Improper Ladies

by Amanda McCabe

  A Lady’s Rules for Proper Behavior.

  Michael almost groaned aloud. So the insidious “rules” had spread out from Town into the Seminary. And his own sister was an adherent.

  He should have known that Mrs. Chase, of all people, would read and espouse this book.

  Violet took the volume back, and tucked it into her reticule. “You should read it, Michael. It is really most edifying.”

  “Edifying, eh?” Michael couldn’t resist reaching out to tweak one of his sister’s sunshine curls. “They do teach you big words here.”

  Violet drew back with another frown. “You see, Michael? You do need to read the rules. A gentleman should never pull a lady’s hair. But come and say hello to Mrs. Chase now! I have told her all about our plans for the holiday.”

  “Did you, indeed?” he muttered. He politely offered Violet his arm, and led her across the room toward Mrs. Chase. He pasted an amiable smile on his lips, but inwardly he hoped he could just keep himself from throttling Mrs. Chase. She was turning his sweet sister into a rule-following stick—just like their father.

  Chapter Thee

  “A gentleman must never seat himself on the settee beside his hostess, or any lady not related to him, unless invited.”

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

  Rosalind watched Lord Morley’s exuberant greeting of his sister—and almost laughed when Lady Violet pulled out A Lady’s Rules and proceeded to read her brother a portion of it. She did not know which rule it could be, but it must be a good one to cause the dark frown on Lord Morley’s face. He stepped back from Violet, his hands planted on his hips, leather driving gloves dangling carelessly from his curled fingers.

  Lady Violet, usually the mildest of young ladies, looked like a fierce little Valkyrie, swooping down to avenge wrongs done to decorum.

  Rosalind thought again what a very fine student Lady Violet was.

  “Ah, I see Lord Morley is here!” said the woman Rosalind was talking to, Lady Stone-Smythe. She reached up to pinch some color into her plump cheeks, and straightened her pink and green confection of a bonnet. “Such a treat to get a glimpse of him. He is invited simply everywhere, you know, but is so unpredictable in which invitations he will accept. I have hopes he will come to the literary evening I have planned.” She half-turned toward where Lord Morley stood, displaying her ample charms in a tight green carriage costume to better advantage. “Imagine seeing him at a ladies’ seminary.”

  Rosalind thought of one or two rules Lady Stone-Smythe would be well-advised to follow, but she resisted the urge to say so. Lady Stone-Smythe had three daughters in the school, and was one of her finest patrons. Even if she was a bit of silly goose.

  “Lord Morley is the brother of one of my pupils, Lady Violet Bronston,” Rosalind said. “She told me he was going to escort her home today.”

  “Of course! Lady Violet. Such a lovely young lady. And she is such good friends with my Imogen. I must go and say hello to her.” With nary another glance at Rosalind, Lady Stone-Smythe sailed off across the drawing room to greet Lady Violet, clutching at the young woman’s hand with great enthusiasm.

  Violet stared at her, obviously bewildered, while her brother looked on, one corner of his lips lifted in amusement. Rosalind realized with a start that those lips were really quite handsome, narrow but sensual. She shook her head hard. What was she doing, thinking of his handsome lips! Ridiculous.

  When Lady Stone-Smythe turned her effusions onto him, the quirk became a charming smile, and he bowed over her outstretched hand in its bright pink glove.

  Rosalind could not fault his performance. His expression was interested, but not too interested, as he listened to Lady Stone-Smythe, leaning slightly closer as if to better hear her words.

  Lady Stone-Smythe’s performance, on the other hand . . .

  Rosalind sighed, and poured a bit more tea in her cup. Some people, no matter how often they read the rules, simply never learned.

  “Mrs. Chase,” a voice said, interrupting her musings on Lord Morley, Lady Stone-Smythe, and proper behavior.

  Rosalind turned to see Lady Clarke walking toward her, her daughter Emmeline in tow. Lady Clarke was one of the reigning Diamonds of the ton, tall, willowy, with dark, glossy hair and perfect snow-white skin, set off elegantly by her dark red pelisse and tall-crowned hat. Sir Walter Clarke, whom Rosalind had met only once and who was not present today, was also quite handsome, a perfect match for his wife. Rosalind wondered what he would think of his wife’s attention to the poet.

