The Tutor (House of Lords) (16 page)

She sighed and looked away, out the window at the cold winter moon. “I have to tell you some time, I suppose,” she said. “It might as well be now, before things go any further.”

This was it, then. Suddenly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear whatever it was she had to say. But he had been pushing her to tell him for days, and he could hardly refuse to listen now.

She sat up a little, leaning back against the pillows and pulling the sheet up over herself. She looked down at her hands and then back up at him. “Thirty years ago,” she said, “my father’s sister married a man named Jonah Martin. He and my father became fast friends, and remained so when my aunt Lydia died four years later. They shared many interests: philosophy, politics, science. They were both, in their own ways, dreamers. But there was a key difference between them. Where Martin was able to keep his dreams in his head, to allow them to remain only dreams, my father had—has—difficulty understanding why his imaginings can’t become reality. He doesn’t see the world as other men do. He looks on other people as toys, as wooden soldiers moving across the floor of his own private playroom. But he is also fiercely intelligent, and so he dreams on a much larger scale than other men.

“He and Martin spent a great deal of time talking about natural law, about the rules that govern society and make us who we are. They read Hobbes and Locke and Rousseau, and I think my father was quite taken with the idea of the noble savage. He had this idea, you see, that if a person were removed from the conditions of their birth, they could rise above them. But there was only one way to prove it. So he designed an experiment.”

Charles stared intently at her, not quite sure where this was going. But he could feel her tension increasing, and it made him nervous.

She took a deep breath before continuing. “The conditions of the experiment were deceptively simple: take a child from its birth mother, from the conditions in which it was born, and see if it could be liberated and enlightened beyond the expectations of its birth. So my father went to a brothel in York to find a child—he wanted a girl, because he thought the achievement would be all the greater if he could create a liberated woman, rather than a man. But when he got there, he found not one but two infant girls. Then my father had one of the few truly human impulses I think he has ever felt. He paid the madam for both girls and took them home, and then he enlisted Jonah Martin, still weak and dispirited from the death of his wife, to take one of the babies while he kept the other. Two subjects for the experiment would make the results even more valid, he felt.”

“And you were one of those infants?”

Cynthia nodded. “I was. I was about four months old when he bought me from that brothel. A few months later, both he and Jonah Martin moved to Oxford and began teaching. They passed me and the other baby off as their daughters, and the experiment began.”

“Oh, Cynthia,” Charles said, reaching for her hand. She pulled away, shaking her head.

“In many ways,” she said casually, “it was an ideal childhood. I was allowed to read anything I wanted, learn anything I wanted, pursue every interest I had. I was not required to wear corsets or sit meekly. I was Roger Endersby’s pupil. But it was a false freedom. None of the choices I made were actually mine. I read Mary Wollstonecraft when I was eight and thought how lucky I was to be a liberated woman, but it was all a sham. And as I grew older, the experiment began to change.”

She paused for a moment, and Charles said, “You don’t have to tell me any more if you don’t wish to, Cynthia.”

“No,” she said. “I’ve begun now, and I can’t be stopped.” She gathered her thoughts and then said, “When I was ten, my father realized that I was developing into a beauty, and the germ of another idea took hold in his mind. Having as much power as he did over Martin and his students had made him hungry for more. And when he looked about for a tool that would bring him more power, he saw me. He devised a second phase to the experiment. Now that Martin’s daughter and I had grown into intelligent, knowledgeable girls, he thought, why not also make us accomplished, attractive young ladies who would snare rich, powerful men? Surely if we could be taught engineering and math and science, we could be taught the waltz and how to arrange a dinner party. But Martin didn’t like the plan. Unlike my father, he had come to love his daughter. He didn’t want to force her to do anything she didn’t want to, and he refused to be party to the second phase. There was a terrific argument, and it ended with Jonah Martin breaking with my father. They never spoke again, though his daughter and I remained friends. But without Martin’s restraint, my father lost sight of the object of the experiment. He saw only the power he might gain through me, and every time I failed he became angrier. He never beat me, but he terrified me. He made me feel that I was worthless unless I did exactly as he expected. I lived in fear of failure. So I became perfect. I never understood why he changed until a few months after he came into his inheritance and we moved to London. Then he sat me down and told me the whole story of my birth, and what was now expected of me. That day, I vowed I would never marry, would never give him what he wanted.”

