“It was good of you to come to that too,” Stratton said with a meaningful glance at him.
Not good. Necessary. Duchess or not, that journal was controversial and Clara claiming ownership was sure to bring down criticism on her head. Not that either she or Stratton cared. Both were accustomed to controversy, even scandal. It was a friend’s role to ease that if he could, however, and Brentworth knew his presence would silence at least some of the wags.
“I enjoyed it,” he said, although that was an exaggeration. “I even took one of the journals home and read it. Lady Farnsworth does not hold her fire in her essays, but then I would never expect her to. The historical essay was well done, although I have never heard of the author. And Miss MacCallum’s contribution was . . . interesting.” Quite interesting. He grudgingly admitted she had a talent for engaging prose.
“Amanda says the woman is interesting, so her writing would be too, I expect,” Langford said.
“Do you know her yourself?” Eric asked.
Langford shook his head while he poured more port and passed the bottle to Stratton. “I spoke with her briefly at the party. A few words. Amanda has formed a friendship with her, however. I thought it odd that she hails from Edinburgh but does not sound especially Scottish. Amanda said she lived in Northumberland in her childhood.”
“Her essay combined the description of a traveler with the advice of a physician. Except, of course, she is not a physician.”
“Her father was one, Amanda told me. She would travel with him in the summer, to care for people in rural parts.”
“An apprentice, then,” Stratton said, in a casual tone that belied how extraordinary the observation was.
“It sounds like it,” Langford said. “I think she may continue his work now that he is gone.”
“Exceptshe is not a physician,” Brentworth said again.
“Better someone who knows something about medicine than no one who does, is how it is probably seen by those she tends,” Stratton said.
“Nor can she continue his work. I am told she is a governess,” Brentworth added, mentioning a point given to him by Haversham.
“She began in that situation very recently, right before coming to Town. She signed on with Hume a month or so ago.”
“Hume? That radical?”
“The same. In his mind he hired a tutor for his daughter, not a governess,” Langford continued. “Miss MacCallum is responsible for teaching a whole range of academic subjects to his daughter. That was how she occupied herself in Edinburgh. Not as a governess.”
Brentworth thought about the essay in the journal. “I think Davina MacCallum may be a radical too.” It would explain a lot if she had politics as a motivation, not greed. For one thing, she had not struck him as the sort to cheat to enrich herself. But to bring Scottish lands back under Scottish ownership—He could see that being a goal that allowed a twisted rationalization that cast cheating as not cheating.
“Why would you say that? My tutor did not adopt my father’s politics, so why would she adopt Hume’s?”
“I don’t think she adopted anything. I think she knows him because they already held sympathy for the same cause.”
“Cause? Singular?” Stratton said. “I assume you mean the Scottish cause. I think it is safe to say that after the executions in ’20, the remnants of that cause have finally been put to rest forever.”
“Amanda reported no political views at all of her new friend, least of all that one,” Langford said.
“Her essay described travel east of Glasgow where that trouble was centered. Her patient was the wife of a weaver. She made reference to his unfortunate absence from the home the last few years and the trials that created. He was probably one of those transported.”
“Does it matter? I doubt she has come to London to assassinate anyone,” Stratton said.
Brentworth let that pass.No, she came to London to steal hundreds of acres from my legacy.
Langford peered at Brentworth hard. Brentworth suffered it. With most men he would be confident that absolutely nothing would be discerned, but this was Langford who knew him too well and who possessed an annoying ability to bore beneath the armor.
Langford smiled like a devil and mischievous lights entered his blue eyes. “You don’t really give a damn about her politics. You are just looking for an excuse to be interested in her for any reason, and that one will serve your purpose.”
Stratton’s eyebrows shot up. He scrutinized Brentworth too.
“Nonsense,” Brentworth said. “You have no idea how very wrong you are. Your ongoing infatuation with your wife has you assuming all men are idiots like you, Langford. I have no interest in overly self-possessed Scottish women of peculiar education and manner. Now, isn’t it time we join the ladies? You two are boring me.”
“Overly self-possessed, was she? You have already spent more time considering her character than you do most women.” With a cocky smile of victory, Langford rose to lead the men out.
Indeed he had, but not for the reasons Langford assumed.
