The School of Charm: Books 1-5

by Maggie Dallen

  While Miss Grayson and the other tutors at this school had helped her refine her skills, she was still a failure when it came to music.

  To Addie’s point, her great aunt expected Prudence to be perfect. And while that might seem unfair to Addie and the others, it was the way she’d been raised.

  Her every decision and choice were with the one aim of becoming the perfect wife for the eldest Mr. Benedict, the son of a wealthy merchant who her great aunt had forged an understanding with when she was only a child.

  It might not have been such a fine match as Louisa had made, or Addie, or even Delilah, but it was a good match, considering that her parents had been a disgrace amongst the ton. Her great aunt might have been a dowager duchess, but Prudence was her youngest sister’s youngest daughter’s only daughter.

  The only reason she had any prospects at all was due to her great aunt’s sense of obligation. She ought to be grateful that her aunt had found her a marriage prospect at all.

  She had not yet had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Benedict’s acquaintance, but her aunt assured her he was the perfect match, and for him she was to be perfect as well. Anything less would be disrespectful to the arrangement.

  Oh, it was not a formal arrangement, but everyone knew it would come to pass. Just as soon as she overcame her last fault. Her fatal flaw.

  Her eyes narrowed as she shoved the bag of sweets out of sight to avoid further temptation.

  Silly music. She despised the topic. Hated balls for the mere fact that they almost always included it—dancing would be rather difficult without it, she supposed.

  And yet, she still resented it. She resented even more those people for whom it came so easily. Which, right now, seemed to include every other person in this room.

  “In all seriousness, though, Pru…” Louisa interrupted her rapidly rising frustration. “Your aunt really should not talk about you like that. As though you’re just some…some—”

  Prudence snapped the trunk shut with a loud click to cut off Louisa’s statement. She did not wish to hear how it would end.

  It was bad enough that her friends had overheard that dreadful, humiliating lecture on Prudence’s stubborn flaws and Miss Grayson’s inability to fix them. But to see Louisa, of all people, feeling sorry for her...

  It was too much.

  “That is enough,” she said, her chin held high as she turned to face her irritating but well-intentioned friends. “We should not have been eavesdropping in the first place.”

  To a one, her friends’ expressions fell. The camaraderie of the moment seemed to shift as she spoke. She could see them going on the defensive, as they always did when she became “unbearably sanctimonious” or “a self-righteous know-it-all,” as Louisa put it.

  She tilted her chin higher, some of her hurt emotions fading behind the familiar mask of indifference. “It’s my own fault for listening in on a conversation that was not meant for my ears.”

  “But—”

  “We should never have eavesdropped,” she said again, firmer this time to override Addie’s protest. “I should never have let you talk me into it.”

  This last part was aimed at Louisa directly, and her friend flinched. “I didn’t force you,” she muttered, but her gaze fell with a guilty look.

  “Now then,” Prudence said with a calm she did not feel. “If you’ll excuse me. I must finish packing if I am to leave for my aunt’s home in the morning.”

  The carriage ride was both a blessing and curse.

  It was with relief that Prudence lost herself to the rhythmic clopping of the horses’ hooves as the school and London were left behind her.

  She’d never been fond of farewells. Or the emotions that tended to come with them. So it was a relief to have that behind her. The ache she felt would fade, of that she was certain.

  She’d learned from experience that the pain of loss and leaving was short-lived. One merely had to bear with it for a while.

  She dug into her reticule and pulled out one of the last of her sweets. Experience had also taught her that sweets helped to ease any pain.

  “Put that away, girl. We have enough to overcome before Mr. Benedict arrives without adding your excessive weight to the mix.”

  Prudence dropped the treat quickly, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. While she’d never been as svelte as her friends at the finishing school, she’d never felt so very overweight as she did at this precise moment with her stick-thin elderly aunt eyeing her like she was an eyesore who ought not to be admitted into good company.

  She folded her hands in her lap, focusing on the view outside the carriage rather than the blow to her pride. It wasn’t until she’d watched trees whip past her and her breathing evened that her great aunt’s words truly registered.

  When they did, they left her winded. “Mr. Benedict is coming to visit?”

  Her great aunt blinked at her from behind her spectacles as if eyeing something odious. “Of course. He and his uncle, Sir William. Why else do you think I came for you?”

  Why else, indeed? Surely not for the pleasure of my company.

  She sniffed, brushing aside the bitter thought.

  Sarcasm was a bad habit, not one to be indulged. It was merely hostility masquerading as humor. That was what Aunt Eleanor would say.

  And she was right.

  She was always right.

  Waiting until her features were composed and her posture perfect, she ventured once more into the treacherous topic of her would-be fiancé.

  The fact that the arrangement had yet to be finalized was still a sensitive topic.

  A topic that grew ever more sensitive with each passing year that their engagement was not announced and a wedding date not set.

  But then again, Mr. Benedict was a busy man. Her great aunt so often said so.

  An exacting man, from what she’d heard. To be honest, she did not know much about the man she was to wed except that her parents and his had once been friends.

