Miss Prescott let out the unfettered laugh of someone who’d never been coached by a society mother. “Forgive me, but didn’t you once say ‘where there’s a widow, there’s a way’? That implies a certain polished skill with women.”
He tensed. The idiotic comment he’d made to his friends while foxed had dogged him for years. How clever of her to use it to make him sound like a calculated seducer. Granted, he was no saint, but he wasn’t like his friend, the Marquess of Stoneville, bedding women just to prove he could. Perhaps she was more critical of his character than she let on. Perhaps she was like everyone else.
Deliberately, he let his gaze linger on her pretty mouth. “Touché. Although, for the sake of my pride, I hope you’ll admit that some of my talent with women comes from my natural charms.”
The chit didn’t so much as blush. “Certainly. If you will admit that some men are better at attracting a female and keeping her interest than others, regardless of looks. Just as some women are better at attracting men.”
She faced the wary Mrs. Harris. “Our young ladies know how to attract men. But if they could hear how men entice women—especially from a man who excels at it—they might learn to recognize when men who court them aren’t sincere.”
“Men like me, you mean,” he drawled, still unsure what to make of her. “Do you think me insincere?”
“Actually, my lord, you’re rather famous for shocking people with your honest and outrageous opinions.” She arched an eyebrow. “Though I suspect you’re more circumspect with women you wish to seduce.”
He stared at her. “That depends on the woman.”
“Exactly,” she said. “And that alone would be a good lesson for our girls—how a rakehell can tailor his seductions to particular women.”
His eyes narrowed. So that’s what she meant by rakehell lessons. But why press her employer for them? Just because of the few things he’d said about Tessa?
Shoving his hand in his pocket, he suddenly encountered the papier-mâché snuffbox his niece had “specially made” for her “favorite uncle.” It hadn’t occurred to her that he never took snuff, and he hadn’t enlightened her, especially after seeing the charmingly awful miniature of herself she’d painted on the lid.
She’d given it to him last Christmas, before Wallace’s untimely death. The last time they’d all been together. The last time he’d seen her smile.
He stiffened. Miss Prescott’s proposal might be odd and rather insulting, but he could put up with that if it saved Tessa from suffering.
“If his lordship were to give these lessons,” the prickly Mrs. Harris asked, “how would that prove his acceptability as a guardian?”
Good question. He glanced expectantly at Miss Prescott.
“Why, it will allow us to observe how he treats them. We’ll see firsthand if he can restrain his language around them and behave like a gentleman. We’ll see if he can be discreet, which seems to be your main concern.”
Mrs. Harris sighed. “While I admit that the idea has merit, Madeline, it also seems a little dangerous.”
For him, perhaps. Aside from wasting his time if nothing came of it, one of their silly girls could claim he’d made untoward advances. Marriage to a virginal chit scheming to become his viscountess wasn’t in his plans—especially since the ensuing scandal would scotch his chances of gaining guardianship of his niece.
“I will oversee the lessons myself,” Miss Prescott told her employer. “I’ll make sure his lordship adheres strictly to the rules of the school, and that—”
“Look here,” he broke in, “if I’m to make a fool out of myself before your young ladies, I’ll need more than some vague hope that you’ll agree to my niece’s enrollment. I daresay no other applicant has to go through such nonsense.”
“I turned away four wealthy young ladies last week, sir,” the headmistress said in a haughty voice. “As I told you, I have no openings available. To take your niece, I’d have to make room for her, no small feat during our busy Easter term. And we’ve just lost our cook—”
“I’m sure his lordship could help us find another.” Miss Prescott shot him a sidelong glance. “Just as I’m sure Mrs. Harris will promise to write a letter supporting your petition for guardianship if she’s pleased with your lessons.”
He fixed his gaze on Mrs. Harris. “Would you indeed make such a promise?”
“That depends. Miss Prescott assures me that your niece will be mistreated if put into her relations’ care. Do you honestly believe that?”
