business to keep you here in Staffordshire?’
‘Actually, I’m planning on heading north tomorrow while Josiah’s men work on the samples for our wares. We’ll meet up in London to conclude our business before I return to America, but I have other business in Glasgow to see to in the meantime, and there is a model village not far from that city which I have arranged to visit.’
‘Do you mean Mr Owen’s New Lanark?’ Kate exclaimed. ‘How I would love to see it. I am a great admirer of Mr Owen, I have read all his works, and in fact our own little school in Castonbury was established along similar lines—or at least that is what I would like to believe.’
‘Your school—you mean you have set up a village school?’
‘Do not look so astonished. Not all English ladies confine themselves to playing the pianoforte and painting watercolours for amusement, Mr Jackson. Some of us prefer to utilise our time to more effect,’ Kate said stiffly.
‘So you rescue streetwalkers and educate the village children. I did not mean to offend you, but you’ll admit it is something out of the common way, to meet a duke’s daughter who is a revolutionary.’
‘You are far too modest. Rare as we revolutionary aristocrats may be, a freed slave who has made himself into one of the richest men in New England must be rarer. I wish you would tell me more about how you became so.’
Virgil shook his head. ‘I am much more interested in your school. Do you teach there yourself?’
‘I help out when I can, but we have an excellent mistress in the form of Miss Thomson. I rescue governesses in addition to streetwalkers,’ Kate said with a smile. ‘Miss Thomson tries to follow the principles which Mr Owen set down, but to see them in practice would be so much better than reading about them. I wish I could visit New Lanark. How I envy you. Were you serious about establishing a similar place?’
‘Serious about testing its merits. Very serious about the school. Without education, it is not possible to make the most of freedom. I believe that education is power.’
‘With that I wholeheartedly agree. My own education did not amount to much, which goes some way to explaining why even setting up a simple school has taken an enormous amount of effort.’ Kate pulled a face. ‘That, and the fact that as a mere woman I am not considered worthy of having an opinion on the subject. Being female does rather shackle one.’
Virgil bit back a smile. ‘You don’t strike me as being someone constrained by her position in society.’
‘I know perfectly well that there is no real comparison between myself and a female slave,’ she replied, disconcerting him by reading his thoughts, ‘but it is nevertheless how I feel sometimes. Perception and reality are not always the same thing.’
‘That is most certainly true.’
How had he come by his education? Kate was about to ask when a footman leaned over her shoulder, a huge lemon syllabub trembling on the platter in his hands. She shook her head impatiently. Sir Merkland was clearing his throat. The change of course dictated a turn in the conversation. Port and cigars and business would detain the gentlemen until tea. She would be obliged to surrender her monopoly of Virgil Jackson to the other guests when she had barely scratched the surface of what she wanted to know about him.
‘You could do a lot worse than come to Castonbury with me,’ she said impulsively. ‘Then you could see our school for yourself and it would give you something to compare with Mr Owen’s. You know, the more I think about it, the more I am sure it is the perfect solution.’
‘To what?’ Virgil asked, confused by the sudden change in the conversation.
Kate had been thinking only of her desire to know him better, so his question threw her, for though of course it was because she wished to know him better, to say so would imply something much more personal. And though it was personal in a way, it was not that sort of personal because she wasn’t the type of female with whom men wished to be that sort of personal. ‘The solution of your travelling all the way to Scotland without having seen anything of our true English countryside,’ she said mendaciously. ‘Derbyshire is the most beautiful of the counties, and though I admit to being rather biased, Castonbury is one of the most beautiful houses.’
‘Are you serious?’
Determined, more like, now that the idea was in her head, but Kate thought better, at the last minute, of saying so, for Virgil Jackson looked like a man who would resist any attempt to force his will. ‘Perfectly,’ she said instead. ‘I would love to show you our school, and I would welcome your opinion on the plans I have to extend it.’
Virgil frowned. He was tempted. A school established on the Owen model would certainly merit a break in his journey, and he had not yet confirmed the precise dates of his visit with New Lanark’s proprietor. Besides, there could be no denying that a visit to a real stately pile held its own subversive pleasure. He shook his head reluctantly. ‘Much as I appreciate the honour, I very much doubt your family would be as welcoming as you,’ he said.
Which was, as far as her father and Aunt Wilhelmina were concerned, the truth, but that only made Kate more determined. Since those same two relatives had taken such pains to collaborate in her ruin, she would have no compunction in flaunting that ruin in their faces. ‘Actually, it is rather your birth than the colour of your skin which will concern my father. According to him, there are less than a dozen other families in the country with blood so blue as the Montagues. Though since he chooses to confine himself to his own quarters, his opinions do not particularly matter. My brother Giles is acting head of the family at present and he is not at all prejudiced.’
‘Nevertheless,’ Virgil said, ‘I do not think …’
She could see she was losing the battle, but Kate, now quite set on winning, switched tactics. ‘Are you afraid you will be put under the spyglass, Mr Jackson?’ She could see from the way he stilled, that she had hit home. ‘How can you expect to break down barriers if you do not face them?’
‘I hope, Lady Kate, that you are not thinking of using me as a weapon in some sort of private war. Are you perhaps eager to prove your reputation for being a revolutionary to your father and your aunt?’
He spoke softly, but there was an underlying air of menace which made Kate’s skin prickle. Virgil Jackson was obviously not a man who could be threatened. She threw up her hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I admit, there is a part of me which relishes the notion of introducing you to Aunt Wilhelmina, but I promise you, it is only a small part. What I really want is to get to know you better.’
Her frankness disarmed him. He was tempted. Who would not be, by such an argument put forward by such a— He could not think of a word to describe Lady Kate Montague. Not that her personal attractions had anything to do with his decision. ‘I will think about it,’ Virgil said.
‘With a view to saying yes?’
‘I’ll think about it,’ he repeated, telling himself he would, though he had already more than half decided.
Chapter Two
His valet brought the note with his shaving water, proffering the folded sheet of thick paper on a sliver tray. Virgil knew who it was from the moment he saw it, though he couldn’t have said how. Had he been expecting it? Hoping for it? His name was written in a clear hand
