A Lady's Guide to Improper Behavior (13 page)

“My lord,” Graham intoned, “Major-General Ross is here to see Colonel James.”

“Ross? Do you know him, Tolly?”

Bartholomew gestured for the card. “Yes. He’s with the Horse Guards.” The card didn’t contain a note or a sentiment—nothing but “Major-General Anthony Ross,” printed in very unimaginative style across its front. Not a very friendly greeting from someone he’d once saved from a bayoneting at the hands of Boney’s Imperial Guards. “Tell him I’m not up to visitors today.”

The butler nodded. “Very good, sir.”

“Graham, my boy,” Lackaby spoke up, “muster the lads to move the colonel down the stairs, will you?”

Graham’s stony face could have cracked granite. Not only had the butler more than likely never been called “my boy” before in his life, but being ordered about by an inferior—Bartholomew was rather surprised he didn’t drop dead on the spot. “Lackaby, go find our own damned troops,” he ordered.

“Aye, Colonel.” With a jaunty grin the valet slipped past the butler and down the hallway.

“That…man is trouble, my lord,” Graham announced, and vanished as well.

“I’ve tried to sack him thrice already,” Bartholomew told Stephen, “so good luck.”

His brother snorted. “I’ve surprised myself with the amount of chaos I’m willing to tolerate in exchange for having you home.” He reached out a hand as if to touch his brother’s shoulder, then lowered it again. “I won’t warn you to be cautious, because I know you don’t require my advice. All I’ll say, then, is to enjoy your luncheon.”

“Thank you.”

As his brother left, Bartholomew favored Ross’s card with one more glance before he placed it on the dressing table. Eventually, he supposed, he would have to agree to chat about the weather with old friends and acquaintances. Not yet, though. He’d allowed only one exception to disrupt his virtual hermithood. And as he’d discovered, she was also the most likely person to understand what he’d become.

“Colonel.” Lackaby strolled back into the room, his quartet of assistants with him. “Your lady just turned up the drive.”

“She’s early.” Bartholomew flipped open his pocket watch to make certain. Tess was nearly an hour early. Each day he saw her, the sight left him surprised; because each night he expected her to come to her senses and change her mind. “Get me downstairs,” he said aloud.

Huffing and puffing, Lackaby and the other ser
vants set him back on his wheels in the foyer just as Graham opened the front door to admit Tess and her maid. At least she didn’t have to see him tumbling headfirst down the main staircase.

“Tolly,” she said, hurrying past the butler before he could even acknowledge her presence. “I need a private word with you.”

His stomach muscles clenched; so she’d come to her senses after all. “Lackaby,” he said, gesturing toward the door just off the foyer.

Theresa led the way inside. “Sally, please wait in the kitchen,” she told her maid as she took over the short handles of Bartholomew’s chair. “And Lackaby, go away.”

The valet sketched a bow. “With pleasure.”

Once they were alone in the room, she pushed him close by the hearth. “What’s amiss, Tess?” he asked, craning his neck to keep her in view.

“Oh, I don’t even know how to tell you.”

For a short moment he watched her pace. And whatever news she meant to give him, he couldn’t help noticing the soft sway of her hips, the flash of shoe and ankle as she crossed the floor. It served him right for hoping; he knew better. Now that he’d done so, being rejected by the enchanting Tess Weller would hurt more, but it was no more than he deserved. “Just tell me,” he said. “There’s little chance you can wound me, my dear.”

Finally she came to a stop in front of him, then she clenched her fists and tucked them beneath her chin. “I don’t believe in passing on gossip,” she said, her voice unsteady, “but I have no reason to think
any of this is untrue. Tolly, tomorrow the East India Company will be publishing a report. They’re going to say that the Thuggee threat is imaginary, conjured by cowards who couldn’t perform their duties. The Horse Guards is apparently going to remain silent on the issue, though I’m not certain about that.”

Bartholomew stared at her. The information was so far from what he’d expected to hear from her that for a hard beat of his heart he thought he’d imagined it. Then it all crashed into him with the force of a brick wall. And he had to sit there in his damned wheeled chair with his damned mangled leg and take it.

“Tolly?” she said quietly. “Bartholomew? I believe you. I want you to know that. But I also thought someone should…warn you about what’s coming. The—”

“Thank you,” he said stiffly. “Good day.”

