Page 38 of Rules for a Bastard Lord
“Not a lick. Hated anything that wasn’t English. Barely held on to enough Latin to get through school, and the Greek might as well have been chicken scratches.”
She nodded. “That’s how I felt. But French sounded so pretty the way he spoke it. And the stories were about saving the innocent and helping the poor.”
“I think you mean Robin Hood.”
“No, I don’t!” she shot back, obviously insulted. “I know my Arthur tales. Robin Hood was someone completely different. And I know ’is tale too. His tale.”
He could tell that she did. “How did you get an education all the way up here?”
“Hull isn’t China. We got tutors here.”
“That speak French and teach girls?”
She bit her lip. “Mum insisted I get a lady’s education. She said I might need it one day.”
“To meet your relations in London?”
She nodded. “I’m a lady, Mr. Hallowsby. I mean to act it in every way I can.”
Her determination was never in question, but thewhyof it interested him. “You mean to impress your relations in London,” he said. “Then what? Do you ask them for money?” No, he realized, nothing so crass as that. “Perhaps a life as a London shopkeeper or a seamstress?”
“Do ladies keep shops or sew clothing? If I wanted to do that, I’d stay here.”
He twisted to study her expression. “This is about the vicar’s son.”
She jerked, and he knew he’d guessed correctly.
He sighed. “You believe that London relations will make a difference to him.”
“Not to him,” she said stiffly. “His father.” She lifted her chin. “Me mum was married right and proper. I mean to prove it.”
“Say it again.”
She huffed. “My mum—mother—was married properly. In a church after the banns were read.”
“Where?”
“In her home parish.”
There was a story there. No woman got married right and proper and then suddenly appeared somewhere else pregnant and alone.
“It’s the truth,” she said, her jaw clenched tight.
“But no one here believes it?”
“Of course they believe it.” She said the words, but in her eyes he read doubt. Hurt. She’d been disparaged by the people she’d known all her life. He understood that all too well. “Why not just copy the register in the church? Prove that you’re legitimate. Then no tongues will wag.”
She snorted. “Tongues wag no matter what. But if my London relations accept me, well then, that would be a different story, wouldn’t it? I’d be a proper lady, no questions.”
Except there would be lots of questions, given her circumstances. “Seems to me it’d be much easier to get a copy of the parish register.”
She leaned forward, dropping her chin on her fist as she thought. “It’d help, wouldn’t it, to prove to my relations who I am?”
He nodded. “Of course it would.” And if there were no record in the register—as he suspected—then she would know and not be embarrassed when she found her London folk.
“But that’s all the way down in Oxfordshire,” she said mournfully.
“Which is a sight closer than London. You could visit there on the way.” Or stop and turn back around.
