Katharine Ashe - How to Be a Proper Lady

She turned and swallowed back her grief. “Ser, I don’t really wish to-”

“Please dress. I should like us to pay that call on Kitty before the party tonight, actually. You needn’t even dress for the evening. We will drop you off here again after we visit Lady Blackwood.”

“Well, all right.” She moved to the door, head heavy and not particularly caring where she went.

Jane buttoned her into a gown suitable for making calls, muttering all the while that Viola should use cucumber slices over her eyes at night to relieve the puffiness. Viola ignored her and met her sister and Alex in the foyer. Serena and the earl made superficial conversation as they drove the two blocks to Lord and Lady Blackwood’s town house, a more modest establishment than their home but still remarkably elegant.

The lady that met them in the receiving room was as elegant as her surroundings, tall and slender, with dark hair and gray eyes much like her brother’s, and exquisitely dressed in the richest shade of blue. She came forward, took both Viola’s hands into her own, and kissed her softly on either cheek.

“How eager I have been to make your acquaintance.” She spoke as beautifully as Viola had ever heard, her laughing eyes belying her superior mien and dress. “And how immeasurably glad I am that you are in our family now.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

“Kitty it shall be to you. And I shall call you Viola, the long-lost sister I never had.” She cast a sparkling smile at Serena and winked. “My other long-lost sister.” She glanced at her brother. “You will not find Leam at home. He has gone out for the evening. He is attempting to track down Wyn, who cannot be found lately and who, by the by, was so charmed by you, Viola, he vows he will never glance at another lady unless she possesses a thorough knowledge of the sea and no desire whatsoever to paint watercolors.”

Viola wished she could smile. She managed a wobbly grin. “I hope he is well.”

“He is playing least in sight these days, so we don’t have any idea and it is a bit worrisome.” Kitty released her hands. “But at least before he disappeared he told us all about his time at the Park and about you. Naturally, he was much more forthcoming than Jinan, who I suspect had many stories to share but was predictably reticent.” Her lips twisted. “One never does know what Jin is thinking or doing, does one, Alex?”

The earl leaned against the mantel, arms crossed. “Rarely.” He glanced at Viola.

She had the most peculiar sense they all expected her to speak next. And so, though it cost every ounce of her self-possession to hold her voice from trembling, she obliged.

“I suppose he was very busy preparing to depart. Perhaps now that he is on his way across the sea he will have leisure to write l-letters.” Her voice stumbled. “I always kept a journal aboard ship, of course. And-sometimes-I wrote letters.” The last came forth as a mumble. It was not pleasurable speaking of him. That he was apparently well known and liked by all her family and friends was a wretchedly unwelcome discovery.

The room had gone silent. She glanced about. Kitty was looking at Alex, her brow drawn. Alex nodded.

“Viola,” Kitty said, “Jinan is not on his way across the sea. Not yet, at least. He is here in London.”

“Here?” She stared at Kitty, then Alex. “In London?”

“Yes.”

“He told me he was putting to sea, sailing to-” Her voice cracked. “He lied.”

“Not necessarily. That may be in his plans, eventually.”

“And until then?” But the truth didn’t matter. He had left Devonshire almost certainly knowing how she felt. “What is he doing in London?”

Serena said softly, “He is looking for his family, Vi.”

Viola’s heart tripped. “What family? He said his mother died long ago.”

Serena shook her head and shrugged. Viola found nothing useful on Alex and Kitty’s faces either.

“I suppose I am relieved not to be the only person with whom he shares so little,” she finally muttered, winning a grin from Alex and a tender smile from Serena. But Kitty remained sober.

“It is difficult not to understand him, I know, Viola. But Jinan is a good man. He is doing what he believes to be right. If you care for him-which I think perhaps you do?-you must trust him.”

An hour later, as Viola paced her bedchamber, Kitty’s words still racketed about her head. Perhaps he was doing what he believed to be right. But need he do so alone? He might not love her or need her. But she loved him and she wanted to help him. She longed to help him, as he had helped her.

She would.

Serena and Alex had no direction for him, nor did Kitty and Lord Blackwood. He lived like a shadow in London, apparently. But Viola knew her way around docks better than her aristocratic relatives. If his ship were still there, she would find him. She could not go about it, however, dressed as Viola Carlyle.

