A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal

by Meredith Duran

  He obviously knew she’d taken his silverware.

  “I’m not ashamed of the way I grew up speaking,” she answered now. “If I know two different ways of speaking”—if she could do a fair brilliant imitation of Mum’s accent—”that doesn’t mean that I agree that one’s better than the other.”

  “Your agreement isn’t required,” he said briskly. “All I ask is your compliance. In the circles you’re about to join, your … accustomed accent will send an inconvenient message. To aim for a performance better suited to those circles is not hypocrisy but good strategy. With servants, however, such performances are unnecessary: the staff will judge its employers by different standards, their expectations being primarily financial.”

  “Fine,” she muttered. “If that works for you, so be it. This is your show, not mine.”

  “Of course it’s your show,” said St. Maur. His voice suddenly sounded clipped. “It’s always a show, Nell—for all of us. ‘All the world’s a stage,’ as the bard wrote.”

  “He also said life was ‘a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing,’” Nell shot back. “If that’s the case, I might as well find a grave to go lie down in.”

  “But why? Why must any of this be justified through some greater, noble meaning?” His mouth pulled, a quick, sideways grimace of frustration. “Bear in mind the point of this whole exercise is nothing more arcane than to become rich. Money is your aim—nothing noble. But certainly it will guarantee a good deal of pleasure, once you have it. Isn’t that enough?”

  She stared at him. “No,” she said. “It’s not.” Until coming here, until learning what it meant to be privileged, she’d not understood how far down St. Maur’s kind had to look in order to see hers. But here, in his own words, was the philosophy that made his lot comfortable with never bothering to look down at all. “Money’s no virtue. It shouldn’t be an end in itself.” She gave a dry little laugh. “And neither should pleasure. If you knew any gin addicts, you’d realize that.”

  He put his hands in his pockets. “You have strident opinions. It must be very tiring for you.”

  “It’s only tiring because nobody thinks I should have any.”

  “I hope I don’t give you that impression,” he said after a pause. “You’re very sharp.”

  “I know I am.” But against her will, the compliment mollified her. When being prodded and trained and scolded like a thickheaded child, it was too easy to start feeling like the whole world thought her a dunce.

  He gave her a slight smile. “I take it you have specific intentions for the money?”

  She hadn’t given it much thought. No point in dreaming of miracles that had no chance of coming true. But the question brought to mind an answer. She knew exactly what she’d do if given a fortune. “I’d buy the factory where I worked.”

  His smile grew. “Will you, now? A sweet species of revenge.”

  She frowned. “Not for revenge. To change it. The workers need windows.”

  “You’re a reformer?” He lifted a single brow. “You, the denouncer of do-gooders? Why, this is quite deliciously ironic.”

  “I denounce do-gooders who don’t do anything.” The sharpness of her own voice caught her off guard. She took a long breath. “Maybe I do feel out of sorts,” she said by way of apology. “This corset is squeezing the life from me. Blast it,” she added. “I’m not supposed to mention undergarments, either, I’d wager.”

  “Indeed not,” he replied, laughter edging into his words. “Manners, you see, come down to a single principle: talk of nothing that might actually prove interesting.” He paused, looking immodestly impressed by his own wisdom. But when he continued, his mischievous tone punctured the effect. “Perhaps I’m noble for sparing my servants the bore.”

  “Boring’s the rule, it seems. Even this dance is tedious.”

  “Indeed? I always enjoyed the waltz.”

  She shrugged. “Seems like the reason to dance is to enjoy the music, not spend the entire time worrying about how far apart you’re supposed to stay from the person who’s touching you.”

  “Ah. Then it’s not your technique which is the problem,” said St. Maur, “but your attitude. The dance is a prolonged flirtation—a sort of ritual form of it, anyway.”

  She snorted. “A peculiar way to go about it, then, paying more mind to staying away than getting near.”

  “I wonder. It seems to me that the heart of flirtation is all about distance, and the possibility of closing it.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “We do things differently, where I come from. But I shouldn’t be surprised if you lot even do your flirting topsy-turvy.”