Charles felt ill. He had sat in Roger Endersby’s tutorial, had listened to the man speak. He had never known he was in the presence of a monster. How could any man do such a thing to a child? It was inhuman. He fought the urge to pick Cynthia up and carry her out of the house and never let her return there again. Instead, he swallowed his rage and said, “And he wants you to be a duchess.”

“I think if it were possible he would want me to be queen,” Cynthia said. “He knows that he cannot gain power on his own, but through me...” She paused, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. “You don’t understand what he’s like, Charles. He watches my every movement, knows every person I see, keeps track of how many of them are titled or not.”

“He does all this in the name of liberation?” Charles asked, feeling the hot rage boiling inside him despite his efforts to quell it. The man should be jailed, or banished, or better yet killed, preferably very painfully.

“I don’t think he cares about liberation any longer,” Cynthia replied. “He doesn’t care about anything but power.”

“And he did this to you,” Charles asked, running a finger along the bruises on her arm, “because you disappointed him?”

She nodded. “But you needn’t worry about me, Charles. I have the money saved to leave, to get away from him. He won’t control me for long. Now that I’ve told you I know you’ll want to withdraw your offer, and I understand, but I want you to know that I can take care of myself.”

He clenched his fists. “Who said anything about taking care of you? I don’t want to take care of you, Cynthia, or be your master. I would never accept anything less than an equal partnership with you,” he insisted.

She brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “You say that now,” she said, “but you don’t understand how persistent I can be, how domineering I might get when there’s something I think is wrong. You would find me unbearable after a while, I think. And you would have to live forever with the embarrassment of a wife whose mother was a whore.” She spat the word as though it left a foul taste in her mouth.

He put one hand on her knee. “What happened to liberation, to rising above your birth? Don’t you think you’ve at least accomplished that? And don’t forget, I have a sister who is, as you so delicately put it, a whore, and the daughter of one. But she also happens to be a far better woman than most of the ladies of the
ton
, and far truer to herself. If that’s what being the daughter of a prostitute makes you, I think more peers should consider marrying one.”

One corner of her mouth lifted in a wry smile. “Why aren’t you upset by this?” she asked.

“Oh, don’t mistake me,” he said, “I’m livid. While we are sitting here I am forcing myself not to get up, ride as fast as I can to Oxford, and strangle Roger Endersby. But somehow I don’t imagine that’s what you want.”

She shrugged. “For a time it was. I spent long hours learning to make undetectable poisons. I went to sleep every night imagining what it would be like to kill him. But it would have cost me the piece of my soul he hadn’t crushed, and I couldn’t bear that. Before everything changed, he had taught me that my dignity was the only thing no one could take from me, and I clung to that. Clarissa helped a great deal.”

“Clarissa?” he asked. What did the Countess of Stowe have to do with this? But before she even spoke, he knew.

“Haven’t you guessed?” she asked. “Clarissa Rennick, nee Martin, was the other baby.”

“Of course she was,” he said. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it earlier.”

She rested her chin on her knees. “I’m so ashamed, Charles. I didn’t tell you because I thought that if I waited, it would make it easier for us to break our arrangement. I imagined I could use it as a way to make you hate me. I assumed that once you knew, you wouldn’t want anything to do with me. I didn’t give you enough credit.”

He put his finger under her chin and lifted her face to his. He kissed her gently, cupping her cheek with his hand. When he broke the kiss, he said, “What you have told me changes nothing. You are not what your father made you. He couldn’t break your spirit, because it wasn’t his to break.” Then he kissed her again, pulling her into his arms, one hand sliding down her back. “I love you, Cynthia,” he whispered.

She smiled up at him. “I love you, too,” she said.

He felt almost foolish at how those words made his heart swell.

SEVENTEEN

January 16, 1834

“Lady Imogen Bainbridge, Miss,” Mallory announced the next morning. Cynthia had been sitting in the library, trying to distract herself with a volume of poetry she had carefully hidden there.

