Improper Ladies (35 page)

Her frown spoke volumes of doubt. “Then what
did
you come to apologize for, Lord Morley?”

“I came to apologize for—monopolizing your time at the ball last night.” That seemed the most polite way to say
for cornering you in the dark
. “And to return this.”

He drew her folded fan from inside his coat and held it out to her.

“My fan,” she whispered. She moved closer to him, and took the scrap of satin and lace from his hand, careful not to let her fingers brush his. She spread it wide, staring down at its glistening expanse. It seemed some sort of artifact from the lost beauty of the night before, held so gently by the woman who had buried that beauty beneath layers of gray muslin.

But he could see now that she was not entirely submerged. She stood so close to him he could see the shadow of pale golden freckles under a dusting of rice powder, could smell the fresh green springtime scent of her perfume. As he watched, a faint pink flush spread across her cheekbones.

It was as if she, too, remembered their moments alone last night. Maybe she also felt the unmistakable draw between them now, his temptation to take off that absurd cap and let her hair spill down . . .

She darted a quick, startled glance at him from beneath her lashes. “Thank you for returning this,” she said. Her voice was still tinged with coolness, but he fancied marginally less so than it had been when she first saw him here. Or perhaps that was just his own wishful thinking. “Would you care to come into the drawing room?”

“Yes,” he answered. “I do so enjoy—almond cakes.”

Her blush deepened to a rose tinge, and she brushed past him to hurry back to the drawing room.

Oh, yes,
Michael thought. He was assuredly making progress with her.

 

She was
not
glad to see him. She was merely being polite. It would never do to quarrel with the wicked man in her friend’s home.

That is what Rosalind told herself, anyway, as she led Lord Morley into the drawing room. She tried to forget the tiny, excited skipping beat of her heart when she saw him standing there in the foyer. It was probably only dismay that he had dared to appear so soon after the disaster of the Portman ball. Or it was the marmalade from her breakfast tray disagreeing with her.

Yes
! she thought, seizing on that excuse. Her queasiness, her nervousness, had nothing to do with this man at all. It was marmalade.

Even if he did appear rather handsome this morning, the dark waves of his hair in disarray from the wind, his face bronzed from the sun . . .

No!
Rosalind curled her hands tightly into fists and pressed them against her skirt. It was merely that marmalade, disagreeing with her again. All would be well once she had a sensible meal.

Or once Lord Morley took himself off and left them in peace.

The scene in the drawing room was peacefully domestic, and its very ordinariness helped Rosalind to catch her breath. Georgina and Emily were seated next to the small fire that burned in the grate against the morning chill. Emily worked on a piece of embroidery, while Georgina was bent over her sketchbook. On a footstool by her mother’s side, Elizabeth Anne wielded a stick of charcoal over her own tiny sketchbook, all thoughts of swinging from the chandelier apparently forgotten for the moment. Lady Kate slept in her velvet dog bed.

Georgina looked up, and gave their guest one of her charming smiles. “Lord Morley! What a pleasant surprise to see you here this morning.”

Rosalind seated herself on one of the brocade settees, watching as Michael bowed to Georgina and said, “I trust I have not called at an inconvenient time. I wanted to see how Mr. Lucas fared.”

“Of course it is not an inconvenient time! You have saved us from a very dull morning. And I believe Mr. Lucas is quite well. He just rang for some wash water and coffee, so I am certain we will see him down here soon. Would you not say so, Rosalind?”

Rosalind, who was trying to concentrate on little Elizabeth Anne and
not
on staring at Lord Morley, glanced at Georgina in surprise. “What? Oh, yes. Indeed.”

“So you see,” Georgina said to Morley, “no harm done at all. I see you also found Mrs. Chase’s fan.”

Rosalind stared down dumbly at the fan she still held, clutched in her fist. She had forgotten it was there. “Yes, Lord Morley very kindly returned it to me. I must have—have misplaced it last night.”

“I thought you might be in need of it, Mrs. Chase,” Lord Morley said quietly.

Rosalind glanced up to find him watching her, his expression uncharacteristically serious. There was no hint of his usual teasing grin, the laughing gleam in his eye. “Thank you,” she murmured.

