The Improper Bride (Sisters of Scandal)

by Lily Maxton

A thrill of unease went through her as she recalled the saying about being careful what you wished for.

  Chapter Seven

  “No,” Henry said to his pupil dryly. “Do not ever let me hear that sound again, or I shall fling myself off a cliff.”

  “You said it sounded like a hard h,” Mrs. Davis responded, not even blinking at his dramatics. The woman was entirely too collected. He’d had to compare her to a bloody ape before she’d lost her composure. He could make most people lose their composure just by lifting an eyebrow at them. He wasn’t sure he liked feeling so ineffective.

  But he sat up straighter in bed, anyway, ridiculously alert. He hadn’t taken laudanum that day for the first time since he’d regained consciousness after the fire, and Mrs. Davis had opened the curtains when she’d come in, letting in brilliant sunlight that made the dust motes shimmer as they danced in the air. There were more dust motes than usual, as he hadn’t let anyone in to clean the room since the incident with Mary.

  He’d shied away from the sunlight at first, like some reclusive creature who’d been pulled from a cave, but he’d started slowly to adjust to it again. It was, he thought with some surprise, just as easy to acclimate to the light as to the dark. And he couldn’t very well teach Mrs. Davis in the dark, forcing her to squint at the words in her book by candlelight until her eyes grew red and tired. Such an arrangement wasn’t fitting for a pupil and tutor.

  And somehow, he’d begun to look forward to this. The why was not entirely clear to him. At first he’d thought his surgeon and his housekeeper were humoring him—keep the damaged man occupied so he feels useful, so he doesn’t fall into that cycle of impotence and outrage that he’d been straddling the edge of for days—and he’d hated the idea of Mrs. Davis humoring him. But then he’d begun to realize she wasn’t. Or at least not entirely. She truly wanted to learn. He remembered the way she’d spoken of the language—the awe in her voice, the regard. He hadn’t felt like that about anything in…well, had he ever truly felt like that? About anything at all? Perhaps as a child, but that was a lifetime ago.

  Reluctant interest had tugged at his chest when he’d witnessed her wistful expression.

  And her regard wasn’t even for one of the pretty languages that women were supposed to swoon over. But for German—a staccato tongue without the flowing grace of the Romance languages. Was it really possible to love something with such harsh edges?

  His gaze flickered over her. She was young. Far younger than most matronly housekeepers tended to be. Her eyes, when the light cut across them, were a clear, calm blue. She had an oval face, and lips that reminded him of the pink of a dusk rose, and her hair, which was always smooth and neat in a chignon, was a rich, deep brown that glinted with reddish strands. She wasn’t thin or delicate—she had a woman’s body—wide hips and full breasts—the kind of woman he imagined a farmer would look at and say, “Yes, she’ll bear me many fine sons,” if farmers did, indeed, say such things.

  She wasn’t beautiful or sensual like the mistresses he’d selected in London, but to his astonishment, he didn’t find her unattractive.

  Perhaps it had something to do with the bright spots in her cheeks and the glitter of her eyes when she insulted him, baldly and unapologetically. Had a part of his brain come unhinged when he’d been struck on the head? Insubordination from a servant had never made him feel quite so…alive…before.

  It was simply the newness of it that piqued his interest, he told himself. He’d become jaded over the years, and Mrs. Davis was something different. The novelty would go away within a few days, or a week at most, and he could go back to an orderly world where his housekeeper standing up to him would infuriate him and result in her immediate dismissal…not make him want to goad her even further just to see the fierce light in her eyes.

  “You sound like you are coughing up your lungs,” he drawled, doing his best to sound bored. It simply wouldn’t do to let her think he might actually enjoy teaching her. He was a marquess, for God’s sake, not some impoverished country tutor. “A softer hard h, if you please.”

  She lifted her gaze skyward. “A softer hard h,” she repeated. “That is so very helpful, Lord Riverton.”

  “Mrs. Davis,” he said. “If I had a switch I would rap your knuckles.”

  “Is that how tutors deal with unruly pupils?”

