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deal more discipline over the coming months. He’s not yet sixteen, and his education has been haphazard at best; meanwhile, he will be competing for places against older public schoolboys who have been drilled in Latin every day for the past eight or ten years. I suppose his name will help him slide through . . .”
    “I say,” Freddie muttered.
    “. . . but I doubt his lordship wishes the lucky accident of his birth to nudge out some better-qualified young man from the chance for advancement.” Grimsby’s eyes gleamed as he said this, as if he actually cared about the fate of that deserving schoolboy shunted aside for the son of a duke.
    Ashland raised his eyebrows. “Well phrased, Mr. Grimsby. Frederick? Do you agree?”
    “When you put it that way,” Freddie said sulkily. “I’m not a complete rotter, after all.”
    “I believe Mr. Grimsby is quite right. Britain’s great strength is her ability to discover and encourage boys of exceptional ability and allow them to better their condition in life through hard work and application to duty. Nowhere else in Europe can a talented boy of little or no social connection advance himself to prominence, and the result on the Continent is stagnation, decadence, and tyranny.” Ashland tapped his finger against the topmost book in Grimsby’s stack, a neatly bound edition of Newton’s
Principia
.
    “I say, Pater,” Freddie grumbled. “That’s coming it rather thick.”
    Grimsby’s face had flushed to an even more furious shade of red. “That is not altogether the case, your lordship. I would not go so far as to say tyranny.”
    “Tyranny and disorder,” Ashland said. “Take the recent case of this principality in Germany, this Holstein-Schweinwald. A trifling, backward state, to be sure; quite second-rate and of very little interest to the world at large . . .”
    “Backward!”
    “Yet even there, an absolute ruler, a despot, attempts to rearrange the succession to suit his own interests, to prevent the natural growth of a democratic form of law . . .”
    “Was it fair, Your Grace, that the succession must die out because the prince’s children happened to be girls instead of boys? Britain herself, and by extension half the world, is ruled by a woman.” Grimsby’s voice shook with passion.
    “Your views are admirable, Mr. Grimsby, but I beg leave to remind you that Great Britain is ruled by her people, as you well know. Queen Victoria, God bless and keep her, has only a ceremonial role in governing our country. But we are not here to discuss political theory, after all. We are here to discuss Lord Silverton’s application to his studies, and his duty to earn his place at university by merit alone.” Ashland picked up the book and gave it a little slap.
    Grimsby dropped his eyes to the papers in front of him. He squared them neatly. “We are quite in agreement on that point, Your Grace. I shall do my best to ensure that his lordship is prepared.”
    “Very good.” Ashland took a chair, the sturdiest available, and drew it out from the table so that his right side would be shadowed from the window. The adjustment was so instinctive, he hardly noticed he made it. “Carry on, then,” he said, with a wave. “Simply pretend I’m not here.”
    Grimsby’s large blue eyes blinked slowly behind his spectacles. “Your Grace?”
    “I have arranged my schedule to allow an hour or two of quiet observation.” Ashland smiled benignly at them both.
    “Pater, it’s not possible. You’re about as easy to ignore as a bull elephant.”
    Ashland fingered the edge of his empty cuff. His stump was aching more than usual this morning; perhaps the weather was changing, winter was coming on. “Nevertheless,” he said.
    “Don’t be ridiculous, Pater . . .”
    “Your lordship’s father is perfectly welcome to stay and observe,” said Mr. Grimsby. “He is, after all, paying for your instruction.”
    Ashland folded his arms and studied Grimsby. He