by Maya Rodale
“Are you the eldest?” she asked.
“Yes, but Franny is the sharpest and the bossiest.”
For the first time, Claire felt a pang of kinship with Lady Francesca, of all the people in London.
“You don’t say that as if it were a bad thing.”
“Why should I? It spares me the bother of being the sharpest and the bossiest.”
As the one who was the sharpest and bossiest in her own family, she could only just imagine what a relief it was to have someone take on the burden. In fact, it was why she was glad to have come to England to submit herself to the keen intelligence and blatant command of the duchess. Claire didn’t understand the rules any more than her sisters, but she was glad to know the rules were there, to be learned, and that they had someone knowledgeable to help guide them.
She glanced over at them once more. They were bickering and the duchess was wearing her I-disapprove-of-your-behavior-but-am-trying-not-to-see-it expression. She turned her attentions back to Lord Fox.
“Tell me, Lord Fox, what do you do instead of being sharp and bossy?”
“Sport, mainly,” Fox said. Then grinning, he added, “Women, too.”
Claire just sighed. Just when she thought that perhaps there was more to the man, he revealed that perhaps there wasn’t. So much for her plan to solve the mystery of him! She would attend the math lecture with him, because it was an opportunity she would be mad to refuse, and that would surely be the end of this strange business with Lord Fox.
Chapter 6
Today promises to be an exceptionally fine day at the races. All the best stables are represented, and all eyes (and bets) are on Lord Mowbray’s steed, Zephyr. Anyone slightly interested in the racing scene will not want to miss today’s event.
—Sporting News, The London Weekly
The Royal Society
If there were any doubts that Lady Claire was not a typical lady, her raptures at attending a math lecture clearly dispelled them. There was no other way to describe it: her eyes were bright with excitement, her cheeks were flushed, and she was smiling like Lord Fox had never seen her smile before—like he had never seen any woman smile before. For that alone, he was glad to have attended with her, for it was a sight to behold.
But given that this was a math lecture that he was attending voluntarily, that might be the only reason.
Even the unwelcoming stares of so many crusty old Royal Society members did nothing to dampen her spirits, though her chaperone, Miss Meredith Green, seemed a little nervous from the attention. He noticed her pull her shawl tightly around her shoulders, as if to fashion a protective cocoon.
Frankly, Fox found the old men’s faces, with deep lines of disapproval, dispiriting. In fact, they made him feel as if he were an awkward lad of thirteen, back at Eton with an enraged professor demanding to know why he hadn’t completed his sums.
Because I thought it stupid and dull, so I played cricket for so hard and so long that I injured myself.
That had not been the correct answer. Punishment ensued, but the lesson was not learned. These days, he employed men to deal with sums and whatnot, while he focused on the things he actually cared about and life got along swimmingly.
But this was not about him, a marquess and peer of the realm who had managed life perfectly fine so far without a knowledge of Greek, Latin, science this, or math that.
This was about Lady Claire, who was in raptures to be at a math lecture. Of her own free will.
But eventually he saw that the collective force of their disapproval of a person of her sex gracing them with her presence caused the slightest bit of fade in her smile. Only he would notice, because he was watching her so closely.
“Is this not so exciting and fun?”
She gave his arm a little squeeze and beamed at him.
“Yes. I cannot imagine a more pleasing activity,” he lied, thinking of sex, eating, sleeping, drinking, and the horse race he was missing today. Everyone was there—Mowbray, Rupert, Darcy, all his friends from Tattersall’s and White’s . . .
“It means the world to me to attend this lecture,” Claire said. “Thank you for escorting me. My brother could not bear to miss the race today.”
And like that, nothing else compared. Not even sex, eating, sleeping, drinking, or the horse race he was missing this very minute.
“The pleasure is mine.” He meant it. For the moment.
“I don’t think anyone else is excited for me to be here though,” she confided to him in a low voice.
No sooner had she spoken than a little gray troll of a man stopped them. His suit was gray, his hair erupted in gray tufts from his head, and his skin took on a grayish hue—too much time inside, Fox supposed.
“Good afternoon. Thank you for attending. But you must find seats in the back,” he told them as they approached the seats in the front.
“But then the ladies won’t be able to see.”
“The ladies don’t need to see. Besides, these seats are for members of the Royal Society. Which none of you are.”
Well. Then. The ladies might have been used to such treatment—he felt them tugging to turn around—but he was not. Fox did the thing where he drew himself up to his full height in an attempt to intimidate the smaller man into crying, crumbling submission. It almost always worked.
The little man did tremble as he looked around for reinforcements and found them. One or two other elders stepped over and were apprised of the issue: a woman and her chaperone wished to sit where they might see. Or more to the point: women were here!
“It is no trouble,” Claire said. “We shall sit in the back.”
“But—”
“We are lucky to even be here,” she said softly. “At least, I am.”
Because she was a woman—that was the real issue. He could bluster and pay his way in. He could put on Lordly Airs until they were begging him to sit in the front row and to say a few words to mark the momentous occasion of his attendance. But she was the one who deserved to be here and she wasn’t going to pick a fight about where she sat for the lecture, as long as she was in the room where it happened.