He nodded. “I’ve been sure of it ever since I watched my aunt bully the girl at my brother’s funeral to make her stop crying.” He’d hoped his aunt had softened with age, but her behavior to Tessa had dashed that hope. It reminded him too painfully of his own boyhood.
To his surprise, sympathy flashed over Mrs. Harris’s face. “Very well,” she said gruffly, “two weeks are left in this session, during which you will offer rake lessons for an hour a day under Miss Prescott’s supervision. If, at the end of that time, we are satisfied with your behavior, and you’ve managed to avoid being discussed in the newspapers for a change, I’ll enroll your niece for the Easter term and write a letter to the court supporting your petition. Are we agreed?”
He hesitated to put himself at the mercy of a woman whose high-minded notions reminded him of his detestable aunt, and he was wary of being under the “supervision” of a woman as difficult to read as Miss Prescott.
But if he told them to take their “rake lessons” and shove them into the nearest privy, Tessa would have no school. The courts would decide that she’d be better off spending her days in the home of a God-fearing couple than in the home of a profligate, and that would be the end to his being her guardian.
Tessa’s last letter had chilled him, since it had so obviously been coached by Aunt Eunice. Ever since the girl could hold a pen, she’d been writing him—he knew her style. It was not the style of that letter. And the fact that Aunt Eunice was overseeing her correspondence terrified him, for it made him wonder what his niece might have written otherwise.
How much worse would it be if Aunt Eunice gained free rein as Tessa’s legal guardian? What sort of horrors might the old bitch inflict if she could do so unchecked? He remembered the hours his cousin Jane had spent standing with her face to the wall just for smiling at a handsome boy. And that had been an easy punishment compared to—
He shuddered, absently rubbing the ridged scar across his wrist. He would do anything to keep Tessa from enduring what he and Jane had. And he could use a letter supporting his petition from a woman as upstanding as Mrs. Harris.
Forcing a smile, he thrust out his hand. “Agreed, madam.”
As Mrs. Harris shook it, the weight that had lain on his shoulders since his brother’s death settled more heavily upon him. Damn Wallace for dying, and laying this responsibility at his door. Damn the man!
Given his brother’s dim-wittedness, he’d probably set fire to the blasted inn himself with a cigar. And now Anthony, after years of fighting to ignore how the man drove the family estate into the ground, had to clean up the mess Wallace and his extravagant fool of a wife had left behind.
He ruthlessly squelched his twinge of guilt at the unkind thought. If Wallace hadn’t died, he would shoot the man himself. How dared the idiot not make sure that Tessa had a suitable guardian?
Well, the poor confused child would just have to be stuck with her rogue of an uncle until she could marry. Which meant he was stuck with the superior schoolteachers, for a while anyway.
And it would be a damned trying while, judging from the rules Mrs. Harris began dictating.
Rule One: He was to arrive by horseback, so as not to rouse gossip among the locals with his carriage.
Rule Two: He must enter the school through the same door the staff used.
Rule Three: He wasn’t to speak of this enterprise to anyone in society.
Speak of it—was she mad? If word got out that he’d agreed to teach
young ladies how to avoid seduction, he’d be the laughingstock of London.
“And you must never contrive to be alone with the girls,” Mrs. Harris said.
For God’s sake, this grew more ridiculous by the moment. “Must I? Such a pity. I’d hoped to work my way through them one at a time, sullying their virtue and ruining all their hopes for the future. Are you quite sure you won’t allow that?”
The startled look on Mrs. Harris’s face didn’t please him nearly as much as Miss Prescott’s smothered sputter of laughter.
“Lord Norcourt—” Mrs. Harris began in a warning tone.
“No being alone with the girls. I understand.” The wicked devil in him made him add, “What about being alone with the head of the school? Is that allowed? I could bring some champagne, a few strawberries—”
“Oh, Lord,” the widow said with a roll of her eyes. “Heaven help us, Madeline, he will have the girls falling in love with him before the week is out.”
“All the better to prove our lesson,” Miss Prescott retorted. “That a rakehell can be charming and still not mean a word of it.”
