She sent her twin a wild look of panic. Without her position at the school and salary from Greybourne, they were near enough to penniless. But now he knew she wasn’t Andrew—he could ruin them.
Greybourne finally remembered his manners, entered, and bowed curtly to Andrew, introducing himself. “I need your. . . sister’s. . . invaluable assistance. I don’t suppose you have a fair hand or research talents too?”
Andrew snorted. “I have education but no talent for books. I’ll happily mend your coat, your horse’s harness, or build your shelves, but El is the one who got me through university.”
“Fine. I don’t have a valet. Are you available to accompany your sister?” Haystack mane flowing, the professor stalked irritably up and down the uncarpeted floor, glaring at the books overflowing what little furniture they possessed.
“Accompany?” they both said at once.
El was accustomed to thinking quickly, but this was a little much, with too little information.
But the rent was past due and if they could somehow save her quarterly salary. . .
“We will need a little more information than that.” Andrew recovered first. “I have several jobs arranged, and we cannot just leave this place empty for an unknown time.”
El knew the professor didn’t like being contradicted once he set on a course. He gestured rudely at the remains of their former life. “You could burn the place with no loss. I’ll double your sister’s wage, provide a similar sum for you to be my man-of-all-work, and provide food and board for the next six months. You may pack your belongings and take them with you. I’ll hire a cart.”
She ought to take offense at that insult to their home, but he wasn’t far wrong. His arrogant, high-handedness only emerged when he was frustrated, which admittedly, was often. El had worked with him for a year and knew he was also brilliant and fair-minded. . . witness his not objecting to her duplicitous appearance. He was quick-witted enough to have already grasped her reasoning. That he’d accepted that a female could perform the tasks of a male wasn’t necessarily broad-minded, however, so much as expedient. He didn’t wish to train a new research assistant mid-book.
While the men negotiated, Eleanor ran over the pluses and minuses of such an abrupt upheaval. She saw almost no reason why they shouldn’t abandon poverty to seek better circumstances elsewhere.
It wasn’t as if Greybourne saw her as anything but a tool to be used.
She was the one suffering from delusions if she feared a wealthy, sophisticated aristocrat like the baron might look at an inconsequential female assistant differently. Even if Greybourne saw through her natural invisibility, he’d pay her no attention, as long as she continued his work.
If it meant securing their financial future, she’d happily leave Edinburgh.
Three
Eleanor
“We have been over this,” Eleanor stated stiffly from the passenger seat of the curricle. She held on as Professor Greybourne rounded a curve at a reckless pace. “I did not lie. My name is E.A. Leonard.”
Greybourne had not been as easily pacified as she’d assumed. Or in the boredom of travel, he’d chosen to pick on her.
“Your references are a lie!” her employer shouted from the driver’s seat in front. “Women do not attend university.”
“I sat in class and took notes. El was the one who read the books and did the work,” her brother explained, for the eighty-fifth time, surely. “I am a reluctant student. Ellie is not. I can assure you, no one wants me for their research assistant.”
Andrew was multi-talented, just not in book work. The unfairness had struck them both.
“This is a senseless argument, my lord. We have worked together for a year and you know I have performed to expectation. My credentials are irrelevant.” Ellie scowled at her unreasonable employer. “Just because I thought to protect your work, you owe me nothing. Any number of students would serve you well if you object to me.”
Although, without this position, she and her brother would most likely end in the street, since they no longer had a home. All their worldly possessions traveled in the baron’s baggage cart.
“You are the only one who understands the value of my work!” The professor said this as if it were her fault. “There are men who would have destroyed those pages had they got their hands on them.”
Predictably, Greybourne’s outrage turned practical. “Besides, you already know where everything is and how I like it ordered. I cannot train someone mid-book!” The curricle hit a rut and jounced, but he did not appear to notice.
As foreseen, there was his real objection—he didn’t wish to be put to the trouble.
Ellie thought he was being just a little bit daft about a book on contemporary art and artists, but then, gentlemen tended toward self-importance. “I am very sorry that an efficient female offends you, my lord. I will try harder to be witless.”
“Do not use that confounded title, Leonard! You know better. Nothing is changing except our location. If you’re both Leonards, how am I to sort you out?”
He sounded aggrieved at being required to remember two names, like a spoiled child, which he was, Ellie knew. Cecil Greybourne, Baron Greybourne, had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. She did not doubt that he had spit it out and bitten his nanny’s finger out of impatience, if she did not provide his food fast enough.
“I’m Andrew, sir, my sister can still be Leonard,” Andy offered, always happy to take the lesser position. “She’s the oldest by five minutes, we’re told.”
