Giles had dinedat Lady Montague’s house. He would avoid the place and its hostess if he could, but just now he was forced to find places to eat. If there was anything complimentary to say of Lady Montague, it was that she had food. That was probably all he could credit her with. She was a gossip and a schemer. Still, there had been no other invitations in the offing, and so he had availed himself of her roasted meats.
It had been the usual Montague affair. Her table was filled with those who were too afraid to refuse her and so the compliments to the hostess ran sickeningly thick on the ground.
The only bright spot, which had not seemed so bright at first, was finding himself seated by a lady named Mrs. Hemmings. He soon discovered she was the new Lady Ashworth’s aunt and had been at the center of all that had gone on with Lord Ashworth last season.
Giles did not know if half of it were true, as it sounded as farfetched as possible, but it had been wildly entertaining.
He had excused himself from the house as soon as he decently could and made his way to Crackwilder’s apartment.
Having greeted Mrs. Radish/Ra-deesh in a suitably gallant manner and cut short her complaints about her tenant, he’d gone up and found his friend at work at his desk.
“The prodigal gentleman has arrived,” Crackwilder said upon seeing him. “I sent you to buy the lady a book and somehow you buy her a satire or some nonsense. As if that were not bad enough, you were not even in on the joke!”
Giles threw himself into a chair. “How was I to know? The binding was particularly fine.”
“How were you toknow?” Crackwilder asked, closing a book on his desk. He went to the sideboard and poured two glasses of brandy. Handing one to Giles, he said, “You were to know by opening the book and reading some of the pages. Anybody would have realized that a defense of the sun revolving round the earth was a jest.”
Giles stared at his glass. “So that was Aristotle’s theory, was it?”
“And the author’s name was French for foolish!”
“Was it?”
“My God, man, what did you do at school? Hold your hands over your ears?”
Giles willed himself not to flush at the suggestion. He knew well enough that it had been close to that. He had been too taken up with horses and races and bets and wine to attend to his studies. When he did take up a book, it was meant to be history or Latin but somehow ended being poetry or a play. He was well aware that if his father had not been a duke he would have been pitched out with the rubbish at the end of his first term.
“I was not as attentive as I could have been.”
“An understatement for the ages,” Crackwilder said drily.
“All right,” Giles said, “you’ve had your fun with insults. The question is, does Miss Dell know thatIdid not know the book was written in jest?”
“Of course she does,” Crackwilder said. “The truth was written well enough on her face. Sir John knew it, too.”
“Kullehamnd,” Giles said derisively.
“Miss Dell was kind in not condemning you outright, but she is not your sort, Grayson,” Crackwilder said.
“Sheiskind, is she not? And she’s precisely my sort,” Giles said. “But for the small difference between us of…collections of facts.”
“What you call a small difference, I call the distance of here to the moon.”
“What am I to do, then? To shorten the distance?”
“Why should you want to?” Crackwilder said eyeing him. “Are you only being perverse? Do you pursue the lady because she is so ill-suited to appreciating your charms, those alleged charms having nothing to do with intellect?”
“I do not know, precisely. Perhaps it is perverseness, perhaps it is my winning spirit. I do not like to accept defeat is all. Now, what shall I do?”
“There is nothing you can do. Miss Dell appreciates a scholar, and that you are not.”
“Then I will become a scholar,” Giles said, feeling a sense of resolve settling over him. “And you will help me. I’ll pay you for lessons. Naturally, I cannot pay you at this very moment, but you can keep a record of accounts and I will pay you someday.”
Crackwilder was looking more and more amused as Giles spoke. Finally, he snorted and said, “Where would we even start?”
“I do not know,” Giles said, “you’rethe tutor. Just pick somewhere and start. Pick something I might throw into a conversation with Miss Dell. Do not bore me with things that would never come up. I want science and stars and such.”
Crackwilder downed his brandy. “Science and stars. I never heard anything more ridiculous.”
