Chapter 2 #2
In the sitting room—smaller but brighter, and at the front of the house, with two windows letting in the fresh yellow-blue sunshine and only faintly muffling the cheerful rattle of wheels and hooves on cobbles—Madelaine took a seat on the sofa, surreptitiously tucking a copy of Cobbett’s Political Register behind a cushion.
Lord Cotereigh glanced at his chair before sitting down, as though to make sure it was clean.
His coattails were flicked back—no creases allowed there—and his legs, correctly muscled and tightly clad in pale cloth to reveal the fact, were arranged before him in masculine elegance.
There was a distinct gleam to his Hessian’s, though thankfully only the smallest of tassels.
Lord Cotereigh would probably cross the road rather than be caught in proximity to a fop.
Keeping these irreverent musings from her expression, she folded her hands on her lap and waited politely for him to begin.
He seemed like the sort of man who preferred to be in control of things, and now that she’d impelled him into this room, it was prudent to let him take the reins again.
When to talk and when to listen was a lesson she’d tried several times to give her aunt, without much success.
Lord Cotereigh was giving the room a surveying glance.
No doubt it met with his approval about as little as the study.
Her aunt had married a very rich man, but despite being left childless, she’d found calls enough on her purse.
Supporting the education of Madelaine’s six brothers might have been strain enough, even without the unceasing philanthropy.
She liked to buy things too, but they were normally old and broken things no one else wanted, or poorly embroidered cushions made by widows with no other means of income.
Products of the workhouse, wooden dolls carved by one-legged sailors.
Madelaine seldom thought of the appearance of her aunt’s house. This room, like all the others, was merely a place to do things. To talk, to decide, to prepare. But she supposed it was shabby indeed compared to anywhere Lord Cotereigh might normally be found.
His inspection done, the viscount returned his gaze to her face, but it promptly slid away and focused instead on some point just over her shoulder. She was fairly sure there was a stuffed wildcat on the sideboard there, grotesque and half-hairless, but seemingly preferable to herself.
“I believe you were at Mrs Fishbourne’s saloon yesterday,” he began.
“I was, yes. With my aunt.”
That topic apparently exhausted, he spotted a minute imperfection on his pantaloon knee and removed it, saying as though it had nothing to do with anything, “I was told about this chimney sweep campaign of yours—abolishing the use of climbing boys. I’d like to get involved.”
Madelaine took a moment, disappointment mingling with hilarity. She suppressed both. “It is indeed a very worthy cause, Lord Cotereigh. But not, I’m afraid to say, one my aunt or I are currently focused on.”
His dark eyes snapped up, displeasure making his face cooler than ever. “No?”
“There is already a wonderful society hard at work on that issue. The SSNCB—Society for Superseding the Necessity of Climbing Boys, perhaps you have heard of it? My aunt and I are subscribers, and I’m sure they’d be delighted to have your support too.
I’m more than happy to put you in touch with some members of their board—perhaps you know some already?
Lord Grosvenor? Sir Banbury? His Grace, the Duke of Northumberland? ”
Lord Cotereigh’s eyes only narrowed slightly. “Then what is your society’s aim?”
“Well… I’m afraid there is no society as such, just yet. We are in the early stages of recruiting its governing board—we need gentlemen to do so, of course, being unable to take such positions ourselves.”
“But it is not about climbing boys?”
“No. We seek instead to improve the lot of all children—all children everywhere, my lord, irrespective of employment or class.” She put the full weight of her conviction into her voice. “Our goal is to end the use of corporal punishment. We want to make sure no child is ever beaten again.”
Lord Cotereigh looked at her a moment longer. And then burst out laughing.
Heat swamped her, a bucket of coals on her head.
This was worse than Mrs Fishbourne’s, where she’d been half expecting the laughter even as her aunt launched into her usual effusive appeal, words and arguments garbled by the strength of her feelings.
Now it was Madelaine being laughed at, alone, and by him.
Tipping the immovable Lord Cotereigh into hilarity felt rather like being crushed by a mountain.
“Forgive me.” He momentarily pressed a fist to his mouth, as though ironing out a crease. “But you cannot be serious?”
She tried to meet his glinting gaze, chin held high even as damp humiliation glowed under the layers of her clothing, a red brand on her throat. “I am being entirely serious, my lord. I wish for a world in which no child need ever fear cane, birch, ferula, whip, or even hand.”
“And I suppose you’re aware of the saying spare the rod, spoil the child?”
“I am. And I find it barbaric.”
“It is in the Bible.”
“As a parson’s daughter, believe me that I know the Bible well.”
