If she had thought to bring along her sketchbook, Cecilia would have had three studies in contrast in the sitting room: Janet looked like a storm was about to break over her head. Lucinda picked at a loose thread in her dress and seemed to swell with questions. Davy, on the other hand, smiled at his uncle.
When Trevor entered the room and sat himself by the fire, they all began at once, Janet springing up to proclaim her ill-usage; Lucinda worried about her parents and whether Christmas would come with them so far removed; and Davy eager to tell his uncle that 1808 was safely filed. Lord Trevor held up his hand. “One moment, my dears,” he said, and there was enough edge in his voice to encourage Janet to resume her seat. He looked at his eldest niece. “I am certain that your first concern is for your older sister and her family in York. All are much improved. I knew you wanted to know that.” He turned to his nephew, and held out his hand to him. Davy did not hesitate to sit on his lap. Trevor ruffled his hair and kissed his cheek. “That is from your mother! She misses you.”
Oh, you do have the touch, Cecilia thought as Davy relaxed against his uncle. “And I hear that you have finished my 1808 cases and started on 1809.” Trevor put his arms around his nephew. “Do you think your mama would let me take you back to the City with me and become my secretary?”
“She would miss me,” Davy said solemnly. “P’rhaps in a year or two.”
“I shall look forward to it.” Trevor smiled at Lucinda. “I hear that you have been helping all day to make this little place presentable. My thanks, Lucy.”
Lucinda blushed and smiled at Cecilia. “Miss Ambrose says I will someday be able to command an entire household.” She looked at her teacher, and her eyes were shy. “A duke’s, even.”
Janet laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Possibly when pigs fly, Lucinda,” she snapped. “Uncle, I . . .”
“What you should do is apologize to your sister,” Trevor said. “Your statement was somewhat graceless.”
Lucinda was on her feet then, her face even redder, her eyes filled with tears. “I . . . I think I will go to bed now, Uncle Trevor. It’s been a long day. Davy?” He followed her from the room. With a look at Lord Trevor, Cecilia rose quietly and joined them in the hall. She closed the door behind her, but not quick enough to escape Janet’s words.
“I hope you do not expect us to take orders from that foreign woman, Uncle. That is outside of enough, and not to be tolerated. Who on earth is she?”
Cecilia closed the door as quietly as she could, her face hot. It’s not the first insult, she reminded herself, and surely won’t be the last. She turned to the children, who looked at her with stricken expressions, and put her finger to her lips. “Let’s just go upstairs, my dears,” she told them. “I do believe your uncle has his hands full now.”
Even through the closed door, they could hear Janet’s voice rising. Cecilia hurried up the stairs to escape the sound of it, with the children right behind. At the top of the stairs, Davy took her hand. “Miss Ambrose, I don’t feel that way,” he told her, his voice as earnest as his expression.
She hugged him. “I know you don’t, my dear. Your sister is just upset with this turn of events. I am certain she did not mean what she said.”
“You’re too kind, Miss Ambrose,” Lucinda said.
I’m nothing of the sort, Cecilia thought later after she closed the door to her pupil’s room, after helping her into a nightgown, and listening to her prayers for her older sister’s family and her parents, marooned in York with the measles.
“No, I am not kind, Lucy dear,” she said softly. “I am fearful.” She thought she had learned years ago to disregard the sidelong glances and the boorish questions, because to take offense at each one would be a fruitless venture. As much as she loved England now, after a lifetime spent in Egypt, it took little personal persuasion to keep her at Madame Dupree’s safe haven. She doubted that she ever went beyond a three-block radius in Bath. I have made myself a prisoner, she thought, and the idea startled her so much that she could only stand there and wonder at her own cowardice.
Reluctant to go downstairs again, she knocked softly on the door of the room that Davy was sharing with his uncle. Better to be in there, she thought, than to have to run into Lady Janet and her spite on the stairs. Davy lay quietly as she had left him, reading in bed, his knees propped up to hold the book. She looked closer, and smiled. He was also fast asleep. She carefully took the book from him, marked the place, and set it on the bedside table. She watched him a moment, enjoying the way his face relaxed in slumber.
