Amanda McCabe

by The Rules of Love

  “What the devil…” He automatically lifted his walking stick to defend himself, though the light, carved wood would actually be less than useless in a brawl.

  “Oh, no, Morley, don’t hit me! It’s Allen Lucas.”

  “Lucas?” Michael slowly lowered the stick, and peered through the gloom to see that it was indeed Mrs. Chase’s brother. “Why are you skulking about here outside my rooms?”

  “I was just waiting for you,” Lucas said, scrambling to his feet. His coat and cravat were rumpled, as if he had been wearing them for too long, but he looked much better than he had after his escapade at the Portman ball. His eyes were clear, his face not so pale. He seemed as if he had grown up in only a few days. “I am going back to Cambridge, but I wanted to talk with you before I left.”

  “Why couldn’t you just leave a card? There was no need for you to take up residence on the staircase.” Michael pushed his door open, and ushered the young man into his rooms. The draperies were drawn back at the windows, letting in the last dying rays of sunlight, and he went about lighting the lamps.

  Lucas sat down in one of the armchairs by the fireplace, twisting his hat in his hands. When Michael finished his task, he sat down across from Lucas, and waited for the young man to state his errand.

  “I wanted to talk to you about m’sister,” Lucas said, in a great rush as if to corral his courage, though Michael could not imagine why it took courage to speak of her. “She is not at all happy with me, you see.”

  “Well, your behavior at the Portman ball was rather foolish. I imagine she was quite embarrassed.”

  Lucas shook his head. “No, it is more than that. I have not seen our true circumstances, though heaven knows she has tried to tell me enough times. She has always been more like a mother to me than a sister, you see. Our parents died when I was very young, and she’s always worked so hard to take care of me. I never realized how hard until recently. I got into some money trouble, you see, and then I stupidly went to a bank for a loan, and—well, that didn’t work out very well.”

  Michael was not exactly certain why Lucas was telling him this, but he did not want the young man to stop. Michael was fascinated to hear more of Mrs. Chase, more of what she was like when she was not wearing her armor of rules and propriety. What she worked for—what she loved. What her troubles were. He nodded encouragingly at Lucas.

  “So I have to go back to Cambridge and study so one day I can take care of her. But I need your help.”

  “How can I possibly help? She thinks I have led you into wrong thinking and bad behavior by dismissing the rules.”

  Lucas frowned, looking so deeply young and very confused. “I have told her that is not so, that I misunderstood you! That it was all my own doing. And I will tell her that again. But I think something is wrong with Rosie, something besides me and my stupidity, and I cannot discover what it is. She always has to pretend to be so strong.”

  “Wrong? Is Mrs. Chase ill?” Michael said, alarmed.

  “I don’t think so, but she is tired. How could she not be, with me, and all those girls at her school to contend with? I think—no, I know that there are some financial troubles, and they are mostly my own fault. Since I cannot be here with her, someone has to keep an eye on Rosie, make sure she doesn’t worry herself to death. Could you do it, Morley? Just for a while, until she goes back to the country.”

  “Me?” Michael sat back in his chair. Of course it would be no great hardship to watch Mrs. Chase; quite the opposite. The more he saw her, the more he was fascinated by her. Yet he could not imagine that she would welcome such attentions from him. Not yet, anyway. Not until he could persuade her of his finer qualities. “I doubt Mrs. Chase would allow me to, er, keep an eye on her.”

  Lucas laughed ruefully. “She is dashed stubborn, it’s true. Yet I’m sure you could do it without her knowing. You like her, do you not?” There was an eagerness in Lucas’s eyes, in his entire manner.

  Like? That was such a tepid word for what Michael was coming to feel for her. “I admire Mrs. Chase, yes.”

  “I do not see how anyone could not admire Rosie! She’s a brick. If you could just look in on her while she’s in Town, take her about to museums and such. She likes dusty old places such as that. Perhaps you could even discover what is bedeviling her? There must be something besides money.”

  “I could do that, if Mrs. Chase would allow me to. I confess to a liking for dusty places myself.”

