Katharine Ashe - How to Be a Proper Lady

“You were in love with me then? At the end of the fortnight?”

He kept hold of her wrists. His eyes were bright but he said nothing.

“You allowed me to believe-” She gaped. “You mean to say, I won the wager?”

“Yes.”

“You lied to me so you could repay your debt?”

“I did. And because I believed you belonged here.”

She understood. But not entirely. “You nearly broke my heart!”

His brow creased. “You were, Viola, in love with another man at the time.”

“I-” She clamped her lips shut. He was already far too arrogant and some things were better left unsaid. Or perhaps not. “I may not have been… at that time.”

For an instant, his eyes widened. Then his mouth curved into an unabashedly proprietary smile. “I promise to make it up to you.”

“Make it up to me?” She plunked her fists onto her hips. “You have no honor whatsoever.”

“I’ve never said I do.” He slipped his arms around her waist, pulled her so she fit snugly against him, and bent to nuzzle her neck. “I am not a gentleman, Viola. I will never be one.”

“No, I can see that.”

His mouth was warm in the tender place beneath her ear. “Marry me anyway.”

“I will consider it,” she said shakily.

His hands slipped down her back, his cheek against hers. “I love you, precious woman. More than you can fathom.”

“I have considered it. Yes.”

He laughed and kissed her on the lips. She pulled out of his hold. He looked dazed, and she nearly plastered herself to him again. Instead she unpinned her bonnet, pulled her shawl and gloves off, and stepped out of her slippers.

“Hold these.” Her heart pattered swiftly.

“Hold these?”

She kissed him on the cheek, turned, ran three strides, and dove into the river.

The water was quite a bit colder and darker than she liked. Fingers of early evening sunlight filtering through it only served to illuminate all sorts of flotsam and jetsam that she did not wish to study. But she hadn’t time to do so anyway, and her skirts proved tricky to maneuver. The bottom was rather farther down than she had imagined, too, and thick with silt and muck, pulling at her arms and hands. It took her quite a while to locate the casket.

She broke through the surface gasping for air. Jin was there, holding her above the murky water and pressing kisses onto her filthy face, then hoisting her into the hands of a pair of lumpers dockside. She clutched the little box to her until he climbed from the river and his arms came around her again.

He brushed away her sopping hair and kissed the bridge of her nose. “You are insane.”

“No, I am only very much in love with you and I want you to be happy.”

His eyes shone. “I do not need that box to make me happy. Not any longer.”

“Yes. But isn’t it nice to have it anyway?” She dimpled. “By the by, Jin, what’s in it?”

Lady Justice

In Care of Brittle & Sons, Printers

London

My dearest lady,

I write with unhappy news: Sea Hawk has quit the Club. Thus our numbers are once more diminished. We are now a sorry small lot-only three. If you could see your way to resting your campaign against our poor little band of companions, I would nevertheless eternally count you the most worthy adversary and continue to sing your praises to all.

I admit, however, that should you do so, I shall regret the loss of you.

Yours &c.

Peregrine

Secretary, The Falcon Club

To Peregrine:

Your cajoling fails to touch me. I will not rest. Be you three, two, or only one, I will find you and reveal you to public scrutiny. Take care, Mr. Secretary. Your day of reckoning will soon be at hand.

– Lady Justice

P.S. Thank you for the salted herring. You ought to have commenced with that. I simply adore salted herring. You cretin.

The little casket of gold and enamel rested on the piecrust table, lid broken off, interior empty. The hands gripping the letters that had emerged from it were pale and quivering, skin translucent where it peeked from beneath lacy cuffs.

“They wed in secret.” The elderly lady’s voice was thin, unaccustomed to activity. “The vicar did not approve, but he saw young love and he was a kind soul.” Her brow creased delicately. “But she was not as brave as she wished. Days later when her father took her to marry the man he had chosen-a powerful man and influential in that world of warlords-she did not refuse. She saw her punishment, and the danger to my brother in her land, and feared it greater than she feared God’s disapproval.”

Viola leaned toward her, mouth agape. “She married a second time?”