She blinked, though he scarcely noted it. “Good…That’s all you have to say? This is terrible news! What are you—”

“I don’t need you to tell me what sort of news this is, Miss Weller. Thank you for informing me. You should leave now, before someone connects your name to mine. We both know you don’t want that.”

Theresa put her hands on her hips. “And what is that supposed to mean?” she demanded. “I have done nothing wrong, so I see no reason for you to be angry with me, Colonel.”

He grabbed the arms of the chair and shoved, lifting himself into a standing position. From there he could look down at her, remind her that he was more than a cripple and an object of pity. “I am going to
ask you one last time to get the devil away from me. Because if you don’t…” He reached out, grabbed her arm, and yanked her up against him. Roughly he kissed her, knowing it was for the last time and refusing to dwell on how sweet her mouth was or how her touch warmed him inside.

“Save yourself from scandal, Tess,” he said, and pushed her away. “Get out. Now.”

M
iss Tess,” Sally said, leaning out of the coach’s open door, “are we going?”

Theresa, arms folded across her chest, continued to glare at the closed front door of James House. “He threw me out,” she muttered to herself.

Yes, his emotions were high, but no one—
no one
—had ever treated her in such a manner. It wasn’t as if she was the one who’d decided to call him a liar, for heaven’s sake; she actually believed him. How could anyone look into his eyes and not understand that something extraordinary and awful had happened?

And yet there she stood, round cobblestones beneath her feet and her coach waiting behind her. And now returning home, not speaking of him, and continuing on with her Season as if they’d never met
would take absolutely no effort whatsoever. Every opportunity, every choice to be…other than her usual, proper self had been removed, by Montrose, by Tolly, by everyone.

Everyone but her. She’d done nothing. No disruption, no upset, no harm. With a last look at the closed front door she turned and climbed into her coach. “Take me home, if you please.”

For the remainder of the day and all through the evening, while she chatted and danced and played her usual charming self, she half felt she was still standing out on the James House front drive. It was as if that moment had been something pivotal, something vital, and she’d let it pass her by.

“That was a fine evening,” her grandmother said, as they left Fallon House with the last dance of the evening still going on behind them. “Did you see Wilcox? Wearing lavender like some man a third his age. I can’t decide if he’s attempting to recapture his youth, or if he’s gone completely mad.”

Michael chuckled as he handed Theresa into the coach behind Agnes and then climbed in, himself. “I hope you were flattered. Clearly he views you as a youthful spirit.”

“So I am.” Agnes took her granddaughter’s hand. “And you were the belle of the ball, Tess, as usual. Half the men there couldn’t take their eyes off you.”

“Thank you.”

“Didn’t Leelee say they would be attending?” Michael asked, sitting back as the coach rolled out into the dark streets of Mayfair. “Did she say anything to you, Troll?”

Theresa shook herself. “No. I imagine Tolly told
them the news about the East India Company, and they decided to remain at home.”

“What news? What are you talking about?”

She glanced at her brother, then faced out the window again. They needed to know; Amelia’s marriage connected them to the James family. “The rumors about the Thuggee murders are hurting the Company’s business, apparently, so they’re putting out a statement tomorrow that the Thuggee don’t exist.”

Both of her companions stared at her. “How do you know this?” Grandmama Agnes finally asked.

“Montrose told me this morning. He wanted to give me advance warning so I could distance myself from Tolly. His reputation will be utterly ruined, you know.”

“Oh, my goodness. Did you speak to Amelia?”

“No. I told Tolly. He threw me out of James House.” She attempted to shrug, but her shoulders were clenched up so tightly that they ached already. “Thank goodness I didn’t send him those flowers after all. Can you imagine what people would have said about me once it became known that Colonel James is a liar?”

“Christ. That’s a bit cold-blooded, don’t you think?” Michael muttered.

“She doesn’t mean it.”

“Of course I do.” Theresa kept her gaze out the window, taking in the darkness punctuated by the occasional gas lamp or candle-lit window. “That’s who I am. Everyone knows how propriety-minded I am. I may have forgotten for a moment, but I certainly remember now.”

For a moment she saw her grandmother’s hazy reflection gazing at the back of her head, until the dowager viscountess faced forward again. “Michael, we must call on James House tomorrow, to show our support of the family.”

“Certainly, Grandmama.”

“I can only hope that Lord Hadderly’s greed causes him as much pain as it does those around him. Never trust a man who breeds wolfhounds, I’ve always said.”

