No Proper Lady (23 page)

Even in the country, August was too hot to do much during the day. Everyone said so.

The doctor who’d examined Joan had been pretty damn firm about it. He’d also said several things about the effect of heat on the “female constitution” that had made Joan roll her eyes.

“Anyone who has to tromp around in ten pounds of cloth,” she’d told Simon later, “is damn well going to feel hot. What does he expect me to do, lounge around naked?”

“Mmm. Medical necessity,” had said Simon, tracing one finger down her bare back. “Can’t be avoided. He’s a very intelligent man.”

Joan had snorted. “Yeah. Good luck keeping your servants if I never put any clothes on.” She hadn’t tried to avoid his touch, though. Far from it. They’d ended up on her bed doing things that Dr. Phillips would probably have wildly disapproved of.

Really, though, the orders themselves weren’t so dumb, even if the attitude was. Joan didn’t think the flashgun had damaged her permanently, but she did feel it. For a week, she’d stayed in bed, unable to walk farther than the door, and slept for about ten hours a day.

That had helped a lot with the police. They had turned out to be a pain in the ass: Reynell hadn’t left a body, but he’d disappeared after Joan had come to his house. There were plenty of witnesses to say that she’d been flirting with him lately and that Simon had never liked him.

But the standards of the day, idiotic as they were, worked in Joan’s favor. She was a lady, at least nominally. She’d been wounded very badly, and, in the end…well, there wasn’t a body. What people did find, when they searched the house, incriminated Reynell much more than it did Simon or Joan.

One of the papers had already dubbed him the “Blue-Blood Bluebeard.” Very witty.

The official story had Reynell luring Joan (“an unworldly American widow”) to his house presumably with what the papers called “vile intentions.” She’d put up a valiant defense of her virtue, he’d stabbed her, and Simon had burst in at just the right moment. Thwarted in his plans, Reynell had leapt out the window. Maybe he was dead now, or maybe he was living under another name. Nobody knew.

Once they were cleared of official suspicion, Joan, Simon, and Eleanor had left London almost immediately. It was better for Joan to recover in the country. It was also better for Eleanor not to deal with the gossip. When Reynell’s family came to town, as one of them would have to, it would be good for them not to see anyone who’d been involved in their son’s death.

Simon was indoors now, finishing a letter to Reynell’s father. He’d lost sleep over that, and his face, which had grown less tense as Joan recovered, had been drawn and worn all day. It wasn’t fair, really, Joan thought, but she couldn’t do anything about it.

The Reynells were good people, Simon had said. They’d drawn away from their son lately, maybe because they’d suspected something of what he really was. Joan hoped so. It might make the next few months easier on them.

She hoped for other people’s sake more often now. Maybe the mission had changed her or her timeless interlude in the light. Maybe she just had time these days. The weight of the world was gone, and sometimes it felt like her shoulders had grown wings in its absence.

The late-afternoon sunlight spread golden across Englefield’s lawn, and the old oak tree was firm against Joan’s back and scratchy in just the right places. She leaned back, one hand playing with the marigolds that grew nearby, and listened to music wafting out of the open windows. Eleanor was at the piano playing something slow and peaceful.

Joan waited.

Eventually, Simon raced out of the house like an overgrown boy, letting the door slam behind him, and tore across the lawn. It was alarming at first—Joan didn’t think she’d ever be enough a creature of this world to stay relaxed through moments like that—but then she saw his face, and the mixed pain and relief there.

“Hi,” she said, as he grew nearer and slowed.

“Oof.” Simon flopped down on the grass beside Joan and laid his head in her lap, his hair very dark against the blue and white of her skirt.

She stroked his hair. “Done?”

Simon closed his eyes and sighed. “For all the good it may do. I don’t think Lord Sherbrook will hate us—but—” He broke off, shaking his head quickly. There was a wound there, Joan knew, that still hurt. It was healing clean, though, and if it scarred, well, everyone had a few of those. “It doesn’t matter. Did you hear from Gillespie?”

“I did.” Joan grinned at the memory. “I’m going to be answering questions for years. He thinks you’re crazy, by the way—turning your house into a school. And I don’t know what your parents will say.”

He shrugged. “We’re not likely to have more than three or four students at a time, you know, and we’ve plenty of room. As long as I don’t tear up the carpets—or, more importantly, the elms—they’ll be pleased I’m doing something useful with myself.”

“If only they knew,” Joan said dryly.

“Civilizing young women is a very respectable profession. And one I have considerable experience—ow!” He batted her finger away from his ribs. “You’re not supposed to be well enough for that.”

“I do a lot of things I’m not supposed to be well enough for. This is the first time you’ve complained,” Joan said. “Besides, I meant saving the world.”

Simon yawned and shook his head. “That doesn’t count. Not at all the thing in Society these days, you know. And you did most of it, anyhow.”

“Like hell I did,” said Joan. “I’d have been caught in five minutes without you showing me around. And I’d have gone crazy about halfway through if you hadn’t been there.”

“What did I do?” he asked, opening his eyes now and looking at her more seriously.

She shrugged. “You were there. You had my back. And…you were
you
. I couldn’t have asked for—”

“Oh, you damn well could have. Several platoons, for one.”

Joan laughed, but then she looked down at Simon, and the laughter faded. Something was happening here. There was power in the air, solemn and momentous. So she answered honestly. “Yeah. But I could do without them. I don’t want to think about doing without you.”

Simon swallowed. Then he sat up and caught Joan’s hands in his. His eyes were very dark. “I’d meant to ask differently,” he said, and laughed. “I’d meant to be prepared. But—this feels like the right moment.”

“The right moment?”

Simon smiled at her. “Would you like to—well, to work with me for a while yet?”

It took a second for Joan to realize what he was asking. Then warmth rose up within her, an echo of what she’d felt when she was in the light, and not a faint or a faraway one either. She met his eyes and smiled back.

“Always,” Joan said.

So many people contributed to this book in one way or another! I’d like to thank Leah Hultenschmidt, my amazing editor at Sourcebooks, for taking a chance on this crazy plot, and Aubrey Poole for helping pull all the details together: you’ve both been an absolute delight to work with, and I hope to do so a lot more in the future! Thanks also to all of my friends for support, insight, and critiques and to my boyfriend, who gracefully put up with me successively biting my nails over cover letters and shrieking like a deranged howler monkey when I got the call. If I named names, this page would be longer than the entire book, but all of you guys rock.

So hard.

Isabel Cooper
lives in Boston, Massachusetts, with her boyfriend and a houseplant she’s managed to keep alive for over a year now—a personal best. By day, she’s a mild-mannered editor at a legal publishing company. By night, she’s really quite a geek with polyhedral dice, video games, and everything. She only travels through time in the normal direction and has never fought any kind of demon, unless you count younger sisters. She can waltz, though.