neither was she, for even the maids at the manor wouldn’t earn two pounds a month, and if she scraped together an extra two shillings, it would be a miracle.
She rose and stuck out her hand across the desk. “You have my word.”
Gilbert eyed her hand as if it were an alien creature. “Tell me,” he then said, “how can I be sure that those Oxford airs and graces won’t rub off on you, and that you will come back here in the end?”
Her mind blanked. Odd. The entire purpose of wheedling permission out of Gilbert had been to keep her place in his household— a woman needed a place, any place. But something bristled inside her at the thought of giving her word on the matter.
“But where else would I go?” she asked.
Gilbert pursed his lips. He absently patted his belly. He took his time before he spoke again. “If you fell behind on your payments,” he finally said, “I’d have to ask you to return.”
Her mind turned the words over slowly. Calling her back meant he had to let her go first. He was letting her go.
“Understood,” she managed.
The press of his soft fingers barely registered against her callused palm. She steadied herself against the desk, the only solid thing in a suddenly fuzzy room.
“You’ll need a chaperone, of course,” she heard him say.
She couldn’t stifle a laugh, a throaty sound that almost startled her. “But I’m twenty-and-five years old.”
“Hmph,” Gilbert said. “I suppose with such an education, you’ll make yourself wholly unmarriageable anyway.”
“How fortunate then that I have no desire to marry.”
“Yes, yes,” Gilbert said. She knew he didn’t approve of voluntary spinsterhood, ’twas unnatural. But any concerns expressed over her virtue were at best a nod to protocol, and he probably suspected as much. Or, like everyone in Chorleywood, he suspected something.
As if on cue, he scowled. “There is one more thing we have to be clear about, Annabelle, quite clear indeed.”
The words were already hovering between them, like buzzards readying to strike.
Have them pick at her; at this point, her sensibilities were as callused as her hands.
“Oxford, as is well known, is a place of vice,” Gilbert began, “a viper pit, full of drunkards and debauchery. Should you become entangled in anything improper, if there’s but a shadow of a doubt about your moral conduct, much as it pains me, you will forfeit your place in this house. A man in my position, in service of the Church of England, must stay clear of scandal.”
He was, no doubt, referring to the sort of scandal involving a man. He had no reason to worry on that account. There was, however, the matter of her scholarship. Gilbert seemed to assume that it had been granted by the university, but in truth her benefactor was the National Society for Women’s Suffrage, which she now had to support in their quest for a woman’s right to vote. In her defense, the society had first come to her attention through a certain Lady Lucie Tedbury and her adverts for women’s stipends, not because she had an interest in political activism, but it was a safe guess that on the list of moral outrages, votes for women would rank only marginally below scandals of passion in Gilbert’s book.
“Fortunately, an old spinster from the country should be quite safe from any scandals,” she said brightly, “even at Oxford.”
Gilbert’s squint returned. She tensed as he perused her. Had she overdone it? She might be past the first blush of youth, and digging up potatoes in wind, sun, and rain had penciled a few delicate lines around her eyes. But the mirror in the morning still showed the face of her early twenties, the same slanted cheekbones, the fine nose, and, a nod to her French ancestry, a mouth that always seemed on the verge of a pout. A mouth that compelled a man to go quite mad for her, or so she had been told.
She quirked her lips wryly. Whenever she met her reflection, she saw her eyes. Their green sparkle had been long dulled by an awareness no fresh debutante would possess, an awareness that shielded her far better from scandals than fading looks ever could. Truly, the last thing she wanted was to get into trouble over a man again.
Chapter 2
Westminster, October
Now,” said Lady Lucie, “for the new members among us, there are three rules for handing a leaflet to a gentleman. One: identify a man of influence. Two: approach him