“G, my lord?”
“Yes, of course G,” Giles said. “That cannot be confused with K for Kulle-whatever-his-name.”
“G,” the clerk said.
“And write it all down for me—the title, author, and my note. I would not care to forget any detail when Miss Dell wishes to thank me for it.”
“As you wish, my lord,” the clerk said.
Giles was thoroughly satisfied. The past hours had been well spent after all. Miss Dell could not fail to be gratified upon receipt of such an exquisite volume.
Sir John could not hope to compete. Oh, the fellow might run to the shop and attempt to buy something, but Giles had already purchased the superior volume. In any case, he doubted the fellow could afford four pounds for a book.
That he himself, at this moment, could not afford it either seemed not worth thinking of.
*
Kitty ran downthe stairs to her father. He had sent word that he wished to see her in his library. She hurried down the corridor to the door of his study, a sense of foreboding growing with every step she took. It was just after breakfast and her father’s habit was to closet himself in that room with his studies until after two o’clock. He would come out at that hour, only because he began to get hungry. The last time he had broken with the schedule had been because a blackbird had flown in through an open window and could not be convinced to leave. He’d finally sought out the baroness to complain of amember of Aves having the unmitigated gall to install itself in my study.
Kitty pushed the door open with trepidation, lest she find a bird in flight or some other disaster in the making.
“Come, Kitty,” her father said, motioning to a seat. He was behind his desk amidst an array of papers and books. Lord Penderton was a dashing sort of middle-aged gentleman, but for the inevitable ink stains on his hands and cuffs. Both the baroness and the lord’s valet ensured that he was perfectly presentable at breakfast, though both knew he would not be in his study an hour before his person resembled that of any government clerk.
Aside from his scholarship, the lord was known as a particularly skilled master of his estate—Kitty’s dowry was sizable, as was her sister’s, and Frederick would be left exceedingly comfortable. This financial success, Kitty knew, was a result of him leaving his affairs to an experienced steward and having no interest in gambling away any profits. Over a dinner long ago, Frederick had asked his father for the secrets to the successful management of the estate. Her father had no secrets to relay, and only saidsometimes the best thing to do is get out of the way.
Now, Lord Penderton studied her gravely. Kitty could not imagine what had happened.
“It seems,” he said, “that you have an admirer.”
“Surely not,” Kitty said reflexively, her mind racing. Had Sir John spoken to her father? No, it could not be so, they were too little acquainted. Though, she could not think who else it might be. She had danced with several gentlemen who had seemed to find her agreeable at the Bergram’s ball. But she did not really know any of them.
She was at a complete loss. There was nobody she even knew well enough to ask for an interview with her father.
Her father picked up a book and handed it to her. “This arrived for you. Naturally, Hidgson brought it to me to examine.”
It was very finely bound, and Kitty laughed as she read the title—An Examination of Geocentric Cosmology and a Defense of Aristotle’sTheory.She assumed some poor fellow had paid richly to have it published. She supposed the author was a gentleman who was convinced that modern scientific theories were an abomination to the church. Who else would argue Aristotle’s now very outdated and disproved geocentric theory of the heavens revolving round the earth?
Could Sir John have sent it? Perhaps he had some notion that they could discuss the arc of advancement from ancient times to modern day?
“You will notice the author’s last name?” her father asked.
Kitty had not in fact noted anything particular about it, it was some reverend or other. Her father, however, had a keen eye and no detail escaped him. Once he’d pointed it out, it jumped out at her as the most obvious thing in the world. The Reverend H. Bête. Bête was foolish in French. The whole volume was meant as a jest.
“It is the note that accompanies the book that I find particularly striking,” Lord Penderton said. “It hints that you have either caught the eye of a gentleman with an elaborate and keen sense of wit, or you have caught the eye of the stupidest man in London.”
“May I see it, papa?” Kitty asked, entirely at a loss as to what sort of note might accompany this strange gift.
“I shall read it to you, dear,” Lord Penderton said, picking up a single sheet of paper with Lackington and Allen’s embossed header on it. “It says:in admiration of your scholarship, may this new information add to your already noteworthy amount of knowledge and enlighten you on a subject of interest.”
“Certainly, it is meant as a jest,” Kitty said. “Though, the one person I might have thought would send me a book is not the type of gentleman to jest. At least, I did not think so.”
Though Kitty had not thought so, and had wished Sir John to be more lively, perhaps she had been wrong? Perhaps his stiffness had only been on account of an early acquaintance? Perhaps Sir John was not so stiff after all. Perhaps he was learnedandliked to laugh.
“It is only signed as ‘G’,” her father said.
“G?” Kitty said. Good Lord. G? No, it could not be from Lord Grayson. As soon as she thought it could not, Kitty realized that it could, and that it in fact must be.
“I perceive you make a guess on the sender?” Lord Penderton asked. “Who is the gentleman and is he a wit or the dimmest man in creation?”