  “Yes. It’s quite an effective method.” He glanced at her pointedly.

  “Did you get rapped often when you were a boy?”

  “No.” He’d rarely been rapped on the knuckles because he’d rarely rebelled against his tutors. No matter how hard or stringent they’d been, they were his gateway to a world that was full of possibility, full of knowledge. “I was well-behaved.”

  “Were you?” She sounded a little surprised. “I would have guessed you a spoiled child.”

  “I was. But being spoiled doesn’t necessarily lead to being ill-behaved.” As a child, his whole world had been contained to his tutors, a sister he rarely saw, and parents he’d looked upon as the peasants in Greece or Rome had looked upon their gods—powerful, distant beings who bestowed gifts on a whim and whom he’d desperately wanted to please. No, he hadn’t been ill-behaved.

  “It tends to.”

  “I was an exception, then,” he said, not wanting to think about his childhood any longer. “I’m still waiting, Mrs. Davis.”

  She glanced down at the book and cleared her throat. “Ich…lese…ein buch.”

  “Why are you pausing?” he asked, annoyed by her hesitancy. “Speak with confidence.”

  “Ich lese ein buch,” she said, her voice stronger, smoother.

  He let the syllables wash over him. Hearing her speak the hard language in her feminine voice had a startling effect on him—the juxtaposition scratched over his senses like rough fabric over sensitive skin. Almost uncomfortable. Almost arousing. Damn—he wasn’t a prig about sexual matters, but even he thought it was a bit lecherous to feel a flash of arousal because his housekeeper had said “I’m reading a book” in German.

  “That was better,” he said smoothly. “At least, this time it didn’t make me shudder.”

  “Your encouragement is touching,” she said.

  He caught the dry note in her voice, the amused light in her eyes. He jolted, startled. She’d always seemed like such a humorless woman, but this was twice now he’d caught a glimpse of something that contradicted his long-held impressions.

  “What of you?” he asked, desperate to turn his attention away from this new, unwelcome awareness. “Did your governess ever rap you on the knuckles?” She’d been studying the book on her lap. At the question her head shot up, and he suddenly realized his faux pas. “But you probably didn’t have a governess, did you?”

  “My family made do, but on my father’s salary, with so many children, we couldn’t afford a governess. For a few years we had a maid of all work…until I was old enough to help my mother.”

  A part of him liked her directness, but another part of him recognized that a woman who spoke of financial matters so easily and who’d done the work of a maid in her youth was not a woman he should be conversing with. Still, he was curious. “Who saw to your education?”

  “My father. When he had the time. I learned in bits and pieces.”

  “You learned well, under the circumstances.”

  “He was a teacher at the village school,” she said. “He loved his work.”

  Henry didn’t know how anyone could love teaching at a village school, but he let the comment pass. She turned back to the book in her lap.

  In the next moment, he watched her, truly watched her—the way she bowed her head almost reverently over the volume and spread her fingers to touch the pages gently. The way her eyes lit up with passion and intelligence as she mouthed the words silently. His lungs seized at the unexpected loveliness of the vision she presented.

  But it was probably just a trick of the light.

  Yes, he thought with a sense of almost wild relie
f, that was much more plausible than his housekeeper, who wasn’t very beautiful, suddenly being lovely.

  His troubled thoughts scattered when he saw her shiver. She rubbed her arms surreptitiously and then went back to studying the book.

  “You’re cold,” he stated.

  “I…” She glanced up, frowning at him. “There’s no fire, my lord. Aren’t you chilled?”

  He was, but he would never admit it. That would make him look weak. He hated looking weak. So he was sitting in a cold room, acknowledging that he was freezing, but was too scared of what his reaction might be to light a fire. But now Mrs. Davis could be the weak one for him. He was rather sick of being cold…hopefully enough so that he wouldn’t start screaming like a bedlamite when a simple fire was set. He swallowed down his fears. “Ring for a maid to light it.”

  Mrs. Davis studied him. “The last time a maid tried to light the fire, you abused her.”