  He looked amused. “What do … you lot do, then, when you decide to flirt?”

  For some reason, his teasing riled her. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

  “Then demonstrate, if you please.”

  She cast him a disbelieving glance. “You must be joking.”

  “Not at all.” He stepped back against the wall, propping a shoulder against it as he crossed one boot over the other. It was actually a very proper attitude for his suggestion; she’d seen a dozen boys a day loitering by the factory like this, waiting for the whistle to blow and a chance to eye the girls.

  But he wasn’t a lad. He was a man, with a man’s shoulders and a man’s knowing eyes, and a mouth that could tempt any woman under ninety. He’d made it easy to avoid him, these past days, but the thought of demonstrating anything for him was enough to make her blush. “I can’t,” she muttered.

  “So you didn’t flirt, then.”

  He sounded mildly disappointed. Her eyes narrowed. She knew when she was being poked like a rooster in a ring. “You’re trying to trick me into showing you.”

  “Am I trying?” he asked with a grin. “Or am I succeeding?”

  The grin did it. Felt silly to be nervous when he was acting so companionable. And how much she’d been longing for a bit of friendly conversation! She hadn’t realized until this moment just how lonely she’d been feeling. Wasn’t much point to pretty clothes without a chance to try them out on a man.

  “All right, then,” she said on a breath. “First thing we do is, we give a man a saucy look. And then we—”

  “I thought you were going to demonstrate,” he cut in. “If I wanted a lecture, I’d go to the Academy.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You think you’re quite clever, don’t you?”

  “I know I am,” he said, dimple flashing.

  She laughed as she recognized the echo of her earlier remark. All right, he was a charmer. And he was about to get more than he’d asked for, if he but knew it. “Very well, your lordship.” She bobbed a mocking curtsy. “Let the guttersnipe demonstrate.”

  She turned away, then glanced back at him out of the corner of her eye. It wasn’t an effort to look admiring. Nothing more mouthwatering than a tall, long-legged man with a narrow waist and a nice, lean set of hips on him.

  She tossed her head and sashayed onward. Counted to three, and then came to a stop. “There you go,” she said as she pivoted back.

  He lifted a brow. “That’s all?”

  “That’s the first stage. Flirting isn’t over in a minute, St. Maur; it takes a few days to get started.”

  “A few days!”

  “Sometimes a week or two.” She stared at him, mildly scandalized. “What sort of ladies do you keep company with? Never say these girls in their lily-white dresses go from A to zed in an hour!”

  He laughed. “Oh, it depends entirely on your definition of zed. We can exchange those, too, if you like.” More speculatively, he added, “I’d be happy to demonstrate.”

  Her face went hot. “I just bet you would. No, I don’t think so.”

  His smile took its time to spread. “Quite right. One thing at a time, with proper concentration. That’s my philosophy as well.”

  She eyed him. “Are you demonstrating, now?”

  “Indeed not,” he said, his expression comically innocent. “So,
Nell, saucy looks. What next?”

  “Well, after a few days of giving a lad the eye—and mind, if he starts to approach, you don’t let him; you take off real quick with your friends, and make sure to throw a few more looks at him as you’re leaving—”

  “No doubt whilst giggling amongst yourselves,” St. Maur said ruefully. “Yes, I begin to feel sympathy for the lads of Bethnal Green.”

  “Oh, don’t feel too bad. They enjoy it.”

  “I’ve no doubt of that.”

  “And the next stage, you let them approach you. Say a lad you’ve been looking at finally finds the courage to walk up, nice and easy. Well, you don’t give him a saucy look anymore, not at that point. But you don’t run, either.”

  He nodded. Slow learner, this one. She crooked a finger at him. With a visible start, he straightened off the wall.

  “If I’m demonstrating,” she said, “I need somebody to demonstrate on.”

  “Right,” he said, and walked toward her.