Theresa doubted that Bartholomew James would want anyone gathered around him for any reason. She’d attempted to…well, at least to tell him that she believed him, and he certainly hadn’t appreciated that. “Or one who’s sullen,” she added.

“Tess, I don’t like th—”

“Leave her be, Michael,” their grandmother interrupted. “She knows how she wishes to live her life.” She shifted. “You needn’t come with us tomorrow, my dear. Amelia will understand.”

Settling for a nod, Theresa stayed away from the subdued conversation filling the coach for the remainder of the drive back to Weller House. Amelia
would
understand her wish to stay far away from any scandal—or even any sideways glances or muttering.

As soon as they reached the house she said her good nights and went upstairs. Sally had already set out her night rail and made down the bed, but Theresa didn’t much feel like sleep.

“Are you ill, miss?” the maid asked, as she helped Theresa remove her deep blue evening gown. “I could fetch you a peppermint tea.”

“No, thank you. I think I might read for a bit. Good night, Sally.”

“Good night, Miss Tess.”

Once alone in her bedchamber, Theresa went to the window that overlooked the carriage drive and pushed it open. Cool, damp night air rushed into the room, putting out the candle on the bed stand and making the low fire in the hearth spit and hiss.

Logically and practically, she’d done nothing wrong today. She’d even performed a good deed of sorts by going out of her way to inform a friend of impending ill news. After that, she’d only done as he asked—ordered—and left him to himself.

And every proper chit was supposed to distance herself from scandal. Any scandal. Even when it involved someone of whom she seemed to have become fond. Theresa touched her lips with her fingers. His kisses had been…electric. Nearly heart-stopping. They had certainly stopped her breath and her mind.

She could easily count the number of times her other beaux had kissed her—because they hadn’t done so. She hadn’t allowed such liberties. Not even from Montrose. Bartholomew touched her in ways she’d never expected. But now that trouble had found him—again—she could no longer spend time with him.

Theresa clenched her fingers into the base of the window sill. This was the first time that following the rules of propriety made her feel like a coward. For heaven’s sake, if she could do whatever she pleased, she would march straight over to James House, stomp up the main staircase, shove open Tolly’s bedchamber door, and punch him flush in the nose.

He’d sent her away just before she could make her excuses and leave—and both of them knew it. But so what if he had? She didn’t owe him her allegiance. Reddening her fingers with his blood and shaving him when no one else was allowed to touch him and encouraging those naughty, exhilarating kisses didn’t obligate her to stand by him. But what nerve, to assume that she wouldn’t do so.

Except that he’d been utterly correct. Tolly James wasn’t the coward. She was.

“Did you see this?” Michael waved the newspaper at Theresa as she walked into the morning room just after nine o’clock.

Dash it all, she thought she’d stayed in her bedchamber long enough to miss both Michael and her grandmother. And yet there they both were, clearly discussing the very thing she’d hoped to avoid this morning. “Of course I haven’t seen it,” she returned aloud, “but I told you it was coming.”

Agnes stirred her tea so vigorously it sloshed over the side of the cup. “I’m going over to James House at once,” she stated, rising. “This is even worse than I imagined. If I know Amelia, and I do, she’s smiling on the outside and rattling about like a broken teapot on the inside.”

“I’m going with you,” Michael said, sending a pointed glare at Theresa as he, too, pushed away from the table. He shoved the newspaper across the table’s surface in her direction. “Some new silks have arrived from Egypt. That’s on page four.”

Yes, her family understood her dismay over impro
priety, but they clearly didn’t like it. And she couldn’t blame them. She didn’t much like it, herself. “Please have some tea and toast sent up to my room,” she said to the waiting footman, then picked up the newspaper and headed upstairs again.

The
London Times
’s coverage of the “Official Report of the East India Company to the Crown Regarding the Alleged Threat of the Thuggee in India” was quite thorough. She doubted that very few readers would feel the need to look farther and delve into the report itself.

According to the newspaper’s interpretation of the report, Thuggee was the name assigned by the ignorant native population of India for everything from chicken thefts to the occasional, unfortunate native death. The Indians used the name in an attempt to drive up prices of product and to encourage the hiring of locals as guards for every well-heeled English traveler.

The report quoted governors, rajs, generals, Company officials—anyone who had any authority over anything, to all say what could be boiled down to the same basic ingredient. The Thuggee were nonsense.