“Show her up, Mallory,” she said, rising and suppressing the instinct to hide the book. Lady Imogen would be pleased to see her reading it, she reminded herself, and would not think less of her for her enjoyment of the romantic subject matter.

“Cynthia!” Imogen cried. “What a lovely room this is. It’s funny you should be sitting here, for I have come to invite you to Wrights. I am starved for new reading material. Please say you’ll come, for I know I’ll choose something silly and frivolous without your help.”

Cynthia smiled. “Of course,” she said, “though I wish you wouldn’t think of my presence as the antidote to frivolity. I have been making some very silly choices the last few days.”

Imogen grinned. “I do hope so,” she said. “I don’t think I know another young woman who would benefit more from some frivolity than you. But I hope you don’t think I’ve decided you’re a bluestocking, Cynthia. I see right through that mask you wear.”

“Do you?” Cynthia asked, trying to keep from smirking. “Well, I will just fetch my mantle.”

She did not see her erstwhile minder on the street, but she knew that didn’t mean he wasn’t there. Perhaps he was in Oxford, reporting back to her father.

But as they were leaving Wright’s he revealed himself. It all happened so quickly that afterwards Cynthia was not quite certain she had not imagined the whole thing. They stepped out into the street, chatting amiably about nothing in particular. Concentrating on what Imogen was saying instead of where she was going, Cynthia put one foot out of place and stumbled, falling into the street.

“Cynthia!” Imogen screamed, her terrified face looking away down the street. Cynthia struggled to her hands and knees, looking up to see a hackney bearing down on her.

Everything seemed to slow. She saw the startled face of the hackney driver as he tried to pull back on the reins. She saw the hooves of the horse pounding towards her, so close that she could feel their vibrations through the cobbles beneath her palms. She tried to right herself, but it felt as though she was climbing out of a hole filled with thick mud.

Then, suddenly, someone’s hands were on her waist, yanking her up and back. The horse and hackney swept by, inches away from her. She screamed and whirled, her rescuer’s hands on her shoulders, steadying her, keeping her from falling. As the hackney raced away down the street, she looked into the face of the man who had pulled her to safety.

It was the man with the mangled ear. For a moment Cynthia just stared at him, and he at her. She could read his consternation in his expression. He had broken some unspoken rule in helping her. “Thank you,” she managed to stammer. He nodded grimly. “Who are you?” Cynthia asked. But the man turned and marched away down the street, his hands clenched in tight fists. Then Imogen was at her side.

“Cynthia, are you all right? Oh, I was so frightened!”

“Yes,” Cynthia said, brushing the dirt from her palms. “Yes, I’m quite all right.”

“That man came out of nowhere! How fortunate he was there,” Imogen went on, babbling nervously. “We must see if anyone in the area knows who he is.”

“Of course,” Cynthia said, though she was fairly certain no one would know who the man was or even remember seeing him. She followed Imogen to the carriage, her hands still trembling. In fact, as she climbed into the carriage, she began to feel a little dizzy.

“You must go home and rest,” Imogen said. “I’ll explain to Charles.”

Cynthia almost protested that she did not need to rest, that she was quite well, but then she looked down at her shaking fingers. “Thank you, Imogen,” she said.

When they reached the house, Imogen followed her in and related the whole tale to Ellen, who insisted that Cynthia sit on the sofa and have some tea. “Don’t worry, My Lady,” she said to Imogen as she adjusted a cushion behind Cynthia’s back, “I’ll take good care of her.”

Imogen smiled. “Of course you will,” she said. “I know I invited you to dine at Danforth House tonight, Cynthia, but you must rest if you are still feeling poorly this evening.”

“I’m sure I shall be quite recovered soon,” Cynthia said.

“All the same,” Imogen insisted, “you must send word if you would rather not.”

Cynthia promised, and Imogen departed, still looking worried.

Ellen bustled about, preparing her a cup of tea and then standing over her while she drank it. As she set the cup down, Cynthia said, “I think, Ellen, that it is safe to say this has been the strangest week of my life.”

