No Proper Lady

by Isabel Cooper

  “That’s one view. Excuse me.” Simon beckoned one of the footmen over and said something quietly to him. The footman bowed and then went to speak to the other servants, and Simon turned back to the table. “Some people say that the world at large mirrors what human beings choose, even if the connections aren’t obvious.”

  “So if everyone’s nice to each other, we’ll stop getting sick?” Joan asked.

  “‘The lion will lie down with the lamb, and the wolf with the sheep,’” Eleanor quoted.

  Joan blinked. “Bad luck for the lion and the wolf, isn’t it? Or do they become vegetarian?”

  Eleanor smiled. “I think that’s the general idea, though I admit I’ve never been particularly clear on that verse.”

  The servants headed out of the room as they talked. When they’d gone, Simon looked back and forth between Eleanor and Joan. “We should travel to London in a week’s time,” he said, “or less. We’ll be able to catch the rest of the Season then.”

  “Should I pack—”

  “All you have and more,” Simon said dryly. “We’ll get you proper ball gowns and so forth once we’re there, of course. I’ve already sent ahead for appointments.”

  “More dresses.” Joan sighed. “I can be ready to go in a day or so, then. Anything else?”

  “I, um, was wondering,” said Eleanor. “You said you’d like me to go with you?”

  “If you feel up to it,” Simon said, smiling at her gently. “If you don’t, then by all means, don’t force yourself.”

  “But if Joan—Miss MacArthur—is traveling alone with a man—”

  “I’ll have a maid.”

  “If necessary,” Simon said, “we’ll also hire a companion. I’m certain we can find someone discreet.”

  Across the table, Eleanor lifted her chin. She was pale again, and her hands had vanished below the table. Joan knew that she had been clenching them in the fabric of her skirt. “My presence would be helpful, though.”

  Joan looked at Eleanor as she would have any newbie who wanted to come on a raid, weighing intelligence against fear, knowledge of the enemy against vulnerability, another body and mind against further complication. Then she nodded. “We don’t need you. But it’d help.”

  “Then I’ll begin packing.”

  Chapter 21

  If Eleanor Grenville’s sudden departure had turned her from a bluestocking nonentity into a subject of brief interest, her return to Society fanned the dying flames almost at once. When she and her brother made their first public appearance at an afternoon lecture on spiritualism, half the crowd turned its attention from metaphysical theories to another kind of speculation altogether.

  Miss Grenville had returned too soon for the worst and most interesting of the rumors to be completely true. She was definitely thinner and paler than she had been. Some people held that up as proof of genuine illness, while others pointed out that unrequited passion had been known to have the same effects. Still others, of considerably lower mind, mentioned that there were many sorts of disease. And a few, mostly those who’d been in Alex Reynell’s inner circle back in May, wondered about less worldly causes.

  Then there was her brother. Society knew that Simon’s interests were eclectic and his friends not quite respectable. It also had known since May that he could be provoked into violence on occasion. Theories about his return ran from a desire to settle accounts with Reynell to a need to help his sister brave the scandal to the simple wish for a good time. Nobody knew for certain. And nobody knew anything about the other woman he’d brought, the tall one with hazel eyes and golden hair. A relative, perhaps, but she didn’t resemble any of the Grenvilles. Maybe a cousin by marriage. More likely something else.

  Whoever she was, she strode easily along at Simon’s side, chin high, and met all stares with cool detachment. Most unfeminine, sniffed some of the older women and a few of the younger ones. Bold as brass.

  Near the front of the lecture hall, Alexander Reynell let his gaze travel lazily up and down the stranger’s slim body and decided that she was the one promising thing in the whole damn situation.

  He’d been dismayed, of course, when his hellhounds hadn’t done in Simon. Not as dismayed as he had been when his former friend had turned Puritan on him, though, nor as outraged as when he’d woken up to find his jaw aching and Simon’s insipid little sister gone. The High One hadn’t been at all pleased by the exorcism either, and it had been weeks before Alex had been able to get its attention again, even with the proper sacrifices. He’d taken a certain joy in killing Carter, partly because of that, and a greater joy in setting the hounds on Simon.

