Too Clever by Half: A Harrow's Finest Five Novella Read online

  Percy clapped him on the shoulder as they headed for the wide staircase leading to the tastefully-appointed lobby, a feature his sister-in-law had insisted upon when he’d searched for rooms. “I don’t know, either. I’ll put it down to your being out of your skull with romantic fantasies about Lady Tessa.”

  Alone in her refuge, the small, mostly-forgotten study tucked at the rear of her father’s house, Tessa traced her fingers over the letters in the slim, brown, leather-bound volume she held reverently in her hands. The passages in it were from her favorite poems and novels by bold women, copied over in her own eleven-year-old hand. Each page carried a reminder of those great intellects, their contributions diminished or even outright dismissed because of the feminine forms carrying their messages.

  The journal brought her comfort now, as it had when her first tutor, Mr. Pettibone, had been sent away because Thomas had gone off to boarding school. Her mother had eventually arranged for her to join Emme and Luci for lessons at Emme’s house, despite Tessa’s father’s disapproval. In the meantime, old Mr. Pettibone, knowing her thirst for knowledge, had taken pity on her and sent her the first of the tomes she’d hidden in this small room. If he’d still been alive, surely he wouldn’t have begrudged her using his name to enter the duke’s contest for the worthy cause of women’s education.

  A knock at the door startled her. She glanced about to make sure none of her George Sand novels or comparative literature texts were in plain sight, then pulled open the heavy wooden door. “Thomas, what’s the matter?”

  Her younger brother was flushed. A bead of sweat pearled at his brow. “We have a visitor.”

  She laid her hand over the dread settling in her belly. “From your demeanor, I assume it’s not Luci.”

  “It’s him. Your competition. Mr. Alcott.”

  She grabbed her brother’s hand. “No. It can’t be. Is Father home?”

  Thomas shook his head. “You’ve one bit of luck on your side. Father and Reginald are off at some sort of political meeting, and Mother’s out visiting.”

  Tessa took a calming breath. Luck, indeed. All she need do was dispatch Mr. Alcott quickly, before any other family members arrived home and inadvertently discovered her secret. She took Thomas’s arm and started toward the parlor.

  Thomas pinned her arm against his side. “I’ve ordered tea laid.”

  “That’s good, Thomas. No need to hold me so tightly.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’ll have to chaperone, of course.” She couldn’t be left alone with the man again, no matter how much she hoped he might attempt another kiss. Which was ridiculous, because his first attempt had been a lie. Not to mention, he was her competitor, her foe, not her friend, and definitely not a potential romantic partner.

  Thomas clutched her arm again. “I’m not up to discourse with Mr. Alcott. I’ll say something wrong. I’ll ruin all your plans!”

  His paleness concerned Tessa. It had been Luci who had pointed out – in her undiplomatic but keenly observant way – that Thomas might not do well with the ruse. In addition to his reading impediment and social anxiety, he struggled to see honesty as other than black and white. He couldn’t see the gray, didn’t understand the need for Tessa’s little white lie in the service of the greater good.

  They stopped outside the parlor and she turned to face him, taking his hands in hers. “The servants are laying the tea. We’ll go in and exchange pleasantries. Then you can take the seat in the corner and – do you have your notebook with you?” He touched his waistcoat pocket and nodded. “Good. You can take the seat in the corner and work on your chemistry equations while I deal with Mr. Alcott.”

  The relief on her brother’s face was worth every minute she’d have to suffer facing the man alone. They entered the room together, and Mr. Alcott rose to greet them, bowing in Tessa’s direction before shaking Thomas’s hand.

  “Mr. Harmsworth, good day.”

  “Good day, Mr. Alcott.” Thomas turned on his heel and marched off to the corner chair, where he promptly pulled out his notebook and set to work.

  Tessa had hardly expected the pleasantries to be so brief, but she snapped her mouth shut and smiled at her uninvited guest. Mr. Alcott, ever the gentleman, didn’t mention it as he waited for Tessa to take a seat, then sat across from her.

