“Your daughter must be a proper human being then.”
“Well,” Olivia began, setting the chalk down and dusting off her fingers as she turned around, “she has her moments, but I wouldn’t go that far. The wordbarbarichas escaped Lucy’s teacher Miss Scace’s lips on more than one occasion in reference to Lucy.”
His gaze shifted left. “Your likeness of Mina is remarkably lifelike for so few strokes.”
Olivia’s cheeks blazed into twin flames, and her heart banged out a hard thud. She had, indeed, drawn Miss Radclyffe’s likeness. How bothersome that his praise elicited the unruly wave of gratification now coursing through her.
He sat forward in his ridiculous chair, his gaze, intense and penetrating, pinning her into place. “Such mastery must take years of practice.”
“I’d hardly call myself a master.” She shifted on her feet. The movement was an obvious indicator of her discomfort, but there was no help for it. “That appellation belongs to Jiro.”
He cocked his head. “An unusual name for London. In fact, I haven’t heard the nameJirosince I was last in Japan.”
She should make her excuses. She didn’t want to discuss the details of her life with this man. He knew too much about it already. In fact, it was possible that he knew more about her than ninety-nine percent of her acquaintances. “This drawing has to do with naught other than the fact that I sketch when I’m—”
“Nervous?”
Poised on the edge of flight, she froze. Now he was finishing her sentences?
It wasn’t his presumption that unsettled her, but rather his accuracy and familiarity. He’d not only finished her sentence correctly, but had done so without hesitation.
“Why would you be nervous, Lady Olivia?” he pressed. “Not when we’ve become such old friends over the last few days.”
Like an old married couple.
Oh. Why hadthatphrase come to her?
Well, it wouldn’t do. She must leave this room and find a way to avoid this man. When she saw her future stretched out before her, it didn’t include any man, particularly not this one. “I bid you good day, Lord St. Al—”
“Have you any insights?”
A few feet shy of the doorway and freedom, she stopped, curious. “Into what?”
“Into how to gain Mina’s admittance into this school.”
Olivia’s eyebrows drew together. “Is there a problem? I’m fairly certain that if this school had an exemplar, Miss Radclyffe would be she.”
“She’s too old.”
“Ah,” Olivia breathed out. “You’ve been speaking with Mrs. Bloomquist. She has firm ideas about young ladies and their malleability, or lack thereof, at certain developmental ages.”
Olivia found herself standing one desk removed from Lord St. Alban and saw only now that their conversation had drawn her forward. Separated by no more than five feet, a memory came to her, unbidden: the night of the Dowager’s Salon, when they’d danced the waltz, his breath had tickled the fine hairs of her neck. Its impact on the rate of her breathing was not insignificant.
“This school is the best I’ve found for her.”
“Is that so? Most of London considers our little school unnecessary and inappropriate.” She couldn’t resist challenging him. Women likely never did.
He shifted in his seat and crossed his powerful legs. His gaze never wavered from hers, radiating a seriousness and confidence that she couldn’t help envying. She wanted some of it for herself.
“Have you heard of Sir Isaac Newton’sPrincipia?” he asked.
“The school has a copy in its library.”
“Mina has all three volumes memorized from cover to cover.”
“Impressive.”
And it was impressive, truly, but her proximity to Lord St. Alban made it difficult to appreciate Miss Radclyffe’s intellect. Somehow she was standing so close to him that, had he liked, he could have lifted his foot and her dress in a single, swift motion.