  Bad enough that Simon had survived. Worse that he’d come back to London, in the face of all Reynell’s power. Worst of all that mouse-faced Eleanor had also somehow found the nerve to return. Not that any of them could hurt him, of course—he had more knowledge tucked away in his study than Master Grenville would be able to collect in a lifetime—but it was rather a slap in the face.

  In the woman, he saw his chance to hit back. Whoever she really was, Grenville at least trusted her in his sister’s company and quite probably in his bed as well. Simon might have told her a few stories about Alex, but he couldn’t have possibly told her all of them. No sensible woman would believe stories of possession and magic. Alex could pass the rest off as a horrible mistake or the vagaries of an overprotective brother.

  Perhaps he could turn her against Simon. This wouldn’t be the first time in history that a pretty woman could achieve what brute force couldn’t. If not, Alex could still have the satisfaction of taking something away from Simon and proving, once and for all, that he was the better man.

  As Alex had expected, the lecture was insipid, full of angel children and floating tables, the sort of thing that he (and, he’d thought, Simon) had grown far beyond but that comely young women drank right up. So did a surprising number of powerful men. Therefore, once Alex had gotten a good look at Simon and his women, he cultivated a properly rapt look and waited out the rest, listening just enough so that he could drop a few key phrases on demand.

  Afterward, he slipped through the crowd to the small ring of people on one side of the hall. He didn’t push his way past anyone—no point in showing his hand right off—but he looked into the center of the ring with cool interest that he didn’t bother to conceal.

  Of course, he couldn’t approach them directly. Simon had planted a facer on him, and after that sort of statement, a man rarely feels obliged to make introductions, even in the best society. Nonetheless, Simon couldn’t bar Alex from a public place nor from a crowd who, at least in part, looked on Alex as something of a pet and believed that Simon had overreacted. Some of them would have done so even if Reynell hadn’t touched their minds with magic.

  So Alex stood a little way off and watched. Eleanor met his eyes and flinched. That was an eminently satisfying moment but not nearly as interesting as Madame Mysterious and whatever Simon was saying about her. A quick exercise of magic tuned out the buzz of the crowd around Alex and let him hear the introductions as if he were standing next to them.

  “I’m extremely glad to be back, of course,” Simon was saying to a tall man whose bushy blond mustache made him look like an overgrown walrus. “Archie, may I introduce you to Mrs. MacArthur?”

  ***

  “You need a husband,” Simon had said.

  Joan had been looking out the train window, watching the landscape change. They’d been passing a lake just then, and it had sparkled in the summer sunlight like someone had dropped a golden net over it. “Sorry,” she said absently. “Forgot to pack that.”

  Eleanor giggled. The sound blended well with Simon’s laughter. “Not a real one. We’ll make up a name and kill the poor chap off as well. A widow has about as much freedom as you can get.”

  “Particularly a wealthy widow,” Eleanor added, “and most particularly a foreign one.”

  “How do either of you know that?” Joan asked. Simon was looking a
t Eleanor curiously himself. On second thought, Joan was fairly sure how he knew. He sure hadn’t kissed like a virgin.

  The memory made her want to squirm in her seat and press her legs together. She quashed it quickly, as best she could, and looked back at Eleanor instead.

  She was blushing, but she shrugged. “Oh—well—everyone knows that. At least everyone who reads.”

  “I’m surprised girls don’t just invent dead husbands all the time,” Joan said. She leaned back and put her feet up on the seat across from her. A four-person closed compartment was especially good with three people. “Okay—how do people die these days?”

  “I’ll think of something,” Simon said.

  ***

  “A mountain lion,” Joan said, and raised a handkerchief to her eyes. “I don’t much like to think about it.”

