Miss Grimsleys Oxford Career Read online

  ALSO BY CARLA KELLY

  FICTION

  Daughter of Fortune

  Summer Campaign

  Miss Chartley's Guided Tour

  Marian's Christmas Wish

  Mrs. McVinnie's London Season

  Libby's London Merchant

  Miss Grimsley's Oxford Career

  Miss Billings Treads the Boards

  Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand

  Reforming Lord Ragsdale

  Miss Whittier Makes a List

  The Lady's Companion

  With This Ring

  Miss Milton Speaks Her Mind

  One Good Turn

  The Wedding Journey

  Here's to the Ladies: Stories of the Frontier Army

  Beau Crusoe

  Marrying the Captain

  The Surgeon's Lady

  Marrying the Royal Marine

  The Admiral's Penniless Bride

  Borrowed Light

  Coming Home for Christmas: Three Holiday Stories

  Enduring Light

  Marriage of Mercy

  My Loving Vigil Keeping

  NONFICTION

  On the Upper Missouri: The Journal of Rudolph

  Friedrich Kurz

  Fort Buford: Sentinel at the Confluence

  © 2012 Carla Kelly

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, whether by graphic, visual, electronic, film, microfilm, tape recording, or any other means, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places, and dialogue are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. The views expressed within this work are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Cedar Fort, Inc., or any other entity.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4621-1037-7

  Published by Sweetwater Books, an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc.

  2373 W. 700 S., Springville, UT, 84663

  Distributed by Cedar Fort, Inc., www.cedarfort.com

  Previously published by Signet/New American Library in 1992.

  Cover design by Angela D. Olsen

  Cover design © 2012 by Lyle Mortimer

  Edited and typeset by Melissa J. Caldwell

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  In memory of Jean Dugat,

  my dear teacher, who taught me and challenged me

  Ay me! For aught that ever I could read,

  Could ever hear by tale or history,

  The course of true love never did run smooth.

  —William Shakespeare

  A Midsummer Night's Dream

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  About the Author

  T PAINS ME TO THE QUICK TO MAKE THIS observation about my only son, but James, for a Gatewood, you are queer stirrups, indeed,” said Lady Chesney.

  This startling pronouncement was followed by a deep quaff of ratafia and a look of deeper concern at the offspring who sat, legs crossed, eyes on a book.

  James Gatewood looked up and smiled at his mother. It was a sweet smile, one full of lazy Gatewood charm that only served to irritate his parent and send her back to the ratafia for further fortification.

  “Why you could not bring yourself to smile like that at Lady Susan Hinchcliffe, or Augusta Farnsworth, I will never understand! Son, you would tax the patience of a martyr!”

  The smile deepened. After one more glance at his book, Lord Chesney laid aside the volume. “Dearest mother, that would be impossible. Martyrs are dead. That is why they are martyrs.”

  This observation served only to rouse Lady Chesney to greater heights. “And there you go again! You know very well that I meant saint!”

  Her son laughed and picked up his book again, settling back into the chair.

  Lady Chesney was not about to let a good topic wither for lack of nourishment. “How you can expect to find a wife in the Bodleian Library, I cannot fathom. James, wasn't once at Oxford enough? You're the only Gatewood in recent memory to … to immolate himself there, and look at the results!”

  “Mother, do you perhaps mean, ‘to immerse myself’?” he teased. “And I do not expect to unearth a wife in the Bodleian. Indeed, it would be impossible, considering England's unenlightened state of national indifference to the education of females. I go there for scholarship.”

  Lady Chesney could only moan and reach for her handkerchief. “Other young men your age—your friends, I might add—are busy at their tailors, or bargaining for bloodstock at Tattersalls, or sitting in White's bow window like normal men!” She buried her face in her handkerchief and blew her nose. “I wish you would reconsider this off notion of yours. It is not too late!”

  Lord Chesney only stood up, stretched, and reached over to ruffle her hair. He kissed her cheek and perched himself on the arm of her chair, his hand on her shoulder. He gave her a mild shake. “Mama, it isn't forever! I could not possibly turn down an appointment to All Souls. It is an honor I had not dreamed of, and I will read history there this year,” he concluded, his voice firm.

  The seriousness lasted no more time than it took to speak his intentions. Gatewood rested his cheek against his mother's hair. “Mama, look at it this way and take some consolation: at least I am not pursuing my fellowship in Shakespeare too. I could, you know.”

  Lady Chesney shuddered. “You will remind me of your dratted double first!” She dabbed at her eyes. “When my set gathers for loo and we discuss the exploits of our sons, I have to endure Lady Whittington's bragging about that oafish lump she claims is Lord Whittington's and his exploits in Spain. Christine Dysart proses on and on about her dear Little Darnley's latest win at Newmarket. All I have to brag about is some pesky book you wrote about fairies and donkey's heads! Lud, it's enough to set me off my meals.”

  “Midsummer Night's Dream, Mama,” Lord Chesney said patiently. “It's a rather good play, even if it is Shakespeare. And I only wrote a small commentary.”

