an unfailing mockery of learning. Why, an African monkey with a pen in his paw could do better than these!”
He swept a sheaf of papers from the desk, brandishing it before Brant. “And now come these. What am I to do with you, Claremont? Have you any answers to share with me by way of enlightenment?”
Keel tossed the papers back onto the desk with disgust, and Brant closed his eyes against the awful proof of his shame. He didn’t have to see his examination papers to know what gibberish was scrawled across them or what that gibberish proved. He already knew.
He was no Golden Lord, but an imbecile duke, an idiot from his cradle. That was the truth. No matter how he tried, concentrating until his head ached with the effort, he could not make sense of the letters that others so effortlessly saw as words. No such troubles plagued him with numbers—certainly not at cards—and if a page were read aloud to him, like a nursery story, he’d comprehend and recall every line with ease. Throughout his life he’d contrived scores of little tricks and feints to hide his deficiency, and he’d done well enough to keep his secret, even here.
But to read and write like a gentleman was as impossible for him as flying through the clouds. Awake at night, he imagined that inside his skull his brain was a fraction the size of a normal man’s, woefully shriveled and defective.
And now, it seemed, the rest of the world was about to learn the truth, as well, and scorn and pity and mock him for the half-wit that he’d always been.
“Speak, Claremont,” ordered the headmaster, his voice booming through Brant’s private dread. “I await your suggestions for me.”
Slowly, Brant opened his eyes and met Keel’s gaze, determined to savor what might well be his last few moments as a rational gentleman. “I have no suggestions, sir.”
“None?” Scowling, Dr. Keel thrust out his lower lip and leaned toward Brant. “You surprise me, Claremont. You have taken these other boys sufficiently into your confidence to pick their pockets clean, and yet you have no notion of what I should write or say to their fathers?”
“Fathers, sir?” repeated Brant uncertainly, not following at first. What had the other boys to do with this?
“Yes, Claremont, their fathers,” said the headmaster furiously, once again reaching for the sheaf of papers. “I have had these six letters in the past three days. The accusations are all the same. Hundreds, even thousands of pounds lost to you whilst gaming!”
“’Tis luck,” said Brant slowly for the second time that evening, and what else could it be, to spare him in this marvelous, unexpected way? “Purest luck, sir.”
“’Tis conniving tricks and cheats,” said Keel, thumping his fist on the edge of the desk. “I do not care if you are a peer, Claremont. No true gentleman would win as often as you do.”
“But I do not cheat, sir,” protested Brant. He didn’t cheat, not only because it was dishonorable and ungentlemanly, but also because he didn’t need to. “I never have, not once.”
“Don’t compound your iniquities by lying to me,” said Keel sternly. “Tonight’s game shall be your last here. I will not let you turn Harrow into a veritable Devonshire House of gaming. You are a sharpster, Claremont, a shark who preys upon the trust of your fellows for your own gain, and I shall not tolerate it any longer, or you, either.”
“You are sending me down, sir?” asked Brant, striving to keep the growing, giddy joy from his voice. “I am to leave Harrow?”
“As soon as is possible,” said the headmaster disdainfully. “By tomorrow noon at the latest. Until then I shall instruct Mr. Conway to keep the others in your house away from you. By your actions, you have demonstrated that you are no longer a young gentleman worthy of Harrow. I shall recommend to your guardian that a private tutor might continue with your preparation for admission to university.”
But Brant knew there had never been a question of him going to one of the grand universities at Cambridge or Oxford. His father’s estate was simply too impoverished to afford such a luxury, any more than Brant could expect to make a Grand Tour of the Continent like other peers his age. The disinterested solicitor who served as his guardian had explained it all with perfect clarity: when Brant left Harrow, his education was done.
No, he was done now. He scarcely listened to Dr. Keel’s final admonitions, too amazed by how swiftly one world was closing against him and another beckoning with possibilities. But outside in the shadows of the empty courtyard, returning to his boardinghouse for the last time, he could look up at the stars overhead and laugh with relief and exhilaration and a kind of fierce, wild joy.
He was a fifteen-year-old orphan with scarcely a shilling to his titled name. He could recite much of Homer, Aristotle and Shakespeare from memory, but he could no more read nor write than the commonest plowman. He had neither friends nor family to guide his choices and ease his path, and his two younger brothers were half a world away, if they even still lived. All he had to make his way was his title, his charm, his face and a gift for card-playing.
But he was free. He was free. Now, finally, he was done biding his time with school. Now he could make his own future and fortune, and keep the pledge he and his brothers had made to one another so long ago.
And best of all, his secret and his shame would now be safe forever.
Chapter One
Bamfleigh, Sussex
June, 1803
J enny Dell was exceptionally good at doing things silently and in the dark. She had to be, or else she never would have lived as long, and as grandly, as she already had.
Without so much as a candle to guide her, she now hurried across the dark chamber, her bare feet as quiet as a cat’s paws. While the innkeeper and his wife had been all kind welcome when she and her brother had first taken the house’s best rooms, Jenny knew that same welcome could turn as sour as vinegar wine if they realized she and Rob were leaving them now, in the middle of the night, and quite forgetting the nicety of settling their reckoning.
Jenny was sorry about that, for she’d liked this inn and the rooms that overlooked a pasture filled with sweet-smelling pink clover. But Rob had had his reasons, even if he hadn’t explained them to her just yet. Once he did, he’d be sure to remind her that there was always another inn or grand house waiting over the next hillside, filled with more folk eager for the amusing company of two genteel young persons like Jenny and Rob, and willing to share their own good fortune in return. And where, truly, was the harm in that?
Swiftly, Jenny pulled her three gowns from the clothespress and folded them into her little traveling trunk. Though limited by their travels, her wardrobe was always of the latest fashion, costly Indian muslins with silk ribbons, fine Holland chemises, the softest Kashmir shawl. Rob didn’t believe in skimping when it came to clothes. “Quality knows quality,” he’d say, and indeed Jenny did find it easier to play a lady when dressed like one. Rob was clever about such matters, just as their father had been before him. She shouldn’t forget that, especially now.
Somewhere in the inn a clock chimed three times and Jenny quickened her pace. The last of the men in the taproom had staggered home and the rest of the inn might be sleeping, but Rob would soon be waiting for her on the high road with the chaise. She closed and locked the trunk, and threaded a twisted bedsheet through the leather handles with well-practiced efficiency. Cautiously she pushed the window open—here, as at most country inns, the