She darted to her garderobe, dug deep, and found her breeches, shirt, and waistcoat. The challenge of escaping the house and getting to the docks without being noticed by her sister’s solicitous servants would be considerable. She was tugging on her left shoe, tucking in her shirt, and hopping on one foot while sticking her head out the window to study the trellis crawling down the side of the house, when Jane entered.

Jane gasped.

Viola dropped her shoe.

Jane’s eyes narrowed. She backed toward the door.

“Don’t. You. Dare.”

Jane’s lips pinched. “Where are you going?”

“To the docks.”

“You won’t get away with it.”

“Of course I will.” Viola stalked forward, limping on one stockinged foot. “And you will assist me.”

“Oh, no, I will not.”

“Oh, yes, you will. Because if you do not, I will tell Lady Savege how you stole one of Mr. Yale’s neck cloths and are hiding it amongst your underclothes.”

Jane’s palm shot up to cover her open mouth. “You wouldn’t,” she hissed.

“I would.” Viola cocked her head. “So what will it be? Assist me now, or never find another position amongst the Quality again?”

Jane glared. But she assisted.

Viola thought she was getting the hang of being a lady quite nicely.

She found Matouba first. It was remarkably easy. The footman that Jane bribed with intimate favors (possibly chosen for the task for his black hair and gray eyes that resembled a particular Welshman’s) found a hackney coach for Viola. Once spirited out the back door while said footman and Jane distracted the other servants, it was a quick trip through evening traffic to the docks.

Pulling her hat down around her face, she went into the first pub she came to, and there he was. Ebony among chestnut and leather and walnut and rawhide, he stood by the crowded bar, his white globelike eyes trained directly on her. Her father’s Irish luck was with her tonight. Or perhaps her father himself was watching over and guiding her actions. Fionn was wily enough to succeed in this plan. He had stolen a girl from a baron, after all. Stealing back a man’s family ought to be a breeze.

She shoved her way through the crowd.

“I am glad to see you. Where are Mattie and Billy? But more to the point, where is he?”

To Matouba’s credit, he tipped his hat respectfully before grasping her arm and trundling her out of the pub without a by-your-leave. She yanked out of his hold. Lamplight from the pub’s door shone on the pavement and voices and laughter tumbled across thresholds all down the block. It was the sailors’ district, and she was perfectly comfortable. But Matouba clearly was not happy with her presence. His eyes continually flickered about, and he stood close, his stance protective on the dark street.

“Where is he, Matouba?”

“Well, miss, I reckon I can’t be tellin’ you that now.”

“Why? Because I am not supposed to know?”

“Because he don’t know,” came from behind her.

She swung around to face Mattie. Billy hovered at his beefy elbow wearing a toothy grin.

“It sure is good to see you again, Cap’n ma’am.”

“Thank you, Billy.” She turned her attention up to the hulking helmsman. “Do you know where he is?”

Mattie shook his head.

“We don’t never know, Cap’n ma’am.” Billy’s head bobbed. “He don’t never tell us.”

“Then how do you communicate with him?” Her gaze flashed between them. “He tells you when and where, doesn’t he?” She lodged her fists on her hips. “And he says I’m impossible.”

“Begging your pardon, miss.” Mattie’s grin lacked several teeth. “But we know where he ain’t tonight. Where we were thinking about going us’selves. Fact is, we could use a sailor that can talk good as a lady for the job.” Bowls and jugs clinked from within the pub and a fiddler took up a tune, a cart clattered past, stirring up dust that smelled like sweat and fish, and the most glowering, harrumphing sailor Viola had ever known winked.

Her heart pattered fast. She thrust out her hand, palm down. “I’m in.”

A skinny freckled hand slapped atop hers. “I’m in, Cap’n ma’am.”

Fingers like pitch-coated sausages covered Billy’s. “Me too, miss.”

Mattie’s came last, big and brown and as comforting as a whole ham on Easter Sunday. “Let’s go.”

In the deep gray of London midnight Jin stared at the ceiling, his heart racing as he sat perfectly still in a chair in his flat. Though his body ached with need, no female companion awaited him in the bedchamber. Not with Viola Carlyle two hundred miles away. Never again, no matter how many miles distant she was. Thus his life of celibacy commenced.

But it was not a time that would linger long. She had taken his heart and after all he had done, all his voluntary damnation, he was quite certain he could not live without it. He could not live without her. So he may as well throw himself into certain danger. If unrest stirred in Malta, it would be as good a place as any to die. There he might finally be killed, after all, and end the torture of not having her, and of knowing another man would.