  “I did not abuse her,” he said. “It was an accident.”

  “You threw a book by accident?” she asked flatly.

  “I threw the book at the wall. She injured herself by accident, jerking away,” he corrected.

  This still didn’t appease his housekeeper. “I cannot ring for a maid knowing you might throw things to intimidate her. Whether you aim at the wall or her person is irrelevant.”

  He pursed his lips. Mrs. Davis had no right to question his command. And yet, he supposed she was only trying to look out for the other servants. Could he really fault her for that? He had behaved badly.

  He wondered what his childhood would have been like if he’d had a friend like her. Someone who protected others instinctually. Someone who was loyal. Because she would be loyal—he could sense that. If she gave her loyalty to someone, he wagered nothing and no one could break it.

  What would it be like to receive that kind of loyalty? How would feel to know there was someone in your life who would never, ever turn away from you?

  “I won’t throw anything,” he said finally. “Last time it hurt like the devil, even though I used my good arm.”

  “I’m so glad you’re remorseful,” she said, and he covered his sudden smile behind his hand.

  He’d never noticed her eyes were the color of the purest patch of sky when the sunlight illuminated them.

  He lowered his hand back down to the mattress, annoyed he’d noticed the color of her eyes at all. Servants were not meant to be noticed. Servants were servants. He’d never deliberately mistreated them, but he’d never given them much thought, either.

  “Just ring for the henwit,” he clipped out.

  A minute later, a scratch sounded at the door, and a maid with blond hair and wary eyes stepped in at his command. She bobbed into a curtsey. “My lord.”

  “Light the fire.”

  Her eyes widened slightly, showing white, but she swallowed and went to the fireplace. He watched as she took the tinderbox from the mantel and knelt down, taking out the flint and managing to create a spark after a few fumbling tries.

  He breathed deeply as the coals caught, but he’d been worried for nothing. The fire was small, manageable, nothing like the one that had raged out of control and had nearly taken his life. It was like someone who was afraid of the ocean stepping into a puddle. Nothing that couldn’t be shaken off.

  The maid straightened, clearly relieved that he hadn’t flung anything at her. She glanced at Mrs. Davis, who was sitting with her head bowed, calmly reading, and then back at him, a puzzled notch between her eyebrows.

  Ah. Now there would be gossip. He didn’t particularly like the idea of being connected to a servant, even in gossip. How would Mrs. Davis feel about their names being bandied about together? He was, shockingly enough, bothered by the idea that she might be bothered.

  “Is there anything else, my lord?” the maid asked.

  “No,” he said. “Go away.”

  When he turned his attention back to his housekeeper, she was frowning at him.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “That wasn’t very polite,” she said.

  “What wasn’t?” he asked, baffled.

  “You didn’t even thank her, you just told her to go away.”

  He frowned. “Why should I thank her? She was doing her job.”

  Mrs. Davis’s mouth tightened and she looked down at her book.

  “Look at me,” he commanded.

  She did. “Yes, my lord.”

  Annoyance shot through him at that bland, deferential tone. Which, he realized, was the tone she’d always used with him before…before he’d insulted her and awakened her dormant temper. He should have been glad to have his obedient housekeeper back. He should have been overjoyed.

  He wasn’t. He wasn’t glad, at all.

  “I’ve upset you,” he said.

  “No, my lord.”

  “I have,” he insisted.

  “No, my lord.”

  His hand curled into a fist. Frustration burned in his chest. “Do you want to be sacked?” he threatened.

  “Why would you sack me? I’m simply answering your question.”

  “No, you’re not. I want to know what you are thinking.”

  “Why, my lord? I’m just a servant. You don’t care what I’m thinking.”

  She was right. He shouldn’t care. But he did. More than he would have thought possible. Damned inconvenient. “Humor me,” he growled.

  “Do you know her name?”

  “She’s a housemaid,” he said incredulously.

  Mrs. Davis looked away from him and toward the window with an air of disappointment. “Do you know my name?”

