Katharine Ashe - How to Be a Proper Lady

“He did?” Serena chewed on her lower lip. “That doesn’t sound like Papa at all. But I guess it should come as no surprise given Mama and Fionn’s attachment to one another.”

“I suppose devotion that lasts ages despite them never seeing one another is impressive.” Again she had not seen Jin all day, yet her nerves tangled merely thinking of spending the evening with him. That she would be spending the evening with about seventy other people really mattered very little.

“They never should have met, let alone spoken.” Serena sighed. “But they did, and he could not give her up, nor she him entirely.”

“No wonder Papa dislikes sailors.”

“You are a sailor and he loves you very much.”

“May I enter?” Dressed formally, the earl radiated the sort of elegant, confident masculinity a woman could not fail to notice. Viola had heard enough from Madame Roche to suggest that in the past many women in fact had noticed Alex Savege. How her kind, dreamy sister had ever seriously considered the suit of such a man, Viola marveled. But there could be no doubt of his fidelity to Serena now; his devotion was patently clear.

“Do come in.” Serena stroked her fingertip along the crown of Maria’s wooly head. “Your daughter has just fallen asleep, so shh.” Her glance flickered over him. “You are quite handsome tonight, my lord.”

“I must make a vain attempt to meet your splendor, my lady.” He bowed. “I do not wish to shame you.”

“But I might.” Viola wrinkled her nose.

“Of course you won’t,” Serena said firmly. “You look beautiful, and you have excelled in nearly every lesson Mr. Yale gave you.” Her eyes danced.

“Nearly being the operative word. I stepped all over Alex’s toes while we danced-don’t deny it.”

“If you do not wish to dance tonight,” he assured, “you needn’t.”

“I suppose it would be all right if I danced only with you and Papa. But to step on a stranger’s toes, that I should rather not do.”

“Jinan is not a stranger,” Serena said. “You can step on his toes and he won’t mind it at all. Tracy won’t either.”

The earl leaned his broad shoulders against the door frame. “Jin at a party like this is a marvel in itself. When Yale made the announcement the other day that he was departing I half expected Jin to take to the road with him. That he has remained here longer than a day astounds me.”

“It has been nearly two years since you have seen one another.”

“That wouldn’t matter to him. His loyalties and affections don’t operate on those terms. But I have never seen him so restless. He is not himself.”

“Perhaps he is merely at a loss for suitable activity. He must miss his ship.” Serena’s gaze slipped to her. “As perhaps you do, too, Vi?”

Viola’s mouth was dry. “Only a little.”

“Serena,” Alex continued, “do not be surprised when he departs as abruptly as he arrived. Tomorrow is as likely as next week.”

“I will expect it. I am not all that ignorant of the ways of sailors, my lord.” Her eyes twinkled. Alex smiled. Viola’s heart felt as though it might implode.

She stood. “I will go finish preparing now.” She hurried to the door.

“But you are already pre-”

She fled. She could not bear to imagine him gone. Not again. Not so soon. Because then it truly would be good-bye. He would leave and she would never see him again and she would be much better off for it.

Damn him. Damn him for returning and oversetting her so thoroughly. Oversetting? She was not overset like some maidenly ninny. She was confused and thought perhaps that any moment, the moment he chose to leave abruptly as Alex prophesied, her heart would finally break.

Guests had been arriving all day. By the time the sun set, dipping over the ocean in a froth of gold and pink stripes, the house was brimming. It was not too large a gathering, Madame Roche assured her.

“Jusque le petit fête. No more than one hundred of the peoples.”

One hundred seemed like quite a lot of the peoples to Viola. All richly garbed and talking of town and when they would return for the fall session, they seemed enormously elegant and sophisticated. Servants wandered about with trays of champagne as ladies gossiped in little clusters and gentlemen partook of wine and stronger drink. In the drawing room, Lady Fiona played beautifully on the pianoforte, followed by another young lady who also sang. There was much animated conversation, more music by a hired quartet, and a buffet supper, and finally dancing. Candles glimmered on every surface. Laughter spilled onto the terrace lit with paper lamps and dancers followed into the warm, blustery night. All indulged in the evening’s pleasures, smiles and gaiety abounding.

Viola tried to hide.

At first, she enjoyed it a little. But she remembered few people. The older ladies cooed and exclaimed over her, insisting that she had been a remarkably pretty girl.

“And so… spirited,” one lady proclaimed with an overly wide smile. “Why, do you remember, Amelia, that Sunday in church when she bathed her kitten in the baptismal font?”

“She said it needed holy water to heal its tiny wounded paw.” The lady bobbed her head. “And you mustn’t forget the toad pie she brought to tea at Mrs. Creadle’s, Hester. I always told dear Maria that her little Viola was a wild thing. A wild thing.” She said this last as though Viola were not sitting right beside her.

“Yet she has lived such a retiring life with her aunt in Boston, none of us even knew she was there. What a lovely demure young lady she has become, hasn’t she, Amelia?”

“Remarkably lovely, Hester. I commend her American aunt.”

They had to be lying through their teeth. Or ignorant. Or simply very foolish. She hadn’t any idea where these rumors had come from, but she doubted Serena and Alex spread them.

Swiftly, she grew weary of pretending fifteen years of her life at sea had simply not occurred. The only person in the place who knew the full truth of the life she had lived was a former pirate, but he didn’t look anything like what he had once been either. Tonight he was arrayed gorgeously in dark coat and waistcoat, a single blood-red gemstone glinting in the fall of his neck cloth. He was perfect, and he did not come within a league of her.

