“Newgate?” I gasped. It was the worst prison in London! I felt my eyes welling with tears. “All of this is my fault. I know I shouldn’t have gone to Danforth’s alone. I shouldn’t havewagered as recklessly as I did. Or even played cards. I should have waited for Blake and gone in there and let the boys get him out. Instead, I wanted to prove to him that he still felt something for me.”
“You couldn’t have predicted this, even with your addiction to calculating the odds of things,” he said wryly.
“What do we do?”
“I don’t know. But please don’t cry, Cousin.”
He looked as helpless as I felt. We were out of options unless we took an enormous risk that could turn out very badly for everyone concerned, including me.Especiallyme. But it felt like it was my only remaining hope. Swiping my leaking eyes, I sucked in a breath and fought with the swelling knot in my throat. “We need to tell Papa.”
Ansel’s face blanched. “That you dressed like a boy and pretended to be me? And that Iknewabout it?”
“That you went on a grand tour without his approval as well,” I added with a sniff.
Ansel paled even further at that, his light brown skin like pasty chalk. My cousin had some accountability of his own to address, continuing his lie by omission even at the ball. Exposing my falsehoods would consequently expose his, and I wouldn’t do that to him without his permission.
“He’s going to be irate,” he muttered.
I nodded. “Probably. I’ll try to draw the heat so that the focus isn’t on you.”
“No, I’m responsible for my choices.” He shook his head, removing his glasses and cleaning them. “Someone’s future is moreimportant than me being afraid. I should have done the right thing from the start.” He shot me a wan smile. “Perhaps it’snotalways better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Sometimes it’s better to take the bull by the horns.”
“Papa is worse than a bull,” I said. “He’s a dragon.”
“That have horns, too, don’t they?” Ansel asked with a watery smile.
I nodded. “Sharp, big ones.”
“We’re so dead.”
We made our way to my father’s study, where he would undoubtedly be working. He was used to burning the candle at both ends. Sure enough, there was a light underneath the door. Before I lost my courage, I knocked. “Papa, do you have a moment?”
“Rosalin? Come in,” he said, glancing up and frowning when he saw Ansel on my heels. He sat back in his chair and folded his arms, though a small smile danced over his mouth. “Have a seat.” Wordlessly, we sat in the chairs in front of his desk. “The last time the two of you came to me together, you’d made the governess leave because you put live frogs in her bed. So, what is it now?” His dark brows rose in expectation. “Has Ansel been terrorizing your young man?”
I cleared my throat. “Actually, it is about him.” I inhaled a deep, cleansing breath. “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
“Wehaven’t been fully honest, Uncle Lan,” Ansel said, his face still unnaturally pale, though his voice was strong. “I want to go first. The truth is…I wasn’t at Cambridge University for the past few months. And Iwasin Greece right before AuntieSusu’s ball. I decided to go to the Continent on a grand tour, while everyone thought I was still here. It was immature and reckless, and I should have asked your permission before leaving England. I’m truly sorry.”
My father didn’t say anything. The only sign of any reaction was the slight crinkling of skin around his eyes. He steepled his hands over the desk, that dark, unreadable gaze sliding to me. “And you? What do you have to confess? Care to explain how I still received reports about my nephew’s so-called excellent progress if Ansel was gallivanting around Europe?”
“I took his place at Cambridge,” I blurted. “I pretended to be him and enrolled in another college, while falsifying your approval of the transfer and charges. I wanted to learn about mathematics and astronomy desperately, and it seemed like such an opportunity since Ansel wasn’t going to be attending.” I swallowed hard. “So, I took it.”
In a rush, I spouted out my whole scheme, barely stopping for breath, until the incident at the ball when Ansel had shown up. I explained my idea to introduce Tarik to thetonso that he could position his marvelous proposal about the academic social club to potential investors. I told Papa that Tarik had been helping me build my own telescope and had taken me on a tour of the Royal Observatory, where I’d seen the planets and stars. And last of all, I clarified what had happened after the ball.
I hung my head. “I don’t know if he will ever forgive me, Papa. But I like him.Somuch. He’s the only gentleman who has ever seen me for everything I am, especially what’s in my head and heart versus who my father is or how much money we have.And now, he’s in trouble because of me. Because he wasprotectingme from being arrested.”
Falling into silence, I waited for my father to speak and his inevitable judgment. “It seems as though you both know that what you did was wrong.” He peered at Ansel. “Yes, you should have discussed your interest in a grand tour with me as well as your mother and aunt. Not to mention conspiring with your cousin to willfully deceive the administrators at your college.”
“Yes, Uncle.”
His stare landed on me next, though it didn’t seem as cold or forbidding as I’d expected. “I can’t say I am surprised by your ardor for education, Rosalin. You were always in the library with your nose stuck in a mathematics book or participating in your cousin’s lessons.Impersonatingsomeone else, however, is going a little too far.”
“I am aware, Papa.”
“Who else knows?” he asked.
“Not many. I thought some would have overheard that day on the terrace, but there’s been nothing in the gossip rags. With the thunder and being out on the terrace, we were lucky not to be overheard.” I listed the ones who knew, leaving James out, as I wasn’t sure how my father would handle someone holding a potentially explosive secret over our family. Overhim.Besides, we didn’tknowfor sure that James was a threat. It was only a speculation.
My father nodded. “I don’t condone your actions. They were dishonest and possibly criminal. I’ve always taught the two of you to look before you leap. Perhaps you need to revisit that lesson in earnest.” He exhaled a thoughtful breath even as I witheredbeneath the weight of his words. “That said, perhaps our hallowed institutions need to start thinking about including women in higher education.”