  Lucas gave him a relieved smile. “That is all I can ask. You are a good man, Morley, and I am sure my sister will come to see that, too. All this misunderstanding about rules and such will be as nothing once she gets to know you.”

  Lucas took his leave soon after that, but Michael sat in his chair long after it was full dark, and the glow of the lamps was his only light.

  Keep an eye on Mrs. Chase. Oh, yes, he could certainly do that, and keep men like his so-called friend Will Beene away from her while he did it. And he would start by inviting her to the theater tomorrow evening.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “True friendship is one of life’s greatest treasures.”

  —A Lady’s Rules for Proper Behavior, Chapter Three

  R osalind was deep in delicious sleep, just clinging to the edges of a half-remembered dream, when she became aware that someone was sitting at her bedside, watching her intently.

  She suddenly remembered that strange man she had seen watching the house, and she sat up with a terrified gasp—only to find Georgina perched on the edge of the bed, like a morning bluebird in her sky-colored dressing gown.

  “Georgie!” she screamed. “You scared me out of my wits. What are you doing here so early? You never rise before ten at the least. Is something amiss?”

  “Not a thing, as far as I know. I’m sorry I woke you,” Georgina said, looking not in the least repentant. “But I thought you might want to see these, and you were sleeping ever so late. Late for you, anyway.”

  Rosalind, finally able to catch her breath, noticed what Georgina held on her lap. A bouquet of white roses and a small, ribbon-tied box. “Flowers? You had to wake me especially for that?” Rosalind wondered if she was still dreaming.

  “Not just any flowers. They are from Lord Morley, as is the box. And I have not even peeped inside, though I am aching to know what is there!” She deposited the offerings on the counterpane next to Rosalind.

  Rosalind stared down at the flowers. Now she knew she was still dreaming, if she was receiving gifts from Lord Morley before the household was even awake. She slowly reached out with one fingertip to touch the blossoms, half expecting to feel the warmth of his skin there. She felt only the cool lushness of a petal.

  Georgina stretched out beside her, and for one moment Rosalind felt like a schoolgirl again. She and Georgina and Elizabeth Everdean had often stayed up late to talk and giggle, mostly over young men and imagined romances. But she had never known anyone like Lord Morley when she was fifteen. She had not even dreamed there could be someone like him.

  “Well?” Georgina prompted impatiently. “Aren’t you going to open the box?”

  Rosalind slowly pulled at the end of the satin ribbon and drew it off the box. She lifted the lid—and laughed.

  “What?” Georgina cried. “What is it?”

  “Cakes,” answered Rosalind.

  Georgina scowled in disappointment. “Just cakes? No emeralds or anything like that?”

  “Certainly not. Even Lord Morley is not so wildly improper as to send me emeralds. And cakes are fine enough, when they are marzipan-frosted cakes from Gunter’s.”

  “So they are from Morley, then?”

  “I believe so. No one else would be sending me flowers and cakes.” Rosalind was amazed that Lord Morley would send gifts. She was hardly his usual sort, she thought, remembering Lady Clarke and her daring, close-fitting gowns. But it was nice to receive them all the same.

  She took one of the tiny, luscious cakes and popped it into her mouth. As she did
this, she saw the neatly folded note tucked among the sweets.

  “My dear Mrs. Chase,” it read. “I hope that you enjoy these—they are Gunter’s finest. And I hope they recall to you our pleasant afternoon yesterday. Dare I hope you will allow me to escort you to the theater this evening? I have procured tickets to The Merchant of Venice, as my sister tells me you are very fond of Shakespeare. I will have my man call at Wayland House this afternoon for your answer.”

  Rosalind heard herself giggle—actually giggle!—and she pushed the paper back into the box.

  But Georgina’s eyes were sharp, and she saw the note before it disappeared amid the cakes. “What was that? A billet-doux?”

  “Certainly not. It was merely a message stating that he—Lord Morley—hopes I enjoy the cakes, and asks if he might escort me to the theater this evening.”

  “The theater!” Georgina bounced up onto her knees in excitement. “Oh, how perfectly splendid. How delicious!”

  “Delicious? It is Shakespeare. Most edifying and uplifting.”

