A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal (18 page)

“That will be all for today,” he added, and as though he’d pressed a button on one of those mechanical dioramas they displayed at the fairs, Hemple popped up from the piano bench and Palmier spun for the door. Not an inch of spine in either of them.

She didn’t wait for their exit to defend herself. “It’s not
my
legs that are the problem. That Frenchie—”

“As Mrs. Hemple said, your legs are not an appropriate subject for discussion.”

The cold rebuttal startled her. The door shut softly behind the servants, closing her into silence with him. He put his hands behind his back and set his jaw, doubtless waiting for an apology from her, some groveling plea for failing his bloody expectations. Well, he could think again! “If you’re to lecture me on manners,” she said, “you might try them out yourself. Shooing people away like flies, not sparing them a word of farewell—”

St. Maur lifted his brows. “No. One doesn’t owe the staff such courtesy.”

“Then it’s not courtesy,” she said. “If it’s only to be used around certain people, it’s
hypocrisy
.”

“An interesting perspective,” he said calmly, “but
irrelevant for our purposes. Manners are merely a game, Nell. As with all games, one applies the rules in particular situations, but not in others.”

She’d heard similar logic before. “That sounds like the rules of a cheater.”

“Goodness.” He pulled out his gold pocket watch and flipped it open to regard the time. “A moralist, are you?”

“I don’t like hypocrisy,” she said flatly. “Showing a different face to different people.” She’d always known the world was unjust, but she’d not been prepared for firsthand evidence of how easily the fortunate ignored the injustice. Let them dress up their blindness as
good manners
, if they liked, but she wanted none of it.

He snapped the watch shut and tucked it away again. “How far will this dislike guide you?” he asked. “Would you be a hypocrite, for instance, for learning to alter your speech?”

“I expect I would, if I actually cared to try.”

“Yet I notice you’re already capable of speaking more genteelly when you choose to do so. Were you always a hypocrite, then?” He smiled. “Or do I inspire you?”

She pulled a face. Over their conversations at breakfast this last week, she’d grown to recognize the patterns of his slippery logic. He liked to turn an argument back on a person. Just this morning, they’d had a healthy debate about Caliban from
The Tempest
. In her view, Caliban’s ignorance didn’t excuse him: he was a clear villain who should have been killed for trying to ravish Miranda. St. Maur hadn’t disagreed, but he’d asked her if she thought a crime ever could be mitigated by the circumstances in which it was committed. Had she, for instance, ever been tempted
for selfish reasons to steal from someone who’d done her a good turn? If so, why?

“Is this about that bleeding handkerchief?” she’d demanded.

“Not the handkerchief,” he’d said.

He obviously knew she’d taken his silverware.

“I’m not ashamed of the way I grew up speaking,” she answered now. “If I know two different ways of speaking”—if she could do a fair brilliant imitation of Mum’s accent—”that doesn’t mean that I agree that one’s better than the other.”

“Your agreement isn’t required,” he said briskly. “All I ask is your compliance. In the circles you’re about to join, your … accustomed accent will send an inconvenient message. To aim for a performance better suited to those circles is not hypocrisy but good strategy. With servants, however, such performances are unnecessary: the staff will judge its employers by different standards, their expectations being primarily financial.”

“Fine,” she muttered. “If that works for you, so be it. This is your show, not mine.”

“Of course it’s your show,” said St. Maur. His voice suddenly sounded clipped. “It’s always a show, Nell—for all of us. ‘All the world’s a stage,’ as the bard wrote.”

“He also said life was ‘a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing,’” Nell shot back. “If that’s the case, I might as well find a grave to go lie down in.”

“But
why
? Why must any of this be justified through some greater, noble meaning?” His mouth pulled, a quick, sideways grimace of frustration. “Bear in mind the point of this whole exercise is nothing more arcane than to become
rich
. Money is your
aim—nothing noble. But certainly it will guarantee a good deal of pleasure, once you have it. Isn’t that enough?”

She stared at him. “No,” she said. “It’s not.” Until coming here, until learning what it meant to be privileged, she’d not understood how far down St. Maur’s kind had to look in order to see hers. But here, in his own words, was the philosophy that made his lot comfortable with never bothering to look down at all. “Money’s no virtue. It shouldn’t be an end in itself.” She gave a dry little laugh. “And neither should pleasure. If you knew any gin addicts, you’d realize that.”