I would like to have a boy like you someday, she thought, and the very idea surprised her, because she had never considered it before. I wonder why ever not, she asked herself, then knew the answer before any further reflection. Even though her foster parents had endowed her with a respectable dowry, she had no expectations, not in a country whose people did not particularly relish the exotics among them.
To keep her thoughts at bay, she went around the room quickly, folding Davy’s clothes that had been brought over from the manor and placing them in the bureau. He shared the room with his uncle, whose own clothes were jumbled on top of the bureau. Several legal-sized briefs rested precariously on his clothes, along with a pair of spectacles. She wondered if he even had a tailor, and decided that he did not, considering that his public appearances probably found him in a curled peruke and a black robe, which could easily hide a multitude of fashion sins.
She heard light feet on the stairs, and remained where she was until they receded down the short hall to Lucinda’s room. The door slammed, and Davy sighed and turned onto his side. She left the room, but it occurred to her that she did not know where to go. She had arranged to sleep on a cot in the little dressing room, but wild horses could not drag her in there now. To go downstairs would mean having to face further embarrassment from Lord Trevor. She knew he would be well meaning, but that would only add to the humiliation. Perhaps I can go below stairs, she thought, then reconsidered. All the servants’ rooms in this small dower house were probably full, too, considering that things were a mess at the manor. She also reckoned that a descent below stairs would only confirm Lady Janet’s opinion of her.
Cecilia sat on the stairs and leaned against the banister, wishing herself away from the turmoil, uncertain what to do. Probably Lord Trevor would understand now if she wanted to leave in the morning, even if she had promised she would stay. It was safe in Bath. She shook her head, uneasy with the truthfulness of it.
“Is this seat taken?”
She looked up in surprise, shy again, but amused in spite of herself. “No. There are plenty of steps. You need only choose.”
Lord Trevor climbed the stairs and sat on the step below her. He yawned, then rested his back against the banister. She didn’t want him to say anything, because she didn’t want his pity, but she was too timid to begin the conversation. When, after a lengthy silence, he did speak, he surprised her.
“Miss Ambrose, I wish you had slapped my wretched niece silly, instead of just closed the door on her. You have oceans more forbearance than I will ever possess.”
“I doubt that, sir,” she said, and chose her own words carefully, since he was doing the same. “I’ve learned that protestation is rarely effective.”
“Not the first time, eh?” he asked, his voice casual.
“And probably not the last.” She rose to go—where she did not know—but Lord Trevor took her hand and kept her where she was. “I . . . I do hope you were not too harsh with her.”
He released his hold on her. “Just stay put a while, Miss Ambrose, if you will,” he told her. “I was all ready to haul her over my knee and give her a smack.” He chuckled. “That probably would have earned me a chapter in the tome she is undoubtedly going to write to her precious Lysander in the morning.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, indeed. I merely employed that tactic I learned years ago from watching some of the other barristers who plead
in court, and looked her up and down until her knees knocked. Then I told her I was ashamed of her.” He leaned his elbow on the tread above and looked at her. “And I am, Miss Ambrose. Believe me, I am.”
The look that he gave her was so contrite that she felt tears behind her eyelids. I had better make light of this, she thought. I’m sure he wants me to assure him that it is all right, and that I didn’t mind. She forced herself to look him in the eye. Even in the gloom of the stairwell, she could tell that nothing of the sort was on his mind. She had never seen a more honest gaze.
“I won’t deny that it hurt, Lord Trevor,” she replied, her voice quiet, “but do you know, I’ve been sitting here and thinking that it’s been pretty easy the last few holidays to hide myself in Bath. And . . . and I really have nothing to hide, do I?”
There. She had told a near stranger something that she could not even write to her mother, when that dear woman had written many times from India to ask her how she really did, on her own and without the protection of her distinguished missionary family.