“Or that rakehells are more fun to be around,” he quipped.
That gained him a scowl from both women. He must stop letting his tongue run away with him. Provoking the pompous played well at the club with his friends, but not so well with schoolmistresses.
Mrs. Harris turned to Miss Prescott. “What are we to tell the parents about this? They won’t approve.”
“Why tell them anything?” Miss Prescott said. “We’re doing nothing wrong.”
“But the girls might mention it.”
“Yes, I suppose we must at least explain it to them.” The teacher tapped her chin. “We’ll say that Lord Norcourt’s niece will soon be attending the school, so he’s offering cautionary lessons as a courtesy. If his lessons don’t meet with your approval, we’ll simply claim he changed his mind about enrolling Miss Dalton. Either way, by the time the parents hear of it and protest—if they do—the matter will be resolved. It’s hardly enough time for anyone here to connect Lord Norcourt with the notorious Mr. Anthony Dalton.”
“You did,” he pointed out.
“Exactly,” Mrs. Harris said. “And the girl shares his surname, Madeline.”
“The parents send their children here precisely because our curriculum is unusual. If you explain that the lessons are supervised and appropriate to a young lady, I doubt they will care.” Miss Prescott slid her delicate hand in the crook of his arm. “Come, my lord, let me give you a tour of the school.”
“Certainly, Miss Prescott,” he said, wondering at her eagerness to hustle him from the office. “I’d be delighted.”
Mrs. Harris’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing as her protégé hurried him out, then walked briskly down the hall ahead of him in full expectation that he would follow.
And follow he did, though at a more leisurely pace to allow him a good look at her small but shapely bottom, made for cupping and fondling and squeezing. No doubt that would rouse a blush—
Stop that, you randy arse! he told himself. You can’t seduce Miss Prescott, not if you want Tessa to attend here.
Besides, naturalist or no, she was still a schoolteacher, which made her the marrying sort, not the take-a-tumble-with-a-rake sort. She was probably as virginal as a nun, too, which ruled her out entirely.
He’d never ruined a woman before and didn’t mean to start now. It was the surest way to end up trapped into wedding some virtuous female, which could only lead to disaster. Let other men hunt that elusive creature—the happy marriage. Although he occasionally allowed himself the sweet luxury of imagining himself in one, it could never happen. Men like him didn’t dare to marry.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy looking at the unattainable, and his practiced gaze drank in the pretty curve of Miss Prescott’s back, the small but obstinate shoulders, and the bouncing yellow curls.
As if she’d read his wicked mind, the young lady turned on him a good distance from the office. “See here, Lord Norcourt, if this is to work, you must be guided by my advice. When I tell you to wait for me, I have a reason.”
“To gossip about me with Mrs. Harris? I hardly think that helped my cause.”
“You’re certainly not helping it by saying outrageous things to her. With every rash remark, you make it more difficult to persuade her to keep you.”
“Keep me!” He eyed her askance. “You seem to have mistaken me for a lapdog, sweetheart.”
“I am not your sweetheart, drat it!” She cast a furtive glance toward Mrs. Harris’s office. “And that’s precisely the sort of rash remark I’m talking about. My employer is generally amiable, but men of your kind annoy her.”
“My ‘kind,’” he echoed.
“Rakehells. You know what I mean.”
“Forgive me, I’m still trying to imagine Mrs. Harris being ‘amiable.’”
With a sigh, Miss Prescott continued down the hall. “In her youth,” she explained as he kept pace with her, “she eloped with a dashing rogue who turned out to be a fortune hunter. Is it any wonder she dislikes that sort of man?”
“And how do you feel about rogues and rakehells, Miss Prescott?” he asked, watching to see her reaction.
“Having only met my first one today, I can hardly voice an opinion.”
“That doesn’t stop most people.”
“Most people have seen a rakehell in his natural habitat. I have not.”
“Natural habitat?” He laughed. “You are a lover of science.” Stepping in front of her, he blocked her path. “But I know you have an opinion. Everyone does. You won’t wound my feelings if you voice it.” Then he’d know where he stood with her.
