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“But we were very much outsiders to Society.” Outsiders, but sometimes a bit too close for comfort. He’d had to wallop blue bloods daily as a charity case at Eton. Still, the friends he’d made at Eton, and Oxford, the glimpses they’d provided into their world, proved useful when he interacted with wealthy clients. His smooth manners, his attitude of drawling indifference to the prospect of a given sale, played enormously well. Useful. But damned tedious.

“I gather you did grow up in Society,” he continued.

She inclined her head at this statement of the obvious. Her smirk looked familiar. It was Elizabeth’s smirk. He’d seen it on the faces of other lovers as well, those with West End addresses. As though they got fitted with them at the same modiste.

“But given what you’ve achieved, how much you’ve seen of the world, we must be in agreement.”

“About what?” She folded her arms beneath her breasts. She would not make this easy. But of course they shared this common ground, despite her prickliness around her Season. He smiled.

“Why, women’s education.”

“Women’s education!” She laughed and shrugged out of her shawl, letting it drape the chair back behind her. He wished he could follow suit and take off his damned wool jacket. The room was stifling. Her neckline dipped below her collarbones, in which the shadows pooled. A man’s gaze could drown there. He caught himself and found her eyes. She was glaring daggers.

“Of what use is an education?” she demanded. “Of what use, when the single most important factor in your future is who you marry? I’ve never met a man who asked me to work a sum or find the Cape of Good Hope on a globe. Do you propose to educate men to seek out education in women?”

He had the unpleasant suspicion that he was gaping.

“No? In that case, an educated woman risks making herself unmarriageable for what? A position as a schoolmistress educating other girls until they reach the same pass? What will happen when there are as many schoolmistresses as female pupils?”

“Surely,” he said, regrouping, “new kinds of opportunities—”

“And in the meantime?” She didn’t let him finish. “Head emptying as the Season may be, you’d have to be empty-headed not to see that it provides a woman with the very best opportunity that presently exists.” She drooped a bit, those graceful shoulders turning inward.

“Not that it’s any guarantee,” she said in a softer voice. Then she shrugged. “You can believe in women’s education, like children believe in Father Christmas. Your sisters were lucky if they married and married well.”

Oh, she was rare. Not a variety of Society butterfly or woman intellectual, despite shared traits with both. She belonged to her own genus.

“I have often thought . . .” He hesitated. “That you and your husband were the luckiest of all.”

For a moment, he wondered if she hadn’t heard. As he’d spoken, a low din had erupted. Commotion at the bar. A glass shattering, a few cheers, curses. Then he saw that her eyes were wide, fixed upon him.

“I’m sorry. It was cruel to speak of good fortune when you lost him so young.” Another blunder. Now she looked stricken.

“But when I first heard of the Pendrakes, they—you—caught fire in my imagination. A husband and wife, traveling together, sharing every discovery . . .”

“Pasties.” Mary banged two plates down in front of them, four pasties for him, two for Muriel. No cutlery. She took in Muriel’s flushed face and raised her eyebrows at Neal. “Another round?”

Neal glanced at Muriel’s glass, nearly empty, as he passed his glass to Mary. Muriel finished her ale with a gulp.

“Please,” she said.

—

Muriel Pendrake was a widow. Lavinia let the information sink in, watching Neal break apart his pasty, the steam billowing from the hot meat and potatoes. Why hadn’t that possibility occurred to her? No Mr. Pendrake. The only husband threatening to pop out of the shadows was her own.

Impossible that the Duke of Cranbrook would look for her here, in this godforsaken heap. Still, she jumped every time the men at the bar raised their voices.

“I’ll ask Mary to fetch a fork.” Neal twisted in his chair, flagging down the nasty old baggage, who was already making her approach, pints in hand.

“Your pasties?” Mary beamed at Neal as she set down the glasses. He beamed back.

“Even better than yesterday’s,” he declared, laying a hand on his heart. Lavinia resisted the urge to snort. They were yesterday’s, she’d be willing to wager. Nothing fresh could emerge from that kitchen. The batch of pasties was probably baked during the Interregnum. None of the other patrons seemed the dining type. Wise of them. Gin didn’t go off.

“And yours?” Mary trained her beady eyes on Lavinia’s untouched plate.

“Heavenly.” Lavinia folded her arms.

“Mary.” Neal assumed a conspiratorial air. “We’re well content and only wanting a pair of forks.”