Chapter Nineteen
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.
—Isaac Newton
Dread instantly spiking in my veins, I stared at the boys from Trinity.
Klaus pursed his lips, his handsome face wearing a fretful expression that wasn’t typical for him.
Neither of the twins cared about anything that didn’t directly affect them, and they’d never had much fondness for Tarik.
“He’s in danger of being rusticated,” Will continued.
“If he doesn’t come back to university to face the official complaint levied against him. ”
“Rusticated?” Ela asked.
“Suspended from the school,” Harold supplied helpfully. “Temporarily at least, until he can speak for himself to defend against the accusations.”
I blinked—I’d been holed up in my chambers for more than a fortnight.
Tarik was supposed to have gone back to Cambridge to check in with the Master of the College.
While my presence wasn’t mandatory, his was, especially since he was still on track to becoming a Fellow and had specific milestones he needed to meet.
“Wait, he hasn’t returned? He’s been here in London?
And what accusations are you talking about? ”
Will shook his head, his normally ruddy face pallid.
“You know how the gossip mill is. After the ball, word got back to Trinity somehow, and of course, because the competition for a fellowship is so stiff, sometimes people will do anything to discredit others. You know that St. Clair was Second Wrangler, right?”
I nodded just as Zia interjected with, “I beg your pardon, what on earth is a Wrangler?”
Ansel scoffed aloud, and I wanted to roll my eyes.
Considering he didn’t value his education, to the point that he’d gone off on a grand tour, his reaction shouldn’t have surprised me.
“They are the top students who best the Mathematical Tripos examination at Trinity,” he explained.
“Basically, the most boring, self-absorbed, zealous pedants you can imagine.”
“I like the real Lord Ansel,” Kristof crowed.
“Only people who aren’t academically gifted denigrate others for being so,” I said with a scowl at my cousin before turning to Zia.
“The Wranglers are the crème de la crème of the university, and it’s extremely prestigious to be recognized as one.
Most of them go on to be notable mathematicians and scientists.
It’s the reason Tarik received his nomination to be a Fellow. He’s brilliant.”
Will perked up. “Did you know that St. Clair enrolled at Trinity at fourteen? He was one of the youngest students to matriculate. He’s one of the most dazzling minds of our generation.”
“And yet he wants to open a social club,” Blake mused. “Why not invent travel to the moon?”
Klaus let out a guffaw. “Because that’s bloody impossible!”
“Nothing is impossible,” I murmured, remembering the scientists and astronomers at the Royal Observatory charting stars, tracking data, and breaking earthly boundaries.
“Even that. One day, someone might surprise us all. But enough about that, will someone please tell me what the deuce happened with Tarik?” I faltered as several pairs of eyes converged upon me.
“Tarik, is it?” Kristof pounced.
Botheration! I wanted to kick myself. Using one’s given name was a familiarity reserved for family, bosom friends, and intimate relationships…which my tutor and I weren’t supposed to have. I swallowed and cleared my throat. “Mr. St. Clair.”
But my cheeks remained hot as though daring me to refute what everyone was already thinking. Ela and Zia already knew, and Blake and Ansel had seen us in the arbor. As far as the Trinity boys, Will’s gaze was wide, the twins were grinning impishly, and Harold was blushing.
“Naughty, naughty, Lady Roz,” Klaus teased, picking up where his dreadful brother left off. “Who knew the straitlaced St. Clair had it in him? The tutor and the student. He’s gone up a few notches in my estimation.”
“Focus!” I said, ignoring his teasing. “What’s happening at Trinity? Will?”
Will drew a deep breath. “Basically, you know how the Third Wrangler has always been in competition with St. Clair because he’s Second Wrangler?
Well, when he got wind of the gossip that St. Clair had pretended to be someone he wasn’t in London, he used it as ammunition to take out his biggest rival. ”
I frowned, something tickling my memory, and then it hit me like a punch to the gut. “Wait. Surely you don’t mean James?”
The strange expressions of fury and bitterness on my friends’ faces as they nodded in unison threw me. I thought Harold was going to cry. “Yes.”
For a second, I couldn’t reconcile what I was hearing. “James? As in our James? Redheaded, somewhat snobby, and uptight James? Our friend?”
“The very one,” Kristof muttered. “Though he’s clearly not a friend at all.”
