Her Majesty's Necromancer (The Ministry of Curiosities #2)(41)

"Twenty-two, but not all at one time. Over the course of several years, I might have three or four different tutors for the same subject."

"Your lessons were private?"

He nodded.

"No other children joined you?"

"No. Why?"

"I'm merely curious." It confirmed my theory that he must have had a lonely childhood. "Were they stuffy old men?"

He paused before answering. "Not all."

I frowned, wondering why he'd paused. And then it dawned on me. "Do you mean to say you had women tutors too?"

Another pause. "Only one."

"What subject did she teach?"

"Women."

I almost choked on my tongue as I tried not to laugh. "Women?"

"I had little to do with females at that point, so the general decided I needed to learn more about them. Since there was only a crusty old housekeeper living at the house, he employed a woman to tutor me in all things feminine. How they behaved and thought, their weaknesses and strengths. I learned a lot from her."

"So it's thanks to her that you're the charming man you are today?"

His eyes narrowed. "She did her best. It's not her fault I was already sixteen and set in my ways by the time she took on the task."

"She must have done something right," I said, finishing off the cleaning.

"Is that so?"

"Lady Harcourt certainly finds you appealing."

"Does she?" he said idly.

I wondered what else his female tutor had taught him. How to please a woman intimately? Or had that task fallen to Lady Harcourt, or perhaps an earlier mistress? How many had this handsome, intriguing man taken to bed?

I wiped my greasy hands on a clean cloth and screwed on the wax tub lid. I tried not to think about his lovers. Being aware of Lady Harcourt was quite enough.

"Are those the only questions you had for me?" he asked.

"No. They weren't even the questions I intended to ask. Thank you for answering them. I appreciate your candor." I bit my lip, acutely aware that he was watching me and that as his maid I had no right to ask him anything about his private life.

"I want you to feel comfortable here," he said, placing his hands behind his back.

"I already do."

He indicated I should sit on the sofa so I sat, being careful not to touch the brocade fabric with my hands. He sat on an armchair opposite. "Go on."

"Tell me about the ministry," I said.

"I thought I already had."

"You've told me what its purpose is now, and why there is a committee, but not its history. You all seem to have quite different opinions about ministry business, and what to do with people like me, and I thought understanding the ministry's past will help me understand its present."

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Don't let Gillingham upset you. His is one opinion among several."

"I know. And he doesn't upset me." Not anymore.

He leaned back and sat very still. He was often still, whether sitting or standing, as if conserving every ounce of energy and storing it for later use. "The ministry grew out of an order that has existed for a long time. It was renamed the Ministry for Peculiar Things when I became its head."

"Things?" I chuckled. "Who thought of that name?"

His lips drew together. "It was more recently given its current name The Ministry of Curiosities. Prior to my taking over, it had been dormant for many years, with no leader and only a committee to remember its function and pass on information about it from generation to generation. And to store the archives, of course."

"How old is it, precisely?"

"Perhaps a thousand years. No one is certain."

"Good lord. It's been in existence all this time? That means people with supernatural abilities have been around for just as long, or there would have been no need to harbor them."

His gaze drifted away. His hands shifted ever so slightly on the chair arm.

"What is it?" I asked. "What aren't you telling me?"

He seemed surprised that I'd picked up on his cues. "The order wasn't originally formed to find and harbor those who knew magic, but destroy them."

I drew in a breath. "People like me?" I whispered.

He nodded. "The order thought anyone who performed magic, as they called it, was unholy, unnatural."

"Like Anselm Holloway does."

"A thousand years ago, the church declared all supernatural people abominations against God, and that put a price on their heads, so to speak. It gave ordinary folk free reign to burn witches, lynch necromancers and anyone else who displayed magical abilities. The order grew from those times of persecution here in England and, for hundreds of years, it thrived as it hunted down anyone accused of witchcraft."

"How awful," I whispered.

"Yes and no. Not everyone has a good heart and conscience like you, Charlie. Magicians and witches have been known to cause great harm. They're people, after all, and as with any group of people there are good and bad. Some did terrible things. The order, however, didn't discriminate. Good and bad supernaturals all fell victim to their form of justice. Innocents were persecuted alongside the guilty."