“Never?” That was a surprise. He’d assumed she’d attended the same exclusive girls’ seminary that her sist—no, her aunts—had. He never remembered that Lady Rose and Lady Lily were her aunts—they behaved more like sisters.

She shook her head. “There was a small village school, but you can imagine how welcome I would have been there—and in any case the teacher was a drunkard and a bully and hardly anyone attended. And there was no money to send me to a better school.”

“So, a governess then?” He knew she was literate, and from various references and responses she’d made, she seemed quite well educated.

“A governess?” She gave an ironic huff. “Those creatures who have the strange desire to be paid for their efforts? No, there was no money for that either. Martha—my nursemaid, and later my cook and housekeeper—taught me my letters and to do basic sums. And I had the remnants of my grandfather’s library—his books weren’t entailed—as well as some poetry books and novels my grandmother left.”

“Entailed?” He frowned. “I thought your mother’s side of the family were yeomen farmers.”

“They were. Doesn’t mean my grandfather wanted anything left to a useless female.”

“Useless female?”

She made another one of those shrugs. “The whole time he was alive, my grandfather never let an opportunity pass to remind me that if I’d had the good sense to be born a boy I would not only have inherited the family farm but that my father would have acknowledged me and that I would have had the upbringing and all the benefits of being his heir.” She snorted. “But a girl? A girl was useless.”

She gave a humorless chuckle. “If he’d ever learned my father was the son and heir of an earl—he knew he was the son of a rich man, but not which rich man—and that I would have been an earl now, had I had the good sense to be born a boy, my grandfather would probably have, I don’t know, exploded.”

“Believe me, as a boy you would have been nothing extraordinary. As a girl now—”

She grimaced. “I know, I’m a freak, an eccentric.”

Did she have no idea how very appealing she was? “Not in the least. A little eccentric, possibly, but the aristocracy rather values its eccentrics. Say rather that you are a personality.”

She laughed then with genuine humor. “Trying to butter me up, duke?”

“No, I doubt it would work anyway. You’re not very good at accepting compliments, are you?” And now he’d learned more of her story, he could see why. Brought up to think she was useless?

She looked uncomfortable.

“If I told you I find you refreshing, enticing and quite entrancingly beautiful, you wouldn’t believe me, would you?”

“Of course not.”