  Here was the problem with demonstrating East End ways in Mayfair: she couldn’t remember any lad who walked like St. Maur did. Nobody in the Green had the time to walk like this—a long, fluid sort of prowl that put her in mind of a hunting cat who’d had his fill to eat and now was just playing about for fun.

  Still, she’d set herself a task, and she would see it through. Rounding her eyes, she backed up toward the wall. “See? I’m being coy here.”

  His mouth quirked. “So you are,” he said, and ran an appreciative look down her body.

  “Very good,” she said warmly. “Now you come on up and I’m going to pretend to ignore you until the very last—”

  But the words dropped right out of her brain as he stepped up and set a hand on the wall over her head.

  “Go on,” he said, too close for comfort. So close she could make out the strands of green and gold and gray in his eyes.

  Nobody in the Green smelled like him. Nobody had lips like his, either. They were purely a wonder, full and soft looking, such a contrast to the sharp square of his jaw. She regretted that he shaved so regularly. That first night she’d seen him, he’d sported the handsome beginnings of a beard.

  “What happens now,” he murmured—and then, after a pause that lasted a moment too long—”in Bethnal Green?”

  She cleared her throat. “They don’t do this in the Green.”

  “Don’t do what?”

  He was large. Truly large. His stomach was flat and she wanted to run her hand down it because she remembered how it had looked, ridged with muscle; she wanted to see if she could feel the separate bands of muscle, how they moved beneath his taut, hot skin when he leaned closer toward her, now, his breath fanning across her face. A hot current leapt between their flesh, reminding her of what nature had designed men and women’s bodies to do, pressed together.

  Swallowing hard, she forced her brain to work. “They don’t … they don’t crowd a girl at this stage. Otherwise the girl might decide to get away.”

  And then she ducked out from beneath his arm, sidling down the wall away from him, a giddy laugh twisting up in her throat. Long time since she’d felt like this, gay and light and laughter-prone, and how queer that she should be feeling it here, in this grand, empty, gorgeous hall, with gilt on the walls and a man turning to follow her with eyes like the sea. He looked so rich and decadent that if she took a bite, she swore he would taste like chocolate, dark and complex and addictive.

  “Very bad of me,” he said, and his voice was pure sin, deep enough for a girl to fall into it and never see the light of day again. “Generally I take a great deal of pleasure in following every step a lady requires.”

  She wasn’t the only one giving a flirting lesson. “Well, you’ve skipped one,” she said, unable to resist.

  “I await your instruction,” he purred.

  The wicked impulse worked through her too quickly for good sense to catch up to it. “There’s a bit of touching required,” she said with an offhand shrug. “Accidental-like, only of course it isn’t.”

  His eyes narrowed. He took a deliberate step toward her. “And teasing as well, I think.”

  Her breath was coming shorter. “The teasing is all on the girl’s part,” she said. “Well, the talk, anyway. It’s the lad’s part to tease with his …” Body, she wanted to say, as her eyes took on a will of their own and skimmed down the length of him. When they reached his face again, her throat tightened at the look he was fixing on her. “Maybe it doesn’t matter,” she said hastily. “It’s not like you need to know how to flirt with a Bethnal Green girl—”

  “Oh, I think I do.” Suddenly he was right in front of her again, and his palm was cupping her cheek, his thumb brushing lightly across her lower lip. “I’d like very much,” he said huskily, “to know how to please a girl from Bethnal Green.”

  “You’re doing fine,” she whispered.

  “I aim for better than fine.” His eyes dropped to her lips and his expression darkened. “But you,” he said, “do not.”

  It took a moment to realize the comment wasn’t kind. “Beg pardon?”

  His hand fell away. He took a measured step back. “You are making no effort,” he said. “You are wasting my time. You are wasting my money. If you don’t mean to take this project seriously, then … leave.”

  “Leave?” It took a moment to reassemble her wits. “You—you’re changing your mind about all this?”

  “I’ve not changed my mind,” he said. “I never expressed an interest in supporting you for your own amusement. I wanted an heiress to wed. If you have no interest in becoming Lady Cornelia, then I have no interest in you.”