  “Edifying and uplifting? Aren’t you just Miss Butter Wouldn’t Melt? You are such a sly puss, Rosie. Morley is sought after by every lady in the city, probably every lady in the nation, and here he is dangling after you. Of course it is delicious. It is marvelous!”

  “It makes me feel queasy,” Rosalind murmured.

  Georgina dismissed this with a wave of her hand. “Naturally it would. There are no men like Morley in your quiet corner of the country, where you choose to bury yourself. You are one of the best people I know, Rosie—you always think of everyone but yourself, and you never see how lovely you truly are. You deserve a man like Morley. You deserve excitement, and love.”

  Love? Rosalind’s bewildered gaze shot to the gloating Georgina, then fell back to the box of cakes. Was this terrible ache, this complete oversetting of her sensible, careful life—love? She did not know. She could not know. Perhaps it was just a surfeit of sugar in the morning. “How does a person know when it’s really love, Georgie?”

  Georgina gave her a smug, satisfied smile. “Oh, one just knows, Rosie. One just knows. I knew right away that Alex was the man for me, from the first moment I saw him. It just took him a little longer, the stubborn darling.”

  This bewildering conversation was interrupted by a soft knock at the door. A maid came into the room, and dropped a quick curtsy. “Beg your pardon, Your Grace, Mrs. Chase, but Mr. Allen Lucas is in the drawing room for Mrs. Chase.”

  Allen was here? Rosalind set aside the box and the flowers, and slid down out of the high bed. Practical family concerns had to push aside silly romantic flutterings for the moment. Allen had promised her he would go back to Cambridge—she prayed he was not in more trouble now. She deeply hoped she would not have to meet yet again with that reptilian banker.

  “Tell Mr. Lucas I will be down in a few moments,” she told the maid. The girl curtsied again, and hurried away.

  Georgina watched from her perch at the foot of the bed as Rosalind pulled a morning gown and a pair of slippers from the wardrobe. “Do not think you have escaped me, Rosie,” she sang out. “We will talk of this further. I want to know everything about you and Lord Morley. You are livening up my dull life.”

  Rosalind doubted very much that Georgina’s life was ever dull, but she wished she herself could know everything about this situation, she thought as she sat down to pull on her stockings. But she feared she knew nothing at all. And she so hated that feeling.

  Michael paused before raising the brass knocker of the Waylands’s front door—and glanced up at one of the upper windows, sensing a gaze on him. Lady Elizabeth Anne stood there watching him, her long red ringlets falling over the bodice of her small velvet dressing gown. She waved to him and gave him a merry smile. He just had time to wave in return before a nursemaid came and fetched her away.

  He laughed, and thought that a daughter of Mrs. Chase’s would also appear very much like that, with red curls and china-doll skin. Would she also be dangerously precocious, like Elizabeth Anne, or proper and rule-following? Either way, it would be a very fortunate man indeed who fathered such a child.

  And then it hit him, like a lightning strike from the gods. He wanted to be that father. He wanted to be the man who took Mrs. Chase—Rosalind, Rosie—into his arms and his bed every night; who came home to find a tiny, redheaded imp running down the stairs crying “Papa!” He wanted to buy his Rosie gowns of silk and satin and glittering jewels, to take his family to Italy and Greece and watch them playing in the sun and the sea. He wanted to write odes to red hair and blue eyes like the sky, to pink lips that pursed in an adorably proper way.

  He had thought he just wanted to flirt with her, to enjoy teasing her out of her propriety and her rules. But, when he was not looking, it became more than that. So much more.

  He was falling in love with her. But she still thought him a silly ass, a reckless poet who ruined her life by leading her brother into trouble with rule-breaking.

  How could he show her that it was not true, that he was not that person she thought him? How could he even begin to persuade her of his finer qualities? Did he even have finer qualities? He was not sure. But at least she had agreed to this theater outing. That was a start.

  The front door opened so suddenly that he was forced to take a step back. He did not even remember knocking, yet there stood the Waylands’s butler, holding out a hand for Michael’s cloak and hat.

  “Lord Morley,” the butler said. “Mrs. Chase is expecting you. She and Her Grace are in the drawing room, if you care to follow me.”