“Charles, you’ll never believe what happened this morning,” Imogen cried as she burst into the library. “I don’t know when I’ve been so frightened in my life!”

“I thought you were taking Miss Endersby to Wright’s this morning.”

“Yes, well, that’s where it happened.”

Charles shot up out of his chair. “Is she all right?” he demanded.

Imogen smiled a knowing smile. “She is perfectly well, Charles. My goodness, you have fallen rather hard, haven’t you?”

“Tell me what happened,” he said sternly.

“All right,” Imogen replied, still grinning. “We were leaving Wright’s and Cynthia tripped on one of the cobbles and fell right into the path of a hackney.”

Filled with alarm, Charles said, “I thought you said she was all right.”

“She is. That’s the strange thing. This man appeared almost out of nowhere and swept her out of the way. The hackney missed her by mere inches. I tell you, Charles, I have never been so terrified as I was at that moment. Cynthia seemed quite frightened. And it was so odd, the man appearing like that and then disappearing almost as quickly, as if he was never even there.”

As if he was never even there
, Charles thought. “Did you get a look at him?”

Imogen shook her head. “No, not really—no, wait! I did notice one thing about him. He was missing the lower part of one ear, I’m almost sure of it. Do you think it was bitten off by a dog or something?”

Charles was no longer listening. “I’m going out,” he said, sweeping out of the room.

“Don’t forget we have guests for dinner this evening!” she called after him.

Fifteen minutes later he was in Mayfair. It was not yet two o’clock, but he was sure Jacqueline would see him. He was not surprised, however, when the Bull made him wait five minutes in the hall for her. When at last he was ushered upstairs, he was taken to her private office, a small room overlooking the street.

“Charles,” she cried as he came in. “I thought I made it perfectly clear—”

“Why are you having her followed?” he demanded, cutting her off.

She stared at him. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“The Rat has been following Cynthia for at least three days.”

She sank slowly into her chair. “Oh, Charles,” she said, “I think you’d better tell me the whole story.”

So he did. He told her about his nighttime visits to the house in Cavendish Square, the day he had followed the Rat, and the story Imogen had just told him. When he had finished, she shook her head sadly.

“I’m afraid that I won’t be much help to you,” she said. “You see, the person to whom you refer left my employ over a year ago. I was very distressed to lose him, but his skills are highly prized and I wasn’t exactly surprised when he told me that he wished to open his own private investigation firm. He has done quite well, I believe. But if he is following you or Miss Endersby, it is not at my instigation.”

Charles heaved a deep sigh.

“What is going on, Charles?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “This has been the strangest week of my life.”

“Will she accept you at the end of it?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I still have no idea. I hope so.”

She smiled. “I do, too.”

He rose, and so did she. But just as he turned to go she said, “Wait, Charles.” She opened a drawer and rummaged around for a moment. “Here,” she said, handing him a card. “That’s the man you call the Rat. He will be very angry that I gave you his card, but I think you deserve to know the truth.”

Charles pocketed the card and kissed her goodbye.

Down in the street his carriage was waiting. He almost told the driver to take him back to Danforth House, but then he changed his mind. There was one other person he could talk to about the situation in which he had found himself. “Take me to Stowe House,” he said.

The butler who answered the door showed him up to the study without even glancing at his card. Inside, Lord and Lady Stowe were sitting at a matched pair of desks, which had been placed back-to-back. Both appeared to be quite engrossed in their work, but they smiled and stood to greet him.

“What brings you here?” Stowe asked, and Charles did not miss his cautious glance at his wife.

“I would ask to speak to you privately, but I suppose your wife is as involved in this as you are,” Charles said.

Lady Stowe frowned. “She’s told you,” she said.

Charles nodded. Lady Stowe gestured elegantly to a small sofa and chairs that were placed before the fire. The three of them sat, and Stowe said, “You appear to have taken the news in stride.”

Charles smiled wryly. “I have had some time to think about it. I was uncontrollably angry when she first told me the story. I wanted to ride to Oxford and kill Endersby with my bare hands.”