He pressed his lips together as though he couldn’t quite believe she was still being stubborn. Surely the mockery in his eyes ought to have cowed her by now?
“Then you are perhaps less well acquainted with the education of boys. If you’d ever spent time at Eton, Harrow, or a dozen other similar places, you would know the necessity of strict discipline.”
“I have six younger brothers. I know what boys can be.”
“It is impolite to correct a lady, accept my apology in advance,” he said, with no trace of apology at all, “but if I can save you further embarrassment—”
Embarrassment? Her heat turned to cold anger as Lord Cotereigh continued.
“The behaviour of your brothers at home can hardly be compared to that of boys, in very large groups, away from home. At Harrow they have smashed coaches to pieces, at Westminster they have beaten nearly to death innocent passersby. Perhaps you have not heard of the riots at Eton? The boys there were completely out of hand—and these are the young men who will one day soon enter positions of great responsibility in society. Would you have them wild and dissolute, sneering at all responsibility, thinking themselves above the law? Above common decency?”
“Violence,” she said steadily, “begets violence.”
Lord Cotereigh raised a derisive eyebrow.
“My second eldest brother,” she continued in that same steady way, “showing great academic promise, was sent to Eton, my lord. And returned home that first holiday a pale shadow of himself. He’d been flogged so roughly the weals still hadn’t faded three months later.
His only crime was to stand up for a smaller boy. ”
“You are a loving sister, I see, and your feminine sympathy does you great credit. I can hardly criticise that, Mrs Ardingly, but the disciplining of boys is a matter for their fathers, for their teachers—for the men whose responsibility it is to shape them into men in turn, fit for the rigours of the world.”
It was Madelaine’s turn to scoff, and she did so loudly—so much for her delicate femininity.
“Have you ever seen a beaten dog, Lord Cotereigh? A beaten dog learns to cower, terrified into stupidity, unreliable, snapping, and nervous. Or it learns to bite back, to be the attacker, violent and unsafe. Neither makes it fit for purpose.”
“Boys are not dogs.”
“No! We treat them worse!”
Lord Cotereigh only sat back with a slight shake of his head that he turned into a glance around the room. His gaze settled on the window as though he wished to be on the other side of it.
Clearly the heat of this conversation wasn’t to his liking. No doubt it was unfashionable, bad ton, and unladylike into the bargain.
But, conscious herself that she was displaying more passion than sense—and how often she had fondly rued her aunt for the same flaw!—she took a deep breath, smoothed the skirt over her knee, then clasped her hands on her lap. She would attempt to look calm, even if she was very far from feeling it.
“Evidently we are very far from seeing eye to eye on this subject, my lord. I won’t take up any more of your time, for I’m sure you have a dozen places to be.
But if you don’t mind waiting one moment longer, I will copy out the directions for some of my contacts at the SSNCB—a very worthy cause.
And, if I might, I will give you a pamphlet we have prepared on the scientific and medical evidence underpinning our argument.
We are not wholly without support. Or reason.
It is not only feminine sympathy that moves us.
” She got to her feet. “I have no claim on your time, but it would do me great honour if you could find a moment to peruse the pamphlet at your leisure.”
Lord Cotereigh’s gaze moved back from the window. He studied her for a brief moment, no discernible expression in his eyes, then inclined his head. “Very well.”
Madelaine hurried back to her study. On her way, she met the maid on the stairs with the tea tray and told the confused girl to turn back, their guest was leaving.
She wrote the names and addresses, her writing a sharp, shaky scrawl, poor enough to make her frown in dissatisfaction.
But it would have to do. Then she grabbed a pamphlet and returned to the black-clad viscount.
He was standing now and took the papers with a wordless bow.
“No need to trouble yourself,” he said, as she made a move to the door. “I can see myself out.”
And he did so, Madelaine staring at the door he closed behind him for a long moment before sinking down onto the sofa, her head in her hands and a groan in her throat.
She was still sitting like that when the door reopened, but it was the broad, puce-velvet-wrapped form of her aunt who bustled through it, eyes wide.
“Tell me I didn’t just see Lord Cotereigh leaving this house?”
Then, before Madelaine could even begin to think how to answer, her aunt’s watery blue eyes widened further as they snagged on Madelaine’s face. “And…er, my dear, did you know you have ink on your lip?”
Madelaine shot to her feet and turned to the mirror over the mantelpiece.
Her aunt was right. There was a blue-black splotch at the centre of her mouth. Heat flooded her yet again as she gave another groan.
No wonder the viscount had looked at her so strangely.