  Though his parents had presumably stuck around to watch him grow up while hers had cast aside all parental obligations from the day she was born.

  They were too in love, you see.

  She fought the urge to roll her eyes at the phrase she’d overheard more times than she could count as an adolescent.

  Too in love. So very in love. Aren’t they so romantic?

  Oh yes. Her parents were so very romantic, the sort of love story that gossip mongers loved to whisper about and sigh over even as they condemned the lovers for their improper ways.

  A modern-day Romeo and Juliet except that they’d found their happily ever after and left their only child to deal with the ensuing tragedy.

  Prudence’s mother was supposed to marry another, and by casting aside the man she was meant to marry for the man she’d loved since she was a girl… Well, it was both objectionable and admired among the ladies of the ton.

  Or so she’d been told. From her great aunt’s perspective it was merely objectionable, and Prudence couldn’t help but agree.

  “It’s about time that boy makes this official,” her aunt muttered.

  Prudence looked up with a start. She’d hardly realized her aunt was still talking until she smacked her gloves against her palm in a sound that seemed to echo through the small carriage.

  “Pardon me?” Prudence said.

  “I will have a talk with him and his uncle when they arrive.” It seemed as though Prudence was no longer an active part of this conversation.

  Young ladies were to be seen and not heard, as her aunt liked to point out. That was always the case when she was speaking to Prudence.

  No responses were required or welcome unless they were specifically requested. So she listened quietly now as her great aunt spoke ad nauseum about the insulting way Mr. Benedict had procrastinated on setting a date or formalizing the engagement.

  “It’s unheard of,” Aunt Eleanor said. “It’s disrespectful.”

  No, just humiliating. At this point, it w
as merely humiliating. Eleanor had to realize what was happening here. Mr. Benedict and his family were waiting to see if a better offer came along.

  After all, this arrangement had been discussed when they were mere children and the friendship with her parents had been a solid, dependable thing.

  But now a decade had passed and her parents had as little regard for their friends as they had their daughter, allowing even their longest acquaintances to fall by the wayside as they galavanted around the world like gypsies.

  While Prudence’s dowry was ample and her connections better than most, she was hardly in a class of her own. There were any number of women who had more to recommend themselves and quite honestly Prudence thought Mr. Benedict would be foolish not to consider his options.

  A flurry of unease unfurled in her belly at the thought.

  It was not that she was so very set on this match. After all, she did not even know the man in question. But her aunt was set on it and that was what mattered.

  For, if this fell through…

  Well, it wasn’t as though there was a queue forming for unwanted, not terribly well connected, plain looking young ladies, now was there?

  She shifted as the unpleasant thought was followed by another even more unpleasant sensation.

  Fear.

  It was fear, plain and simple. All this time she’d taken Mr. Benedict’s procrastination as nothing more than a wealthy man’s whim. He was not in a rush to marry, so why rush the engagement?

  But now…

  If her great aunt was worried—and she clearly was—then perhaps she ought to be worried, as well.

  “I should never have sent you to that school,” her aunt continued. “Miss Grayson clearly allowed you to be as lazy as ever.”

  “She did not—” Her protest died in her throat under her great aunt’s withering glare.

  Her throat felt choked under the heat of it.

  She hadn’t been silly enough to defend herself—nothing she said or did would convince Aunt Eleanor that she was anything other than lazy, fat, and ungrateful. But she couldn’t sit by and let Miss Grayson be slandered.

  Miss Grayson, who’d been so kind to her. Even during those moments when the others merely tolerated her, Miss Grayson had treated her with love and kindness.

  Almost like a mother.

  The thought made her lips twitch upwards. Miss Grayson was not even a decade older than her and she had ten times more beauty than Prudence ever could. She hardly fit the role of her mother.

  An older sister, perhaps.

  Whatever her role, she ought not to have her name or her school in jeopardy merely because Prudence was a failure at music.

  “It wasn’t Miss Grayson’s fault that I haven’t mastered music, Aunt,” she forced herself to continue despite the wicked glare.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Prudence blinked in surprise at the cryptic comment. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I have taken it upon myself to find you a new tutor. One who has a great reputation for making young ladies such as yourself find the discipline necessary to mastering the pianoforte.”

  Prudence straightened with alarm. Images of harsh instructors from her past came back to haunt her as well as the sting of their ruler when she failed to perform without error.

  Which would it be? Or had her aunt found someone even more fearsome for her to learn from?

  The thought left her winded with a whole new terror that had nothing to do with the spinster life that loomed ahead of her and everything to do with torturous, painful lessons.

  “Lord Damian comes highly recommended.”

  “Damian?” she repeated without thinking.

  “Surely you remember the Marquess of Ainsley’s nephew. He’s made quite a name for himself as a music tutor among the ton.” Her eyes narrowed on Prudence with scorn. “He will whip you into shape or you and your hopes of marriage are as good as done for.”

  She blinked once. Then she blinked again. Shock didn’t begin to cover it. Amusement warred with disbelief which battled with incomprehension.

  Surely she wasn’t talking about the Lord Damian.

