Page 39 of The Bastard's Iberian Bride
“I am enjoying Latin, Miss,” Thomas said, and Bink felt a rush of pride in the boy. “Thank you for asking. Captain Grey makes it ever so interesting. We are studyingThe Gallic Warsby Julius Caesar.”
Agruen smiled sardonically. “I say, Miss Heardwyn, I have been set in my place once again tonight by a Beauverde.”
She raised her eyes and sent Thomas a half-smile.
Bink’s heart lifted. “I myself would have enjoyed Latin and Greek more if it hadn’t been taught with such liberal administrations of the cane.”
That won him a smile of his own, one he couldn’t help returning.
“You see, Ensign Beauverde,” Grey said, “you are fortunate to have a one-armed tutor who applies his cane to a more practical use.”
Thomas’s lips quirked. Grey had conferred rank on the boy the day he moved into the Hackwell household. Grey wasn’t smiling, but humor lurked under the thick layer of matter-of-factness.
Bink had found Grey through a network of wounded ex-soldiers, moldering in London. The bookish fifth or sixth younger son of a baron, he’d been a sensible, steady officer with a reputation for fairness, and a knack for turning his unit of Wellington’s scum of the earth into a fighting force. He was the perfect man to take a boy from the streets and turn him into a gentleman.
“I suppose you ladies had governesses who were as restrained as Grey here?” Agruen asked, raising an eyebrow.
Bink went still. The man would not let it alone. Now he was also picking at his unfashionable hostess, who arguably had the poorest pedigreed blood lines of anyone at this table after Paulette.
At the far end of the table, Hackwell still conversed amiably with Lady Tepping and Shurley. Grey, always adept and alert, stepped in to keep their conversation diverting.
“I had music and dance and art teachers,” Lady Hackwell said, “and oh yes, for a while I went into the village to study French with an émigré. But no governess.”
Agruen’s lip had curled up. “And yet you managed to become an accomplished lady.”
The bloody ass. The ironic tone sent Bink’s blood boiling.
“I also had no governess.” Miss Heardwyn smiled at Lady Hackwell. “Only, as you say, the usual teachers. I was fortunate to learn French from my mother.”
“Only French?” Agruen’s dark eyes pinned her. “Wasn’t your mother Spanish?”
She cocked her head and examined Agruen, and Bink felt another surge of pride. She’d recovered her composure and was dueling with all of her guards up.
“My mother and father were English, as you well know.”
Agruen set down his fork. “Oh dear. Have I offended you?”
Bink found his voice. “Are you close friends with Bakeley, Agruen?”
“I beg your pardon?” Agruen blinked.
“Your visit to Cransdall. You said you and Miss Heardwyn became acquainted there.”
That eyebrow shot up again. “Why yes, we did. It was—”
“Four years ago. The summer of Waterloo,” Miss Heardwyn said.
“Actually, I was there to see Shaldon, but the Earl was detained elsewhere. I’d never met the son. Areyouclose friends with Bakeley,SergeantGibson?”
The question rippled down the table silencing everyone. Bink forced his lips into a smile, and locked eyes with the ass.
They’d met a decade ago in Spain, and who could forget it? Agruen had been Josiah Dickson then, attaching himself to the army, tagging along as some kind of government operative, as useless as a tea kettle with no fire.
Various answers rumbled through him. He’d kept his secrets, damn it.
But the truth would take Agruen’s attention off Paulette. “No. Bakeley and I are not close friends at all. We are half-brothers.”
“Mr. Gibson is Lord Bakeley’s—or now Lord Shaldon’s older brother.” Miss Heardwyn’s eyes glittered.
