The Tutor (House of Lords) Read Free

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.
    For that, he would need help.
    “I know!” Imogen cried suddenly. Ian dropped the cake he had been eating on his lap, scattering sugar all over his dark trousers. “There’s that woman Mariah Maxwell used when she married Lord Farrington last year.”
    “A woman?” Charles asked, trying to remember Lord Farrington. Wasn’t he the one who had fallen asleep during his own wedding? Why anyone would marry him was beyond Charles’s power to understand. If his wife was anything like him he could see why she might have needed a little polishing. But his problems went beyond sitting and standing at the right times and remembering where to seat viscounts. Why would Imogen think he needed a woman to tutor him in those areas?
    “Yes, Charles,” Imogen said, sounding rather exasperated. “We women can do more than embroider cushions and sketch, you know. This woman certainly can, anyway. She was very discreet. I can’t think of her name now, but I’ll write to Mariah. She knew nothing about politics or anything academic when she married her husband, and she didn’t want to appear foolish among his friends. She hired this woman to tutor her. Quite the bluestocking, apparently. Knew everything there was to know about Parliament and politics. If you ask me, Lord Farrington probably could have used her help just as much as Lady Farrington.”
    Charles groaned. Just what he needed. Another liberal female trying to bend his ear. If she spent most of her time training flighty young society wives, she would no doubt be sour and commandeering, too.
    But he did need help.
    “All right,” he sighed. “See if you can arrange a meeting for Monday.”
     

TWO
     
    January 4, 1833
     
    Cynthia took a careful sip of her tea, trying to appear attentive. Really, she had no idea what Mr. Altington was saying, but she thought she was doing a masterful job of looking as though she did, and from the way he kept growing more and more animated, she thought he had fallen for the ruse. She