The Spinster's Guide to Scandalous Behavior

by Jennifer McQuiston

  “Mrs. Wilkins likes a bit of gossip, hmmm?” Thomas interrupted. In fact, most of the townspeople who lived in Lizard Bay did. “You shouldn’t pay her any mind.”

  The wind chose that moment to rear up, an eerie, howling sound that whistled through the nearby rocks. The boy jumped like something flushed from the heather. “C-Can I go now?” Danny stammered. “This place gives me the woolies.”

  Thomas cocked an ear toward the edge of the cliff. Woolies was a rather unscientific term, but he supposed he could understand the sentiment, given that the hairs on his own neck had pricked to attention. With Miss E’s permission, he’d spent many an hour here, hiking the moors above the cottage, exploring the cliff walls, noting the area’s unusual geography and studying the plant life. In all those hours of introspective study, he’d never before paid the sound of the wind much mind. But then, he didn’t believe in ghosts.

  Not unless they were of the living variety.

  “It’s just a natural scientific phenomenon,” he explained to the boy. “I suspect the sound is produced by the shape of the cliff face and the updraft from the ocean.”

  Danny gaped at him, his mouth wide enough to catch flies. “Phenom-what?”

  “The wind.” Thomas pulled a hand through his hair. How did one explain such things to an uneducated eight-year-old? “It’s just the sound of the wind.”

  “Gor. You know a lot of big words, Lord Branston.”

  “So would you if you would apply yourself more diligently to your studies.”

  “Dili-gent?” the boy mouthed uncertainly.

  “It means to work hard.”

  Danny’s lower lip protruded in a definite pout. “I don’t need to study hard. Who needs books and numbers, anyway? I’m going to be a fisherman, like my da was.”

  Thomas shook his head, feeling bad for the boy. It had been less than a year since Danny’s father died at sea, and he supposed that wound was still raw. But if the boy thought he had a fisherman’s future in Lizard Bay, he was sorely mistaken. “Danny, we’ve been through this. I am willing to pay for you and your brothers to go to university when you are older, but you must study hard now in order to qualify. I would encourage you to think beyond fishing. What if you had a chance to become a barrister? Or a doctor?”

  “Barri-what?” came the boy’s mumbled response.

  Thomas hesitated, knowing his words probably sounded hollow, given that he himself provided no useful contribution to the world at large. Who was he to give such advice to a boy of eight? He had gone to university because he’d wanted to, not because he had to. After all, he’d become a marquess at the age of eleven, and acquiring a higher education wasn’t a prerequisite for the job. Moreover, looking back, it had been a supremely selfish decision. He’d left his sister behind, alone and unprotected.

  And when he finally came of age, it turned out that a knowledge of botany and geology had not in any way prepared him for the dissolute life of a peer. He’d have done better studying probabilities at the hazard table, or fermentation and distillation techniques.

  Danny took a decided step toward the path that would carry him back down to town. “Well, I still say I want to be a fisherman.” He jumped as the eerie sound echoed again up from the cliff face. The boy’s face turned white. “It’s her gh-ghost,” he stammered, “not the wind!” And with that, he turned and sprinted back toward the safety of town.

  Thomas watched the back of the boy’s head disappear through the break in the rocks. Part of him wanted to follow. Leave the cottage to the feisty Miss Westmore and be done with it. That would certainly be the easiest path, and Lord knew he’d already dealt with enough family drama in his lifetime.

  But he’d already run away from too many difficult decisions in his life, and he supposed he owed it to Miss E’s memory to safeguard the land she had loved.

  As he turned back and looked out over the moors stretching up above the cottage, he thought of all that the property held, and all that might be lost if he let it go. The repairs to the structure aside, the real value of the property lay beneath its soil, not within its walls. He couldn’t believe Miss E had meant to endanger it by leaving it to neglectful relatives, but then, she’d grown a bit senile in her later years. He’d thrown himself into procuring it for honorable reasons, and he was loath to let it go so easily, now that the seeds to save it had been planted. Worse, the most damning line from Miss Westmore’s tersely worded letter kept swimming through his head.

  If I decide to sell it, you can be sure it will not be for so paltry a price.

  She had all but threatened to sell the property to the highest bidder. That meant if he wanted to save Heathmore from those who would exploit it, he was going to need to take the negotiations to London. And so Thomas trudged back to the cottage to call off the roofers, already mentally calculating his route to London, dreading every agonizing mile.

  God, he hated London. Was there a hope in hell he could manage this trip without falling apart? Thanks, in part, to Miss E’s insistence on temperance, he felt more in control of his life now. More capable of resisting the bottle, at any rate. But he knew he was untested in his current state. There was little enough by way of temptation here in Cornwall.

  London, however, was a different beast entirely.

