Page 38 of Better Love Next Time
Greville had found him a real surgeon, who had broken the bone again with a mallet and vice, set it, and braced it. Just thinking on the memory gave him the shakes.
“Ollie, will you please fetch me a drink?” Julian asked.
Over their father’s protest, Oliver poured a bumper of Scotch whisky.
His father sneered.
Oliver squinted in disbelief. “My brother has broken his leg. Surely, this allows for a measure of relief.”
“If the boy had been at Oxford, he would not require relief.”
“What is so important about Eton and Oxford?” Julian asked. “Those boys cared more for frigging themselves than learning”—he nodded to Oliver frozen in insult over the liquor tray—“except Ollie, of course. I could have learned the rot in a year.”
His father’s voice pitched as high as a maiden’s. “Oh, a year?”
“Yes.”
“Because you’re so naturally brilliant, is it?”
“No, it’s just that easy if one applies themselves.”
The earl gripped the edge of the desk. “Who is Beowulf?”
The word sounded familiar and by thewho, it was a person not a place. Julian was sure this Beowulf had no bearing on his future success. “A mythological hero.”
“And?”
Julian took a guess. “A dragon slayer.” Because heroes’ fates were all the same… “And he died.”
“The Magna Carta?”
Oliver had waxed upon it like the Holy Grail. “Signed by King John in 1215. A royal charter which protects against the tyranny of kings.”
“The Socratic method?”
Julian looked at his uncle who lofted his brows in encouragement. “A method employed by Socrates.”
“You do not know!” his father railed.
“I don’t know.”
“Explain the Stoic philosophy.”
“Explain to me why I should know.”
“‘Virtue consists in a will that is in agreement with nature,’” his father quoted fiercely. “These philosophies, which you besmirch, are how we great men are guided in our choices, andthose ignorant remain weak, half-formed creatures subject to the whim of others. As low as a female.”
Julian grinned. “Now that you mention it, where is that weak, half-formed creature I call Mother?”
Oliver toasted his own glass of whisky at Julian from the window while the earl stewed.
Uncle William pressed from his seat. “I propose you allow the boy to make amends, James. And once you are satisfied, you return his prize money.”
“The only amends I would accept are out of his reach. No university will have him. He is lucky he is not sued for fraud and criminally charged with corruption.”
Latching his hands at his back, his uncle considered a portrait of Julian’s grandfather above the mantel. “Give me a year. I will ensure his education complete.”
Jesus Christ, Mary, and Joseph, no. A year without a ship? With Uncle William, learning philosophy, Greek, Latin, and whatever the hell they wished to torture him with? Kill him now.
