It was only when Sir Bartleby tried to take Izzy away that Clarissa had found the courage to stand up to her father. And she’d become stronger as a result.
However, the poison Clarissa’s mother and father hadfed into her ears over the years still festered. She had no faith in her own attractiveness. Or her worthiness to be loved. Except by Izzy.
Now Clarissa was faced with having to be launched into high society, knowing no one. And Lord Salcott wanted her to do it alone?
No, Izzy wouldn’t abandon her sister, not for all the money in the world.
Chapter Three
Leo was just about to mount the stairs at the entrance to his club, when a tall, lanky figure emerged. It was one of his oldest friends. “Race!” he exclaimed.
Horatio, Lord Randall—Race to his friends—shook Leo’s hand heartily. “Good lord, Leo, where did you spring from? I had no idea you were even back in England.”
“Just got back last week,” Leo explained, and then, noticing his friend was dressed in buckskin breeches and riding boots, he added, “Am I holding you up?”
Race shook his head. “Not at all. Just off for a ride. Blow away the cobwebs. Care to join me?”
“Just give me ten minutes to change,” Leo said, and hurried up to his room. A short time later, dressed for riding, he joined Race at the front of the club. “I’ll need to hire a—” He broke off, seeing a groom waiting with two saddled horses.
“Organized a mount for you while you were changing,” Race said. “Where would you prefer, Hyde Park or Hampstead Heath?”
“The heath,” Leo said. “I want a good long gallop.” He glanced at his friend and added, “Ineeda good long gallop.”
Race laughed. “Then let’s go. You can tell me all about it once we’ve blown the cobwebs away.”
***
Vigorous exercise in the fresh air did wonders for Leo’s mood, and as he and Race threaded their way back through the London traffic, he reflected that of all the people he had run into, he couldn’t have found any better confidant.
Race had a rakish reputation in society and was generally thought to be a frivolous kind of fellow, but Leo knew better. He’d known Race since school.
Leo’s mother had died when he was seven, after which his grieving father couldn’t stand to look at him, saying he looked too much like his mother. So, still grieving himself, Leo had been flung with no warning into boarding school, where the boys were big and loud and made a small boy nervous.
Desperately lonely and unhappy, he tried not to shame himself by crying into his pillow at night. Most of the time he succeeded.
But somehow, one of the boys found out something nasty about his mother, and he told the other boys, and they started teasing him about it. Of course Leo wasn’t going to stand for having his beloved mother insulted, so he fought them—or tried to.
Small as he was, he always ended up the loser, and so his mother’s reputation remained a plaything for other boys, a story to be bandied around and exaggerated and embellished. To his frustration and fury and distress.
He wasn’t even sure what some of the stories meant. He adored his mother, but he didn’t know her very well, though he wouldn’t admit that to a soul. He’d lived in the countrywith Nanny and the servants, and his parents lived mostly in London.
But Mama was beautiful like an angel, and when she visited and he was called down to the sitting room to speak with her, she always embraced him, and she was so soft and pretty and smelled so good, heknewshe was lovely and kind and everything a mother should be.
And he couldn’t bear people spreading hateful lies about her.
So he fought and fought, defending her reputation, and the boys beat him and mocked him, and the masters caned him for fighting, and first term wasn’t even finished before Leo understood that school was the worst place in the whole world.
He was in detention one day, kept in for getting into another fight. His face was bruised and sore from the fighting, and his backside ached from the caning he’d received. Caught between anger at the injustice of it all—why didn’t anyone stop them spreading evil lies about his mother?—and utter misery and loneliness, he was copying out some tract that he’d been given, something stupid in Latin about the futility of violence, when another boy entered the room. It was clear that he’d just been caned, too, for the master who escorted him said sternly, “And let that be a lesson to you,” or words to that effect.
The boy winked at Leo as he passed him and took a seat a few aisles across from him. Leo knew who he was: Randall, though some of the others called him Race, Leo didn’t know why. Randall was a few years older than Leo, a tall, popular boy who made the other boys laugh. He was always getting caned, too, though not for fighting, but for playing pranks.
The master set Randall an assignment, ordered the boys to work in silence and left. After a few minutes, Randall said, “Why do you let them get to you?”
Leo looked up in surprise. Older boys rarely talked toyoung ones, unless they were bullying them or ordering them about. But it didn’t seem as though Randall planned anything mean, and in any case Leo decided he didn’t care what Randall thought of him. “They say horrid things about my mother and I won’t allow it.”
“What does it matter what they say? Your mother is dead—she won’t care.”
Angered by his careless tone, Leo glared at Randall, but before he could say or do anything, Randall added quietly, “You think I don’t know what it’s like? My mother died three months ago.”