Georgina smiled radiantly, as if a great dark cloud of tension did not hover over her elegant drawing room. “Won’t you please be seated, Lord Morley? Elizabeth Anne, dearest, why don’t you ring for some tea?”

Elizabeth Anne leaped to her feet in a flurry of ribbons and curls. “And almond cakes, too, Mama? Please?”

Georgina laughed. “Very well, my darling, almond cakes, too. Though Nanny will be furious with me for letting you have sweets in the middle of the morning.”

Lord Morley sat down on a chair uncomfortably close to Rosalind’s settee. She resisted the urge to pull her skirts closer, to tuck herself away for some measure of safety. She so hated it that whenever he came near, whenever he was even in the same room, she became someone who was—was not herself. Not sensible Rosalind, who had taken care of herself and her family with no assistance for so many years, who was always calm, always competent. Always the one her friends and pupils looked to to provide an example of propriety.

When she was near him, as she was now, she became someone she could not know and did not like. Someone who felt foolish and fluttery, and very young. Which was silly in the extreme, since she was lately turned thirty, and he was probably younger than her by some years. A young man who wrote romantic poetry about love and passion and the physical world, who brazenly flirted with women in ballrooms and school drawing rooms.

Rosalind resolutely put the satin fan down on a nearby table and folded her hands in her lap. She was very glad that she wore one of her own serviceable garments, and not one of the colorful frocks Georgina was always pressing on her with the excuse that she had ordered them from the mantua-maker and now did not like them. Even if Rosalind did not
feel
like herself, she could
look
like herself, and perhaps that would be enough to fool the people around her.

If only Lord Morley would not stare at her so intently! It was as if—as if he tried to look past the yards of plain gray muslin and see into her very heart.

Rosalind thanked heaven for Georgina, who kept up a steady stream of polite chatter, and for Elizabeth Anne, who insisted on serving the tea herself and caused a great distraction by spilling it on the inlaid chinoiserie tea table.

Once the refreshments had been safely distributed, Elizabeth Anne came to sit by Rosalind, and leaned against her side. Rosalind put her arm about her, and breathed in her sweet, powdery, little-girl smell. It was comforting, real, and it reminded her of all she had to protect—her school, where girls just like this would be waiting for her when the holiday was finished.

“I’m going to go to Aunt Rosalind’s school,” Elizabeth Anne told Lord Morley. “That’s where I am going to learn to be a grand lady. Mama says Aunt Rosalind is the best at turning little hoydens like me into grand ladies, though really I would rather be a bareback rider at Astley’s.”

“I will be most honored to have a future bareback rider at the Seminary,” Rosalind said with a laugh. “Though you are too young right now, Elizabeth Anne. Perhaps in a year or two.”

“I am sure you will enjoy it at Mrs. Chase’s school, Lady Elizabeth Anne,” Lord Morley said. “My sister is a pupil there, and she speaks very highly of your—Aunt Rosalind.”

“You have a sister?” Elizabeth Anne looked at him with wide, wondering green eyes, as if she could not imagine he could possibly possess something so ordinary as a sister. Rosalind sometimes wondered at that herself. “Is she like me?”

“She is as pretty as you,” he said. “But she is several years older. She will soon be graduating from the Seminary, and making her bow next Season.”

“How is Lady Violet?” Rosalind asked, watching Elizabeth Anne as she took another cake. “I have been hoping to see her while I am in Town, but I am sure she has been quite busy.”

“We have been to the theater, and to a few suppers at our aunt’s home, but she has not been as busy as she would like. I am sure she would enjoy it very much if you were to call on her. In fact . . .” He broke off, and gave her an uncertain glance.

“Yes, Lord Morley?” she asked.

“I was just going to say that I am taking Violet to Gunter’s this afternoon for ices. Perhaps you would care to join us, Mrs. Chase? And the duchess and Lady Emily, of course.” He sounded oddly shy as he offered the invitation.

Rosalind saw Georgina and Emily exchange a significant glance between them, and she felt her cheeks heat again. In these last two days, she had blushed more than she had in the last ten years! And right now it was all due to those two incorrigible matchmakers. They spent hours gossiping and scheming about all their friends. They probably imagined there was something untoward between herself and Lord Morley. It would have been angering if it was not so laughable.