  For Lady Clarke’s gaze, like that of Lady Stone-Smythe, slid irresistibly to one magnetic object—Lord Morley.

  Lady Clarke smiled charmingly at Rosalind, but kept sending tiny, surreptitious glances across the room. “Mrs. Chase, it is time Emmeline and I were leaving for Town, but we could not go without saying good-bye to you first. Emmeline has so enjoyed her time here, and is looking forward to returning next term.”

  Rosalind turned to Emmeline, who was a tall, dark girl, not yet revealing any beauty she might have inherited. “I am so glad you have enjoyed your time here, Emmeline. You have certainly been a fine addition to the school.”

  Emmeline murmured something and dropped a quick curtsy before hurrying off to join some of her friends.

  “Your daughter is very talented musically, Lady Clarke,” Rosalind told Emmeline’s mother. “Her performances at the pianoforte are very pleasing.”

  “Oh, yes? How—very nice,” Lady Clarke answered, without much interest. She still stared across the room, and reached up to finger the stiff lace trim of her pelisse. “I see that Lord Morley is here. Imagine encountering him at a girls’ school.”

  Her words were almost exactly what Lady Stone-Smythe’s had been, and Rosalind gave her the same answer. Lord Morley was here to fetch his sister.

  “Indeed?” Lady Clarke said. Her touch moved from the lace to the ruby drop in her earlobe. “I—that is, we see him quite often in Town. We do try to support literature and music, and he is such a fine—poet. Have you read his work, Mrs. Chase?”

  “No,” Rosalind answered. “I have not had the privilege.”

  “Oh, you really should. A lady with a school should always be au courant, don’t you agree? Well-versed in poetry and such.”

  “Indeed yes, Lady Clarke,” Rosalind answered stiffly. “A girl cannot truly call herself a lady until she has attained accomplishments such as music, languages, and proper demeanor.” Chapter One, A Lady’s Rules for Proper Behavior.

  Lady Clarke gave her one final, dismissive nod, and moved on to find her daughter. Before she reached Emmeline, though, she took a small detour to Lord Morley’s side. As Rosalind watched, Lady Clarke laid an elegant hand on his sleeve, and said something quietly into his ear. He grinned at her, and she gave his arm a tiny, nearly imperceptible squeeze before moving away.

  Oh, really, Rosalind thought wryly. Her school was not a place of assignation for Lord Morley! It was not a harem.

  She turned away to place her empty cup back on the table. As she did so, she remembered that she had a small gift for Lady Violet in her office, and she should fetch it before the Bronstons left. She excused herself to the parents and teachers around her and left the drawing room.

  Her office was quiet and peaceful after the milling throng of people, the early afternoon light a pale gold where it fell from the high windows. Rosalind fetched the little package from her desk drawer, but then, rather than return immediately to the drawing room, she sat down in her chair. Her earlier headache was still there, lurking behind her eyes, and she rubbed at her temples and closed her eyes.

  She loved the girls who went to school here; she loved teaching. But she was also so glad when they all left for their holidays, and she had days and nights of perfect quiet all for herself. It was—peaceful.

  Peaceful, except for worrying about Allen.

  She groaned at the reminder of Allen and his debt, and a new pain stabbed above her left eye.<
br />
  “Mrs. Chase?” someone said. A masculine someone.

  Rosalind pressed hard one more time at her temples, before she dropped her hands and opened her eyes, a polite smile automatically forming on her lips.

  The smile died before it had even truly been born when she saw the man that voice belonged to. Lord Morley stood in the doorway, watching her with a concerned frown.

  “Lord Morley,” she said, lacing her fingers together atop the desk.

  “Mrs. Chase, are you quite all right?” he asked, moving farther into the room. He stopped in the middle of her lavender and cream carpet, and glanced about almost as if he was surprised to find himself there. He totally ignored the mess of dried mud Allen had left behind. “You look pale.”

  Rosalind stared at him, her voice frozen in her throat. He seemed a mirage here in her frilly, feminine sanctuary. He was tall and dark, overpowering the dainty gilded furniture, his deep blue greatcoat spreading like the wings of some bird of prey.

