Page 42 of What's an Earl Gotta Do?
Chapter 15
A quarter of an hour later, Anne’s dance with Augustus Mapplethorpe ended. She’d paid scant attention to Mr. Mapplethorpe, truth be told, so concerned was she about her looming dance with Lord Gladstone.
She reminded herself for the twelfth time that although the matching carriage crest was suspicious, it was only one piece of evidence. She mustn’t assume Lord Gladstone’s guilt without further investigation.
Still, Anne’s stomach roiled as she watched the baron approach. Lord Gladstone was a brown-haired, barrel-chested man, perhaps an inch shorter than her. There was a countrified quality to him that made you expect a hunting dog or two to be trotting at his heels even in a ballroom.
He looked so ordinary, so unassuming, yet this was the man who might be selling tiny children to their almost-certain death. Anne’s smile felt brittle, but she made sure it was firmly in place, determined to give nothing away.
As he kissed the air above her knuckles, her eyes fixed upon his hand. Of course he was wearing gloves, of the standard York tan kidskin. But Anne could just make out a bulge over his fourth finger that looked suspiciously like a signet ring.
She drew in a steady breath. At least now she had a concrete goal—to somehow get Lord Gladstone to remove his glove so she could determine if his signet ring matched Lieutenant Avery’s description.
She tried to mask the shudder that swept between her shoulder blades as she laid her hand upon his arm. “So,” Anne said as he led her toward the top of the set, “how are things at the Royal Military Asylum?”
The stare the baron gave her was a bit… blank. “Well, it’s, uh. It’s not open yet.”
“Of course, but I’m sure the planning must keep you very busy.”
“Indeed. We meet once a month. Deuced long meetings.” Gladstone shook his head. “If they’re not arguing over what to serve for breakfast, it’s what the uniforms will be, or whether the bedstands should be wood or metal.” He shrugged. “I’m the secretary, so I just write it all down.”
“I… I see.” Anne found herself at a loss, but she was saved from having to make a more substantial response by the start of the dance.
It was a country dance and lively enough that Anne found little opportunity to question Lord Gladstone further as they worked their way down the set. Once they reached the bottom and got a short reprieve, Anne leaned in. “Do you think you will be quite overrun with applications? Once the R.M.A. opens, that is.”
This was the most innocent segue Anne had been able to come up with into whether the R.M.A. was already overrun with applications. Lord Gladstone tipped his head to the side and blinked at her once… twice… three times. “Well, uh… we’re planning for two hundred children to start.”
“A handsome number,” Anne said. “Do you think that will be sufficient to meet demand?”
The baron looked baffled. “I… I couldn’t say.”
Anne bit her lip as the dance swept them up again. She hadn’t learned anything of value, but perhaps that wasn’t surprising. She’d hardly been expecting a full confession.
As they circled each other, Lord Gladstone cleared his throat. He did it again, then a third time, and then he coughed into his fist. He fell silent a moment, then burst into a fit of coughing when they were halfway through the figure.
An idea occurred to Anne. She caught Lord Gladstone’s arm and drew him out of the set. “Shall we get you something to drink?”
“If you”—he turned his head to cough again—“wouldn’t mind.”
The refreshment table was on the far side of the room, and they had to circle around the outskirts to avoid the dancers. The worst of Lord Gladstone’s coughing had subsided, so Anne cast around for a topic. “What sort of education will the R.M.A. be providing to its charges?”
“It’s going to be practical, I can tell you that.” The baron cleared his throat. “It’s not as if these are officer’s children. They’re destined for the subordinate situations of life, and they will be made to understand that. They’ll learn to read, and a little arithmetic, but it wouldn’t do, educating such children in a way that would give them airs of being above their natural place in the world.” He shook his head. “They’re going to have to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow for the rest of their lives. They need to get used to that from an early age.”
Anne couldn’t disagree more, but she wasn’t about to argue with him when she was finally getting somewhere. “I see. What sorts of jobs will you be preparing them for?”
It seemed Lord Gladstone had finally warmed to a topic.
“The idea is that most of the boys will enlist in the army themselves when they turn twelve, and the girls will go into service. There will be daily drill for the boys—we’ll have a drummer on staff—and the girls will work in the kitchen and laundry, in addition to the usual sewing and whatnot.”
“It sounds like you have it all planned out.” Anne paused, considering how to phrase her next question. “Are you considering any other trades for the boys? If they, say, did not want to go into military service?”
“Har-hem!” Lord Gladstone was still struggling with his lingering cough. “You’ve hit upon one of the challenges. However much we might wish otherwise, we cannot force the boys to enlist. Of course, we will provide every inducement for them to do so. But should some refuse, we’ll have to find some sort of apprenticeship for them.”
As a chimney sweep’s apprentice, perhaps? Anne tried to make her voice casual. “And what trades have you identified as most fitting for these sons of common foot soldiers?”
Lord Gladstone was back to blinking at her in the slightly bovine way he had. “Well, uh, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
They had reached the refreshment table. Lord Gladstone stepped forward to obtain two glasses of punch. Anne was turning over what he had said. He was certainly a vocal proponent of child labor. Had his silence when she asked what apprenticeships they would seek for the boys been a guilty one?