To save herself from complete misery, she pretended he was not present. She remained on the opposite side of the room, did not look in his direction, and in general tried to not think of him.

Lady Fiona had clearly decided on the opposite tack. With the departure of Mr. Yale, her attentions were now all for Jin. With actually demure smiles she engaged him in conversation that did not seem to tax him in the least; talking with her he did not roll his eyes or frown even once.

“She is not the girl for him, ma chère.” Madame Roche wagged a red-tipped finger before Viola’s face.

She blinked. “Pardon me? Oh, I mean, pardonnez-moi?”

Crimson lips split into a charming smile in a face tinted with white powder. “Mademoiselle Fione is not the girl for him. Non.” She waved a scented black kerchief about, lacy shawls floating. “She is très jolie. But he is not taken with her.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because all the night he has been looking at you.” Her shawls floated off, taking her with them.

Viola’s heart beat quite swiftly. She glanced up. He was, in fact, looking at her.

Then why hadn’t he kissed her at the library? Why had he walked away? Rather, fled. And why did he not come speak to her now?

She turned away, went into another room, and found a trio of old gentlemen to entertain with outrageous stories. She made up most of them. If they were married to the old ladies who made up all those stories about her, they would be accustomed enough to it anyway.

She danced a little, first with the baron, then with Sir Tracy, and once with one of the old men. She almost did not tread on any of their feet. Several young gentlemen asked her to dance. She declined, smiling. “Your shoes are far too shiny. I would not wish to scuff them with my heel.” Indeed, she smiled incessantly, laughed in delight at every witticism, invented story after story, each more implausible than the next, and generally attempted to prove to herself and probably to him that she didn’t care the least little bit about him or the lovely girls with whom he enjoyed his evening.

Sometime in the very late hours, or perhaps the very early, when Viola had begun to believe her feet would fall off if she could not rid them of her punishing slippers, guests began to depart. Those who lived close by went to their carriages, and those who had come from a distance staggered to bedchambers in the labyrinthine corridors of the Park.

“Everyone adored you.” Serena curled her arm about her waist and kissed her on the cheek. “And you looked as though you were enjoying yourself. I am so glad.”

“Thank you for the wonderful party, Ser. It was splendid.” And finally over, so that now she could go to her room and spend the remainder of the night crying over a man she had been quite, quite foolish to fall in love with. The last she had seen of him, Lady Fiona had been wrapping her hand about his arm while two other young ladies stood by looking on with patent jealousy. So at least Viola was not alone in her envy, which made her feel absolutely ill.

“Come,” Serena said, “I will tuck you in.”

“Oh, no. You will wish to visit Maria before going to bed, and you must be exhausted.”

“We will walk up together. And there is my lord to escort us. Will you see us up, Alex?”

He came toward them and took Serena’s hand to kiss. “I am charged with playing cards. Cards, as though I haven’t a lovely wife waiting for me. Some fellows will never learn.”

“But you must act the gracious host,” his lovely wife replied, and drew Viola toward the stair.

On the landing to the third story, Viola released her. “Thank you. Now go see Maria.”

Serena’s tired eyes smiled, and she went.

Dragging sore feet, Viola moved along the darkened corridor, wishing she’d brought a lamp or candle, then happy she hadn’t. She was so weary and wretched, she must look like she’d been through a squall. And to be so wretched after her sister had thrown her a fabulous party made her more wretched yet. Halfway along the corridor she met a pair of matrons, gray head to gray head, still gossiping madly. She bade them good night, they waved, never ceasing their whispered chatter, and she slogged along on blistered toes and heels.

Five minutes of slogging later it occurred to her that she was once again lost. This time quite literally. Amber circles from sconces lit the corridor at long intervals. She recognized nothing, not the side table nor the painting on the wall; she had never been in this corridor. Voices came from a distance. The ubiquitous footmen seemed to have eschewed their ubiquity.

She halted and turned around. Jin was walking toward her. Her heart did an awful leap against her rib cage.

“What is the chance that I get myself lost and you appear out of nowhere to take me back where I belong?” she whispered very unsteadily.

“No chance.” He came right to her, as close as he had on the terrace the last time he spoke to her, and at the library door when he did not. “I was looking for you.”

“Me?” She could not bridle her tongue; it was apparently firmly attached to her heart. “Are you certain you weren’t looking for Lady Fiona, rather?”

“Quite certain.” His eyes covered her all at once, it seemed, her face and hair, shoulders, and the place where her quick breaths pressed her breasts against her bodice. She wanted him to look at her like this, but he had looked at her this way before and then rejected her.

“She wants you,” she uttered, trying to push him away with words.

“I don’t want her.” He grasped her arms, not gently, and bent over her mouth. “I want you.” Then, finally, he kissed her again.

After what seemed a lifetime without him, he was kissing her. It was no tender, tentative caress, instead complete and perfectly confident that she would kiss him back. She did, meeting his seeking mouth eagerly, drinking him in like a drowning woman struggling for air and filling her lungs with yet more water. For surely this would kill her. But she simply could not deny him. His hand encompassed the back of her head, holding her to him as he had that first time, and quite swiftly it all got quite hot, and deep. Astoundingly deep. And not at all silent. His teeth grazed her lower lip, and she gasped and let him taste her tongue next. He groaned and broke away.