  “Stuff!” Lady Chesney exclaimed. “You are a disgrace to all the Gatewoods who ever turned a card or made a wager. While we are having such fun, here you are, your nose eternally in a book.”

  Gatewood abandoned his station at his parent's elbow and took up a more defensive stance in front of the fireplace. “We made a bargain, Mama—you and Papa and I, remember? Papa is gone now, but I am holding you to the bargain. I will study this year at All Souls, and when the year is up, I promise to set up my nursery, and start riding to hounds, and gambling, and making my tailor's life miserable. Agreed?”

  Lady Chesney sighed and nodded. “That ought to redeem the family honor, although I've a mind to tell people, when they inquire where you are this year, that you are taking the Grand Tour on the Continent.”

  “Mama! No one is taking the Grand Tour these days! Remember the Blockade?” He regarded her with tender affection. “Mama, when did you last look at a newspaper?”

  Lady Chesney brushed aside world events with a wave of her handkerchief. “Too much small print, my dear. Very well, I will not complain,” she said, and complained, “But you know that I do not approve. You are the head of the family now!”

  “I know, Mama, I know,�
�� he soothed.

  “You will remember to send out your collars every now and then to be starched?”

  “Of course, Mama.”

  “I do not understand why you cannot take your father's valet with you to Oxford!”

  “He would perish with boredom and kill me in my sleep, Mama,” Gatewood said, the amusement creeping into his voice again. “Besides that, Lord Winnfield has made him a wonderful offer of employment.”

  “I suppose. At least promise me that you will not wear that beastly student's gown all the time. You are rumpled enough.”

  “Certainly, Mama.”

  Her tone softened. “And write to me occasionally.”

  “Yes, dearest. Oxford is not situated in the polar reaches.”

  “It is dreadful unmodish, and you know it!”

  “Dreadful slow,” he agreed with a twinkle in his eyes as he began a slow edge toward the door.

  As his mother cast about for another argument, he reached the door, pausing with his hand poised above the handle, ready to bolt.

  “I have hit upon it, Mama!” Gatewood exclaimed as he turned the handle. “You can tell your set that I have killed someone in a duel and must spend the year rusticating with relatives in Virginia. That ought to be sufficiently worthy of a true Gatewood!”

  Lady Chesney puffed up for a resounding reply. Before it could leave her lips, her son was gone, laughing his way down the hall. “Oh, if you were only of an age for me to stop your quarterly allowance,” she muttered.

  She sprang to her feet, surprisingly agile for one of her bulk, and hurtled herself after him. All she saw was a pair of heels vanishing up the staircase. She shook her fist after him.

  “It is my fervent wish that you meet your match at Oxford, you wicked, wicked, unnatural son!” she shouted, quite forgetting herself.

  Her unnatural son's voice floated down from the second floor landing. “My dear, what could be safer than All Souls College?”

  ASTER RALPH GRIMSLEY TUGGED AT HIS collar, sighed, and looked up at his sister. “Do you know, El, I do not think this interview will go well for either of us. That bagwig Snead don't much like to be corrected, especially by you.”

  “‘Doesn't,’ ” Ellen Grimsley corrected, her eyes on the saddled horse pawing the ground directly under the window where they sat. “And Papa hates above all things to be trapped by that prosing windpipe, especially when the fox has already been loosed.”

  As if to emphasize her words, the mellow tones of the hunting horn sounded through the open window. The wavering notes stretched out and then drifted away on the October breeze. Ellen shivered and pulled the window shut.

  Ralph scrambled to his knees and pressed his nose against the windowpane. “Poor old fox,” he said softly. He glanced at Ellen again. “There is a certain injustice to this system,” he said.

  Ellen smiled for the first time since Vicar Snead's arrival, charmed by the thought that her little brother, who was but twelve, sounded full grown. She thought of Gordon, incarcerated at Oxford, who had never sounded that mature at twelve, and likely never would. A certain injustice, she thought, her eyes on the closed door to the book room.

  Ralph remained kneeling in the window seat, his nose pressed to the glass. In another moment, he was blowing on the glass and then writing his Latin vocabulary on the pane. “El, if I write it backwards, then people outside can read it forwards.”

  “You could,” she agreed as she tucked in his shirttail and then tickled him. “But as the only animate object outside is Papa's horse, I think it would be a waste of good breath.”

  Ralph laughed, turned around, and sat next to her again, resting his head against her arm. He closed his eyes in satisfaction. “I'm glad it's Horry getting married and not you, El. Promise me that you will never marry.”

  “I promise,” she said promptly and then amended, a twinkle in her eyes. “But suppose I get a good offer? Mama is sure that if Horatia can bag the son of a baronet, then I ought at least to snare a vicar!”

  Ralph frowned. “Well, as long as it's not Vicar Snead, that old priss.” He brightened. “I think someone as fine as you could trip up a viscount at least.”

  “Silly!”

  They were still smiling when the book room door opened and the vicar minced out. He smiled his gallows smile at the Grimsley progeny, his thin lips disappearing somewhere inside his mouth. Carefully he smoothed a finger across each eyebrow—his only good feature—and stood aside for the squire.

