“Why on earth would I be pleased to hear that? I get no satisfaction from your having beaten him.”

“I do. It was the most satisfying thing I’ve done in ages. And something I should have done four years ago.” Simon paused, his gaze turning wary. “I say, Clara, you can’t blame Mama and me for believing him over you. How were we to know—”

“Because I told you so.” And she’d continued to tell them so, insisting on her version of the truth, until…

Until she’d stopped believing it herself.

“Yes,” Simon said, “but he denied it. Most vociferously. And you were always horning in on my lessons. Making any excuse to spend more time with him.”

Her battered spirit railed at the accusation. “That isn’t true. I wanted to learn, just as much as you did. It had nothing to do with what I did or didn’t feel for your tutor.”

“No one wants to study who doesn’t have to.”

“I did,” she retorted in a burst of whispered vehemence. “And I still do. Why else do you suppose I’ve been so keen on receiving your lessons?”

“Yes, I know that. Which is why I agreed to send them, even though it’s taken up heaven knows how much of my time organizing my notes and writing them out—”

“Did you even write the last lesson? The entire packet was a word-for-word duplicate of one you’d sent six months before.”

He grimaced. “Was it that obvious? I’d hoped you wouldn’t notice.”

“Who—?”

“One of the lads. I paid him thruppence to copy an old lesson and send it on to you. I was away for a week on field trip and hadn’t the time to come up with anything myself.”

She’d suspected as much. The admission nevertheless brought her up short. “You could have simply written a few notes on what you were studying at the moment. The way you did in the beginning. It’s all I ever wanted. Not regurgitated scientific rules and maxims. The last six months of lessons have been no lessons at all.”

Simon’s lips thinned. “University isn’t what you think it is, Clara. We don’t stand around with laurel wreaths on our heads, waxing on about the classics. This isn’t ancient Greece. A real naturalist must go out into the world. Into nature. He must observe creatures in their natural habitat.”

“Is that what you were doing when you ran up bills for a pair of engraved cufflinks, and a set of horseshoes for a horse you don’t even own?”

He had the grace to turn a dull red. “I won’t apologize for socializing with my friends. It’s part of the university experience. Surely you don’t expect me to remain in my rooms with the curtains drawn, studying by the light of a single candle?”