“Her board was not generous?”
“She feeds the girls and teachers well enough. Her cook is a drunk, however, so it is rarely well prepared.”
“Perhaps you should start a school with better food.”
“That would be impossible.”
He gave her a quizzical look.
“Mrs. Ludlow only has that school because she inherited that house,” she explained. “One needs a building to have a school, a very large one if one is going to take boarding students. I could never afford a London house, so if I tried that I would have to do so in a distant city.”
“Can you obtain another position teaching at another school?”
“Mrs. Ludlow might feel obligated to mention my father in her reference. However, I have an earlier reference that I can use instead. It is not unqualified, unfortunately. Also, the recent years will need to be explained. Again, if I go to a distant city—”
“That would take you too far from your father.” He frowned and set down his fork and knife. “If you cannot teach, what will you do instead?”
“I have some money that I had saved for another purpose, but it will keep me if I need it to. Also, my mother used to act as an accounts keeper for small tradesmen while I was growing up. They could pay her much less than a man, so they allowed themselves to be convinced to hire a woman for that reason. If necessary, I will let my services the same way.”
He reacted with an inscrutable expression. He called for more wine, then told the footman to leave the bottle. Another course arrived, of small fowl accompanied by root vegetables. She tasted hers. Pheasant. She dug in, noticing that Ives had not returned to his own meal.
He regarded her with cool assessment, much as he had that first night when she intruded on his home.
“What other purpose?” he asked. “You said you had saved money for another purpose.”
She hesitated. She had never told anyone her dream. She realized she wanted to tell him, however. She was proud of her plans, odd though he may find them. “I intend to go to Italy, to study. There are several universities there that allow women to stand for examinations for degrees.”
His eyebrow rose, but he neither scoffed nor laughed. “Which universities allow it? I confess I have never heard of such a thing.”
“Padua, Bologna, and Pavia have given higher degrees to women. Bologna has even had women professors. I plan to go to Padua, however, because that is where my mother studied and I have names of people there who might help me.” Talking about her plansbrought her excitement about them bubbling up in her imagination.
“Mrs. Ludlow mentioned your mother attending a university. I had assumed she misspoke. So you will follow in her footsteps. Will you pursue a degree in mathematics?”
“Questions may come from any of the arts or sciences.” She sounded mad, she knew. Even madder than he might think. She had not been studying these last few years as intensely as her dream required. The money she had, even the thirty pounds she had found, would be gone soon. She had continued honing her knowledge of Latin while at Mrs. Ludlow’s, but her command of Italian, taught to her by her mother, had become very rusty from disuse.
She poked at her fowl. Her enthusiasm retreated under the weight of her plan’s impossibility. “I will have a lot of catching up to do. It would be years before I could pass the examinations. It may even be too late already.”
“I doubt that. But what has held you back? Have you been waiting to pursue your studies while you saved the money?”
It would be so easy to simply say yes. Perhaps it was the wine that led her to tell him the truth instead.
“I had the money once before, when I lived and taught in Birmingham,” she said. “I was distracted from my goal, however. Then the money was lost, so I had to start over.”
His gaze invaded her own, curious and searching.Then sympathy touched his expression. “You spoke of a qualified reference. Was it qualified due to this distraction affecting your reputation? Were you distracted by a man?”
How had he guessed?
“Did the scoundrel steal the money? Is that how it was lost?”
Her face burned hotly. “The lying rogue took every damned penny.”
“At least you knew for certain what he was. You were not left wondering, or pining.”
“Such good fortune for me. I was able to console myself that I had been a thorough fool, from beginning to end. That was so much better than harboring a few decent memories that might excuse my judgment.”
The kindness that could warm his gaze unexpectedly did so now. “My apologies. Of course you must have been disillusioned and hurt. I should not have attempted to pretend there was a bright side to it.”
She looked down at her plate, battling the revival of the humiliation she had experienced when she indeed knew Nicholas for the scoundrel he was.Disillusioneddid not sufficiently describe her emotions that day. She had been unhinged with fury.
