to see you again. Will you come through, please?”

For the next hour, at least, Charles was able to concentrate only on the singing of the foil and the placement of his feet. But as soon as the session was over, his mind was dragged back to more complicated issues. Even as he bid goodbye to Herr Spitzer and Beresford, his thoughts were already turning to the outing his sisters had planned for the afternoon.

Imogen had mentioned at dinner that she had invited Miss Endersby to accompany the girls to Wright’s the following afternoon. Ordinarily, Charles did not involve himself in his sisters’ social schedules—they were old enough to know whom they should and shouldn’t befriend, and he trusted Imogen to help Gilly make the right choices. It didn’t mean that he always liked their friends, but at least there was peace in the Bainbridge household. Still, he wasn’t sure he was comfortable with them spending time with Miss Endersby, who struck him as a very odd young lady.

It wasn’t just her beauty that made her stand out, though she had that in spades, and Charles was finding himself quite perplexed by how unaware she seemed of it. She dressed well, of course, as befit a gentleman’s daughter, and her hair was dressed perfectly. She seemed to favor shades that highlighted her coloring, bringing out her green eyes and making her pale skin look even creamier. At some point, Charles thought, she had had a very wise governess who had taught her how to play up her looks to perfection. If one had glimpsed her in a drawing room or at a ball, it would have seemed as though she was a lovely young woman of quality, and he did not doubt that she was capable of conversing without giving the impression that she was anything more.

He knew better now. It was her unabashed expressions of her opinions and demonstrations of her intellect that really left him bemused. He had never met a woman who didn’t want to be considered accomplished, but Miss Endersby seemed to care not only for accomplishment but also for academic achievement. If she had been a man, she would have published a dozen scholarly papers on the political climate of the day or the history of the British Empire. In fact, Charles thought now as his carriage turned into St. James’s Square, Miss Endersby seemed to have been raised with very little consideration for her gender. Oh, she had not put a toe out of line socially, of course. Imogen had scolded Charles the day before for neglecting to provide Miss Endersby with refreshments, but his guest had not said a word about his blunder. She had been taught what to do in a drawing room. Beyond that, however, it was as if the mind of a man lay behind that pretty face. She must have had a singular upbringing. Having experienced what it was like to be in a tutorial with Roger Endersby, Charles had an easy time imagining the man spouting off his opinions and ideas over the dinner table, as well. Maybe it had been pure survival instinct that had prompted her to learn all she had.

But it was not his scruples over her personality that gave him pause. Oh, she had political ideas, certainly. Her sudden outburst during their last session about duty and justice had shown him as much. He was not worried for Imogen and Gillian on that score, either. He sensed that Miss Endersby would be circumspect enough not to attempt to influence his sisters. No, it was the fact that the more he saw her socially, the more he would be tempted to think of her as a woman and not as an employee. And thinking of Miss Endersby as a woman could prove dangerous. Even if she was not aware of her beauty,
he
certainly was. He had told himself he could withstand her charms, but there was something about the way her face had lit up yesterday when she had spoken of the
Magna Carta
and the beheading of Charles I that had been both alluring and terrifying.

Of one thing, however, he had no doubt: if there was anyone who could teach him what he needed to know, it was Miss Cynthia Endersby. She could probably teach him a good deal more as well. He had spent the hours between her departure and supper reading the book she had so casually assigned him, trying to make sense of it.

Trying
, he thought,
but not succeeding
. Charles did not consider himself a stupid man, by any means. He knew that he had neglected his education, but he had never expected to regret it as he did now. As he had stared at those pages, trying to comprehend what they meant, he had wondered if he was really up to the task he had set himself. And now, as he settled himself in the library again, a thought occurred to him. Had she done it on purpose?

Had Miss Endersby wanted to make him feel stupid? Was that why she had suggested he read only the first four chapters, which she knew were the easiest in the book, knowing that he would be tempted to look beyond, knowing that he would feel his own ignorance keenly when he did?

He wouldn’t put it past her. If only to spite her, Charles decided that he would succeed at this. He would show her that he could participate at her level.

First, though, he had to finish muddling his way through the book.

“Lady Imogen Bainbridge and Lady Gillian Bainbridge,” Mallory announced. Cynthia rose to greet the young women as they swept into the parlor. She had been sitting at the window with a book on Parliamentary procedure open on her lap, though she hadn’t really been reading it.

“Good afternoon,” Lady Imogen said, and she crossed the room to take Cynthia’s hands. She looked so young when she smiled like that, Cynthia thought. It was hard to believe that she was little more than a year Lady Imogen’s senior. She felt ancient today.

“Good afternoon,” she replied. “Lady Gillian, it is a pleasure to see you again.”

“What have you been reading?” the younger Bainbridge sister asked. Cynthia picked up the book and handed it to her. “Oh, goodness,” Lady Gillian said when she had read the title. “Do you ever read prose?”

“Occasionally,” Cynthia admitted, though she would have been afraid to do so had her father been in the house. It seemed that he was always in earshot when she said something of which he did not approve. But he was at his academic society, and she need not fear him now. Feeling reckless, she added, “And poetry, too.”

Lady Gillian gave a delighted squeak. “Which are your favorites?”

“Wordsworth, without a doubt,” Cynthia said. As they went out into the hall, she went on, “I have also just finished
Poems, Chiefly Lyrical
by Alfred Tennyson. Have you read it?”

Lady Gillian nodded enthusiastically. “Imogen and I read it aloud to each other last winter. His “Mariana” touched me deeply.”

Cynthia thought of the first time she had read that particular poem, which described a young woman’s despondent isolation from society. It had touched her, too, though she could not imagine admitting to such an emotion.

