“I am angry with her.”
“I know.”
“She says she acted for the family.”
“She probably believes it.”
“That makes me angrier.”
Eliza understood.
Cruelty committed knowingly could be confronted.
Cruelty committed as duty arrived armored.
“What will you do?”
Beatrice asked.
Eliza looked toward the letters.
“Work.”
That answer disappointed everyone except Clara.
The school opened in January.
Number Nine Pembroke Street was not grand.
That helped.
Three classrooms downstairs.
Office.
Kitchen.
Four rooms above.
The first twelve students came through parish referrals and tradesmen’s families.
Girls aged nine to sixteen.
Daughters of clerks, printers, shopkeepers, widows, one surgeon’s assistant, and two women who gave no explanation of their husbands because no one asked.
Beatrice taught literature and history.
Eliza taught French, arithmetic, correspondence, and practical household accounts.
They hired Mrs. Nell Avery for music and drawing.
Julian funded the initial lease.
After that, tuition and a small endowment covered most costs.
He did not appear every day.
Important.
The first month, he visited once.
The second, twice.
Always announced.
Never alone with Eliza unless she agreed.
Courtship began slowly.
Painfully slowly from Julian’s perspective.
Perfectly from Eliza’s.
He sent no flowers for six weeks.
Then asked:
“Are flowers still suspicious?”
“Yes.”
“What about books?”
“More suspicious.”
“Confectionery?”
“Manipulative.”
“Jewelry?”
“Do you enjoy suffering?”
“Less each week.”
She smiled.
By March they walked in Hyde Park twice.
With Beatrice.
Beatrice hated chaperoning.
“This is degrading.”
“You are twenty-one.”
“I am an educator.”
“You are also unmarried.”
“So are you.”
“Exactly.”
Julian whispered:
“She has you there.”
Eliza glared at both.
He laughed.
The dowager duchess did not visit the school.
She sent no apology.
That became its own pressure.
Society knew something had happened.
Not the details.
Enough.
Julian had stopped attending several dinners with the Somerville family.
Eliza was seen walking with him.
Beatrice lived partly at Pembroke Street despite her mother’s objections.
Whispers became predictions.
Some called Eliza ambitious.
Others clever.
One newspaper gossip column referred to:
A certain dark-haired instructor whose arithmetic appears to include rapid calculation of ducal incomes.
Julian wanted to sue.
Eliza laughed until she could barely breathe.
“No.”
“It is defamatory.”
“It is funny.”
“It is not.”
“You look wounded.”
“I am.”
“Good.”
He stared.
She kissed his cheek.
First time.
Julian forgot the newspaper.
That, Eliza decided, was an efficient use of affection.
The proposal came again in April.
Not dramatic.
They were in the school office arguing over a broken stove.
Julian had just finished explaining why replacing the entire iron range made more sense than paying for another repair.
Eliza said:
“You cannot replace everything inconvenient.”