The Duke's Night of Sin (9 page)

Miss Bonnet? Who is … oh dear.
“Um, may I see the letter of introduction?” Siusan reached up for it.

Mrs. Huddleston whisked it behind her back. “No you may not. This is a private correspondence between me and my cousin.” She turned and stalked toward the door, tossing glares back at Siusan.

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Huddleston.” Siusan gritted her teeth as she lowered her head obediently. “Of course, the letter is private.”

“Dinner is at six o’clock in the dining room.”
Without looking back, Mrs. Huddleston quit the room and slammed the plank door behind her.

Siusan buried her face in her hands. Oh, dear God. How would she ever survive here? She knew she couldn’t, and yet she must.

Pressing her hands together, she dropped to her knees and closed her eyes. “May God have mercy on my wicked soul—and send the Duke of Exeter far from London … with all expediency. Amen.”

Siusan had meant to arrive a few minutes early, but belatedly decided to spend a little extra time with her appearance. It would be her first introduction to the girls, and she wished to make a striking first impression. Donning her crimson gown, she pinned her hair with brilliants and fastened a small pearl necklace around her neck. She turned to leave but dashed back and snatched up the tiny mirror from the table and practiced a dignified smile to offer her students. Then, feeling prepared, she left the room and descended the stairs in search of the dining room.

Just as the clock struck the first bell of the hour,
Siusan found her way to the dining room. As she slid open the pocket door, she was completely taken aback. Unlike her stark bedchamber, the walls were covered with French patterned paper and the table was set with fine linen, crystal, and gleaming silver cutlery. On the sideboard sat several serving dishes filled with meat, potatoes, soup, and vegetables.

Two young women dressed in gray frocks and twelve girls sat around a long table lit with two large silver candelabra filled with a dozen tapers each. A dozen each—and yet
she
was expected to light her chamber with a stub. It was at that moment that she noticed that everyone in the dining room was staring at her.

Siusan smiled embarrassedly. “I apologize. I-I had not realized I was late.” She spied a single empty chair at the head of the table and hurried over to it. The girls sat silently, still peering expectantly at her. “Where is Mrs. Huddleston?” Siusan finally asked.

A small golden-locked girl, who sat next to her, replied. “Mrs. Huddleston never takes her meals with us. Only the mistresses do.” Her eyes were wide and wary. “Are you the new mistress?”

Siusan laughed and waved the comment away
as she settled her linen napkin in her lap. “Oh heaven forbid. I am Lady Siusan. And what is your name, lass?”

“Miss S-sarah Seton.”

“Well, Miss Seton, I am pleased to make your acquaintance.” She looked up from the girl, then swept the table with her gaze. “We shall learn about the rules of introduction on the morrow, which is most important, but tonight we shall just enjoy each other’s company.”

One of the young women at the far end of the table spoke. “I am Mistress Grassley. I fear I am somewhat confused, Lady Siusan. You are not a mistress, but … you are an instructor?”

“Aye, I am.” Siusan glanced about for a footman or maid to serve the dinner. The food was rapidly losing its heat just sitting on the sideboard as it was.

“Your gown …” A girl with auburn hair and a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks pointed at Siusan’s crimson evening gown. “It’s not gray.”

Siusan focused her eyes on the girl.

“My apologies, Lady Siusan. I am Miss Gemma Gentree.”

“You are correct, Miss Gentree.” Siusan looked
down at her dress. “It isn’t. I never wear gray, Miss Gemma. The color doesn’t flatter anyone.”

“All of the instructors wear gray,” Gemma muttered. Siusan noticed that this appeared to be true. The mistresses shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.

“Well, I do not.” Siusan turned to little Miss Seton beside her. “I see no footman. Is it customary to serve ourselves from the sideboard?”

“No, my lady,” the girl replied. She worked her throat and swallowed hard.
“You
are to serve, Lady Siusan. You … and the mistresses.”

Surprised, Siusan looked down the table at the other instructors. “Is this so?” They nodded.

“Well, this won’t do at all.” Siusan rose from the table, then circled around it, tapping four girls on their shoulders. “Please stand up, you four. Come along.”

