Katharine Ashe - How to Be a Proper Lady

“My lord.” Jin bowed.

“I am glad to find opportunity to speak with you in private, Mr. Seton.” The baron’s soft brown eyes were not so soft now. He took her hand and clamped it beneath his arm. “You brought my daughter home to us. I thank you for it most sincerely.”

“It was my honor, sir.”

“I understand that you are a sailor.” He said the word like it tasted a bit sour.

“Yes, sir.”

“And that you have known my son-in-law many years, since you were both quite young.”

“I have.”

Viola’s gaze snapped to Jin’s face, but his attention was fixed on the baron. He hadn’t told her this.

“Now that you’ve settled my daughter back in the bosom of her family, the Admiralty must have need of you again.” A chary glint lit the baron’s eyes.

“I sail shortly for the Eastern Mediterranean. Your daughter was gracious to my crewmen on the journey to England,” he said so smoothly she nearly believed it herself. “I was just now conveying to her their best wishes.”

“Then you will be leaving Savege Park soon, before the winter weather becomes troublesome on the sea. A brief visit only.” His head bobbed in satisfaction. “But I am glad to have had the opportunity to convey to you my gratitude.”

Jin bowed again.

“There is the butler,” the baron said in a lighter tone. “Dinner is served, and thanks to you, Mr. Seton, I have the pleasure of taking in my daughter on my arm.” He smiled warmly at her and drew her away. She cast Jin a backward glance, but he had turned his attention onto the terrace again.

Not the terrace, in fact. He was staring beyond, at the sea.

Lady Justice

In Care of Brittle & Sons, Printers

London

Dearest lady,

Enclosed in this modest package find not a kettle of edibles nor another portrait of yourself (with a tail). I see how those trinkets of my affection may have missed the tide. I give to you now only that which any gentleman admirer might give to a lady: poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, to be precise. I offer it because having received back all the gifts I have sent you, I need guidance as to what you may accept from me as gift. Quoth the Ancient Mariner:

If he may know which way to go;

For she guides him smooth or grim.

See, brother, see! how graciously

She looketh down on him.

My lady, looketh down on me with gracious mercy and return not this humble gift.

Yours &c,

Peregrine

Secretary, The Falcon Club

To Peregrine, at large:

You preen. You strut. You will be plucked. Then I will have only this to say to you, “The game is done! I’ve won! I’ve won!”

Lady Justice

Mr. Yale departed the following day. Viola went with him into the foyer, where he took her hand and lifted it close to his lips but did not kiss it.

“It has been a remarkable pleasure, Miss Carlyle. I hope to see you in town anon.”

“Thank you. You have been very kind.”

“Kindness has little to do with it.”

“I don’t think you know what it has to do with.” She twisted her lips. “That was inelegantly said. Or at least grammatically unclear, I think. And after all your coaching.”

“You are charming, Miss Carlyle.”

“I still have not mastered which glass is meant for which beverage or how to fasten my garters.”

“Or apparently which matters are inappropriate to discuss with a gentleman.” His gray eyes twinkled. “But, no worry. A footman will always see to the former, and another man altogether is no doubt quite happy about the latter.”

Her cheeks warmed.

He grinned. “Do you know, I believe I will kiss your hand after all. I mayn’t be allowed in the future.”

She snatched her fingers away. He chuckled, donned his hat, and left.

Lady Emily stood in the doorway to the foyer and came forth now. She wore spectacles the color of her short silvery-gold hair, and carried a book.

“Has he gone for good?” Her voice was unusually bright.

“Yes. He likes to tease you. Why is that?”

“Because he hasn’t a thought in his head. I prefer Mr. Seton. He does not plague a woman with idiotic banter trying to pass it off as conversation.”

Since their frustrating conversation on the terrace, Mr. Seton had not plagued Viola with any conversation at all. She had not seen him to be plagued or to plague in return.

“Mr. Seton is taciturn,” she mumbled.

“No. He is a thinking man, Miss Carlyle. Such men are not to be dismissed as merely taciturn.”

“A thinking man?”

“He reads.” She opened her book as though searching for something in it. “ ‘Words frighten not him who blanches not at deeds.’ Sophocles. I encountered him in the library this morning settled comfortably with Herodotus. An inestimable companion.”

Herodotus? It could be coincidence. Then why did her heart beat now as it had that evening when he stood at her cabin door and she touched him for the first time?

She adopted her most innocent posture. “Herodotus? Did another gentleman arrive at Savege Park that I have yet to meet?”