  “This is a surprise,” she said. “Please, have your tea before it grows cold. You must need it after braving the elements.” The noise of the rain lashing the windows was louder here in the front of the house, and the wind was picking up to the point of howling. The sense of dread balled up in her belly again. “I can’t imagine what was so urgent it brought you out in this weather.”

  Mr. Alcott, his face unreadable, sipped his tea, then smiled. “I beg your pardon for alarming you, my lady. I simply came to carry on a tradition of the contest.”

  Trepidation pricked her nape. “What tradition is that, Mr. Alcott?”

  “A lunch shared by competitors.”

  “That seems inappropriate.” She imagined their private lunch as a picnic in a meadow. A secluded meadow, with them lounging on a gingham-checked blanket, sipping wine and feeding each other delicacies, then leaning toward each other for a deep, slow kiss, his hand drifting along the side of her body, over her waist, then her hip, then... “Highly inappropriate!”

  “I beg your pardon, again, my lady. I wasn’t intimating that we should…” He set down his cup. “I’d hoped to extend a lunch invitation to Mr. Pettibone, but I’ve been unable to track down hide nor hair of him.”

  “Oh.” Tessa sat up straight and clasped her hands tightly in her lap while her mind raced with worry over what manner of inquiries he’d been making. “I’m afraid Mr. Pettibone is out of town. Indefinitely.”

  “I see.” Mr. Alcott furrowed his brow, and Tessa focused on his hazel eyes – definitely with flecks of gold – as they narrowed in thought. “The award ceremony is next week. Surely he intends to return to London by then?”

  “He?” She startled out of her reverie. “Oh, Mr. Pettibone, of course. I mean, that was his plan, to attend the ceremony. But he does travel quite a bit and, well, one never knows with him.” That had sounded ridiculous. At this rate, she’d be caught out in no time. If only poor Thomas had been up to the task of applying for the award on her behalf.

  Mr. Alcott dropped his voice. “Lady Tessa, if I may be so bold, this Mr. Pettibone seems an odd sort. Is your family comfortable with your association with him?”

  “My family doesn’t know.” Too late, she realized that wasn’t a detail she should have shared. She concentrated on steering the conversation back to the story she’d written for the imaginary man. “Thomas knows him, of course. That’s where we met Mr. Pettibone, at Thomas’s university. I attend classes with my brother.”

  Mr. Alcott nodded. “The duchess mentioned something about that to me. You’re able to keep up your studies, then?”

  She shifted in her seat. If she could truly attend classes and keep up with her own studies, she wouldn’t be in this predicament. “I accompany my brother as his assistant.”

  “Assistant.”

  Of all the times for a man to show interest in hanging on her every word. She exhaled audibly. “If you must know, my brother – who is a brilliant scientist – has some difficulty with reading. Something about not being able to fix the symbols in his mind.” She shook her head. “That hardly matters. But his teachers realized it when he went off to boarding school and he and I were no longer studying together, as we had in our early years.”

  Her inquisitive companion understood. “You were inadvertently making up for his knowledge gaps.”

  “Yes. No one could deny he should study chemistry. He’s bound to make some discovery or other for the benefit of all mankind. But there was much concern about how he could do it. That’s when I came up with the solution.” And a way to continue her own education – albeit vicariously – which had sadly stalled when her second tutor, the one she’d s
hared with her friends, had run out of things to teach her by the time she was fifteen.

  “Surely, though, you need some understanding of his classes to be his assistant. You must have received an education after your brother went off to boarding school.”

  “It wasn’t that easy.” She needn’t say more. And she shouldn’t. But he’d brought his attention to her and focused on her words. It was so rare that anyone seemed inclined to listen to her lament. “Thomas is a year younger, so I was used to having him underfoot at all times. When he left for school, I missed him terribly. The one thing that heartened me was the prospect of our tutor’s return, so I could lose myself in my own studies.”

