Free School For Heiresses 2- Only a Duke Will Do by Sabrina Jeffries Page B

listening only to her, paying attention only to her? Or was it simply his air of command? He pulled back a chair for Mrs. Harris with a male grace that was beautiful to behold, every motion deliberate, nothing wasted. And once they were all seated and he took his own chair opposite Louisa, she couldn’t help noticing how well he controlled Raji. He tapped the table and the monkey hopped right onto that spot, clutching his toy canary to his white furry chest. Eliza, who’d finagled the seat beside Simon, uttered a girlish sigh. “Your monkey is just darling, Your Grace.”
    “You haven’t seen the creature lay waste to a woman’s coiffure,” Louisa quipped. “That darling draws blood if you’re not careful.”
    “Only when presented with the right temptation,” Simon said. “He thought Lady Trusbut’s peacock was a toy.”
    “Like his little carving,” Eliza said. “Where did you get it?”
    “Simon probably carved it himself,” Regina put in. “He likes to whittle.”
    “Really?” Mrs. Harris surveyed Simon with new eyes. “It’s very good.”
    “Whittling keeps my hands busy while my mind works through a problem,” he said. Louisa had forgotten that odd habit of his. He’d once whittled her a perfectly charming miniature lily, merely because she’d said she liked them. It was the one reminder of him that she’d kept.
    “Did you learn to whittle in India?” Eliza asked.
    “No,” Simon said with a chuckle. “My father taught me.”
    Louisa blinked. She had rarely heard him speak of his parents. She’d learned more about them from Regina than she’d ever learned from him.
    “Is it true you were the first duke to serve as Governor-General of India?” Eliza asked with stars in her eyes.
    “Miss Crenshawe, stop plaguing the duke,” Mrs. Harris broke in.
    “It’s fine.” Simon cast Eliza a kindly glance. “And no, not exactly. Wellington served long before me, though he wasn’t a duke at the time.”
    “Simon wasn’t the first of our family to go to India, either,” Regina put in. “My mother’s younger brother served there, too. Uncle Tobias was there as a lieutenant for…what was it, Simon? Two years? Before he died of malaria?”
    Simon’s expression grew shuttered. “Three years.” He sat back. “But enough talk of India—I want to know what Mrs. Harris’s committee does.”
    His strained smile gave Louisa pause. All she’d heard from Regina about their uncle was that the poor man had gone to seek his fortune, and instead had died alone. A very sad tale. Was that why it bothered Simon to think of it?
    Oh, why did she care? She forced herself to pay attention to what Mrs. Harris was saying.
    “We’re presently assessing tasks that would provide sustainable income for our convict women while teaching them usable skills,” Mrs. Harris explained. “We need one that requires little training, since we lack sufficient volunteers for that. Yet it must pay well.”
    “How well?” Simon asked.
    “Enough to support our projects—the prison school, supplemental clothing and bedding, and matrons instead of male guards.”
    “Why would you have to pay for matrons—isn’t that the prison system’s responsibility?” Simon asked as he scratched Raji’s back.
    “It should be.” Anger at such injustice burned in Louisa’s chest. “Instead, guards are paid out of fees taken from the poverty-stricken prisoners. So of course they’re brutes who use their position to bully the women, subjecting them to—” She broke off, remembering the younger girls. “To…er…their advances.”
    “And Parliament does not consider it a problem,” Regina said. “Despite committee reports, they refuse to institute the proper reforms.”
    “The Home Secretary claims that we would ‘remove the dread of punishment in the criminal classes.’”
    Just remembering the speech made Louisa’s blood boil.
    “That certainly sounds like Sidmouth.” Simon’s voice held an edge. “He equates