“Herodotus perished in Greece over two thousand years ago. I should hope he is not present at this gathering.” She looked so sincere. Viola laughed.

Lady Emily’s emerald eyes narrowed. “You quiz nearly as well as Mr. Yale, Miss Carlyle.” But she grinned.

“You do not hate him, do you?”

“Unfortunately I cannot. He helped me in a difficult situation with my parents and I cannot forget that, although I certainly wish to. He is like a bothersome elder brother.”

“I am glad. I like him. He has been very good to me.”

Lady Emily bent her fair head over her volume anew. “I should not account that a particular accomplishment on his part, Miss Carlyle.” She turned another page. “You are quite easy to like. If all ladies were more like you I shouldn’t mind going about in society half so much.” With that, she wandered through the opposite door, head in her book.

After lunch from which the gentlemen were absent, Viola went to the library seeking out something or another to read. More than once.

She was the greatest idiot alive. He was not there, of course. Back in the parlor, Lady Fiona said the gentlemen had gone out riding. Viola considered going to the stable and saddling up a horse, but she didn’t know how.

The gentlemen returned just before dinner. In the drawing room Sir Tracy said many pretty things to her, but she didn’t mind his foolishness. At least he spoke to her.

At dinner and afterward during tea conversation was lively and general and Jin did not come near her. She had learned enough of polite manners to know that she could not very well abandon her seat and put herself near him. But she would if he showed any interest in her doing so, which he did not. He seemed distracted, his attention little on the group and occasionally directed toward the terrace again.

She slept poorly, listening to Madame Roche’s snoring through the wall from the bedchamber beside hers and wondering where his bedchamber might be. The idea that he might be in one of the more accessible rooms now, perhaps in the parlor having a drink or playing billiards with Alex and Sir Tracy, nearly inspired her to dress and go searching. But the wound to her pride would not allow it. He did not want her; she would not chase after him.

The following day, Serena enjoined the ladies to take tea with her at the teahouse in Avesbury, a quaint establishment beside the modiste’s shop. After the repast, Serena took Viola alone next door.

“What are we doing, Ser?” She looked about the tiny place stacked with bins of ribbons and laces and skeins of fabric. “I am certain Mrs. Hamper delivered all my dresses directly to-” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Holy Mary Magdalene. For me?”

Serena’s delight shone so clearly, the shimmering gown in the dressmaker’s arms must be for her.

“Do you like it?”

Viola reached out to stroke the butter-soft silk in the perfect shade of sunset, sewn with tiny pearls and sequins across the bodice and dripping down the filmy skirt like rain falling through sunshine.

“How could I not? But-”

“It is for the party tomorrow night. The gowns we made for you are all so lovely yet none of them suited a truly grand celebration.”

Viola’s eyes widened. “Do not tell me this party is for me.”

“It is. Everyone for miles around has heard you are here. They are all mad to meet you again after so many years.” Serena’s face crinkled. “But… you do not want this?”

“Of course I do.” Not at all. The mere idea of being the center of this sort of attention turned her hands cold. She was certain to do something atrociously wrong and shame Serena, Alex, and the baron. “Thank you, Ser. You are so generous and I will be happy to meet everyone again. I wonder if I will remember them?” She didn’t much care. She wanted only the company of one man whose company she would soon be denied forever.

Malta. Malta. Halfway across the world… Wasn’t it?

When they returned home she went to the library. He was not there, but a gold-embossed atlas of the world was. She flipped open the huge volume, found England, and traced a path all the way to the boot of Italy with her fingertip. She blew out a giant breath. Good Lord, she was acting like a child, just as he had said. But the tear upon her cheek came from a woman’s sorrow.

She scrubbed it off, slammed the book shut, and shoved it back in its place on the shelf.

She didn’t give a fig where he went or what he did. She would be perfectly fine without him. And perhaps when the project of becoming a lady finally wearied her beyond endurance she would go back to Boston where she belonged. If Alex floated her a loan, she could purchase a new ship and, better equipped, take on new projects. The trip to Port of Spain with that cargo might have been lucrative if she had gone about it with the intention of making money. She would hire out her ship to one of those outrageously wealthy merchants like Mr. Hat, and pay back her brother-in-law within a year or so. Hopefully. With a truly sturdy vessel she would also be able to return to England every so often to visit her family. That would be lovely. Activity suited her so much better than this ladylike sitting around waiting for something to happen, or waiting for other people to make decisions for her such as throwing a big party at which everyone for miles about would attend, or waiting for a man to look at her again like he wanted her and wished to tell her something significant.