He put his hands in his pockets. “You have strident opinions. It must be very tiring for you.”

“It’s only tiring because nobody thinks I should have any.”

“I hope I don’t give you that impression,” he said after a pause. “You’re very sharp.”

“I know I am.” But against her will, the compliment mollified her. When being prodded and trained and scolded like a thickheaded child, it was too easy to start feeling like the whole world thought her a dunce.

He gave her a slight smile. “I take it you have specific intentions for the money?”

She hadn’t given it much thought. No point in dreaming of miracles that had no chance of coming true. But the question brought to mind an answer. She knew exactly what she’d do if given a fortune. “I’d buy the factory where I worked.”

His smile grew. “Will you, now? A sweet species of revenge.”

She frowned. “Not for revenge. To change it. The workers need windows.”

“You’re a reformer?” He lifted a single brow. “You,
the denouncer of do-gooders? Why, this is quite deliciously ironic.”

“I denounce do-gooders who don’t
do
anything.” The sharpness of her own voice caught her off guard. She took a long breath. “Maybe I do feel out of sorts,” she said by way of apology. “This corset is squeezing the life from me.
Blast
it,” she added. “I’m not supposed to mention undergarments, either, I’d wager.”

“Indeed not,” he replied, laughter edging into his words. “Manners, you see, come down to a single principle: talk of nothing that might actually prove interesting.” He paused, looking immodestly impressed by his own wisdom. But when he continued, his mischievous tone punctured the effect. “Perhaps I’m noble for sparing my servants the bore.”

“Boring’s the rule, it seems. Even this dance is tedious.”

“Indeed? I always enjoyed the waltz.”

She shrugged. “Seems like the reason to dance is to enjoy the music, not spend the entire time worrying about how far apart you’re supposed to stay from the person who’s touching you.”

“Ah. Then it’s not your technique which is the problem,” said St. Maur, “but your attitude. The dance is a prolonged flirtation—a sort of ritual form of it, anyway.”

She snorted. “A peculiar way to go about it, then, paying more mind to staying away than getting near.”

“I wonder. It seems to me that the heart of flirtation is all about distance, and the possibility of closing it.”

“Maybe,” she said. “We do things differently, where I come from. But I shouldn’t be surprised if
you
lot even do your flirting topsy-turvy.”

He looked amused. “What do … you lot do, then, when you decide to flirt?”

For some reason, his teasing riled her. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Then demonstrate, if you please.”

She cast him a disbelieving glance. “You must be joking.”

“Not at all.” He stepped back against the wall, propping a shoulder against it as he crossed one boot over the other. It was actually a very proper attitude for his suggestion; she’d seen a dozen boys a day loitering by the factory like this, waiting for the whistle to blow and a chance to eye the girls.

But he wasn’t a lad. He was a man, with a man’s shoulders and a man’s knowing eyes, and a mouth that could tempt any woman under ninety. He’d made it easy to avoid him, these past days, but the thought of demonstrating
anything
for him was enough to make her blush. “I can’t,” she muttered.

“So you didn’t flirt, then.”

He sounded mildly disappointed. Her eyes narrowed. She knew when she was being poked like a rooster in a ring. “You’re trying to trick me into showing you.”

“Am I trying?” he asked with a grin. “Or am I succeeding?”

The grin did it. Felt silly to be nervous when he was acting so companionable. And how much she’d been longing for a bit of friendly conversation! She hadn’t realized until this moment just how lonely she’d been feeling. Wasn’t much point to pretty clothes without a chance to try them out on a man.

“All right, then,” she said on a breath. “First thing we do is, we give a man a saucy look. And then we—”

“I thought you were going to demonstrate,” he cut in. “If I wanted a lecture, I’d go to the Academy.”

She rolled her eyes. “You think you’re quite clever, don’t you?”

“I know I am,” he said, dimple flashing.

She laughed as she recognized the echo of her earlier remark. All right, he was a charmer. And he was about to get more than he’d asked for, if he but knew it. “Very well, your lordship.” She bobbed a mocking curtsy. “Let the guttersnipe demonstrate.”