Lady Stowe nodded. “That is as it should be, and he would deserve little better, if you ask me. But all the same, I am glad you didn’t. For all his faults, Cynthia still considers him her father, and I think it would pain her more than she is willing to admit to see him harmed.”

Charles gaped at her. There were a thousand questions whirling through his mind, but one in particular came to the fore.

“Ask me,” Lady Stowe said. “Go ahead.”

“How do you bear it?” he asked, not allowing himself to be embarrassed.

She smiled. “Easily. My father loved me. He gave me the life I have now. And I have a family that fills my days with light and joy. It was not easy at first, but I accepted the truth and moved on. In one thing, at least, Roger Endersby is correct: our birth does not define us.”

“But Cynthia—”

“Cynthia is a different case. Her father did not love her and never will. He sees her as a laboratory animal, his to control and manipulate. You must get her away from him. She will reach her majority in June, but that will be too late.”

“And if she refuses me?”

Lady Stowe glanced at her husband. “We have agreed to offer her a home here,” Stowe said, looking very grave. “She will be protected.”

“Thank you.”

“It is our pleasure,” Lady Stowe insisted. “Cynthia is like a sister to me.”

Charles thought about that statement for a moment. “There’s no chance the two of you could actually be—”

“No,” she said. “I have wished for it many times, but we were born just a few days apart. There is no chance of it.”

He nodded. “I must be going,” he said. “Thank you both.”

“Don’t mention it,” Stowe said, and he rose to show Charles out.

When they were down in the foyer, Charles asked, “You never looked into your wife’s parentage, did you?”

The earl shot a quick glance up to the study. “I did. I hired a man my solicitor recommended, a private investigator, about six months ago. He went up to York and dug around. Found her mother, who died little more than two years after Clarissa was born, and the record of who she believed the father was—a soldier, apparently. I told her about it after the twins were born. But I couldn’t turn up anything about Cynthia. Apparently her mother had spoken about her once before her own death, but no one would give me any information. I am sorry, Charles.”

“No, no,” Charles said. “Thank you for all your help.”

“I could give you the name of the investigator, if you like. I have his card somewhere.”

Charles withdrew the card Jacqueline had given him. “Is this it?”

Stowe studied it. “Yes, it is. Where did you get this?”

Charles shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. But I think I’m coming close to the end of the trail.”

The offices of Robert Sirkus, Private Investigator were located on the top floor of a narrow building in Piccadilly. Charles knocked on the door, half expecting there to be no answer, and was surprised when the Rat himself opened it. He frowned when he saw Charles.

“I suppose you’d better come in,” he said.

Charles followed him into a small room with a single desk. A large safe stood in one corner. The only other furniture was the two chairs, one of which the Rat offered him before taking the other.

“I am impressed, Your Grace,” he said. “I thought it would take you much longer to find me. Lady Jack gave you my card, I suppose.”

Charles nodded. He decided not to mention the fact that he would have gotten the Rat’s name from Lord Stowe anyway. “I want to know what you can tell me about Cynthia Endersby.”

The Rat stared at him for a moment. “I am afraid I can tell you very little,” he said at last. “I have been paid exceedingly well to reveal nothing of what I am doing on her behalf.”

“On her behalf?” Charles repeated. “You mean that you have been following her for her own good?”

The Rat did not respond.

“What can you tell me?”

“That you should marry her, Your Grace. But I think it would be wise to wait until the situation develops a little further before you propose.”

“I have proposed already,” Charles said, though he thought perhaps the Rat already knew this. “She has refused.”

The Rat looked at him, assessing him. “As I say, Your Grace: be patient. I don’t believe it will be much longer.”

“There truly is nothing else you can tell me?”

The Rat simply shrugged.

“Very well,” Charles sighed and rose to go. But as his fingers found the doorknob he turned back. “Thank you for saving her this morning,” he said.

The Rat smiled. “It was my pleasure, Your Grace.”

Charles returned to Danforth House at about five to find the house in uproar. Imogen rushed down the stairs to greet him. “Oh, Charles,” she said, “you must believe me when I say I had nothing to do with it. Gillian wrote to her.”