Rules for a Lady (A Lady's Lessons, Book 1) (16 page)

Irritating biddy, Gillian thought with rancor. She should just speak up so everyone could hear. Then she looked over to see Lord Tallis watching her closely.

"Is it my sister's attention or Mavenford's neglect that bothers you?"

Gillian flushed guiltily, then glanced away. Were all the men in London so astute? "Neither," she finally said. "It is just that she is so beautiful and well mannered, I find myself completely put out with jealousy."

"But Miss Wyndham, you are ten times as intriguing as my poor sister. Surely you realize that?"

Gillian flashed him a wry grin. "Because I like looking at old bones and centuries-old carvings? If you find that intriguing, then I fear you are as odd as I."

"Perhaps." He shrugged, and though the movement dislodged some of his carefully arranged cravat, she found him all the more attractive for it. "I do not think so, though. In fact, I am so sure of it as to lay a wager on it."

She hesitated. "A wager? But is that proper?" Gillian frowned, trying to remember if wagering with a gentleman was on her list of things a lady should not do.

"We shall keep it our little secret. Now, I wager you will shortly become this Season's Original, which will make you decidedly fashionable."

"Surely you exaggerate—"

"And my forfeit," he continued, "shall be what?"

Gillian bit her lip, excited by the thought of both an illicit wager and becoming an Original. "You shall take me on another sight-seeing trip. My choice of location."

"Excellent. And your forfeit?"

She hesitated. "Your choice of location?"

He grinned, and for a moment she reconsidered her offer, wondering at his motives. But then it was too late as he exclaimed, "Done!"

They continued to walk deeper and deeper into what felt like catacombs beneath the London streets. Gillian began to enjoy herself, pausing to inspect one body after another while Lord Tallis entertained her with amusing on-dits. He turned out to be a wonderful companion, and she soon forgot his real purpose was to free Stephen for his sister.

In the end, she found she was having quite a marvelous time. But then they came to the end of the crypt and were forced to turn around. The two of them were almost halfway back before Gillian chanced to remember their other companion.

"Why, what happened to Tom?"

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she heard a strange moaning sound. It was almost intelligible, but given the echo in the dark surroundings, it was nearly impossible to understand or locate its source.

It never occurred to her this was a haunting. She was a practical girl, not given to flights of fancy. Lady Sophia, however, was clearly not as levelheaded. She clutched the earl in a deathlike grip, her mouth parted in a delicate O of horror. Then another moan cut through Gillian's thoughts as she finally recognized the sound.

"Tom!" She hastily scanned the next chamber. Loose rock lay everywhere, not to mention rats' nests and other hazards. He had probably fallen down and hurt himself. She had to find him.

His moan became louder and stronger as she clamored into the next alcove. She knew from the sound that the boy was close by, but she could not discover where.

"Tom!" Her sharp word echoed through the rooms, seeming to run down the chambers only to bounce back and confuse her.

"Iiieeaaaa."

Gillian heard Lady Sophia cry out, and Gillian spun around, following the pale girl's shaking gesture. Then one of the bodies shifted. Out of the dust rose a single skeletal arm. The bones were complete, narrowing down to a clawed hand from which dangled Lady Sophia's gold cross necklace.

Even though Gillian could guess what was happening, the sight was gruesome at best, horrifyingly sick at worst.

"Laaady Soooophiiaaaaa," came the moan, only this time with a distinct Cockney accent.

Behind her, Gillian heard a thunk and a clear oath. Turning, she saw Lady Sophia prostrate on the floor in a dead faint. Stephen had only half caught her and was trapped beneath the woman as he tried to settle her gently on the floor.

Whipping around, she glared at the skeleton. "Thomas—" She paused when she realized she did not know his last name. "Tom, you get out here this second or I swear, I will have you tied to that corpse and left here to rot with it!"

Almost instantaneously, a dirty head popped up from behind the body. "I was only trying to give her geegaw back." He grinned.

"I thought you were dying!"

"Naw! I was just taking a little nap when wot do I see but this 'ere corpse filching Laidy Sophia's geegaw." He neatly lifted the cross off the skeleton's finger and spun it around in the air.

Just to her left, Lord Tallis began choking. She might have been alarmed if the sound had not quickly descended into a hiccup that grew into a belly laugh that had him leaning against the wall to keep from falling over.

"By God." He gasped. "That is the best laugh I have had in years. Laaady Soooophiiaaaaa!" he mimicked, his Cockney accent overly thick.

Gillian stared at him, and slowly she felt a smile tease at the corners of her mouth. Truly it was rather funny, now that she thought about it.

"Really, my lords!" exclaimed the cleric, his balding pate a beacon in the gloom. "I must protest such disgraceful behavior!" He practically quivered in outrage, looking so much like an orange jelly dessert Gillian began giggling in earnest.

It was then she chanced to see Stephen's face, and her delight faded like the morning mist. Her guardian was definitely not amused. In fact, he appeared furious. She could see it in the hard blue chips of his eyes and the angry clench of his jaw. Then he spoke, his words soft and low, but with the bite of steel.

"I quite agree, Reverend. I assure you the culprits will be punished. Severely." He focused his blue stare right on her, and Gillian felt herself wilt inside.

"Oh, nonsense, Mavenford," answered Tallis, stepping forward. "Sophia faints all the time. Most wilting female I have ever known."

Not for one second did Stephen shift his angry glare from Gillian. "Your sister's delicate sensibilities are to her credit. I could only wish others were so refined."

Gillian swallowed, feeling her stomach clench in anger. She had never told Tom to pull this silly prank. In fact, she had told him specifically not to, but it seemed her guardian had decided to lay everyone's sins at her door.

