How to Be a Proper Lady

by Katharine Ashe

  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.

  Chapter 25

  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.

  “I want you, Viola,” he repeated over her lips.

  She fought it. “But I don’t want you.”

  His fingers hooked in the edge of her bodice and tugged open gown, corset cups, and shift, exposing her breasts. “Y
ou will have to produce more convincing evidence.”

  Viola looked down. Her nipples stood at aroused peaks. She met his gaze again, sinking inside at her body’s betrayal. “That is only lust.”

  His clear irises seemed to melt with heat. “Do you need more?”

  More? She needed everything more from him. Everything he would not give her. He was not the sticking sort, Mattie had said. His behavior with her proved it, and Alex’s words that he would leave soon frightened her beyond reason.

  “You are an arrogant ass,” she uttered to save her pride, and perhaps even to try to convince her heart. But it had no effect upon him, or upon her heart; his gaze of sheer need did not alter, nor did the gripping pain beneath her ribs abate. “Why have you not spoken with me? Why didn’t you kiss me yesterday at the library?”

  “I was trying to be strong.” His hands tangled in her hair, his gaze consuming her so that even her blood sought him.

  “And now?”

  “Now I have had to endure an entire night of watching Viola Carlyle command a house full of people like she commands a ship of sailors, charming every one of them.” His voice was very rough. “Strong can go to the devil.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and let him kiss her and touch her breasts, encouraging him with soft sounds of want she could not prevent. She should not do this. On her ship she’d been a sailor and free to do as she pleased. But Fiona Blackwood would never stand in the dark corridor of an earl’s house with a man’s hands on her breasts. A real lady would not allow it.

  But she was not a real lady. They both knew that.

  His tongue drifting across her lower lip melded with his caressing thumb, darting pleasure low in quick, aching bursts. She gripped his neck and flattened herself against his body. He kissed her harder, his hands sweeping around her rear and dragging her against his arousal. It felt good. Too good. And a little desperate. Because he only wanted her for this. But this was better than nothing, and he truly wanted her, with the same urgency as that first time on her ship. It felt like heaven. Or at least the path leading up toward heaven, never mind the gates remaining fully closed and locked against her.

  “Come to my bedchamber now,” he whispered against her mouth as though he did not wish to separate enough to speak.

  “I don’t take-”

  “Orders. I know.” He kissed her, over and over now, a delectable repetition that despite its simplicity made her cling to him tighter. “Then your bedchamber.”

  She pressed to him, aching to be closer than clothing would allow. “It shares a wall with Madame Roche. I cannot-”

  He grabbed her hand and dragged her along the corridor. He opened the first door they came to.

  “A linen cabinet?” But they had managed perfectly well on a staircase once. Perfectly.

  She almost giggled, but he pulled her in, closed the door, and covered her mouth again. His fingers sank into her hair and she returned his urgent kisses; fierce, hungry kisses that filled the famine in her. He wrenched her around and pressed her back against the door panel, bringing his entire hard, perfect body against hers.

  “You are yanking me about a lot.” She was breathless.

  “I am. Feel free to reciprocate.” His mouth on her neck was delirium, his hands tugging her skirts to her hips sure and focused.

  She pulled at shirt buttons and linen and found smooth, hot skin beneath. “Any parts in particular you would like yanked?”

  “Whatever you wish.” He kissed her throat, fast hot caresses, to her smiling mouth. “Just don’t stop touching me.” His palms cupped her behind and fused her to him. “My God, you feel so good. I have wanted you in my hands again for weeks.”

  Viola suspected she ought to be able to respond, to taunt and laugh. But she could only touch him as he wished, her fingers pulling fine linen up and palms adoring the texture of his hot skin over breathtaking muscle. She let him have as much of her as he wished, his mouth and hands moving intimately over her making her desperate for more. And when he touched her until she could no longer bear the pleasure, she opened her thighs and let him inside. Let him- She loved him inside her, his hard need stretching her and making her wild. With her skirts hiked to her hips and her body yearning, she rode the demand of his thrusts until her breaths fled and she had none left even to cry out the pleasure he gave her.

  “Viola.” He whispered her name. His body crushed hers, palm flat on the panel behind her as he bored up into her. Then again, “Viola,” and it moved her inside, the tenor of his voice, urgent and deep and unbound. Because it was different. She felt it in her sinews, her blood, her soul. It rocked through her as she came, moaning and clutching him. He followed, making her his again.

  Their frantic pace fell to stillness. For a moment they remained like that, brow to brow, breathing heavily. Then, carefully and with strong hands, he pulled away and set her feet on the ground. She unwound her arms from his neck and smoothed her wrinkled skirts back in place, and her hair. He buttoned his trousers. Without a word, he took her into his arms again.