The lady nodded. “She did not believe it bound her in any sacred bond to her new husband. My brother wrote her these letters each month after he left Alexandria. From Greece first, then Prussia. Then from here.” She smoothed her fingers across the sheets of foolscap and her pale blue eyes were soft. “He had not wished to leave Egypt, but she insisted. She told him that she had lost the child, that she could no longer see him, that her husband would discover them and they would both be killed.” She lifted her gaze to Jin. “But she lied. She did not lose the child.”

He took a visible breath. Across from him in the parlor furnished with simple elegance, his aunt offered him a kind, wrinkled smile.

“She only wished to protect your father. My brother was still a young man, with his whole life ahead of him. She told him to return to England, to forget her, indeed to imagine her dead, to marry and have a family.”

“But he never did,” Viola said eagerly, “did he? Marry again.”

“He never did. He was the fifth son. Of a baronet, yes. But our brothers already had many sons of their own, and our parents never pressed him for it. I had been married quite young, and widowed after few years, childless. So when my brother asked, I was glad to come here to live with him and run his household. It was a quiet life we led, and he never ceased writing to her, sending them to the priest and hoping she would receive them.”

Her fingers curled around the letters Jin’s father had written, stored in that sealed box for two decades. “Then, finally, she wrote to him.”

Jin’s lips parted.

Viola jerked forward on her seat. “She did? When?”

“When her husband had me sent away.” He spoke with certainty, looking at his aunt. “Was it then?”

She nodded. “She told my brother of you, the truth she had withheld years earlier, begging him to find you, for she had no power to do so herself. Her life was more curtailed than she had even imagined in those first months. She was no more than a prisoner in her husband’s home. She took a great chance even sending that single letter.”

For a moment silence stretched through the room, motes of dust floating in the golden light that filtered in through the broad windows of the country manor house.

“Did he do as she asked?” Jin finally said, his voice uncharacteristically gruff.

“He did.” Thin lines appeared between her eyes. “He finally told our brothers the truth, then he went searching for you, determined to find his son. He wrote to me for a time, telling me of his progress, always hopeful. And then nothing. Months later we heard news of the ship he had taken passage on. It was missing, presumed lost. He never came home.”

She looked up again, set down the letters, and reached for Jin’s hand, her frail fingers gripping his strong ones weathered by life on the sea. His steady, beautiful hands Viola loved.

“But now you have come.” His aunt’s eyes crinkled into a watery smile. “Welcome home, Jinan.”

He closed the carriage door and took the seat beside Viola, his hand finding hers and fingers lacing together as the vehicle started away from the house. He did not look out the window but straight ahead, in his eyes the distance she had come to know so well. But that distance did not mean what she had once believed. Now she knew it to be hope only masked by certainty.

She curved her palm around his cheek. He turned his lips into it.

A smile tugged at her mouth. “She was not what I expected.”

He drew her hand down but did not release it. He rarely did these days, as she rarely released him unless necessary. They were, she supposed, making up for the many days and hours spent in each other’s company when they had not touched although they longed to. Or perhaps they simply liked it.

“How long will you wish to stay?” he asked, stroking her palm softly, the sensation riding straight through her body despite her gloves. They were very thin kid gloves, only the finest purchased by her very wealthy husband. Far too wealthy. She must find a charitable depository for some of his gold. If someday he once again felt the desire to take to the sea, he mustn’t have enough money to purchase his own ship. For she knew well that he would never again agree to sail on another master’s vessel.

On the other hand, if he must someday sail again, she would simply go with him.

“We can stay for as long as you wish, of course. Your aunt’s invitation included Christmas. Quite a lengthy visit, probably so that you can meet all your uncles and aunts and cousins.” She smiled. “She is very sweet, and seemed regretful even to see you leave for the afternoon.” She smoothed her skirt. “And, Jin, why did we leave just now?”

“So that I could do this.” He pulled her onto his lap.

“Oh! You are crushing my dress. And I have tried very hard today to keep it neat as a pin. I so wanted to impress her.”