The girls, looking rather nervous, rose from their chairs.

“Since I am here to teach you how to be a lady, we shall begin our first lesson. In a new household, it is often a sad truth that a lady must train her staff to meet her expectations. Tonight, you will each take turns serving the courses.”

The girls’ mouths fell agape. “But Lady Siusan, we never serve.”

“Do you know how dinner is served?”

“I do!” Miss Seton brightened immediately. “The mistresses put the food on our plates, and we eat it.”

Oh dear Lord.
“Allow me to rephrase my question. Does anyone know dinner should be served—properly?” Siusan looked around the table and at the four girls standing. None replied. “Then tonight you shall learn how it is done in Society.” Siusan returned to her chair. “Now then, we shall begin with filling the crystal.”

The mistresses lowered their heads and smiled demurely into their laps.

Siusan leaned back in her chair, feeling very pleased with herself, as the girls listened to her instruction and began filling the glasses like proper footmen.

“Most excellent, girls. How quickly you learn.” Siusan was actually quite proud of herself for having the task completed for her while teaching the girls how things were to be done in the dining room. The girls were quite proud of themselves as well, for they were actually beaming.

Maybe
working
for her bed and bread wouldn’t be so taxing after all. She seemed to have a real knack for it.

***

It was no use.

Sebastian had attended dinners, musicales, routs, balls until his face ached from the false smile he wore as an essential part of his evening attire. And though the weather had changed, and his breath floated in white puffs in the air, he strolled through Hyde Park and searched the paths of Vauxhall Gardens … hoping to catch a glimpse of
her.

But he never did.

He had encountered the Sinclairs on two instances. Three brothers and Lady Priscilla. Never was another added to their number, and so he allowed himself to believe what Lord Grant and Lady Priscilla had claimed—the rest of their siblings were not in London—and his lover in the library was not one of their noble number.

Reaching into his pocket, he fingered the stocking ribbon she’d left behind. Here, in the library. It was all he had to remind him that it had not been a dream. That she was real.

“There you are.” He looked up from his seat on the sofa to see his grandmother standing just inside the library door. In her shaking hand was a letter. “You must go for her.”

Sebastian hurried to his feet and went to her. “What is wrong? Is it Gemma?”

She nodded. “The other girls’ taunting has become unbearable. She admits to crying herself to sleep every night.”

“Certainly I will collect her if that is what you wish, but if Gemma is anything like her father, she is strong.”

“If teasing were my only concern, I would bite my tongue, but there is more … a new instructor. A woman filling her head with the nonsensical idea that she ought to set aside her arithmetic and literature for learning in favor of lessons in leisure.”

“I do not understand, Grandmother.” He took the letter from her hand and led her to sit down on the sofa.

“What use is learning to plan menus and how to greet royalty? She is a bastard. She will never marry beyond her lot in life. The best she can do for herself is to learn as much as possible—so that one day she might become a governess. It is the most we can hope for her.”

Sebastian nodded. As much as he wished it wasn’t true, the circumstances of her birth made it virtually impossible for her to marry into a genteel family. His grandmother was right. An education was vital to her future. “If this is true—”

“Read the letter!” Her voice became higher as she became more upset. She took his wrist in her frail hand and raised the letter before his eyes. “It is all here.”

Sebastian fixed his gaze to the inked words on the page. He read Gemma’s letter in its entirety, hoping that his grandmother was wrong. Needing for her to be in error.

But it was true. His ward—his niece—who loved nothing more than to read, was practicing promenading and curtsying instead of studying. She was focusing on trivialities instead of the proper education so essential to her future.

“Where is she?” He came to his feet. “I will go to this school and observe the situation. If this teacher is truly promoting leisure over education, I will take matters into my own hands and either remove her … or Gemma from the school immediately.”

His grandmother’s body instantly relaxed and she exhaled. “She is at Mrs. Huddleston’s School of Virtues in Bath.”

Sebastian started for the door. “I shall have my man pack this evening. I will leave on the morrow.”

After a full sennight in Bath, Siusan had very nearly grown accustomed to rising with the sun instead of at noon.