Again he surprised her. He took her hand and held it. “Nothing to hide at all, my dear Miss Ambrose. Would it surprise you that I have been doing that very thing? I have been confining myself to the area of my rooms near Lincoln’s Inn and Old Bailey for nearly eleven years. We are more alike than my silly niece would credit.”
Her bewilderment must have shown on her face, because he stood up and pulled her up, too. “If you’re not too tired, or too irritated at the ignorance and ill-will in one little dower house, I believe I want to explain myself. My dear, do you care for sherry?”
“If it’s good sherry.”
“The best that smugglers can find! I’d forgotten how excellent my brother’s wine cellar is. Do join me in the sitting room, Miss Ambrose.”
She didn’t really have a choice, because he never released her hand. Mystified rather than embarrassed now, she followed him into the sitting room. He let go of her hand to pull another chair close to the fireplace, and indicated that she sit. She did, with a sigh. The fire was just warm enough, and the pillow he had placed behind her back just the right touch. He poured her a glass of sherry from the table between them, handed it to her, then sat in the other chair and propped his feet on the fender.
“I told you I am the black sheep, didn’t I?”
She had to laugh. “And I am, well, a little colorful, too.”
He joined in her laughter, not the least self-conscious, which warmed her heart. He surprised her by quickly leaning forward to touch her cheek. “Your skin is the most amazing shade of olive. Ah, is that the Egyptian in you? How fine! And brown eyes that are probably the envy of nations.” He chuckled. “I don’t mean to sound like a rakehell, Miss A.” He looked at the far wall. “I suppose I am used to speaking my mind.”
“I suppose that’s your privilege,” she said.
He took a sip of sherry. “I do say what I please. I doubt anyone in the ton thinks I am a gentleman.”
“You’re the brother of a marquis,” she reminded him. “Surely that counts for . . .”
“It counts for nothing,” he interrupted, finishing her thought. “I am not playing the game I was born to play, Miss Ambrose, and some take offense.”
She sat up straight and turned to face him impulsively. “How can you say that? I have been reading of the good you have done!”
“You are too kind, my dear.” He poured another drink. “When I was in York today, I spoke to the warden at the Abbey. You’re from a crusading family, yourself, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “Papa and Mama lived in Egypt for nearly twenty years. I am not their only ‘extra child,’ as Papa puts it.”
“The warden was sufficiently impressed when I mentioned that a member of the Ambrose family was visiting the Marquis of Falstoke.”
Cecilia smiled and swirled the sherry in her glass. “And now they are doing good in India, and plumbing the depths of Sanskrit.” She looked up, pleased to see Lord Trevor smiling at her, for no particular reason that she could discern. At least he does not look so tired, she thought. “We came to England in 1798, when I was sixteen. I went four years to Miss Dupree’s Select Academy, and now I teach drawing and pianoforte.”
“You weren’t tempted to go to India with them?”
“No, I was not,” she said. He was still smiling at her, and she decided he was a most attractive man, even with his untidy hair and rumpled clothing. “I like it right here, even with . . . with its occasional difficulties.” She set down the wineglass. “And that is all I am going to say now. It is your turn to tell me why someone of your rank and quality thinks he is a black sheep.”
“It’s a sordid tale,” he warned her.
“I doubt that. Slide the hassock over, please. Thank you.”
He made himself comfortable, too. “Miss Ambrose, the fun of being a younger son cannot be underrated. I did a double first at Oxford, contemplated taking Holy Orders, considered buying a pair of colors, and even thought I would travel to the Caribbean and invest in sugar cane and slaves.”
She relaxed, completely at ease. “That sounds sufficiently energetic.”
“I didn’t have to do anything. Some younger sons must scramble about, I suppose, but our father was a wealthy man, and our mother equally endowed. She willed me her fortune. I am better provided for than most small countries.”
“My congratulations,” she murmured. “You know, so far this is not sordid. I have confiscated more daring stories from my students late at night, when they were supposed to be studying.”
