“That is what has preoccupied you on this ride?” Nicholas asked. “I thought you were brooding over something of consequence. I will have to remember that sometimes when you look deep in thought your mind is wandering through the same kind of mental debris that mine does.”
They continued trotting through the Middlesex countryside outside of Town, passing fields showing early growth and trees festooned with blooms. The air smelled of spring as only April air did.
“Did you badger me for this ride in order to discuss linguistics?” Nicholas asked.
“Not at all.”
“Then why?”
“Perhaps I just wanted company and thought you could use some too.”
“Kevin, you never want company. I have never met another man so comfortable without society.”
“You, on the other hand, crave it. I am only thinking of you and being generous.”
“You are not being generous. You want something. But I am a patient man and can wait for it.”
He had to wait ten minutes. By then they reached a crossroad with a good tavern, and dismounted to refresh themselves.
“I could use some advice,” Kevin said once their ale sat on the boards between them.
“First company, now advice. You are full of surprises today. I can’t think of any advice you would need from me, unless you suddenly find yourself with an estate you can’t maintain due to lack of income. I’ve become the expert on that.”
Nicholas did not sound bitter, exactly. However, just as Uncle Frederick had disappointed Kevin in that will, so too had he left his heir in financial discomfort. Nicholas had inherited the title, and the properties, but insufficient money. The last months had required he apply himself to solving the dilemma.
“I have agreed to help Miss Jameson, but I have no idea how to do so. Worse, I have at most a week to find a solution.”
“What does she want you to do?”
“Find instructors and tutors who will engage her in a program of self-improvement. She thinks to complete a transformation very fast too.”
“Is there a lot of improving to do?”
Kevin almost insisted there wasn’t, but he considered it. His own interest in Miss Jameson might be coloring his view of things. He liked her the way she was, except when she became stubborn about the enterprise.
“She has been at it for some time on her own, I believe. Imitating the way others speak and dress and such. As Chase mentioned, she does not come off as a rustic. However, there can be moments when she reverts.” Charming moments. Moments of vulnerability in a woman who had made her own way for some time and who normally wore the armor of self-possession. You keep forgetting she is the enemy, you fool.
“I expect that will give the aunts something to cluck about next week.”
“Aunts?”
Nicholas called for more ale. “The dinner party. Aunt Agnes’s. We were all invited, and Miss Jameson was too. It will be a chance for us all to give her a good look.” He waited while the publican set down the ale. “You appear astonished. Weren’t you invited?”
“No.”
“An oversight, perhaps.”
“I doubt that.”
“Well, perhaps Aunt Agnes feared you would start a row with her, what with her getting half the enterprise. Picture the aunts discussing it, and envisioning your brooding and scowling the whole evening, glowering at your enemy from the corners of the drawing room. I wouldn’t have invited you either, come to think of it.”
“That isn’t why she did not invite me. She wants poor Miss Jameson there alone and helpless when their rudeness is visited on her.”
“Poor Miss Jameson? Poor? She probably has more money than I do.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What then? Is she delicate? Easily cowed? I haven’t heard such a description of her. She will manage as well as anyone, and perhaps better than most. After all, she probably doesn’t give a damn what our family thinks of her.”
Kevin frowned over the truth of that, and its implications. She most likely did not give a damn, although she wanted acceptance in a larger way. “It would have helped if this invitation came after the program of self-improvement, is all. With whom do you suggest I make arrangements?”
“How should I know?”
“You are a man about town. Surely you have heard of people who do this kind of thing. Perhaps you have met someone who has already completed such a program and can direct me there.”
“I don’t know why she charged you with this. If I needed to find such instructors, I would ask Minerva. It is her business to find people, isn’t it? With several letters, she probably can have all the names you need.”
Which begged the question of why Miss Jameson had not asked Minerva. She might feel she had imposed too much already. Minerva was going to help her with her penmanship, if he remembered correctly. Miss Jameson might think it unseemly to ask for more generosity from that quarter.
That would be understandable. Miss Jameson would not want to take advantage of that friendship.
He, on the other hand, had no compunctions at all about doing so.
* * *
The Parker School for Girls inhabited an old manor house in Essex, off the main road that led into London. It really might have been a manor house a hundred years ago, but only its size suggested that now. In appearance it more resembled a very large cottage, and to Rosamund’s eye it required some maintenance this season.
Lily fell silent as soon as she saw it, and remained that way all through the introductions with the mistress, Mrs. Parker, and the tour of the school rooms and refractory. The girls were sitting to a meal when they visited there, and Rosamund had her first good look at the other students. Finally, a chambermaid brought them to the chamber that Lily would use.
Rosamund set about unpacking Lily’s clothes while her sister sat on the bed and watched. Rosamund kept glancing over, marveling at how much Lily had
