“The Prince of Wales told you what?”
“Have you ever heard of the explorer Captain Frank Baker?” She had his attention now. He stopped walking and stared at her. It was heady to have someone listen to her with such intensity, with such depth of feeling. It made her feel as though she were more than her money and her pretty face and what she wore to a party.
“I’ve heard of him,” Trevelyan said softly. “But what does an innocent creature like you know of someone like him?”
“How you do presume to know about me,” she said with more smugness than she thought possible. It felt wonderful to have wiped that smirk off his face. “For your information I have read every word Captain Baker has written about his travels and what he’s seen all over the world.”
She had more than wiped the smirk off Trevelyan’s face. He gaped at her. He was truly and genuinely shocked at her announcement.
“All of his writing?”
“All of it,” she said, feeling very pleased with herself.
He didn’t speak for a while as they started walking again. “Except for the chapters written in Latin,” he said at last. “Not the chapters on…”
“On the sexual habits of the people in other countries? The chapters written in Latin? I’ve read those, too. When I was sixteen—”
“A great long time ago,” he said sarcastically.
She acted as though he hadn’t spoken. “I told my mother I could not consider myself educated unless I had an in-depth knowledge of Latin, so she hired an old man to be my tutor. Thankfully, he believed that all knowledge was good, so he helped me translate Captain Baker’s Latin chapters. There are some very unusual words in those chapters.”
“Unusual, yes,” he said thoughtfully, then recovered himself. “And what does the Prince of Wales have to do with all of this?”
“The prince told me it was believed that Harry’s brother, the second one, the one who was killed, might have been Captain Baker. Of course it’s not known for sure, because Cap
tain Baker went to great lengths to keep his identity a secret.”
“But I heard his desire for secrecy was because he was wanted for criminal acts, that he would have been hanged if his real identity were known.”
“I don’t believe that,” she said fiercely, turning on him, moving so quickly out from under his arm that he almost fell. “I don’t believe that for a second! You couldn’t have read a word of his work if you could even repeat that dreadful rumor. It was created and spread by men who weren’t half the man he was. He was a great man.” This Trevelyan quite simply infuriated her. Perhaps her anger was irrational, but it was there just the same. At the moment she was sure that if he dropped dead in front of her, she’d put her foot on his chest, throw back her head, and laugh in triumph.
“Was he, now?”
“You can stop laughing at me,” she hissed. “It’s ignorant fools like you who make fun of what you know nothing about. Captain Baker was—” She broke off, for she didn’t like the way he was smiling at her, as though he knew everything and she could never possibly know anything. “Oh, come on,” she said, not bothering to disguise the disgust in her voice. “I’ll take you back to wherever you’re staying.”
Trevelyan put his arm back around her shoulders and they started walking. “What do you mean, you plan to do something about this information?”
“After Harry and I are married, I plan to write Captain Baker’s biography.” To Claire’s disgust, this seemed to amuse the man a great deal.
“Do you, now? And have you told Harry about this?”
“Yes.” She had no intention of telling him any more than that simple yes. It was one thing to tell a stranger of her intention to write a biography of a great man, but quite another to tell him of what went on between her and the man she loved.
“I see. You do not plan to speak more of what goes on between you and young Harry. The privacy of lovers and all that, is that it?” He smiled when she refused to answer him. “All right then, tell me of this Captain Baker. What has he done to make you think so highly of him?”
“He is—was—an explorer. No, he was more than that. He was an observer. He went where no literate men have gone before and he looked and he saw and he wrote of what he saw. He was fearless in his travels. He was a man hungry for knowledge of all the peoples of the earth. He was good and kind and loyal to his friends. When he died, the world lost a great man.” Her voice changed, betraying her bitterness. “While he was alive, he was ignored by the world. Ignored and unappreciated. I plan to change that. After I’m married to Harry I plan to write a book about Captain Baker that will let the world see what a great man it has lost.” She paused and calmed herself. “I believe that most of the captain’s private papers are at Bramley.”
Trevelyan was quiet for a while. “You’re planning to marry the young duke in order to gain access to these papers?”
Claire laughed. “Do I seem so callous? I’m marrying Harry because I love him. I was already considering marriage to Harry when I learned that his brother was—”
“Might be,” he corrected her.
“Yes, might have been Captain Baker. To write of him is a plan I have formed since accepting Harry’s proposal.”
“And when shall you do this?”
“What do you mean?”