She turned away, then glanced back at him out of the corner of her eye. It wasn’t an effort to look admiring. Nothing more mouthwatering than a tall, long-legged man with a narrow waist and a nice, lean set of hips on him.

She tossed her head and sashayed onward. Counted to three, and then came to a stop. “There you go,” she said as she pivoted back.

He lifted a brow. “That’s all?”

“That’s the first stage. Flirting isn’t over in a minute, St. Maur; it takes a few days to get started.”

“A few days!”

“Sometimes a week or two.” She stared at him, mildly scandalized. “What sort of ladies do
you
keep company with? Never say these girls in their lily-white dresses go from A to zed in an hour!”

He laughed. “Oh, it depends entirely on your definition of zed. We can exchange those, too, if you like.” More speculatively, he added, “I’d be happy to demonstrate.”

Her face went hot. “I just bet you would. No, I don’t think so.”

His smile took its time to spread. “Quite right. One thing at a time, with proper concentration. That’s my philosophy as well.”

She eyed him. “Are you demonstrating, now?”

“Indeed not,” he said, his expression comically innocent. “So, Nell, saucy looks. What next?”

“Well, after a few days of giving a lad the eye—and mind, if he starts to approach, you don’t let him; you take off real quick with your friends, and make sure to throw a few more looks at him as you’re leaving—”

“No doubt whilst giggling amongst yourselves,” St. Maur said ruefully. “Yes, I begin to feel sympathy for the lads of Bethnal Green.”

“Oh, don’t feel too bad. They enjoy it.”

“I’ve no doubt of that.”

“And the next stage, you let them approach you. Say a lad you’ve been looking at finally finds the courage to walk up, nice and easy. Well, you don’t give him a saucy look anymore, not at that point. But you don’t run, either.”

He nodded. Slow learner, this one. She crooked a finger at him. With a visible start, he straightened off the wall.

“If I’m demonstrating,” she said, “I need somebody to demonstrate on.”

“Right,” he said, and walked toward her.

Here was the problem with demonstrating East End ways in Mayfair: she couldn’t remember any lad who walked like St. Maur did. Nobody in the Green had the
time
to walk like this—a long, fluid sort of prowl that put her in mind of a hunting cat who’d had his fill to eat and now was just playing about for fun.

Still, she’d set herself a task, and she would see it through. Rounding her eyes, she backed up toward the wall. “See? I’m being coy here.”

His mouth quirked. “So you are,” he said, and ran an appreciative look down her body.

“Very good,” she said warmly. “Now you come on
up and I’m going to pretend to ignore you until the very last—”

But the words dropped right out of her brain as he stepped up and set a hand on the wall over her head.

“Go on,” he said, too close for comfort. So close she could make out the strands of green and gold and gray in his eyes.

Nobody in the Green smelled like him. Nobody had lips like his, either. They were purely a wonder, full and soft looking, such a contrast to the sharp square of his jaw. She regretted that he shaved so regularly. That first night she’d seen him, he’d sported the handsome beginnings of a beard.

“What happens now,” he murmured—and then, after a pause that lasted a moment too long—”in Bethnal Green?”

She cleared her throat. “They don’t do this in the Green.”

“Don’t do what?”

He was large. Truly large. His stomach was flat and she wanted to run her hand down it because she remembered how it had looked, ridged with muscle; she wanted to see if she could feel the separate bands of muscle, how they moved beneath his taut, hot skin when he leaned closer toward her, now, his breath fanning across her face. A hot current leapt between their flesh, reminding her of what nature had designed men and women’s bodies to do, pressed together.

Swallowing hard, she forced her brain to work. “They don’t … they don’t crowd a girl at this stage. Otherwise the girl might decide to get away.”

And then she ducked out from beneath his arm, sidling down the wall away from him, a giddy laugh twisting up in her throat. Long time since she’d felt
like this, gay and light and laughter-prone, and how queer that she should be feeling it here, in this grand, empty, gorgeous hall, with gilt on the walls and a man turning to follow her with eyes like the sea. He looked so rich and decadent that if she took a bite, she swore he would taste like chocolate, dark and complex and addictive.