  Perhaps he’d spent too long avoiding this decision, too long trying to convince himself of all the reasons why he shouldn’t set foot in the city. It had been three years, after all. Three years since he’d fled his sister’s funeral and his fiancée’s betrayal, heartsick and confused and more than a little inebriated. He knew he had changed, largely for the better.

  But had London changed?

  Had she?

  Heaven help them all, he was about to find out.

  From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore

  January 20, 1813

  Today, Father called in our family doctor. After questioning me at length and completing a cursory examination, Dr. Bashings withdrew from the room to confer with my father for a good half hour, their voices hushed and urgent. When I pressed my ear to the door, I caught only one word, but it was more than enough.

  Bedlam.

  That most terrifying of threats, the asylum where the ton disposes of their unwanted women. But would Father really do it? I know I am too outspoken for my own good. According to my father, it is one of my most significant flaws. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have rapped Dr. Bashings on the head and told him to mind his own bellows when he asked about my menstrual cycle, but honestly, I can’t see what one has to do with the other. For now I’m to be given a prescription, some vile-tasting powder that is to be mixed with my milk at night.

  Apparently my humors run too hot for Dr. Bashing’s comfort.

  Well, they are certainly running hot now.

  I may not be a pliable sort of young miss, but I refuse to be a drugged one.

  Chapter 4

  “The post has arrived, Miss Lucy.”

  Lucy looked up, immediately on guard. Ever since penning her letter to Lord Branston, she’d felt on edge whenever Wilson brought the post. Something told her the man who wanted Heathmore Cottage would not be so easily put off.

  But why was Wilson smiling?

  “Am I to presume a letter has come from Geoffrey, then?” she asked warily, closing her aunt’s diary and tucking it into the pocket of her day dress.

  “Yes, your brother is proving remarkably dedicated to his correspondence these past few months.” His bushy brows rose in amusement. “Shall I fetch your gloves?”

  Lucy picked up Geoffrey’s latest letter by one corner, sniffing it suspiciously. “No, I am sure that won’t be necessary. He never pulls the same prank twice.” Although repeating the mischief when someone didn’t expect it would be a prank in and of itself, wouldn’t it?

  Geoffrey was famous for such things.

  Or rather, he was infamous.

  Last month, he’d sent her a letter whose pages had been soaked in the juice of hot pepp
ers. After she accidentally touched her face, her eyes had watered for hours. Last week he’d sent a letter containing a sachet of ink cleverly hidden behind the wax seal. When she opened it, the ink had gotten all over her hands and ruined one of her favorite dresses.

  Who knew what horrors this one contained?

  “I’ll just let you open this one.” Lydia giggled from the sofa where she was bent over her embroidery. “Read it out loud, if you would.”

  “Coward,” Lucy laughed, though she could understand the need for caution. She carefully slid a fingernail beneath the wax seal, half expecting the thing to burst into flames. She’d never admit it out loud, but it felt good to have Geoffrey prank them by letter. He’d escaped to university this past autumn—ostensibly to further his education, though she suspected he did so primarily to extend his career as a professional trickster.

  She missed him more than she’d thought she would.

  She looked up from her careful task to find Wilson peering down. She smiled, knowing the servant missed Geoffrey every bit as much as she did. “Don’t you have something to polish?” she asked, though her words held no heat. She did so enjoy catching Wilson engaging in poor manners, given that the reverse was so frequently true.

  “Only you, Miss Lucy.” He gave her a freshly forged frown. “Only you.”

  As he puttered away to wherever Wilson went when he wasn’t harassing her, Lucy leaned back into the chair to read the letter in peace. Geoffrey’s handwriting was a tight, familiar scrawl, but the paper itself looked as though it had been written out of doors, with noticeable grass stains along the edges. Probably on the cricket field, if she knew her brother.

  She felt a frisson of irritation to see the evidence of his carefree leisure, given that she was being cloistered indoors due to her mother’s fears that the spring sunshine would ruin her complexion ahead of next week’s come-out. God, she’d give anything to climb a tree the way she used to. She’d even do it quietly and demurely if she had to.

  But that would no doubt ruin her carefully buffed fingernails, bugger it all.

  Dear Lucy,

  Father wrote to me to say Aunt E has left you a rat-infested house in Cornwall. What jolly good luck! I always thought she was a bit mad, but this surely confirms it. Father asked me what I think about your insistence on keeping it, and I had to laugh. Perhaps it might help those poor marriage-minded fools take notice of you this year.

  You could be known as the Rat Lady from Lizard Bay. Why, they’ll be lining up for a chance with an heiress like that!

  In all seriousness, I wish you good luck in the coming Season.

  You are definitely going to need it.

  Yrs with affection,

  Geoffrey

  “What has he done this time?” Lydia asked, her head still bent over her embroidery. “You’ve gone very quiet.”

  Lucy folded the letter, suddenly less enthusiastic about reading it out loud. There was no obvious prank to impart—it seemed an ordinary enough letter. She couldn’t fault him for ribbing her about the coming Season, given that such teasing was part of his dubious charm.

