by Brooke, Meg
The Tutor
Meg Brooke
Kindle Edition
Copyright 2012 Meg Brooke
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The Tutor
Meg Brooke
PROLOGUE
June 3, 1821
“Come in.”
Cynthia pushed open the door and went into her father’s study. Roger Endersby, celebrated professor of history and mathematics at Oxford University, sat behind his desk under the wide bank of windows, looking every bit the college don in his gray tweed suit. As she came to stand before him, he raised his head from his work and looked her up and down. “That dress becomes you,” he said, already turning his attention back to the papers and books spread across his desk. It was eighth week, and she knew she could not expect his attention for long.
“Thank you, Papa,” she said. He had approved the dress, of course, down to the trim on the sleeves. He would hardly have acknowledged making a poor choice, though she didn’t dare tell him so.
“I have your progress report from Miss Cartwright here.” He picked up one of the papers, this one with her governess’s crabbed handwriting spread across it.
“Yes, Papa.” Cynthia tried to keep her voice even. She had not done well over the last month. Miss Cartwright had told her as much, and had said she planned to be frank in her monthly report to Cynthia’s father.
“She says you are unwilling to learn embroidery.”
Cynthia shook her head. “Not unwilling, Papa, but—”
“Don’t argue with me!” he cried, leaping up out of his chair. He stormed around the desk and came to stand right before her, huge and hulking, his face mere inches from hers.
Cynthia clenched her fists but she did not look away. I am an enlightened human being, she reminded herself. He cannot break my spirit—he told me so himself. It seemed that in the last year or so, however, he had become rather determined to try.
“Do you understand how hard I have worked to make you what you are?” he demanded.
“Yes,” she murmured.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, Papa.”
“And?”
She blinked back tears. She would not cry. “I am sorry to have disappointed you, Papa. I will do better in the future.”
He stared at her for what felt like an eternity. She could feel his hot breath on her face. She began reciting The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in her head. She took comfort in the words her father would have been disgusted to know she had memorized. He did not approve of romantic poetry. Indeed, he had eliminated all poetry from her reading allowance when she was nine. Her few precious volumes were squirreled away behind a loose board in the wainscoting upstairs in her room.
At last, he stepped away and went back to his chair. Only when he had seated himself did he say, “You understand that I do this for your benefit? You will not be like other girls. You will be strong. You will be liberated. But in order to make use of your power, you will also have to have the usual accomplishments cultured young ladies have. Do you want to waste the gift I have given you?”
“No, Papa,” she said. He prayeth best, who loveth best all things both great and small, she thought. He would not break her.
“Then you will have to bend yourself to the tasks Miss Cartwright sets before you. She also reports here that you and Clarissa Martin have been meeting in secret.”
Oh, no. He had taken so much from her. Would he now deprive her of her only friend as well? “Yes, Papa.”
He nodded. “I see no reason why you should not continue to see her. Perhaps you can have a good influence on her. Yes...” he trailed off, lost for a moment in thought. Then he looked back at her, his gaze intense. “You should try to maintain your friendship with her, if only because she may prove useful later.”
Cynthia nodded. “Thank you, Papa.”
He turned to the next paper in the stack before him. “Miss Cartwright also gave me your essay on Bentham’s Plan of Parliamentary Reform,” he said. “It is an improvement on that drivel you wrote last week.”
Cynthia fought the urge to let out a sigh of relief. She had spent hours revising the essay after her disastrous previous attempt, which her father had declared too full of sentiment and sympathy. “Thank you, Papa,” she said.
He nodded curtly. “You are dismissed.” Cynthia bobbed a curtsy and turned to go. But just as her fingers reached the doorknob, he said, “One moment.”
She turned, trying not to flinch. What else could she have done wrong?
“It is your birthday, is it not?”
She stared at him. “Yesterday, Papa.”
He did not look even remotely upset by the fact that he had forgotten. “You are eleven.”
“Twelve, Papa.”
“Well. My felicitations.”
“Thank you, Papa,” she said, and then she escaped into the hall.
Other than the sound of her father clearing his throat as he shuffled papers, the house was silent. It was Miss Cartwright’s day off. Cynthia walked sedately through to the kitchen—he would hear if she ran, and chastise her later. It was Cook’s half-day as well, so the room was mercifully empty. She took a biscuit from the tin and quietly opened the kitchen door. She closed it silently, breathing a sigh of relief when she was at last outside in the open air. Then she ran.
Clarissa Martin was waiting for her on the slope that led down to the river. “Happy birthday,” she said.
“You, too,” Cynthia replied. Clarissa’s birthday wasn’t really until tomorrow, but they had always celebrated quietly together. Their fathers wouldn’t have approved of their marking the occasions.
Clarissa had brought a blanket, and she spread it out now so that they could sit on the grass. Cynthia broke the biscuit in half and gave one part to Clarissa.
“Did he read your essay?”
Cynthia nodded. “He liked it. Well, perhaps ‘liked’ is too strong a word. He approved.”
