Free Lord Perfect by Loretta Chase

arrangements. He has had a
fit of responsibility and decided to foist his offspring upon
Heriot's School in Edinburgh."
    She suppressed a sigh. Good-bye,
shiny coins , she thought "Is that
not a good school?" she said.
    "Peregrine will never fit in any of our great
British schools," he said, his voice clipped. "But one
cannot explain this to Atherton by letter. One can scarcely explain
anything to him at all. He is too impatient, impulsive, and dramatic
to reason matters out."
    To Bathsheba's surprise, Lord Rathbourne began to pace
the pathway. He did it gracefully, of course, being perfect, but with
a contained energy that seemed to make the air churn about him.
    "If he would only view the matter in a rational
way," he went on, "he would see that the methods of the
British public school are antithetical to Peregrine's character. One
learns everything by rote. One is expected to do as one is told
without question, to memorize without making sense of what one
memorizes. When Peregrine insists upon knowing why and wherefore, he
is deemed disrespectful at best, blasphemous at worst Then he is
punished. Most boys require only a few beatings to learn to hold
their tongues. Peregrine is not most boys. Beatings mean nothing to
him. Why can his father not see this, when it is obvious to a mere
uncle?" the uncle concluded, shaking his fist.
    "Perhaps the father lacks the uncle's ability to
imagine himself in the boy's place," she said.
    Rathbourne halted abruptly. He looked down at his
clenched hand and blinked once. He unclenched it. "Really. Well.
I should have thought Atherton had imagination enough for half a
dozen men. More than I, certainly."
    "Parents have a peculiar sort of
vision," she said. "They can be blind in some ways. Does
your father understand you ?"
    For a moment he looked shocked, and she was as well, to
discern so strong a sign of emotion. She'd seen at the start that his
was a tell-nothing countenance.
    "I sincerely hope not," he said.
    She laughed. She couldn't help it. It had lasted but a
moment—he was back to looking inscrutable—but for that
brief time he had seemed a chagrined schoolboy, and she thought she
would have liked to know that boy.
    Dangerous thought.
    He stood for a time, looking at her and smiling the
almost-smile. Then he approached. "Did you really fall in my way
on purpose?" he said.
    "That was a joke," she said. "The truth
is, I was shocked witless to see you in Charles Street. I wish you
would give warning the next time you decide to come looking for me. I
had rather not walk into a shop front and black my eye or fall over a
curb and break my ankle."
    He had come too near, and his gaze
was a magnet, drawing hers. She was caught for but a moment—time
enough only for her to breathe in and out—yet it was time
enough to lure her in deeper. Looking into those eyes, so dark, was
like looking down a long, shadowy corridor. Too intriguing. She
wanted to find out what was at the end of it, who was at the end of it, and how great a distance it was from the man on
the outside to the man on the inside.
    She looked away. "I did not mean you ought to come
looking for me," she added. "I was not issuing an
invitation."
    "I know I ought not to have come," he said. "I
could have written to you. Yet here I am."
    She could not let herself be drawn in again. She focused
on the gravestone behind him, where her parcels lay.
    "Yes, well, I must be going," she said.
"Olivia returns home from school soon, and if I am not there,
she finds things to do. Usually it is something one had rather she
didn't."
    "Ah, yes, how remiss of me." He moved away, to
the gravestone, and started collecting her belongings. "I should
not have troubled you in the first place, and I have compounded the
offense by trespassing too long upon your time."
    He hadn't trespassed for long enough. She hadn't found
out a fraction of what she wanted to know.
    Think of your daughter ,
she told herself. Curiosity about this
man is a luxury you