  The small ring of people made various sympathetic noises. Two of the women exchanged one sort of look—oh, the poor brave thing—and three others another type entirely. A married woman might be an interesting acquaintance for them, but a young, good-looking widow was a different kettle of fish. At least one of the young men confirmed that by directing his attention toward Joan more intensely than before.

  “Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” Archie said. He was brick red now, looking away. “I had no idea—please do accept—”

  Joan shook her head. “Of course, Mr. Petersen. Don’t worry about it for a moment. “ Then she added, squaring her shoulders, “After all, it’s been three years. And he’s in a better place.”

  Doing great things for the Montana soil, Simon thought, and bit the inside of his cheek. He wished he and Joan hadn’t spent so much time going over her responses. Every sarcastic thing she’d said was coming back to him now.

  One of the more sympathetic women tactfully changed the subject. “Indeed he is. After all, isn’t that what we’re here to learn about? And it’s a great comfort for all of us that such advancements are being made and that we gain bright young students like yourself, Mrs. MacArthur.”

  “Yes,” said one of the other young men, a chap named Donald who Simon had always thought looked more than a little fishlike. The resemblance had never been quite so striking before. “Quite a step forward for civilization, don’t you think?”

  The conversation shifted to a bright new dawn, an age of spiritual understanding and similar topics. Simon had heard them all before. Back when he and Alex were young, they’d have met each other’s eyes across such a conversation and would have been hard pressed to keep from laughing. Alex had done a remarkable imitation of the female spiritualist devotees a few times, complete with fluttering gestures and uplifted palms.

  On the heels of that memory, he saw Alex’s face.

  At first Simon thought that it was just memory. Another look dispelled the idea, though. Alex was there, half buried in the crowd, not trying to get anyone’s attention. For the moment, he seemed content just to watch.

  Simon saw him clearly, perhaps more clearly than he’d ever seen anyone before. Alex was a tall man with dark brown eyes and pale blond hair. Well dressed, after the latest fashion and in the most expensive fabrics. Languid. Unbothered.

  His friend once. A murderer now, and worse. Humanity’s downfall in the end.

  A fluting, feminine voice spoke from behind him. “Mrs. MacArthur, you must come and have tea with me. I simply insist.”

  It should have been a triumph, just as Alex’s interest should have been. Simon felt only the desire to take Joan and Eleanor and leave, to flee before Alex did something or before his mere proximity tainted them all. He half saw, half imagined the layer of corruption that lay over Alex now, like rank blood around a spider’s maw.

  Something of Simon’s disgust must have showed itself on his face. The people facing him looked away and then behind themselves, not wanting to believe that they had inspired such an expression. When they saw Alex, doubt became clarity and relief…and then anticipation. All of Society knew of Simon and Alex’s quarrel. If its members were divided in their opinions, they all at least knew to expect scenes when the two principal actors met.

  Alex Reynell met Simon’s eyes and smiled. Slowly. Pleasantly, even. It was the smile of a good sport admitting defeat. All right, it said, I fouled up, and I know it. Mistakes happen, old man. As if betrayal and pain and God knew what else were nothing more serious than losing five pounds at the racetrack.

  In that moment, Simon could have turned to Joan and told her to go ahead with her plan—and to Hell with any notion of redemption or honor. He could have pulled a pistol and shot Alex himself. Three rounds through the face would have removed that smile quite well.

  But Simon had no pistol. The crowd was thick. And there was Eleanor to think of: Eleanor, who would be prey to every unscrupulous fortune-hunter for miles if her brother went to jail for murder. Eleanor, who was in no state to see bloodshed and whose face, even now, was white with strain and shock.

  So Simon lifted his chin and met Reynell’s gaze, letting his face show none of his rage but all his disgust. You were better than this once, he thought at the other man. What’s wrong with you?

  Then he turned away.

  Chapter 22

  London was huge.

  Joan had been in a city before. She didn’t know its name, but scavenging had been good there for those who could defend themselves, so she’d taken a squad through a couple times a year. The place had been mostly empty, though—empty of anything living, at least. The Traitor Lords, or the Dark Ones themselves, owned the cities with people in them. You didn’t go there much, not if you wanted your skin to stay on.