Bath was a health-focused town, and, from what she’d been able to glean from the
Bath Herald,
for indeed, Mrs. Huddleston had remained true to her word and locked the school promptly at nine in the evening, even the balls at the Bath Assembly Rooms concluded well before midnight.

Had someone suggested to her a month ago that she would be promenading through the Pump Room at nine in the morn, she would have accused him of being mad. Still, here she was and with no less than one dozen students, ranging in age from six to fifteen, and Miss Grassley, one of the teaching mistresses, trailing behind her.

Glory be, why hadn’t she seriously considered a lecture trip into Bath proper before? True, her first choice would have been an afternoon outing, but nine, it seemed, was the most fashionable hour to stroll through the Pump Room, tasting
the warm, foul-smelling mineral water, with all of Bath society.

Crowds of elegantly dressed people passed in and out of the grand room, some old and infirm, others in the bloom of youth, attended, breathlessly seeking out proper introductions to those of the opposite gender.

Her eyes began to tear at the sight. Finally, after so many days and nights of living in the school, teaching children and socializing with young women with whom she had nothing whatsoever in common, Siusan felt she had come home.

“Should we not sign the visitors’ book, Lady Siusan?” Miss Gentree, one of her older charges, suggested. Her green eyes glittered with excitement as her gaze fixed upon the large book set prominently upon a podium displaying the names of all who visited the establishment.

Siusan tensed. Aye, to do so was expected, but she was meant to be in hiding. Recording her name would be ill-advised. “We oughtn’t crowd about the visitors’ book. The eldest two students may sign.” A disappointed groan welled up from the rest of her charges, drawing attention from several well-dressed ladies and gentlemen standing nearby. “The rest of you will join me at the King’s Pump to sample the water.” This offering
was met with wrinkled noses and puckered mouths. “Now, now. A true lady takes the water to sustain her as she parades the room. Those who do not drain their cups falter and must soon sit down, wrinkling their gowns.”

The girls seemed to accept this explanation, which actually was true to some extent. Without a maid of any sort, Siusan would be required to iron the wrinkles from her own gown, and since she’d never attempted such a daring feat, she knew it was best simply to avoid sitting. After all, her frock was a walking gown and fashioned to look most fetching while moving. So promenade they would, but first, they would sample the water.

Siusan crossed the King’s Pump and pressed several shillings into the attendant’s hand. “Ladies, you may each come forward and collect a cup of water.” Her students, repelled by the strong sulfur odor coming from the pump, stood mulishly in a clump, ignoring Siusan’s instructions. She gave her satin reticule to one of the girls, and passed a cup of water to the girls standing nearest her.

Accepting a cup herself, she raised it to her mouth, sniffing it first to prepare her palate for the vile liquid to follow—a trick she’d learned from her sister Ivy to avoid retching when eating
Mrs. Wimpole’s cooking. And then, she forced the thick, salty water down her throat. Her stomach lurched as she returned her cup to the collecting tray.

“It smells of boiled egg,” Miss Sarah Seton said, louder than was necessary to be heard over the musicians playing in the gallery above. “Boiled rotten eggs!”

Siusan bent her knees slightly and counseled the child in a hushed tone. “A lady does not complain, she simply bites her tongue, does what she must, and remains visibly gracious.”

“Ouch!” Miss Sarah Seton clapped her hand over her mouth.

“Dear, I meant that figuratively.” Siusan straightened. “You do not need to actually bite your tongue.”

She retrieved her reticule and removed another coin for the pump attendant. Three pence for a cup of swill was ridiculous, but when she had requested the coin from the school treasury, Mrs. Huddleston had surprisingly approved the expense. It seemed more than one student’s parents had expressed their great pleasure at the change in their daughter’s training.

Siusan bounced her coin-heavy reticule in her
hand, and an idea, glittering with brilliance, lit her mind.

Why must she live like a prisoner when there are so many other training opportunities for her students in Bath. She fought to restrain an excited laugh. She had opportunities to live like a lady—financed in full by Mrs. Huddleston’s School of Virtues. Why, there were the theater, concerts, art exhibits, fine restaurants, shopping, and balls.