They took seats in the back row with Lady Claire sitting between him and her chaperone. The seats were tiny, rickety chairs that were the very definition of uncomfortable. Fox foresaw a long, tedious, and painful afternoon. For him.
Not Lady Claire.
“Have I mentioned how excited I am for this?”
The aloof Lady Claire, who often appeared bored beyond belief at society functions, was nearly quivering with excitement. Even Miss Green seemed intrigued by the proceedings. He didn’t understand how a body could be so passionate about a lecture, but he appreciated it all the same.
Plus, Claire was pretty with her eyes bright and her lips upturned in a smile.
“Yes, you have mentioned it, but I enjoy hearing it.” And seeing it.
“I could only dream of something like this back home.”
“No math in the colonies? I might have to go,” he joked.
He stretched his arm out behind her, feeling too constrained and wanting to put his arm across her shoulders and hold her close. Not the done thing, that.
“Of course there is. But we lived too far from a city big enough to have a group like this. Though my father did hire some tutors for me once we discovered my talent and through them I was introduced to some of the leading mathematicians in America, with whom I enjoyed a correspondence.”
“Are they more welcoming of women engaged in intellectual pursuits over in the old colonies?”
Claire laughed. “Oh, no. I always signed my letters as ‘C. Cavendish.’ They all assumed that I was Charles or Christopher. In other words, a man. I had no desire to correct them.”
“Rest assured, I don’t think I shall be fooled by such a deception or confuse you with a man.”
She eyed him slyly. “Are you looking down my bodice again?”
“You say that as if it were a bad thing.”
She huffed something that sounded like Gah, men.
Before he could respond, the first lecturer took the stand. It was yet another old man—this one with a remarkably red, bulbous nose—who put Fox in mind of his teachers from Eton. Like those old professors, this lecturer seemed to be physically incapable of vocal inflection. In other words, he droned.
It was dull. Fork in the eye dull. Count the cracks in the ceiling dull. Want to bang one’s head against the floor dull.
But Lady Claire was not bored. Not. In. The. Slightest.
She was nodding her head and muttering commentary under her breath. The lecture in turns fascinated her, outraged her, enlightened her.
And that was just the first forty minutes. Forty minutes!
As for himself? Fox was dying.
Dying a slow death of torture by tedium.
The lecturer droned.
Claire muttered.
Fox thought about the race he was missing today. Right now, in fact. He could be standing outside in the sunshine and fresh air, surrounded by jovial people, conversing animatedly on topics he understood and enjoyed (the weather, horses, gossip of mutual acquaintances). There would be drinks, wagers, winning, losing, and the thrill of the race. Fox imagined the thundering of horses’ hooves and the roar of the crowd when a winner crossed the finish line.
Why the devil was he here instead of there anyway?
Mowbray.
The stupid bet with his stupid friend. His idiotic and unforgivable decision to wager his beloved dog. His relentless and reckless need to win at everything, all of the time. Look where it had led him: a lecture hall, when he could be enjoying a carefree day at the races. Consequences, that.
The droning lecture finally concluded, praise God and the infant Jesus, and Fox’s heart leapt at the thought that he might be free at last. But no, now Ashbrooke stood to address the audience with additional remarks of his own.
Ashbrooke was at least a dynamic speaker, but Fox could only make sense of every other word, and certainly not the meaning of them all strung together.
He really should have gone to the races.
Another eternity seemed to pass. Ashbrooke concluded and the original lecturer—Lord Red Nose, Fox had decided to call him—stood to take questions.
Questions were asked. Questions were answered. Fox clenched and unclenched his fists. Shifted uncomfortably in the rickety chair. Half hoped the damn thing would collapse beneath him just for a spot of excitement.
Fox glanced at the delicate woman beside him, the authoress of this misery. She was no longer muttering or nodding her head. Now her hand was raised high in the air. She held it high and steady—no waving it about, like a loon—and waited patiently. Her cheeks were red.
“How long have you held your hand up?” he whispered.
“He’ll see me eventually.”
In other words, awhile.
Fox turned his attention back to the lecturer. The old geezer looked right at Claire with her outstretched hand and continued speaking.
“I think he already sees you.”
“Perhaps he isn’t ready for questions yet, but he will be soon.”
“Are there any questions?” the lecturer asked, looking about the room.
“See?” She looked forward, hand held high.
“Yes, you, sir, on the left.”
The sir on the left asked his question. The lecturer answered.
This was repeated with the man in the green waistcoat, the gentleman in the front, and the man with the red hair.
Still, Claire waited patiently in the back row with her hand held high. The lecturer looked straight at her.
“Thank you. If there are no more questions, then this concludes—”
“Oh, bloody hell.” Fox finally understood the situation and how he could fix it. Before he could think too hard about it, he stood and, without waiting for permission to speak, declared, “I have a question.”
He spoke in the booming voice of a peer of the realm who outranked most people in any given room. There was a flutter and rustle as everyone in the room turned to look at him.