  She’d stuck to the abandoned cities. Now she realized that they hadn’t been cities at all. They’d been shells. Sometimes you got gangs of cultists or packs of beasts there, but at the most they’d taken up a couple streets. They’d talked big and fought big, but the space had dwarfed them. In the end, there’d been rusting buildings, old cars, bones, and the wind blowing down empty streets. Those were the big things. People were tiny.

  Not here.

  There were people everywhere in London: rushing down the narrow, winding streets; pouring in and out of the redbrick buildings; forming clumps on the street corners by the flickering gaslights. At first, Joan hadn’t even been able to see individual figures, just one flowing mob. Now, looking out of the carriage on the way to the dressmaker’s shop, she could make out individuals but only for a moment each.

  “How many people live here?”

  Eleanor looked up from her book, blinking. “I’m afraid I couldn’t really say. Perhaps a million. It’s difficult to tell because so many people come and go.”

  “A million.”

  Joan wanted to laugh. Come on, Eleanor. You aren’t fooling anyone. How many really? Except that Eleanor didn’t lie, and she wouldn’t joke like that. Plus, she’d sounded sincere, even casual.

  A million.

  Maybe a couple hundred people had lived in the caves. More in the past, when the casualties hadn’t been as bad and people had had more babies. More in the controlled cities, of course. There had to be, since the Traitor Lords and their masters bred people like cows. They’d said there were ten thousand in Chicago. Joan hadn’t believed it.

  There might have been a million people in the whole world back home. Maybe. If you went to Asia and South America and a bunch of places nobody Joan knew had ever seen.

  She swallowed. “Oh. Got it.”

  Eleanor was looking at her with kind surprise. “I suppose it is a little, um, intimidating. I’ve never been very good with crowds myself.”

  “Intimidating.” That wasn’t the word Joan would have used. Rich, maybe. Or vital. Maybe just alive. She’d never have used the word about a city before. Cities were bunches of buildings. They didn’t live.

  Outside, people flickered past: short women with elaborate hats, tall men with mustaches, men in military uniform, women dressed as servants. Some strode down the street in a hurry to get somewhere. Others waved th
rough the crowds, hailing friends, and stopped to talk. Everyone was moving. Everyone was speaking.

  Alive.

  She’d read books. She’d heard about cities before. But she hadn’t been prepared. She didn’t think there was any way she could have been. It was the difference between seeing a picture of a tiger and then coming face-to-face with one. The picture didn’t show the play of muscles under the beast’s skin as it moved—or the razor points of its teeth when it yawned.

  A thousand thousand people in one city, crowding the streets and packing themselves into buildings. A thousand thousand eyes that could be watching. A thousand thousand hands, and each could be holding a knife. You’d never see it coming. A single person could get lost in this city. He could slip out of sight, submerge himself in the mass of people, and then surface behind you.

  Any one of the people on the street could be a killer.

  Or all of them could. Get them angry enough or scared enough to rise, and this many people could be a wave that drowned anyone standing before them. There’d been hangings after the end, and riots. Joan had never been able to picture them until now.

  Intimidating, Eleanor had said. She didn’t know half of it.

  How did you live in a place like that? How did you walk down the street without watching your back, without jumping at every movement? How did you not wonder if the man beside you was going to pull a knife? You didn’t know him. You couldn’t trust him.

  But the people on the street, most of them, just walked. Some of them were worried, sure, but about other things. They didn’t look around, and they didn’t flinch when someone jostled them. They weren’t all worried either. Plenty looked angry, happy, or even bored.

  Some of them were kids. Grimy, some of them, and clearly on their own. Others were out with adults, though: girls in frilly dresses with big bows in their hair, boys in short pants and flat caps, and infants in carriages with fussy blankets and awnings. Most walked with older women who wore severe clothes and held the children tightly by the hand, but those women looked pretty frail, and none of them were armed. Civilians.