  Panic leapt up inside her, tangling with sudden, smarting anger. His judgment wasn’t worth two farthings to her! She had enough fancy goods squirreled away by now; she’d be happy to leave! But she’d thought she’d have more time before having to risk facing Michael again—and she hadn’t yet laid plans to find a new job—and how dare he break their agreement so easily!

  “Go back to Bethnal Green,” he said. “Waste the rest of your undoubtedly short life by slaving for pennies in a factory that you otherwise might have bought. Or stay here and put in the work necessary to reclaim your birthright.” He shrugged. “The decision is yours. But make it quickly. If you’re not willing to become a lady, I need to make other plans for myself.”

  He turned on his heel and started to walk out.

  “Wait,” she blurted.

  Impatience marked every line of his body as he turned back.

  She took an unsteady breath. She’d known he could take all of this away, but she’d thought—foolishly, she was a damnable fool—that maybe he liked her. Besides, he had so much. Couldn’t he spare a bit of his good fortune without making her grovel for it?

  But she’d misjudged him. Now the fairy tale was ending. Her stomach shuddered at the thought of returning to the Green before she’d laid plans for a job—and for handling Michael. It couldn’t end like this. How terrible it would be to look back on this moment and have to put the blame for it not on St. Maur’s arrogance but on her own stupidity.

  How terr-ible. That was one of the harder words for her to say properly; Mr. Aubrey, the elocutionist, always chided her for letting the e slip into a u. It was terr-ible to feel slow and cloddish. In school, she’d always been the quickest in class. Numbers, letters, geography, shapes—not one of them had given her pause. She’d always thought herself clever, not just for a girl from Bethnal Green but for a girl from anywhere. She couldn’t bear to think she might be wrong about that.

  Maybe that fear had kept her from trying as hard as she might have done.

  She opened her mouth to say all of this—or to say, “I’m sorry.” But nothing came out. Her tongue felt as stiff and useless and stubborn as her pride.

  St. Maur’s sigh sounded loud in the silence. “Come,” he said. “Before you decide, I want to show you something.”

  A quick, calculated decision prompted Simon to take
Nell to the gallery. Perhaps he hadn’t done a good enough job of showing her the advantages that cooperation would afford her. The gallery would advertise them effectively.

  When they rounded the corner, she came to a stop—amazed, as he’d guessed she would be, by the arched cathedral roof and the long wall fronted with stained-glass panels. “Stars,” she said softly. Her hands burrowed like small, frightened creatures into the folds of her gown as she looked around.

  While he found himself staring only at her—and remembering, with sudden vividness, how she’d looked that first morning in the library. Exhausted, bedraggled, she had gazed up at the skylights and glowed in just this way, a glow so bright that it had drowned out every ragged detail.

  That glow now worked a different magic. Paired with her demure, pink gown, it recast the significance of her features, leading a man to misread the shine in her large blue eyes as innocence—or vapidity, he told himself. That was Kitty’s vacant gaze on her face.

  But he couldn’t hold on to the idea. The tight roll of her coffee-brown hair was no mode Kitty would favor. It conjured—ludicrously—a lack of vanity, the style of a girl who ducked her head when walking to church. Only someone who knew her better would guess that those small pink lips, parted now in admiration, concealed a hot tongue that bandied insults like a sailor.

  He knew her better.

  The thought sent a strange shock through him. That her disguise was so transparent to him suddenly felt profound, an intimacy next to which his irritation seemed trivial.

  “It’s like a palace,” she said.

  He caught his breath as her eyes found his, shining in a face alight with interest.

  Her guttural intonations were not the only thing that distinguished her from her look-alike sister. Despite their unfriendly exchange minutes ago, Nell made no attempt now to hide her admiration. In her sister’s world, in his world, people strove to appear unimpressed.

  For the first time, he wondered why that was. Gratification so transparent as this only made a man long to witness it anew. To impress her all over again. He would like to be the focus of such wondering looks at all hours of the day.