“Oh, Emily and I have an appointment at the—at the milliner,” Georgina said. “But I am sure Rosalind would welcome the chance to escape such a dull outing.”

“May I go, too, Mama?” Elizabeth Anne begged. “I love Gunter’s!”

“No, darling,” Georgina answered. “It is a grown-up outing.”

Rosalind studied Lord Morley closely, trying to gauge the sincerity of his invitation. Did he truly wish her to come along? Or was he just being polite?

And what did
she
truly wish to do? She wanted to see Violet again, to be certain the girl was faring well in Town. And the thought of an entire afternoon looking at bonnets she could not afford to buy was not appealing, though she was almost certain Georgina had just made that up as an excuse. After all, who made an appointment to see a milliner? Ices at Gunter’s with Violet sounded much finer.

But the thought of an entire afternoon with Lord Morley was—unsettling, even if he proved to be sincere in his invitation.

Rosalind prided herself on being a generous lady. Surely Lord Morley deserved a chance to atone for his bad behavior, and she deserved the chance to ask him to leave Allen alone. To try to fulfill her mission in London, which was to restore the rules and the proper order of things.

Yes, she decided, she
would
allow him to make amends. With a strawberry ice.

“Very well, Lord Morley,” she said. “I would be happy to join you and Lady Violet at Gunter’s this afternoon.”

He smiled, a wide, white grin that dazzled as the sun breaking forth on a dreary winter’s day. “Excellent! I am sure Violet will be in alt when I tell her. Would two o’clock suit?”

“Yes, thank you,” Rosalind answered politely. “That would suit very well.”

She had surely just completely lost her mind. The moment the acceptance passed her lips, she had the wild desire to pull it back, to stay safely alone in the house for the rest of the day.

It was too late, though. Georgina and Emily were chattering again, asking Lord Morley about his newest volume of poems. Elizabeth Anne was pirouetting around the furniture. And, as if it was all not cacophonous enough, the door opened and Allen appeared.

He was paler than usual, but otherwise did not appear to be damaged in any way by his escapade at the Portman ball. He was even rather better groomed than usual, with clean boots, unwrinkled trousers, and a crisply tied cravat. If only he did not look quite so morose.

“Morley!” he cried happily, his strained, white face transformed from melancholy to avid interest in an instant. “By Jove, but it’s good to see you again. Didn’t know you were expected.” He stepped forward to shake hands with Lord Morley, and added, in a quieter tone, “I’m afraid I made a bit of a cake of myself last night.”

A bit of a cake?
Rosalind almost choked. Her brother had made a veritable pastry kitchen out of himself. She held her tongue, though. It would not serve her cause if she embarrassed Allen in front of his hero Lord Morley. It would not serve her cause at all.

She would just have to bide her time—until this afternoon.

“Always be gracious when introduced to new acquaintances.”

-A Lady’s Rules for Proper Behavior
, Chapter Eleven

 

D
o you really mean it, Michael? We are going to see Mrs. Chase today?” Violet practically bounced on her toes in her enthusiasm, her hands clasped under her chin. A delighted giggle bubbled from her lips.

Michael couldn’t help but smile at her happiness. She
had
smiled a few times since they came to Town, and even laughed at the play they had attended. But he had not seen her eyes sparkle so in—well, in a very long time. And it was due to Mrs. Chase. Somber, straightlaced Mrs. Chase, who was not quite as prim and proper as she would like everyone, including herself, to believe.

Violet almost spun about in a joyous circle, but then, with a visible effort, brought her exuberance under control. She folded her hands in front of her, and recited, “ ‘A lady never displays her joy in an unseemly, physical manner.’ ” Then she gave a tiny jump and another smile. “
Do
you mean it, Michael? Mrs. Chase is in London and we are to see her?”

“Of course I mean it, Vi,” Michael said, with a laugh to cover his irritation at her rule-spouting. “She is going to Gunter’s with us. I met her at a ball last night, and she asked after you.” He decided to omit the quite unnecessary details of everything that had happened after his initial encounter with her at the Portman ball.