  Ellen's heart sank lower into her boots. Triumph was etched all over the vicar's rather spongy features. Ellen, why do you not keep your mouth shut? she thought. Why aren't you a more dutiful daughter?

  The hunting horn sounded again, barely audible through the closed window. The squire lumbered to the window and pressed his nose against the glass in unknowing imitation of his younger son. The sigh that escaped him was plainly audible.

  The vicar coughed and cleared his throat, recalling the squire to the proceedings at hand. “Squire Grimsley, I believe you have something to say to your daughter.”

  “My daughter?” the squire repeated absently. He opened the window and looked down at his horse.

  Ellen bit her lip to keep back the laughter. Poor Vicar Snead! He hadn't been in the neighborhood long enough to know that one only asked easy questions of Squire Grimsley when the pack was loosed and the fox running fast. He would be hard put to remember any of his children, especially his daughters.

  “Sir, your daughter!” the vicar repeated when the squire stayed where he was, his hands resting on the glass as if he wanted to push through it, leap on the waiting horse, and gallop toward the sound of the horn.

  “My daughter?” the squire said, as though the concept of parenthood were a new idea requiring further consideration.

  “Ellen,” Ralph added helpfully. “She's short for a Grimsley, and blonde, Papa. I think she's pretty,” he concluded, unable to resist, even as his sister kicked his foot.

  “And you are impertinent,” the vicar snapped. He cleared his throat again. “Your daughter, Miss Grimsley.”

  The squire waved his hand in the direction of the clergyman.

  “You have my permission, sir. Take her, she's yours.”

  The vicar gasped and turned the color of salmon. Ralph dissolved into helpless mirth.

  The laughter recalled the squire to the distasteful business at hand. He turned away from the window with a reluctance that was almost palpable. Ralph stopped laughing and scooted closer to his sister, who put her arm around him.

  “Ellen, you will apologize to the vicar for your rudeness this morning during Ralph's lesson.”

  Ellen rose, wishing for the millionth time that she was tall like the other Grimsleys. She turned the full force of her cobalt blue eyes upon the vicar, who went even redder and seemed to have trouble with his collar suddenly. He tugged on it and made strangling noises that made Ralph shake.

  “Mr. Snead,” she began softly, “I do apologize for correcting you this morning when you said that Boston was the capital of the United States.”

  “And?” asked the vicar, running his finger around the offending collar as Ellen continued to regard him, a slight smile on her face.

  “And?” she repeated.

  “And you will not interfere again,” the vicar concluded.

  “I can't promise that,” she said. “Best that you brush up on your geography, sir, before you lead any more young boys astray.”

  “Daughter!” roared the squire.

  Ellen winced, but she stood her ground. “Papa, Boston is not the capital of the United States.”

  “No?” The squire rubbed his chin, his eyes on the vicar. “Well, of course it is not! What do you say to this, sir?”

  The vicar dabbed at the perspiration gathering on his upper lip. “She could have told me in private, sir.”

  Ralph sprang to his sister's defense. “Sir, as to that, I am sure she could not,” he insisted. “Papa would never permit a tête-à-t�
�te with a single gentleman such as yourself.”

  “Bother and nonsense,” the vicar exclaimed. “I am her spiritual counselor, as long as she resides within the boundaries of my parish!” He turned to the squire and all but plucked at his pink coat. “Squire, I protest! Miss Grimsley corrects me in front of my other pupils. How does it look, sir?”

  The squire forced his attention from the window to the domestic scene. “It looks to me, sir, as though you ought to take a good look at a map. Everyone knows that New York City is the capital of the United States. Good day, vicar. Do come again when you can stay longer.”

  The vicar sniffed and patted his eyebrows again. “Very well, sir. I will withdraw now. Perhaps I shall compose a sermon from St. Paul about women not speaking in public!” He turned and strode majestically to the front door. The effect was marred when he closed the door upon his coattails and had to open it again to free himself.

  The squire watched him go. “Our vicar is good evidence for the theory that all younger sons should be drowned at birth,” he murmured, and then glanced at Ralph. “Present company excluded, of course.”

  Ralph grinned, pleased by his father's unexpected attention. Ellen sat down in the window seat again. “Papa, the capital of the United States is Washington, DC!”

  The squire, his family duties attended to, was at the window again. “That's not my fault,” he said and eyed his daughter. “What am I going to do with you, Ellen?” he asked.

  “You could send me away to school, Papa,” she said. The squire roared with laughter and pinched her cheek.

  “You're the funny one,” he said. “Lord, what use does a chit have for school? You had a governess for two years, my dear. That's enough. I have never heard that reading books will get you a husband.” He looked about for his hat.

  “But, Papa, isn't there more to life than the getting of a husband?” she persisted.

  He took his hat from Ralph and settled it on his head. He turned to her with a puzzled expression. “What else is there for chits?” he asked.

  “But, Papa—” she began and was cut off with a wag of the squire's finger in her face.