“How did he even find out?” I asked.
Harold gave a dejected sniff. “It was me. I’m sorry, Roz. I let it slip when the twins told me what happened after the ball, and I didn’t know he’d be so conniving.”
“It’s not your fault that there’s bad history there,” I murmured. “They were the same year, correct?”
“Yes, they were at St. John’s and then Trinity.
He was Third Wrangler after the Tripos,” Will explained.
“St. Clair was second, which got him significant attention when he went into the Master of Arts program. He was up for recommendation as a future Fellow. James was fuming for years. He felt that he deserved the recognition that St. Clair received. An envy festered within him clearly.”
Klaus nodded. “Rumor is that he even tried to discredit St. Clair by paying a scout to spy on him. James was almost found out, too, but the scout mysteriously disappeared.”
I blinked. Why did that sound familiar? I racked my brain and came up with the answer a second later.
Tarik was quite adamant that he thought Ansel had tried to sabotage him by having his scout steal his research notes for the Tripos.
How had Tarik come to make that leap of logic?
Had James alluded to it to take the heat off himself?
Also, hadn’t Tarik claimed that Ansel had pushed him into the river?
I turned to my cousin. “Did you and St. Clair ever have an altercation on the River Cam?”
Ansel shrugged. “Not that I can recall, but quite a bit of that time was a blur. Many boys got shoved into the water. Why do you ask?”
I shook my head. “He seemed to be under the impression that you told your scout to take his notes for the Tripos.”
“That’s preposterous,” Ansel said, aghast. “I would never sabotage another student’s work or position.
All I remember of him is that he was quiet and barely spoke.
In fact, he was much more confident at the ball, and until you asked me the question now, I wouldn’t have guessed they were the same person. ”
“Would your scout have done something like that without your knowledge?” I pressed, frustrated when he shook his head. There had to be a link between the two. “Do you know the name Sir James Lowry of Essex?”
Blake whistled, then laughed. “I remember that bloody tosser. He made our lives a living hell, remember, Ansel?”
I’d forgotten that Blake had been enrolled at St. John’s for that first two years, before he decided he could get a better education outside of an institution’s walls. Blake had always marched to the beat of his own drum.
Ansel nodded, realization dawning. “That rotter kept reporting us to the proctors. He had a chip on his shoulder a mile wide. Threw the sir before his name around like it was gold and people were meant to bow. He loathed that we were both lords.”
“He would have been in the last year of his bachelor’s, the year he and St. Clair took the Tripos,” I murmured. “We are talking about the same man, yes?”
Blake lifted a brow. “You said red hair, right? Plus a weasel face? Crooked teeth?”
“Not a weasel, exactly,” I said, but I could see it, now that his true nature was being unveiled.
Out of all the Trinity boys, James had been the one I never had a real connection to.
I recalled how he’d treated poor Harold and also how incensed he’d become when I’d filched his bread in the dining hall—one would think I’d robbed his pockets of actual coin.
It was a small thing, but when someone was pretending to be a different person, small things were usually what gave them away. I should know.
Blake shook his head, peering at Ansel with a grin. “He definitely despised you for nicknaming him Sir Lowly.”
“Not one of my finer moments,” Ansel said. “How do you even remember these things? Our first year was a haze of drink and wom—” He sputtered to a stop with a sheepish glance at me and the other two girls.
“I remember everything,” Blake said sagely, tapping his temple. “Everyone. Every place. Every time.”
“You were rakes, we know,” I bit out, my thoughts churning. “But we have much bigger problems than that. Because if James hated you, wouldn’t he have known all along that I wasn’t the real Ansel? If I truly loathed someone, I would not forget their face, no matter how many years had passed.”
The silence in the room was heavy and telling.
Blake swore softly under his breath.
“You’re right. This goes deeper than any of us realized,” Will said, his eyes round with apprehension.
Even the twins looked perturbed. Because if James knew of my impersonation and was holding that close to his chest like a villain with a winning hand of cards, how and when did he plan to use it?
I was the daughter of an influential duke.
I remembered his expression when he’d asked about my father, if he was a powerful man, in the dining room and the way his eyes had glittered with…
avarice. Calculation, too. Tarik had said that James would do anything to get ahead…
Did that include the possible extortion of a duke?