Well, if that was the way he saw it, then so be it. She lifted her chin and fixed him with a heated stare. "It is lucky for you I am not nearly so refined." She nearly spat out the word. "Otherwise you would have two delicate females to lug up the stairs. Fortunately I have enough intelligence to leave my sensibilities at the door when entering a place like this."

Then she spun away, torch held high as she stomped up the stairs.

* * *

"I have never been so embarrassed in my life! To think my ward would behave with such reckless abandon. It was irresponsible, reprehensible, appalling—"

"Have you sacked Tom?"

Stephen felt his words dam up in his throat as he stared at his unfathomable ward. They were in his library, where once again he attempted to instruct her on appropriate ladylike behavior. And once again his words seemed to have no effect whatsoever.

"I believe, Amanda, we were speaking of you."

She sighed and waved away his lecture as though it were nothing more than an irritating fly. "Yes, yes, I am a disgrace to the Mavenford name, a reckless hoyden, a countrified chit, and all that." He turned quickly, catching the overtones of his mother's harangues in her words, but she pushed on, not allowing him the luxury of questioning her further. "But the question is, my lord, what have you done to Tom?"

He remained silent for a moment, watching her anxious face. The truth was, he had not decided what to do with the boy. "He has not been dismissed. I have yet to discover how much of this latest debacle was his idea."

Amanda lifted her chin, her expression completely blank. "None of it. It was all my idea."

Stephen watched her closely, amazed at how easily she lied. It had been obvious she was surprised in the crypt. How far would she go, he wondered, in her defense of one mischievous street urchin?

He stepped forward, forcing her to tilt her head backward to look at him. "You planned the whole thing? From beginning to end."

"That is correct."

"Why?"

She did not even pause. "To get even with Lady Sophia for spoiling our trip."

"I see. You must know that if that is true, I will send you straight back to York on the next coach. I cannot sponsor such a spiteful woman into polite society." As expected, Amanda paled, swallowing nervously while her hands clenched in her lap. He leaned against his desk. "Care to rethink your answer?" he asked.

Much to his surprise, she shook her head, her eyes wide with apprehension. "No," she said softly. "No, it was all my idea, and I am sorry."

Stephen shifted his weight against the desk, stalling for time as he tried to puzzle out a woman who thought more of a street boy than her own Season. She was a piss-poor liar, he thought, although not in the usual way. It was as though she shut down emotionally, boxed up her feelings when she lied, and suddenly he wanted to push her out of her self-sacrificing complacency, forcing her to confront him with her usual frankness.

He looked up, needing to watch her face as he caught her in her lie. "And when you screeched at him, saying you thought he was hurt, that was your idea too?"

She nodded as she spoke, but her voice remained bland, almost empty. "Most definitely. It was... part of the plan. To make it seem more authentic."

"I see."

Finally he saw a change in her expression. She looked up at him, her huge eyes imploring. "Please, my lord. Will you keep Tom on? Truly, he is a good boy. And... and he did it only as a favor to me."

Aha, he thought with an inner smile. Now they were getting somewhere. "What favor was that, Amanda? Perhaps to see Lady Sophia drop like a sack of meal to the dirty floor? Or to humiliate me before members of the ton?"

"Oh, no." She gasped. "I would never embarrass you."

"But you seem to do it with increasing regularity."

She frowned, finally throwing away her earlier bland exterior. "Well, it was her own fault, you know. She should not have gone down there in the first place. She only went so she could make sheep eyes at you."

He stood up from the desk, needing to pace off some energy. "Her motives for going are none of your affair."

"Of course they are when they spoil my outing!" She jumped up from her chair, standing with her hands clenched right in front of his desk. "If your mother wants to marry you off to some fashionable princess with more style than sense, let her do it at a ball and not on my one trip out of this house!"

He stared at her, finally understanding where all her anger came from. In truth, he had felt much the same way when he first saw the immaculate Lady Sophia and her brother gracefully wending their way down the line of pews. How could he blame her for wanting to tweak the interlopers just the tiniest bit?

"Still, that is no excuse for frightening the woman into a faint." He spoke with less heat than before, sounding more grumpy than angry.

She blinked at him, clearly startled. Her green eyes grew lighter as she widened them in what he hoped was sincere understanding of her crimes.

"You are not sending me home!" she said, breaking into a grin. "You are not angry anymore, and you will let me stay."

"I most certainly will not!" he exploded, even though he never had any intention of sending her back to York.

"You are! I can tell!"

"Do not be ridiculous." He resumed pacing, furious with himself for becoming trapped in this foolish situation.

"Admit it. Inside, you thought it was just as funny as I did."

He stiffened. "I most certainly did not. It was disrespectful, spiteful, and downright mean."

"It was a boyish prank in terrible taste." Except for her smile, he might have thought she agreed with him.

"It was a good deal worse than bad taste." He rounded on her. "Do you know I had to give the cleric ten guineas just to soothe him about his poor disturbed brother? That was a priest, you know, whose bones Tom so cavalierly manhandled."

"Nonsense!" she quipped, her smile widening into a grin. "I am quite sure there was nothing cavalier about it. Actually, it was a most well thought-out plan, do you not think? Not only did he have to steal Lady Sophia's necklace, but he had to crawl into the burial spot and wait the longest time. And his moan was quite good, too. If it were not for the Cockney, I am sure I would have thought him an evil spirit—"

"Do not try to distract me, brat!" he sputtered, more appalled at the tickle of humor she sparked within him than by anything Tom did.

"I am not distracting you." She blinked at him. "I merely point out that although Tom should be severely reprimanded for his prank, he should not be sacked."

Stephen folded his arms across his chest and tried to look stern. "And why not?"

"Well," she began, her expression serene as she ticked off her reasons. "This was actually sort of a holiday for him. And since it was his holiday, he is not answerable to you for how he spends his time."