“Yes, Lord Fox, how . . . unexpected of you to honor us with your presence today,” Lord Red Nose stammered. “What is your question?”
He glanced down at Claire.
“Might the difference engine be induced to operate upon objects other than rational numbers, provided their relationship could be reduced to abstract, even mechanistic, rules of order?” Claire asked.
Fox cleared his throat and addressed the crowd: “Might the difference engine be induced to operate upon objects other than rational numbers, provided their relationship could be reduced to abstract, even mechanistic, rules of order?”
He sat down, having no idea what he’d just said.
The lecturer found himself in an awkward position of his own making. He had to indirectly acknowledge the lady’s question. Or risk dismissing a man as lofty as Fox, which was not a done thing.
Fox began to enjoy this lecture after all.
The lecturer hemmed and hawed, and damn if this didn’t feel like revenge against all his old professors on behalf of his thirteen-year-old self.
“You do have an answer, don’t you? Or I have stumped your intellect?” Fox asked, relishing the moment.
“Well . . .” The man gave a lengthy reply using words that had no meaning for Fox. He concluded with “That should answer your question.”
Fox glanced down at Claire. She shook her head. It did not answer her question.
“What of musical notes, or geometric figures with prescribed patterns and relations?” she whispered to him furiously. “The rules governing these are just as precise as the method of differences!”
“What of musical notes, or geometric figures with prescribed patterns and relations? The rules governing these are just as precise as the method of differences!”
There was a murmur; she had clearly said something challenging. Or was it the fact that a woman said it?
“It’s an interesting point to consider, but I’m afraid we’re running out of time today,” the lecturer said.
It was then that Ashbrooke stood. “With all due respect, we all know that is an evasive and incomplete answer that does not do justice to a very thoughtful and important question asked by, ahem, Lord Fox.” Ashbrooke paused to cough. “I think Lord Fox deserves a more thorough answer.”
“I would be curious how Lord Fox would explain what the method of differences even is,” the red-nosed lecturer replied stonily.
Claire began to explain it.
Fox began to repeat it. Then he stumbled over a word and forgot what she had said. “What was it again?” he whispered.
Lady Claire stood and, in a strong clear voice, began to explain.
Before anyone could shush her for the grave sin of being female and speaking in public, Ashbrooke broke in with a response that seemed to be both thoughtful and challenging.
Lady Claire replied.
The duke and she exchanged volleys about the rules of harmony in music, relative pitch, and how one might turn musical composition into a science—shocking, since music was long considered an art form, not a science. And even more than that, how an engine such as Ashbrooke’s could be constructed to produce original music.
Fox sat back down.
His work here was done.
There was nothing left to do but bask in the glow of her brilliance. And she was brilliant—every comment was met with a quick reply, a thoughtful challenge, and another question.
Not that anyone else acknowledged this; that is, until Ashbrooke repeated it. Then there were nods and murmurs and more discussion.
But Fox saw.
He saw a young, scrappy fighter fiercely taking on her challengers, who were more resistant to the form of her body than the contents of her brain. He recognized a competitive spirit—whatever she was saying was too important for her to back down from obstacles and detractors. He knew the rush of adrenaline she mu
st be feeling now—the pounding heart and racing pulse. He knew the exhilaration she must be experiencing from winning by her own strengths and talents, developed over hours and years of diligent practice.
It was how he’d felt winning his first fencing match after practicing a parry and riposte for hours on end. Like he’d unlocked some secret power for all the world to see.
Fox didn’t understand eight-tenths or seven-eighths or whatever was a significant amount of what she was saying. But he was starting to understand her.
After the lecture had concluded, after they quit the hall and made their way outside, Claire’s heart was still pounding. It felt like everything—everything—in her life had been building to that moment.
All those late nights poring over mathematical papers, afternoons scratching equations on scraps of paper or with chalk on slate, countless letters signed “C. Cavendish” in which she had to hide her sex so she could share the contents of her thoughts, the teachers who taught her anyway, James unexpectedly inheriting, leaving home to journey across an ocean, and Claire herself overcoming her initial resistance of Fox . . .
Fox. What a handsome, chivalrous lummox.
She was too happy to be here, so enraptured by the way he championed her, that she didn’t want to spoil the mood by pondering why the likes of him had attended a mathematical lecture with her. It was curious, of course, and worthy of study, but . . . later.
He had clearly been daydreaming about sticking forks in his eye. She knew the look from Amelia. But nevertheless, he had stayed. Because of that, something shifted in the way she regarded him. She gave him more credit.
Once in the carriage, the man seemed to take up a significant portion of the space, with his broad shoulders and his long legs. His head nearly brushed the roof. There was hardly room for Claire and Miss Green seated opposite.
They had only just closed the carriage doors when—
“Oh! I forgot my shawl,” Miss Meredith Green exclaimed. “Do you mind if I dash back for it?”
She and Miss Green shared A Look—Claire certainly should not be left alone with a man. But it was only for a minute. How could one possibly be ruined in such a trifling period of time?