  He was handsome, she had to admit, even if he was a blackguard. Worthy of the stares and simpers of Lady Clarke and Lady Stone-Smythe—worthy in a physical sense, anyway. He was tall, slim but not emaciated. Lean, in the way horsemen and swimmers were. His black, curling hair, overlong in the poetical tradition, was brushed back from his forehead and tumbled over the collar of his coat. His nose was a bit crooked, as if it had once been broken, but his jaw was firm, and his eyes—his eyes were dark as a starless night, dark as sin.

  Rosalind almost groaned, and she closed her eyes again. What was wrong with her? She had drunk no spirits today at all, yet she was staring like a wide-eyed, moonstruck schoolgirl. Staring at the man who was leading her brother to perdition! Was there a rule against this? She was too tired to recall for certain, but if there was not there should be. A lady will not stare at the rogue who is intent on ruining the prospects of silly young men.

  She opened her eyes and stared down at her hands.

  She realized she had not said anything for too long when he took another step toward her and said, with mounting alarm in his voice, “Mrs. Chase! Do you feel faint?”

  “I am quite well, thank you, Lord Morley,” she managed to say. She reached up to make certain her cap was firmly in place.

  “Nonsense! You are as white as milk. I will be right back.”

  Rosalind opened her mouth to protest, but Lord Morley had already spun around on his heel and left the room.

  Oh, now where had he gone? Rosalind stood up, bewildered and even a bit frightened. This situation was spinning beyond her control, and she did not even know how it had happened.

  And if there was one thing Rosalind hated, it was not being in control of every situation. Before she could stumble to the door, though, Lord Morley returned, a cup of tea in his hand. The fragile, pink-flowered china looked tiny and absurd in his long, elegant fingers.

  “Here,” he said. “You should sit down, and drink this.” With his free hand, he clasped her arm and led her to the nearest settee.

  “It is nothing, Lord Morley,” she protested, and tried to draw away from his strangely disturbing touch. He was too strong for her, though, and did not let go until she was safely seated. “A mere headache.”

  “It is no wonder your head aches,” he said. “Listening to those clucking women all morning is enough to give anyone the megrims!” He handed her the cup of tea, and went on in a perfect imitation of Lady Stone-Smythe’s fluting tones. “ ‘Oh, Mrs. Chase, my dear Harriet is so fond of playing the harp! You must allow her more time with the music master, she is so fond of him—I mean, fond of music.’ ”

  Rosalind nearly choked on the sip of tea she had just taken. She knew she should not laugh at him, not find him funny in the least—it would only encourage his outrageous behavior, and it was surely rude to poor Lady Stone-Smythe. Yet she could not seem to help herself. She pressed her fingers to her lips to hold in the inelegant giggles.

  “You see? Your color is better already, Mrs. Chase,” he said, and knelt down beside her. He grinned in an infuriatingly satisfied manner.

  “None of Lady Stone-Smythe’s daughters is named Harriet,” was all Rosalind could think to say.

  “Ah, but you knew it was meant to be Lady Stone-Smythe. It must have been a worthy effort on my part.”

  “Yes, indeed, Lord Morley,” Rosalind said tartly. Her dizziness was subsiding, and she felt a bit more like herself. Not like a woman who stared at rakes, thinking how handsome they were. “You ought to be treading the boards.”

  “So I think, but my family would simply not hear of it. I must content myself with poetry.”

  “Yes, your poetry.” Rosalind swallowed the last of her tea, grateful for the strength of the smoky brew even if it was a bit cold by now. “Did Lady Stone-Smythe manage to lure you to her little literary evening?”

  “She has been trying to for at least a month.” As he shook his head in exasperation, his black raven’s wing of hair fell over his brow, and he impatiently pushed it back.

  Rosalind stared down at him, kneeling there on one knee beside her. “It is most improper for you to be there on the floor, Lord Morley,” she said, yet there was not as much heat in the words as she would usually have put there. For once, she did not feel like scolding on a point of etiquette. She did want to touch that wave of hair, to see if it was as satiny as it appeared.