  “Obviously I know your name, Mrs. Davis.” He couldn’t quite keep the aggravation from his tone. What right did she have to be disappointed in him, and for something so trivial?

  “My first name.”

  He leaned back against the headboard, utterly confused. It didn’t matter if he knew her first name. He had a first name, too, which was never used by anyone, even his family, but he didn’t get upset about it. She probably didn’t know his first name, either, but he wasn’t going to fault her for that.

  “Well,” he said, “I know it’s long and starts with a C.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Caroline? No, that doesn’t sound right.” He tapped his finger against his chin, pretending to think. “Catherine. Your pet name is Cat?”

  Her nose wrinkled in as disdainful an expression as he’d ever seen from her. He nearly laughed.

  “No, it’s something more exotic, isn’t it? From Shakespeare, perhaps? Cressida? Cordelia?”

  “Why don’t we just forget that I mentioned it,” she said, standing.

  “You are leaving?” he asked, pushing down a surge of displeasure. It was good that she was leaving. He’d become too interested in this conversation. He’d agreed to be her tutor, not indulge in pointless diversions.

  “An hour has passed,” she replied.

  He glanced at the mantel clock, not quite believing her. But an hour had indeed passed. It seemed more like ten minutes. “Very well,” he said. “I will expect you at the same time tomorrow. Don’t be late.”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “Am I ever late, my lord?”

  No, the woman was as punctual as she was collected. Something about her just made him want to ruffle her. An image flashed—of his hands, plucking out each pin of her carefully ordered chignon, until that gleaming mass of chestnut fell around his hands like silk. He imagined pressing it to his lips. Running his hands through the tendrils until they were a disordered mess. She had long hair…long enough to graze the tips of her breasts when she was nude.

  His groin tightened.

  As she gathered her books, he banished the unwanted image. Even if, in a moment of madness, he was tempted to dally with a servant, why would a healthy, whole woman want to bed a man with ugly burn scars?

  “Tomorrow,” she said. “At exactly 11 o’clock.”

  Her smile cut through his thoughts.
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  “Cassandra,” he said before she turned away, enjoying the way the name whispered sensually against his tongue, the hissing S’s and the strong consonants and the lilting vowels. “You should practice on your own, at least half an hour, in the evenings.”

  “I—” She stopped and blinked. “Did you just call me Cassandra?”

  “That is your name, is it not?” he said smugly.

  She didn’t speak for nearly ten seconds, then said, “You are very trying, my lord.”

  But it was difficult to take offense, because she was biting her lower lip, failing to fight back a smile. He was glad he’d remembered her name. He’d only been told it once, when he interviewed her for the housekeeper position. At the time, he’d thought Cassandra was rather too exotic a name for the staid Englishwoman he’d interviewed, and that was the only reason he’d remembered.

  Now, though, the name didn’t seem quite so unfitting. If she weren’t his housekeeper… But she was.

  Almost a pity, that.

  Chapter Eight

  Cassandra was in the storeroom a few days later, putting away some spices she’d bought in the village, when Kitty stopped to ask for soap and starch for the maid’s clothes. As she took the supplies from the shelves, keys jingling from her hip, she remembered the way Kitty had glanced between her and Lord Riverton that morning, as if the girl believed something not entirely innocent was going on between them. It was so far from the truth it was laughable.

  Cassandra expected Kitty to leave once she had what she’d asked for. But Kitty didn’t leave. Instead, she hovered in the doorway.

  Cassandra sighed inwardly. “What is it?”

  “Nothing, ma’am.”

  “Kitty?” she said, a warning note in her voice.

  “Lord Riverton isn’t…” Kitty lowered her voice. “He isn’t forcing his attentions on you, is he?”

  Good lord. “He is not forcing his attentions on me!” Cassandra exclaimed, causing Kitty to look around guiltily. “And don’t you dare say anything of the sort to anyone else.”

  “What were you doing in his bedchamber, then?”

  Cassandra pressed her fingers to her temple. “Mr. Faulkner has ordered me to keep Lord Riverton occupied, for his emotional health.”