Theresa sat back in her writing chair and sipped at her tea. Peppermint—evidently Sally thought her still out of sorts. Which she was, but not because of anything the tea could cure. The worst part about a report that promised safety and profitable enterprise and ridiculed danger was that everyone wanted to believe it.

She
wanted to believe it. If not for Tolly’s wounds
and scars and more tellingly the haunted look in his eyes, she would be tempted. With a frown, Theresa read the article’s final paragraph again. Of course it didn’t directly challenge the recollections of any Englishmen who claimed to have encountered the Thuggee, themselves. It didn’t call them liars, cowards, or traitors to the fattening purses of all
good
Englishmen, but it certainly implied it.

Slowly she rose and walked to her window. It was a lovely morning; a few white, picturesque clouds deepened the blue of the sky around them, and a pair of wild finches perched in the tree just outside where they chirped musically.

And there she stood knowing that all was not well. Safe in her bedchamber with its yellow curtains and white and green walls, pages of her favorite fashion plates and a sketch of just the most darling hat tacked up beside her dressing mirror.

Nothing untoward ever came through her door; it wouldn’t dare. Theresa glanced back at her writing table. Even that awful article was, in its neat black print, full of optimism and opportunity. The fresh shadows in the room, then, weren’t from what she’d read. They were from her.

“Damnation,” she muttered, using Bartholomew’s favorite curse. The curses she chose weren’t anything terrible, either. Yes, they might cause a lifted eyebrow or two from the silver-haired set, but otherwise they were very nearly fashionable.

No, the problem was her. Definitely her. She’d spent so long being good. It had never failed her before. Today, in fact, was the first time she could recall that
doing the absolute right proper thing felt…wrong. Dirty, even.

She knew what others might say to her dilemma. If it seemed to be the thing she should do, then of course she should step forward and denounce the article, or at the least claim Tolly as a friend. What was the worst that could happen?

Except that she knew the worst penalty for being contrary and acting badly. The last time she’d made a scene, two people—her parents—had died.

So what could she do now? She needed to behave properly. Which meant no Tolly. Not ever again. No matter how much she wanted to do otherwise.

“Miss Tess?” Sally called, knocking at her door. “Miss Silder and Miss Aames are here to go shopping with you.”

“I’ll be right down.” Yes, she still had shopping. Just nothing that meant anything. Nothing that actually mattered.

The difficulty with belonging to a secret club, Bartholomew decided as he held on to the door of the hired hack with one hand and jammed his cane into the hard-packed earth with the other, was that it was a damned secret. Half stumbling, he made it to the ground with the grace of a headless chicken.

“You certain you know what you’re about?” the driver asked, watching him skeptically as he disembarked. “I’ll throw ye over my shoulder and carry ye to the bloody front door for a quid.”

“Drive on,” Bartholomew ordered. “Bastard,” he added under his breath.

Harlow, the groom, appeared from around the side of Ainsley House, took one look at his face, and vanished again. At least someone knew what they were about.

Riding Meru from James House would have been easier, but he hadn’t wanted to hear the questions about where he was going, and he hadn’t wanted the assistance of Lackaby or the groom that Stephen would have pushed at him. If and when he moved out again he would make the announcement, but not before.

He made his way to the half-concealed door mostly by willpower and stubbornness, then dug the key from his pocket and let himself into the Adventurers’ Club. At least they hadn’t changed the lock—though it was early yet. There was even the chance that no one had yet read the morning’s newspaper.

He’d read it, of course. Whatever he thought of his decision to encourage Tess to abandon him, he was grateful to her for alerting him to the coming storm. The story had actually sounded very convincing, though they’d gotten some of the facts wrong. For a moment he’d actually been…thankful to have been wounded. The hole in his leg and the scar around his neck at least provided evidence that something had gone awry.

Easton was of course inside the club as Gibbs came forward to close the door after him. So were five other members, though he only recognized two of them.

“So you had your leg nearly shot off by a chicken thief?” Easton said, guffawing and clearly amused at himself. “It’s no wonder they retired you, James.”

Bartholomew ignored him, instead keeping his at
tention on Gibbs. “I need a word with Sommerset,” he said to the valet. “Didn’t think I should call at the front door.”

Gibbs nodded, his expression as impassive as always. “I’ll inquire.”