“I brought you something,” Clarissa said, pulling a small book from her pocket.
“Pride and Prejudice,” Cynthia read. “By the author of Sense and Sensibility. Oh, Clarissa! Thank you!”
“I have the other two volumes, too, when you’re ready for them. They’re under the loose floorboard in my room. Now, tell me what you’ve learned this week.”
Cynthia pulled a loose thread from the blanket and began to demonstrate the first knot.
ONE
January 2, 1834
Charles Bainbridge sat in the grand drawing room at Starling Court, counting silently to himself. Twenty-three...twenty-four.
“...and it seems to me that a son who knows his duty would have spent more time...” Twenty-five.
“...but your poor sister, having to delay her come-out. I suppose you are pleased to be relieved of that particular duty for a few months more.” Twenty-six. “Charles, say something, please. I feel as though I am speaking to an empty room,” his mother complained.
Charles looked up from his tea. His mother, the Duchess of Danforth, looking regal in her dark mourning clothes, picked an imaginary speck of dust off her black lace glove and then adjusted her jet mourning ring.
“Twenty-six,” Charles said.
She stared at him with intelligent hazel eyes. “I have not the pleasure of understanding you,” she said.
“In the last hour, you have said the word ‘duty’ twenty-six times.”
She sighed. “Really, Charles. I am sorry if tha
t word offends you, but your father has been gone ten months. You have been Duke of Danforth for nearly a year, and what have you done? Sat in your club, ignoring your family and your responsibilities. When will you begin to do your title justice?”
Charles set down his teacup and stood up. He crossed to the window and looked out over the elegantly landscaped park, now dormant and gray. Far away across the downs, he could see the edge of the town, the church steeple rising up above the rooftops. His father was buried in that churchyard, beside all the other noble Bainbridges that had come before.
It had come as something of a shock when the Duke of Danforth had died ten months earlier, especially to Charles, who had always been rather relieved by his father’s promise to outlive him and his younger siblings. The Duke of Danforth had expected to live forever, and Charles had planned to hold him to it.
He had not planned for this.
Outside, his sister Imogen was riding down the drive, kicking up clouds of dust from the gravel drive, her groom struggling to follow close behind. Perhaps foolishness ran in their family.
“Charles?” his mother asked.
He turned back to face her. “I have no answer for you, mother.”
Her disappointment was apparent, for she set her teacup down with such force that tea sloshed out and onto the saucer. She made no move to wipe it up, only glared at him.
Imogen swept into the room, her riding habit trailing dust. She was unpinning her little riding hat, which had not really protected her dark reddish hair from becoming a bit of a bird’s nest. She crossed to the sofa and sat down. “Oh, good,” she said, “tea.”
“Would it hurt you to change into something other than that filthy habit before sitting on the sofa?” the Duchess of Danforth asked.
“Do you know, mother,” Imogen said as she popped a cake into her mouth, “I believe it might.”
Their mother stood, flinging up her hands. “I despair of both of you,” she said, sweeping out of the room.
Charles came back to sit across from Imogen. “Well,” his sister said as she poured herself a cup of tea. “It’s that sort of day, I see. She’ll find Gilly and torment her now, I suppose.” Their younger sister was much better at withstanding their mother’s vitriol, which meant that it unfortunately fell to her to listen to most of it. Gillian bore up admirably under the regular onslaughts. Once she had told Charles that when their mother got started she began reciting romantic poetry in her head to keep a pleasantly interested expression on her face. That was Gilly. She could play the part if she liked, though more often than not she didn’t. Charles would have to ask her for some tips before making his first appearance in the House of Lords.
“It’s not your fault, Immy,” Charles said. She wrinkled her nose at the childish nickname. “I’m afraid she’s been after me about doing my duty again.”
Imogen grinned. “That’s a comfort. At least it wasn’t why you haven’t married and presented her with a dozen grandchildren yet this time. I thought I might go mad the last time she got started on that one, and poor Gilly had to listen to her lamentations for a week. But speaking of duty, have you made a decision yet?”
“I have.”
She looked up at him over her tea, her face carefully expressionless. “And?”
“I’m going down to London for the session,” he said.
She smiled. “Oh, Charles, I am glad to hear that. I think you will do well, despite yourself.”
“Thank you, I think,” he said, chuckling.
The door flew open and the youngest Bainbridge, their little brother Ian, came in. “I heard there were cakes,” he said. At seventeen, he seemed to be constantly eating. When he had come home at the end of the Michaelmas term, he appeared to have grown three inches in the eight weeks he had been gone. Charles could not remember ever having eaten so much, though he supposed he had at that age. He and Ian were built very similarly, with long, lean frames and sharp, high cheekbones. The only difference between Charles and the brother who was twelve years his junior was their hair—Charles had inherited his mother’s pale complexion and blond hair, while Ian had the Bainbridge russet. Charles could remember the day, just after his twelfth birthday, when he had been presented with this squalling little brother and had looked up at his mother and said, “I thought you said he would look just like me.”