  Expecting him, was she? Michael thought as he stepped into the gilt and marble foyer. He could only hope that was truly so.

  Rosalind peered one more time into the mirror, and smoothed the bodice and cap sleeves of her gown. She had worn one of her own garments this evening, her best gown of pale gray lutestring silk piped in black satin. It was a sort of armor; she felt protected in it, as she never could in Georgina’s dashing, brightly colored creations. But she had left off her cap, instead anchoring her piled-up curls with onyx combs.

  She touched one of those combs, and wished for one of those caps.

  “No, you may not go upstairs and put on one of those hideous caps,” Georgina called from over the high back of the settee where she lounged.

  “I was not even thinking of caps!” Rosalind retorted. She dropped her hand down to her side.

  “Of course you were.” Georgina serenely turned over a page in the fashion paper she was reading. “Since I have become a mother I have learned to read minds. I know when Elizabeth Anne is plotting mischief, or when Sebastian has a fever—or when you want to put on a cap. But you are lovely just as you are, Rosie, even if you would not wear the green satin. Come and sit down while you wait for Lord Morley.”

  There was no time for sitting, though, or for going upstairs to fetch a cap. The drawing room door opened, and the butler announced, “Lord Morley, Your Grace.”

  And there he was, as handsome as could be in an evening coat of emerald green velvet, another cravat of daffodil yellow about his throat. A square-cut emerald winked in its crisp folds.

  Rosalind was very glad she had not worn the green satin gown Georgina offered, for then she and Lord Morley would have looked like a walking Irish meadow together. Of course, no matter what she wore, no one would glance twice at her when they could look at him. He was like some dark, pagan god, and his beauty only increased when he smiled at her and gave her an elegant bow.

  “Good evening, Duchess. Mrs. Chase. You are both very elegant tonight.” His gaze lingered on Rosalind, warm and admiring.

  She could think of nothing to say, not even the little politenesses she wrote about so often. Her throat was dry, closed.

  Thanks heaven for Georgina, who never lost her social aplomb. She laughed and said, “You flatterer, Lord Morley! I look like an old ragpicker, since I am settled in for a quiet evening at home. But Rosalind is elegant, as always.”

/>   “Thank you for the compliment, Lord Morley,” Rosalind finally managed to say. “You are too kind.”

  “Oh, I am merely truthful, Mrs. Chase. Shall we depart? I have heard that Kean is quite fine as Shylock, and it would be a shame to miss the opening curtain.”

  “Of course.” Rosalind picked up her gray satin shawl and handed it to him. He swept an errant curl from the nape of her neck before slowly, ever so slowly, sliding the smooth fabric over her shoulders. His fingers lingered at her bare skin for just an instant longer than was proper.

  Rosalind almost forgot to breathe. “I—I do so enjoy Shakespeare,” she gasped.

  “As do I,” he answered, a hint of laughter in his brandy-dark voice. “And I think I will enjoy the old Bard of Avon tonight more than ever.”

  He stepped around to her side and offered her his arm. She smiled up at him, and slid her fingers over the rough softness of his velvet sleeve.

  “Good night, you two!” Georgina called gaily as they left the drawing room. “Do not stay out too late.”

  The theater was crowded with merrymakers when Rosalind stepped into the box Lord Morley had reserved. Every box glittered with jewels and opera glasses and silks, though it seemed no one was paying heed to the pre-Shakespeare farce playing on the stage. The level of conversation and laughter was so high that Rosalind could not hear the dialogue at all.

  Not that she could have paid it much heed, anyway. Not with Morley beside her.

  The box was one of the smaller in the theater, so their gilt chairs were placed close together. Rosalind fussed with her shawl, and with taking her opera glasses from her reticule.

  “Are these seats to your liking, Mrs. Chase?” he asked. “There was not much choice to be had when I went to procure tickets. It seems to be a fine vantage point, though.”

  “It is quite fine,” answered Rosalind. Fine for people to see them anyway, she thought, watching as numerous gazes turned their way. She lifted her chin and ignored them, focusing her attention on the stage. “I have not been able to attend the theater as much as I would like since coming to Town. I was very happy to receive your invitation.”