  She had not expected that.

  She pressed her face into his shoulder, breathing in his scent shakily.

  “Stay with me tonight,” she whispered, already dreading the next moment when he would release her again and she would be obliged to reaccustom herself to distance from him. “Stay with me.”

  His hands fell away.

  “Viola-”

  “Tonight, the party was not- Though I managed it, it was not easy for me. I think you are the only person who can understand that,” she hastened to explain, in truth to pretend. “This one night. Only for comfort. You needn’t make love to me again.” She was begging, and frankly lying. She wanted him for more than comfort and rather forever. “I want your arms around me.”

  He regarded her for a long moment, his eyes shining like crystal in the darkness, again distant, and it swept the life from her.

  “Were I to hold you in my arms tonight,” he finally replied softly, “I could not prevent myself from making love to you again.”

  She blinked back prickling heat, swallowing over her hope. “We could be very quiet?”

  “I do not believe that is possible for you. Under any circumstances.”

  Her throat caught. “Ass.”

  “Harpy. Where is your bedchamber?”

  “I am not quite certain. I was actually lost.”

  He threaded his fingers through hers. “That is apparently what I am here for.” He opened the door a crack. “All clear.” He drew her into the corridor and released her and she started back the way she had come, bemused, shaken. She wanted him to make love to her again, yes-but even more keenly for him to again hold her hand. She reached back and found his. He curled his strong fingers snugly around hers and her heart thudded madly.

  But after only moments of that unmitigated pleasure, his hand slipped from hers. Then voices came to her. Good Lord, he had acute hearing. No wonder he had been such a successful criminal.

  A gentleman appeared, then another.

  “There he is.” Sir Tracy gestured. “Seton, our host has sent me to find you to make up even numbers at our table.” He turned a bleary smile upon Viola. “Evening, Miss Carlyle. How do you do?” He flashed a grin at his friend. “Hope you’re jealous of me, Hopkins. Isn’t every day a fellow inherits a stepsister pretty as can be. Though I suppose it happens to me more often than most. Least once a decade.”

  They laughed.

  Jin smiled slightly.

  Viola wished them at the bottom of the ocean, which was not very sisterly of her, to be sure, but she saw how this would go.

  “What do you say, Seton? Care to lose a few guineas to a good cause?” Mr. Hopkins smacked his waistcoat pocket meaningfully, tilting like a schooner at full sail.

  Sir Tracy leaned forward confidentially and said sotto voce, “He’s got his eye on Michaels’s matched pair coming up for auction week next. But he can’t afford ’em yet. I told him you’re a sure steal
at the card table, Seton. Want the pair myself, don’t you know.” He winked. “Give a friend a hand and fleece him, will you, old chap?”

  “Pollywog,” Mr. Hopkins exclaimed at large.

  “Miss Carlyle has mislaid her quarters.” Jin’s smooth voice at her shoulder nearly sent her to the floor. She needn’t even look at him to become jelly at his feet. “Allow me to escort her there and I will join you shortly, gentlemen.”

  “Actually.” She flicked a glance at him, heart sinking; there was no getting around it. “There is my door.” She pointed. “Thank you, Mr. Seton.” That was it. No being held in his arms and making love to him now. He would not return. He had already gotten what he wanted.

  He bowed. “Good night, Miss Carlyle.”

  She nodded to Sir Tracy and his friend, and went into her room. She closed the door, pressed her brow against it, and tried to breathe. Probably just the tight stays. Or not. She climbed onto her bed and stared at the canopy, blinking in time with Madame Roche’s snores in the next room.

  It was better this way. Jin always caused her to make all sorts of inappropriately intimate noises when he made love to her. There could be no privacy here.

  She stared at the canopy a little longer, then wiggled back and forth a bit. The bed knocked against the wall. Madame Roche’s snores halted. Silence reigned. Suddenly a great huffing snort cut through the wall and the snoring took up its regular cadence again.

  Viola sighed and closed her eyes. Even if he were to come, they could not make love. The bed would not allow it. But he would not come anyway. She must rest content with the lingering warmth in her from their adventure in the linen cabinet.

  She cracked her eyes open and peeked at the rug before the hearth. She’d sat on it quite comfortably picking kitten hairs out of her shawl the other day after she visited a new litter in the barn. She supposed the gossiping ladies had gotten one thing right; she always liked barn kittens. She always loved barns, so full of adventure and messiness. The April Storm reminded her a little of a barn. A floating barn. Perhaps that was one reason she hadn’t yet scrapped it.