Everyone had laughed at that. People had always found Charles charming. Now, however, it seemed that he had finally found a muddle he couldn’t simply charm his way out of.
“Don’t pretend you haven’t already been in here once since tea was laid,” Imogen joked.
“Twice,” Ian admitted around a mouthful of cake. “I saw mother storming up the stairs towards Gilly’s room just now. What did you say to her, Charles?”
Charles sighed, deciding not to bother protesting that he hadn’t said anything untoward. It had always delighted him to vex his mother just a little, and his siblings knew it. “She said ‘duty’ twenty-six times in an hour,” he complained.
Ian let out a low whistle. “That’s an achievement, even for her. I suppose you still haven’t told her whether you’ll be going down for the session?”
“I haven’t,” Charles said, “but I’ve decided that I will.”
“Good man,” Ian said.
Charles nodded. “Now all I need is lessons in how to be a Member. You don’t suppose they have someone at Westminster who does such a thing, do you? Father knew all the rules, even the unspoken set about where you’re allowed to sit and why there’s a bloody woolsack in the House chamber. There are books and books full of them upstairs in the library, but I can’t make head or tails of the infernal things.” Charles had been attempting to struggle through an ancient looking tome on Parliamentary procedure he had found in the library alongside the records of all the Parliamentary sessions for the last fifty years, but had been making little headway. Perhaps it was the musty smell of the pages, which looked as though they hadn’t seen the light of day in twenty years or more.
“It’s a shame you can’t come back to Oxford,” Ian said. “I can’t tell you how many lectures I’ve had to endure on the glories of Parliament and the Great Reform.”
“I think I would pay good money never to go back there again,” Charles said. “In fact, I do pay good money so that you can go there instead.”
“And for that I owe you humble thanks,” Ian said sarcastically. Charles grinned at his little brother. He had never been a good student, and he suspected that Ian was not, either. There was too much hunger for excitement and movement and activity in their blood. But the fact remained that, because he had lived under the blissful assumption that he would never have to take up his seat, he had studiously avoided learning anything about how Parliament functioned. He could always refuse to attend, he supposed. But that would have drive his long-suffering mother mad, he was certain. His father had been a devoted Member, attending the entire session each year. The previous Duke of Danforth had never made his wishes should he depart his earthly life before his son known, but one thing was for certain: if there was anything that John Maxwell Bainbridge, eighth Duke of Danforth had held sacred, it was duty.
Perhaps that was why it was Charles’s least favorite word in the English language.
“When do you go down to London?” Ian asked.
“No later than Sunday. Saturday, most likely. I’m going to have a good deal of work ahead of me if I’m to be as adept at this as father was.”
“You mustn’t expect to be perfect right away, Charles,” Imogen cautioned. “Father was the consummate politician, after all.”
Charles shot her a withering look. They both knew that anything less than perfection would be unfulfilling for him, and that their father’s reputation only made it worse.
“Maybe Leo could help you,” Imogen offered.
Charles shook his head, not meeting her eyes. He could not imagine explaining to his sister who, for all that she was twenty-three was still a gently bred young la
dy, that his friend Leopold Chesney, Viscount Sidney, was currently not on speaking terms with him because of an unfortunate incident involving Leo’s youngest sister Maris that had occurred at the Middlebury’s shooting party in September. Charles maintained that he was entirely blameless in the whole thing—the youngest Chesney daughter was a well-known flirt, and it had not been quite bad enough that he had had to offer for her. But that was beside the point. “No,” he said, “I don’t think Leo is the man for the job.”
“Then Lord Stowe?”
Charles was not certain he could turn to Anders Rennick, Earl of Stowe, for anything. He was Leo’s friend, not Charles’s, though the two of them had enough of an acquaintance that they were generally on a first-name basis. But Charles had always thought him a rather stuffy, straitlaced fellow, a little too enamored of duty to sympathize with a man reluctant to do his. Of course, he had married that girl rather hastily by special license last year, and their twins had been born barely nine months after the wedding...
But that was neither here nor there. Charles would be embarrassed to ask Stowe for assistance. Stowe had often teased him about his family’s Tory leanings, and Charles could not tolerate having the man gloat over him for an entire session, since he was planning to break with Bainbridge tradition and side with the Whigs.
“Well, we must do something,” Ian said. “Can’t have you disgracing the Bainbridge name in the hallowed halls of Westminster.”
Charles nodded. For all his posturing about not caring a fig for the noble house of Danforth, he knew that he would never forgive himself if he trod all over the gravitas his father and grandfather had so carefully cultivated. But it was more than that. Charles had to admit that, among his many failings, perhaps the worst was the competitive streak that had only intensified as he got older. He couldn’t stand not being the best in the room at whatever task was laid before him. As a child, he had given up a great many things because he knew he could not excel at them, and because he was the Marquis of Cayleigh, heir to the great Dukedom of Danforth, he had been allowed to petulantly abandon whatever he did not like. Now that competitiveness was coming back to haunt him. If he were to take the seat in Parliament, he knew he would not be satisfied with anything less than excellence.