  She curled her fingers tightly around the cup, and said, “It is not proper for you to be in here at all.”

  “You were ill, Mrs. Chase. Would it have been proper for me to leave you alone with your pain?”

  “You could have fetched one of the teachers.”

  “They were all conversing with the parents of your pupils. I thought it best not to interrupt them.”

  Rosalind suspected that perhaps he had just not wanted all the ladies in his harem snatching at his sleeves again.

  Her lips tightened at the thought.

  Lord Morley moved up off the floor, but only to sit beside her on the settee. Rosalind, shocked by the sudden movement, slid back as far as she could against the arm of the settee. His heat still reached out to her, curling around her, beckoning her closer.

  She turned away from it, away from him, pulling her skirts to the side so they would not brush against his boots. This was the man who was encouraging Allen in his wild ways, she reminded herself. This was not a man to be friends with, to sit close to. “Why were you in my office in the first place, Lord Morley? Was there something you wanted?”

  His gaze slanted toward her, dark, surprisingly intense. “Wanted, Mrs. Chase? I suppose you could say that.”

  He said it as if—as if—She had not meant it in that way! Really, this man was maddening, twisting a simple word about until she hardly knew what she had been thinking. “Was it something concerning Lady Violet?”

  The mention of his sister seemed to recall Lord Morley back to himself. He looked away from her. “Violet. Yes. She seems to like it here very much.”

  “I hope she does. We like her very much. She is one of our best students.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Chase. I wanted to see you before I left today, to tell you how much I appreciate your kindness to Violet. I brought this for you, as a small gesture of thanks.”

  From inside his greatcoat, Lord Morley withdrew a small, tissue-wrapped package.

  “A—a gift, Lord Morley?” Rosalind said, eyeing the harmless-looking package almost as if it could reach out and bite her. “I am not sure I should accept it.”

  “Really?” He raised his brow at her inquiringly, turning the tissue invitingly in his hand. “It is not a great deal, Mrs. Chase, surely not improper. It is for your library here.”

  Rosalind’s curiosity got the better of her. She took the package from him, careful not to touch his fingers as she did so, and folded the tissue back. It was a book, bound in brown leather, decorated with gold gilt designs and lettering. She opened the cover to read the title page.

  Songs to Athene, by Michael Br
onston.

  “Your—your poems, Lord Morley,” she said. She did not know what she had been expecting. Rubies? Silken scarves? Though this was almost as disconcerting as those would have been.

  “Violet tells me that you enjoy poetry,” he said. He sounded a bit uncertain at her reaction.

  “Yes, of course.” She did enjoy poetry—Shakespeare, Donne, Spenser. The newfangled romantic, wild poetry of the sort Lord Morley wrote, it—well, it disturbed her.

  But it was kind of him to bring it for their library, even if it was not the sort of thing the girls ought to be reading. She should give him something in return.

  And there was only one thing she could think of that he needed. Needed in a most dire way.

  She stood up and crossed the office to one of her bookcases, and extracted a volume from the shelf. Lord Morley had also stood, and followed her.

  She held out the book. “Thank you for your gift, Lord Morley,” she said. “I would like to give you this in return.”

  “A gift, Mrs. Chase? I am shocked.” He smiled at her, with that quirk at the corner of his lips. Then he looked down at the book—and the smile faded. “A Lady’s Rules for Proper Behavior.”

  “Oh, yes,” Rosalind answered firmly. She did feel more like herself, more like sensible, practical, proper Rosalind Lucas Chase. The strange spell Lord Morley had cast over her had obviously been a fleeting thing, brought about by their solitude in the office and her headache. “It is the one book that no one should be without. I believe that you in particular are most in need of it, Lord Morley.”

  Chapter Pour

  “The only proper gifts between unmarried ladies and gentlemen are flowers, sweets, or small books.”

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

  A Lady’s Rules for Proper Behavior. She had given him a blasted book of etiquette!

  Michael still could not cease thinking of it, even as he drove the phaeton out the Seminary gates and turned down the road toward London. Fortunately, Violet, on the seat beside him, was too preoccupied in studying the small silver locket Mrs. Chase had given her to notice his silence.