“If you enjoy Tennyson, Miss Endersby, I should lend you my copy of his
Poems
. There is one in particular, “The Lady of Shalott”, that I think you would enjoy immensely,” Lady Imogen said as they were handed into the ducal carriage. “It is quite romantic.”

“Oh, yes!” Gillian cried with mock enthusiasm. “To die for love—what could be more romantic?”

Cynthia grinned at her. Here was a girl after her own heart. On the way to the Strand they talked of poetry they had read and enjoyed, and no mention was made of Cynthia’s connection with their brother. But when they had reached Wright’s circulating library and Lady Gillian had stopped to converse with a friend, Cynthia found herself alone in a corner with Lady Imogen, who took the opportunity to praise her efforts. “I think you will be very good for my brother, Miss Endersby,” she said. “And you know I would be more than happy to recommend your services to the ninnies in my social circle.”

“That is very kind of you,” Cynthia replied, and deciding that it was perhaps best to be as honest as she could be with Lady Imogen, who did not seem to her to be an unintelligent woman, she added,
 
“But I must ask you to be discreet. My father does not know about this little...business enterprise of mine, and he would be very angry if he did.”

“I understand,” Lady Imogen said gravely, though she looked a little surprised. She should not have said her father would be angry, Cynthia thought. It made him sound like an irrationally temperamental tyrant, and even if he was she had no wish for Lady Imogen to know about it. Much to her relief, Lady Imogen switched rather clumsily to another subject. “Speaking of our mutual friends, are you going to Lady Farrington’s ball on Friday?”

“I have accepted the invitation,” Cynthia said, though in truth she had not yet decided if she would actually attend. She had begun to consider distancing herself a little from Mariah for fear that those who knew what Cynthia had done for the young woman might begin to suspect her of trying to influence Lord Farrington’s politics. That was a secondary motive for her work, of course, but it would do her little good if people knew.

“Good! We will certainly see you there, then.”

“You are attending?” Cynthia was surprised.

Lady Imogen seemed to understand. “We are only in half-mourning now,” she said, sweeping her hand over her mauve skirts as if to emphasize the point. “Gilly won’t be attending, of course, though it’s clear she has no need of a curtsey to the queen to make friends in society,” she added, nodding towards her sister, who had gathered an even larger group of young ladies around her now. “She will do well, don’t you think? She should have had her come-out last year, you know—she will be nineteen in three weeks. But our father died six days before her eighteenth birthday. It was a terrible blow, I think, to all his children but especially her. Of the five of us I think she loved him best.”

“Five?” Cynthia asked. She had thought there were only four Bainbridge children.

Lady Imogen looked away. “I was including mother, of course,” she said. “How silly of me. Now, what do you think? There is this one by Shelley I haven’t read yet, but I do think, now that Charles is to take his seat, I ought to read some more history so that he and I can have brilliant conversations.”

Cynthia smiled. “I think you have some time before he is
quite
ready for brilliance, Lady Imogen,” she said, and then she felt herself coloring at the rudeness of her remark. She seemed to be losing control of her tongue. What had come over her?

But Lady Imogen didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she giggled a little. “Well, then I’m glad we have you to assist him,” she said.

Lady Gillian had made a selection as well, and they were making ready to leave when the bell over the door tinkled again. Cynthia looked up, seeing Miss Eleanor Chesney, the sister of Viscount Sidney coming inside, and behind her...

Cynthia felt her blood run cold.

Behind Miss Chesney was Lady Clarissa Rennick, Countess of Stowe. She looked lovely, Cynthia thought. Marriage to the Earl of Stowe seemed to agree with her, even having just brought twins into the world a few months earlier. Cynthia had not seen her since the evening of the ball to celebrate her wedding.

That occasion had been quite disastrous. Cynthia had known that she and Clarissa would cross paths again, of course. But she had hoped that it might be intentional, or at least expected. She had not had time to prepare herself for the sight of her former best friend, the girl who had smuggled fairy tales and romance novels to her in exchange for dancing lessons on the banks behind Oxford.

Clarissa had not noticed her yet; she was still speaking to Miss Chesney. Cynthia cast about, wondering if it might be possible to hide. How foolish she was being! Before he had begun teaching her to lie convincingly, her father had tried to teach her that honesty was one way to show one’s humanity. Cynthia had done nothing more than tell Clarissa the truth, though she knew it had been painful and devastating. Surely she couldn’t be angry with her still?

“Imogen!” Miss Chesney. She flitted across the small space. “How are you, dear? And Gillian. It is lovely to see you both in town...” Cynthia did not hear the rest of her speech. Her eyes had met Clarissa’s. Neither of them said anything as Miss Chesney prattled on.

“Miss Endersby?” Lady Imogen was asking. “Do you know the Countess of Stowe?”

Cynthia prepared to be cut. Now Clarissa would turn her back and walk out of the library. And Cynthia deserved it. But instead, Clarissa smiled and said, “Of course I know Cynthia. She and I were girls together. It is so wonderful to see you again. How have you been all these months?” Then her hand was reaching out and capturing Cynthia’s. She tried to return the smile. Her heart was beating in her throat.

“I am well, thank you. My congratulations on the arrival of your twins.”

Clarissa smiled blissfully. “They
are
perfect, Cynthia. You must come and meet them one day soon. I am at home Friday afternoons. You too, Lady Imogen, Lady Gillian.”

“Of course we shall come!” Lady Gillian cried. “How lovely! May we, Imogen?”

“Since you have already accepted, I don’t see how it can be avoided,” Lady Imogen joked. “It would be our pleasure. We must be getting Miss Endersby home now, Gillian.”

The two women moved towards the door, but as Cynthia followed them, she felt Clarissa’s hold on her hand tighten. “
Please
come, Cynthia,” Clarissa said. “It would mean the world to me.”