“Let me begin the dread tale of my downfall from polite society before you fall asleep and start to snore,” he told her.
“You’re the one who snores, according to Davy,” she reminded him.
“And you must be a sore trial to the decorum of Miss Deprave’s Select Academy,” he teased.
“Dupree,” she said, trying not to laugh.
“If you insist,” he teased, then settled back. “I suppose I was running the usual course for second sons, engaging in one silly spree after another. It changed one evening at White’s, while I was listening to my friends argue heatedly for an hour about whether to wear white or red roses in their lapels. It was an epiphany, Miss Ambrose.”
“I don’t suppose there are too many epiphanies in White’s,” she said.
“That may have been the first! I decided the very next morning, after my head cleared, to toddle over to Lincoln’s Inn and see about the law. My friends were aghast, and concerned for my sanity, but do you know, Miss A, it suited me right down to the ground. I sat for law through several years, ate my required number of dinners at the Inn, and was called to the Bar.”
“My congratulations. I would say that makes you stodgy rather than sordid.”
He smiled at her, real appreciation in his eyes. “Miss Ambrose, you are a witty lady with a sharp tongue! Should I pity poor Janet if she actually tries your kindness beyond belief and you give her what she deserves?”
She was serious then. “She is young, and doesn’t know what she says.”
“Spoken like the daughter of the well churched!” He leaned across the table and touched her arm. “Here comes the sordid part, Miss A.” And then his face was more serious than hers. “I went to Old Bailey one cold morning to shift some toff’s heir from a cell where he’d languished—the three D’s, m’dear: drunk, disorderly, and disturbing the peace. It was a matter of fifteen minutes, a plea to the magistrate, and a whopping fine for Papa to pay. Just fifteen minutes.” He stood up, went to the fireplace, and stared into the flames. “There was a little boy in the docket ahead of my client. I could have bumped him and gone ahead. I had done it before, and no magistrate ever objected.”
Cecilia slid her glass aside and tucked her legs under her. Have you ever told anyone this before? she wanted to ask. Something in his tone suggested that he had not, and she wondered why he was speaking to her. Of course, Mrs. Dupree always did say that people liked to confid
e in her. “It’s your special gift, dearie,” her employer had told her on more than one occasion.
“There he stood, not more than seven years old, I think, with only rags to cover him, and it was a frosty morning. It was all he could do to hold himself upright, so frightened was he.”
She must have made some sound, because Lord Trevor looked at her. He sat down on the hassock. “Did he . . . was he represented?” she asked.
He nodded, his face a study in contempt. “They all are. We call ourselves a law-abiding nation, Miss A, don’t we? His rep was one of the second year boys at Gray’s Inn, getting a practice in. Getting a practice in! My God!”
Impulsively she leaned forward and touched his arm. He took her hand and held it. Something in her heart told her not to pull away. “He had copped two loaves of bread and, of all things, a pomegranate.” Lord Trevor passed his free hand in front of his eyes. “The magistrate boomed at him, ‘Why the pomegranate, you miscreant?’ ” He put her hand to his cheek. “The boy said, ‘Because it’s Christmas, your worship.’ ”
Cecilia felt the tears start in her eyes. She patted his cheek, and he released her hand, an apologetic look in his eyes. “Miss A, you’ll think I’m the most forward rake who ever walked the planet. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I am thinking that you need to talk to people now and then,” she told him.
He tried to smile, and failed. “His sentence was transportation to Van Diemen’s Land. Some call it Tasmania. It is an entire island devoted to criminals, south of Australia. Poor little tyke fainted on the spot, and everyone in the courtroom laughed, my client loudest of all.”
“You didn’t laugh.”
“No. All I saw was a little boy soiling his pants from fear, with not an advocate in the world, not a mother or father in sight, sentenced to a living death.” He looked at her, and she saw the tears on his face. “And this is English justice,” he concluded quietly.
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