  She could still remember the rush of excitement on that crisp fall day when their childhood tutor should have returned. She’d sharpened her pencils, laid out her papers, and made sure her hair bow was tied perfectly. Then she’d sat at the long table in the nursery, waiting for him. A half hour passed, then another. Finally, her mother found her there and asked whatever on earth Tessa was doing. It then fell to her mother to explain that her tutor wasn’t coming. Not that day or the next or ever.

  “My father had decided that, at eleven, I was better educated than most girls years older than I, and he didn’t see any reason to invest any more in my education.”

  “At eleven?” Mr. Alcott straightened with indignity for her. “What a terrible blow. Surely that wasn’t the last of your schooling.”

  She sighed. “I locked myself in my room for three days. I couldn’t even bring myself to eat. By the fourth day, my mother was beside herself. It spurred her to come up with a plan to ‘socialize’ me, by convincing my father to let me study with two other girls close to my age, Luci and Emme.”

  “The three of you must have felt like sisters.”

  Tessa smiled at the warmth of the memory. “Yes. And like sisters, we had our differences. Emme’s quite smart, but she was always reading the newspapers, fretting over some social ill or other. And Luci, also quite smart, was always spying on the adults and thinking up outrageous stories to shock our tutor.”

  He grinned. “And you were the star pupil. As was I, in my time at Harrow. Somehow, having fewer expectations set on me than my older brother drove me to excel.”

  “Exactly! No one expected any such thing from the daughter of the family.”

  Mr. Alcott, still smiling, picked up his cup and held it in the air. “A toast, then, to excellence.”

  She smiled as she lifted her own cup to his, then sipped the warm, sweet drink. It soothed her, even as the storm outside raged, and she couldn’t help but think how pleasant it was here, across from a man who not only listened to her but understood. A man whose hazel-gold eyes— and yes, they really were that gold—were set on hers, his red-brown hair curling at his collar from the rain he’d endured to arrive at her door, his lips that had nearly kissed her days ago now turned up in a smile. It was almost enough to make her think his flirtation might not have been a complete lie.

  She had settled into the thought of how lovely it would be to spend a quiet afternoon chatting with him, even if she did need to have a care to avoid any more talk of Mr. Pettibone, when a clatter from the front hall made her jump and splash tea onto the saucer. As James stood and reached over to help her, she shook her head.

  “I’m fine. But please.” She glanced over her shoulder, recognizing the voices of her father and oldest brother as they shed their overcoats and shook off the rain. Then silence. That would be the butler telling them Lady Tessa was receiving company in the parlor.

  “Sir, I beg of you, whatever you do, do not mention the Trust.”

  He gaped at her. “They don’t know about that, either?”

  She shook her head as she got to her feet, just as her father and eldest brother breezed into the room.

  Reginald nodded in their younger brother’s direction. “Thomas.” Then he looked at her. “Sister. And who is this you’re entertaining, with Thomas providing a hint of propriety as a barely observant chaperone?”

  She hated the blush that bloomed on her cheeks. Reginald would enjoy this all the more, knowing how he embarrassed her.

  “Mr. James Alcott, at your service.” He gave a slight bow in her father’s direction. “Lord Brooking, it’s an honor.”

  Her father gave a nod and a greeting, but didn’t motion for them to sit again. “Are you Baron Stockton’s brother? He’s taken a leadership role in Parliament in support of the Municipal Franchise Act. Very impressive.”

  Tessa was shocked to hear her father compliment a man who supported giving women ratepayers the right to vote in their local elections. The baron must have given an impressive speech on the matter to sway a traditionalist like her father.

  “Yes, my lord,” Mr. Alcott answered. “I did some research to prepare my brother for the debate.”

  That caught Tessa’s attention. She glanced at Thomas, his head bent over his notebook once again, and recounted the hours she’d spent preparing him for his rhetorical debates.

  It was Reginald who asked their guest to sit. Tessa sat first, glad for the support of the chair under her, but stayed perched on the edge of it.

  “Your brother is always well-informed on all sides of a debate.” That was high praise from Reginald.

  Mr. Alcott nodded, but said no more. He took no credit for his brother’s accomplishments, although it was clear to Tessa that his research was fundamental to that success. He knew his place and his role, just as she knew hers.