A sigh escaped her lips. “Very well, then.”
Ah, now we get to the lecture.
“From what little I know, rakes seem a fascinating species, well deserving of study.” Sidling neatly past him, she continued down the hall.
He closed his slack jaw long enough to hurry after her. A “fascinating species”? “Deserving of study”? Was she serious?
Seconds later, they emerged into the foyer where he’d earlier been admitted. Sounds of girlish chatter cascaded down the impressive central staircase. The Elizabethan-era building had apparently been a private residence before being adapted for use as a school, and the high ceilings amplified the noise.
Miss Prescott halted outside a white door. “Why don’t I show you the dining room before the girls come down for afternoon tea?” She spoke as if she hadn’t just made the most bizarre pronouncement he’d ever heard. “Then we can tour the classrooms while the girls aren’t engaged in lessons.”
“All right.” He followed her into a spacious room with a mahogany dining table that easily seated twenty. “Tell me, Miss Prescott. Why in God’s name would you think rakehells deserve study?”
With a shrug, she strolled along the table, straightening chairs. “Because of your reckless way of life, I suppose. I want to understand how you can stomach it.”
“I want to understand why you think it reckless,” he countered, not sure if she was trying to insult him.
“Don’t you fight duels?”
Ah, that was the sort of thing she meant. “Absolutely not. You have to get up at dawn for those, you know.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t you race your phaeton?”
His smug smile faltered. “I don’t own a phaeton.” But he did race his curricle from time to time. No point in mentioning that.
“And I suppose you don’t drink strong spirits, either.”
“Well, yes, but—”
“It isn’t good for the constitution. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make generally healthy men suffer from headaches the morning after or cast up their accounts in the street. Surely you see that such reactions tax the body unduly.”
He held out his arms. “Do I look as if I’m teetering on the edge of death?”
Miss Prescott skimmed him with blatant nonchalan
ce. “Not now, but I daresay you look quite different the mornings after your carousing.”
“I can handle my liquor perfectly well,” he remarked, unaccountably peeved by her logical observation. “I certainly wouldn’t call my ‘carousing’ reckless.”
“Fine.” She strode off toward a door across the room. “Do you gamble?”
“Of course.” This had to be the oddest conversation he’d ever had with a woman.
“Surely you consider that reckless. Given the odds of winning versus losing, any good mathematician can tell you it’s rare for someone to increase their annual income by gambling. Yet rakes insist upon risking the loss of their property.”
“It isn’t a risk if you know the mathematical odds and play accordingly. The odds of winning at loo are about five to one. Of course, that depends on whether you’re playing three-or five-card loo, but when you factor in what trump the Eldest Hand plays to start, it can vary from five to one to ten to four. According to my calculations.”
Her look of shock rapidly changed to one of admiration, and that warmed him as no woman’s ever had. He’d always excelled at mathematics—that’s why he’d been able to supplement his small allowance so effectively with investments—but women weren’t usually impressed by a man’s skill with maths.
To have her look at him through new eyes full of interest roused his instincts. How easy it would be to step close and kiss that enticing, lushly proportioned mouth…
Now that would be reckless.
“The point is, Miss Prescott, I’m well aware of the odds, so I never risk more than I can afford.”
Setting her hand on the door handle, she frowned. “But why risk anything at all? You don’t have to gamble to enjoy playing cards.”
He laughed. “My fellow club members wouldn’t share your opinion, I assure you.”
A thundering noise overhead made her start. “The girls are coming. Quick, through here. We don’t want to be inundated by questions and curious glances.”
With a nod, he followed her into a ballroom. He paid no mind to the oak floors that stretched an impressive distance beneath a crystal chandelier or the rows of simple white chairs that flanked walls covered with elegant green fabric. He was much more interested in why Miss Prescott, with her apparent disapproval of reckless rakehells, had proposed that he give lessons to her charges.
Let Sleeping Rogues Lie Page 3
