“I have decided to invite you to tour our academy. You said you wanted to judge whether teaching there is an appropriate endeavor for your wards. Well, this is your chance.”
“Then I accept.”
“I am instructing a class at four. We usually take tea then, and I thought to use your visit as a learning opportunity for our young ladies. They rarely receive gentlemen callers, so they can practice on you.”
His amusement deepened. “So I am to be your test subject.”
“I don’t doubt you are up to the challenge.”
“And you will have protection in numbers,” Marcus observed shrewdly.
Arabella smiled. She had indeed counted on that advantage. With two dozen schoolgirls to divert Marcus from his wooing of her, he would have little chance for intimacy, and she would use up much of her obligatory four hours in his company. “There is that benefit, too,” she agreed.
“Very well, I will concede to tea if I must. Are you free for a ride this morning?”
She shook her head. “I am afraid I won’t have time. I am meeting with the merchants again, and then I am expected at the academy at one. But I’m certain you can enjoy a ride without me. If you will arrive at the academy at half past three, you may inspect the premises before tea.”
“I will be counting the minutes,” Marcus replied in pained resignation.
Having postponed Marcus’s courtship for the time being, Arabella spent a busy morning choosing furnishings for the remainder of the main floor. Later, when she went out to the stableyard, intending to drive herself in the gig to the academy, she found the earl’s carriage waiting to take her there.
The afternoon crept by with surprising slowness. Absurdly, Arabella caught herself glancing frequently out the windows in anticipation of Marcus’s visit. When his carriage arrived promptly and halted on the gravel drive before the entrance hall, she accompanied the school’s headmistress outside to greet him.
“Gentleman caller reporting for duty,” he said as he stepped down from his barouche.
Arabella introduced him to Miss Jane Caruthers, the elegant spinster who ran the day-to-day operations of the academy. Allowing Miss Caruthers to lead the tour of the grounds, Arabella remained a few steps behind, yet she found herself watching Marcus intently, surprised to realize how eager she was to have his approval.
Of course, if he saw the good she and her sisters were doing here, he would be more likely to sanction their continued employment. Yet her desire for his approbation was more personal than acquiring his legal consent, she knew. The academy was mainly her creation, her pride and joy, and she wanted Marcus to understand how much it meant to her.
The school was actually comprised of several buildings so as to prepare pupils for the varied experiences they would encounter in high society. Classes were usually held in a large manor house such as one might find on a nobleman’s country estate, and a second, more formal mansion that was representative of where the London Quality dwelled. The academy also boasted a large stable and park to practice outdoor skills, and a large dormitory to lodge the young ladies who boarded full-time. The vast majority of the pupils lived in the dormitory, except during summer term when only a handful remained on the premises.
Arabella couldn’t hide the little glow of warmth she felt at the tour’s conclusion when Marcus praised the facilities.
“Impressive,” he said sincerely. “I can see why merchants would want to send their daughters here.”
She smiled with pleasure. “The accommodations are excellent thanks to Lady Freemantle’s generosity, but our parents appreciate even more the quality of the instruction their daughters receive. Come, let me show you.”
When they returned to the “London” mansion, Arabella led Marcus upstairs to a large drawing room, where he instantly became the target of attention of two dozen bright-eyed young females dressed in afternoon finery.
Miss Tess Blanchard rose to welcome him with a polite smile. When Marcus had bowed over her hand, Arabella stepped forward to address her pupils. “Ladies, I am pleased to offer you a treat today. Lord Danvers has generously agreed to join us so that we might practice the art of properly receiving a gentleman when he calls. We will concentrate particularly on graciously pouring tea and making witty conversation. Miss Blanchard has already arranged the seating, so if you will please take your places, we may begin.”
The girls were to take tea with the earl in groups of six while the rest observed. There were servants standing by with tea services and trays filled with scones and crumpets and tiny sandwiches. When Arabella and Tess were seated with the first group, Marcus was announced by a “butler” and shown into the room.
Watching him over the course of the next hour, Arabella couldn’t help but admire his fortitude. Some of the girls were painfully shy, and some were crassly bold, but Marcus suffered them all with good grace. It was clear he fascinated them. He held their rapt attention throughout four practice sessions, charming the shy ones and deftly parrying the fawning banter of the flirtatious ones.
And in the third group, when one of the girls sloshed tea all over the lace tablecloth, he calmly withdrew a handkerchief from his jacket and mopped up the spill. Then when Sybil Newstead, a raven-haired beauty who had flirted brazenly with him for the past ten minutes in a transparent attempt to monopolize the conversation, scolded her classmate’s clumsiness, Marcus offered the mortified girl an irresistible smile.
“Don’t pay Miss Newstead any mind, Miss Fletcher. You have made me feel quite at home. My younger sister Eleanor doused me quite regularly when she was learning to pour. I don’t envy you ladies, having to negotiate so many delicate operations. I would be all thumbs.”
The scarlet-faced Miss Fletcher flashed him a worshipful look of gratitude, while Sybil Newstead shot him a sullen look of vexation.
Arabella, too, was supremely grateful to Marcus for his kindness, but she waited to tell him so until after the class had ended and Tess had shepherded all the girls from the drawing room.
“That was very well done of you, my lord,” she said after the footmen had withdrawn.
“I am glad you appreciate my sacrifice,” Marcus replied lightly. “You can’t imagine how painful it was, having to fend off a bevy of giggling schoolgirls. I was squirming the entire time.”
That brought Arabella’s laugh bubbling up. “No one could tell you were the least discomfited.”