  That man wouldn’t know the word discipline if it slapped him across the knuckles.

  No, there was only one word that Prudence associated with Damian. And that word…?

  Rake.

  Chapter Two

  Prim, proper, and utterly impossible. Those were the words that came to mind when Damian tried to recall Miss Prudence.

  His lips curved into a sneer at the memory of her when they were young. All goody-two-shoes propriety, even as a child. He and his brother and the other neighboring children would be climbing trees and racing across the meadow or wading in the river, but Prudence?

  Oh no. She would never.

  He rolled his eyes, only dimly aware of his uncle’s voice intruding on his admittedly childish thoughts.

  He really ought to have overcome his dislike of the neighbor girl, and he might have if she hadn’t been the one to get him into trouble at every turn.

  A tattletale, through and through.

  Even now she was giving him grief and he hadn’t seen the girl in years.

  “Damian, are you listening?” His uncle’s brows were arched so high they nearly reached the older man’s thick dark hair, which these last few years had been showing signs of his age as gray edged his temples.

  “Er…” No. The answer was clearly no, he had not been listening.

  His uncle, the Marquess of Ainsley, sank back in his seat with a weary sigh that made him sound decades older than he was.

  Or perhaps that was Damian’s doing. He seemed to have a special knack for making his uncle sigh with weariness.

  “You cannot be serious with this music tutoring business,” his uncle said now.

  His uncle was a good man. A kind man. Gruff, no doubt, and filled with the sort of old-fashion ideals that made him and all the others of his ilk such a bore to be around. But a good man, nonetheless.

  “I am indeed, serious,” Damian said with a pleasantness he hadn’t quite felt since discovering who his new pupil would be.

  Prim and prudish Prudence.

  Insufferable little brat.

  But, money was money, and her great aunt’s money would spend just as well as any others, even if hers would be a good deal more loathsome to earn.

  Not that he would ever tell his uncle that.

  “Aren’t you at all concerned with your future? Your reputation?” His uncle’s thick brows were drawn together now in confusion and despair.

  “Ah yes, my reputation.” Damian smirked. “Perhaps someone ought to have thought about that before cutting me off.”

  Wrong thing to say.

  Some said the eyes were the window to the soul. For the marquess, the eyebrows were the window to his mood.

  When they drew down like this into a fierce glower, it was clear Damian had pushed too far.

  “Is that a threat?” his uncle growled. “Is this some sort of childish blackmail, a spoiled child’s idea of comeuppance, perhaps?”

  Damian shifted in his seat, discomfited by his uncle’s sharp tone. “No, of course not.”

  Not anymore, at least. It had started out that way. Hiring himself out as a music tutor had been a way to thumb his nose at his guardian out of frustration when his funds and life as he knew it had been shut off.

  After an admittedly debaucherous stint in London with his friends from school, his uncle had cut off all funds. Rather than tucking his tail between his legs and hurrying home with promises to curtail his revelry and live the life of a pious saint, he’d done the opposite. He’d gone off on his own, determined to make his own way. Tutoring young ladies in music had been a bit of a laugh at first.

  He and his chums at the club had joked about how the dimwitted members of society were inviting the rooster into the henhouse. Imagine, paying a gentleman like him to be alone in close quarters with their young and innocent darli
ngs.

  But then again, Damian had always excelled at selling himself. His one skill, apart from a knack for music, was to play the role that was expected of him. If an elderly lady in the countryside wanted an upright, studious disciplinarian to teach her great niece the pianoforte, then by golly, he would be the strictest, most serious music instructor the old bat had ever seen.

  His uncle sighed again, this time in defeat. “That is it, isn’t it. You are trying to make a fool of me.”

  “No, Uncle, I swear it.” He leaned forward so his uncle could see that he was in earnest. Damian might have been able to fool the world with his acting, but there was only one person on this earth who could see through all that, and that was the man who’d taken him in as a child and raised him as if he were his own son.

  “Uncle, I promise you, I am not trying to make a fool of you.” He cleared his throat. “You know I’ve always been grateful for everything you’ve done for me.”

  “Hmph.” Despite his huff, Uncle Edward seemed to lose some of his anger with that concession. “Then what do you mean to prove by—”

  “I mean to prove that I can make my own way.” The moment the disturbingly upstanding words were out of his mouth, Damian had the alarming realization that there was some truth there.

  Judging by his uncle’s wide-eyed stare, he’d come to the same conclusion. “So it means that much to you then?”

  “It does.”

  Even more alarming? That too was the truth. This whole endeavor had started as a joke. A prank, of sorts, at the very least. But then he’d found that, much to his dismay, he actually liked teaching music.

  It helped when the young ladies in question were beautiful, of course. It was very nearly a joy when the girl in question proved to be a flirt. But, above and beyond the divertisement of watching young ladies swoon when he performed for them, there was something else. Something he was loath to name.

  Something very similar to...pride.

  He shifted uncomfortably again, wishing he was anywhere but here. It was all fine and good to enjoy his new career. It was even better that he’d found some form of pride in what his peers would likely see as a humiliating downgrade in status.