  Her father took the seat beside Tessa and spared her a glance. “So, Mr. Alcott, is it business of Lord Stockton that brings you here today?”

  “No, my lord. I come on my own behalf.”

  When he caught her eye, Mr. Alcott’s eyes flashed a warning to prepare her. Tessa tensed, dreading where this conversation might lead. Still, he’d promised he wouldn’t mention the contest or Mr. Pettibone.

  “I had hoped to find you home, and perhaps the countess as well.”

  Fearing she might know where this was leading, after, all, Tessa tried desperately to catch Mr. Alcott’s eye to shake her head to discourage him, but he wouldn’t look at her.

  Her father patted her hand, startling her. “I believe I can follow your thinking, young man.”

  No. No, no, no. This had gone from bad to worse.

  Mr. Alcott cleared his throat and straightened himself in his chair. “My lord, I’ve come to ask your permission to court Lady Tessa.”

  Chapter 5

  “Now you’re courting her?” Fairbank dropped into the chair behind the large, mahogany-carved desk in his study and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t imagine the duke will be pleased to learn the finalists for his Trust’s annual prize are now courting.”

  James shifted uncomfortably in his own chair, suddenly cast in the role of chagrined student sent to the headmaster’s office. Which, of course, had never happened to him in all his years at Harrow, or at Oxford after that.

  For his part, Percy seemed infuriatingly relaxed. He sprawled in his chair and gazed with what could only be described as affection at his glass of excellent tawny port Fairbank had poured for them. “This,” Percy said with a grin, “this is exactly why I withdrew myself from the judging panel.”

  James cast a sidelong glance at him. “Really? I thought surely I’d heard the duke excused you from service.”

  Percy grinned wider. “Semantics, mate. Right up your alley. And your paramour’s, too, I reckon.”

  James propped his elbows on the chair arms and took a calming breath. “My lord, the courting isn’t our greatest concern right now. I’ve actually come to speak to you about a graver matter. It’s about this Mr. Pettibone.”

  Fairbank tented his fingers. “Have you learned something about him?”

  “No, and not for lack of trying.” James casually dropped his voice. “He seems to be an enigma. And so, I had hoped—”

  Fairbank held up his hands in front of him. “Whatever rumors you mig
ht have heard about me, Mr. Alcott, I assure you, they’ve been exaggerated.”

  “Of course.” Percy grinned, then glanced at James, seemingly oblivious to just how unhelpful his presence had proven to be.

  “I’ve only heard, sir, that you know many people. And I hoped that among your connections, perhaps someone would know of this Pettibone.” He frowned. “If my suspicions are correct and he has disreputable designs on the lady, that could taint the duke’s contest more than any harmless courting ever could. And of course, Lady Tessa being a friend of your daughter...”

  He paused, letting that sink in. While Fairbank’s professional reputation was a mix of mystery and rumor, his devotion to his sole daughter was easily observable fact.

  Fairbank narrowed his eyes and sat in silence for a moment, then sighed and unfolded his long legs. “The duke is a Harrow man, and we look out for our own. Perhaps there’s something I can do for you, Mr. Alcott. Wait here.”

  When he’d left the room, Percy pointed to James’s full glass sitting on a corner of the desk. “Are you going to…?”

  James shook his head. “Since seeing Swimmer inebriated for an entire day and night, I’ve had difficulty rousing interest in spirits.”

  Percy stood and picked up the untouched drink, then sat. “I’ll see it for myself soon. I’ve been arranging my visit. You know, I used to envy his closeness with his father, but at least when mine died, I could content myself with a good, healthy hatred.”

  It was an uncharacteristic show of emotion from the easy-going Percy, the kind of admission only shared between close friends, and James regretted keeping his distance all the years, assuming the first sons who had made up their group of friends, Harrow’s Finest Five as they’d called themselves, wouldn’t remember him as fondly as he’d remembered them.

  “Thank you for coming with me.”

  Percy cocked an eyebrow, possibly as surprised to hear the words as James was to say them. “You’d do the same for me, mate.”