  Geoffrey knew she was dreading the coming drama, with its scratchy ball gowns and interminable waltzes. Knew she hated the idea of the fumbling, eager gentlemen—men so desperate to have her dowry they were even willing to pay court to the awkward, mannish, plain Westmore daughter. He must know, too, that she didn’t want to marry. She had been outspoken enough on her views of marriage and such through the years.

  But the mention of Heathmore Cottage—and the fact her father had asked Geoffrey for his opinion on the matter—stung.

  “It’s just Geoffrey.” Lucy shoved a wayward strand of hair out of her eyes, tucking it behind one ear. “Up to his usual antics.”

  “More hot peppers?”

  “No.” She rubbed her forefinger against her thumb, as if testing for heat, relieved to find none. Still . . . perhaps she should wash her hands. Just in case. “He’s teasing me about Heathmore Cottage. But if he’d been the one who was given the property and then had it sold without his permission,” she muttered darkly, “you can bet he’d not be so glib.”

  “Probably because he would be tripping over his feet to sell it as quickly as possible.” Lydia looked up from her embroidery hoop. “Remember, he’s been terrified of rats, ever since that prank at Harrow went wrong. And why are we still talking about this? I thought the matter had been resolved at dinner last week.”

  “Just because I stopped speaking of it doesn’t mean it’s resolved. And Geoffrey’s an idiot.” Lucy scowled at her sister. “I’m not afraid of a few bloody rats.”

  Lydia arched a fair brow. “Is such language really necessary? You are supposed to be trying harder to sound like a lady.”

  “For heaven’s sake, sometimes you sound just like Mother.” Lucy stood up and began to pace the length of the drawing room. It wasn’t as though she didn’t try to look and sound like a lady. She and Lydia were less than a year apart in age, and shared a remarkably similar appearance—the same wispy blond hair, the same unobjectionable blue eyes. People were forever mixing them up at church and the like. But physical similarities aside, no one who knew them would ever mistake them. Their mouths might be similarly shaped, but Lucy’s was usually running amok, while Lydia’s seemed to know just what to say.

  Or rather, what not to say.

  Lucy reached the fireplace, then turned back, her skirts twitching angrily about her ankles. “The point is, it would be Geoffrey’s choice whether or not to sell Heathmore. He’s not even reached his majority yet, and Father already treats him as though he is capable of making his own decisions. I cannot believe Father wrote to him to ask his opinion.” She threw up her hands. “It isn’t fair. It’s my property. And I am twenty-one years of age.”

  “To be perfectly honest, I doubt Father would encourage Geoffrey to keep a rat-infested cottage either,” Lydia pointed out. “Have you considered that perhaps the house is really as terrible as he says? That you are fortunate to have sold it at all?”

  “Well, I can’t know that, can I?” Lucy halted in front of the window and stared out onto the Grosvenor Square streetscape. The newly budding trees stood like sentinels, their skeleton branches hopeful against the blue April sky. But she herself felt no such patience. Come next week, the trees might be in bloom, but she’d be launched into the Season that was barreling down on her like a runaway horse.

  Nausea swirled in her stomach at the thought. She wasn’t even sure which bothered her more: the thought that she was to be denied her inheritance, or the forward march of her imminent, unwanted Season. Her debut was something her mother had planned for several years, waiting for the perfect time, long past the usual age young women were presented. It had been necessary, everyone said, to let the gossip around Lucy’s older sister’s “disastrous” marriage to a mere doctor die down first, to give the crowd time to find other diversions and rumors to occupy their tongues. But Lucy hadn’t minded. In fact, she had savored that blissful, four year reprieve. A Season had never been something she wanted, though she’d grudgingly come to accept its inevitability over the years.

  But now, thanks to Aunt E’s diaries and the key to Heathmore, she’d been given an alternative view of her future, a bit of independence dangled before her eyes like the rarest of jewels. And she wanted it with a desperation she couldn’t quite explain.

  She rubbed her neck, her fingers stiff with anger. “I’m expected to blindly trust everyone else’s judgment in this without being credited with enough sense to make the decision on my own. But something doesn’t feel right. This Lord Branston fellow seems far too keen on acquiring the property, especially if it is in such terrible shape as Father says. Aunt E trusted me with the property when she didn’t trust anyone else.”

  And had claimed there were secrets to guard as well.

  She turned away from the window and met Lydia’s eyes. “That is why I need to get there. To see Heathmore myself, and understa
nd the man’s interest in it.”

  Lydia’s forehead creased with worry. “Father forbade it.”

  Lucy shook her head. Her memory of last week’s dreadful dinner conversation was still fresh in her mind, probably because she’d rehashed it no less than a dozen times, examining it from every possible angle. “He didn’t forbid it so much as imply I couldn’t afford it.”

  And she couldn’t. She had scraped and scrimped and tallied every penny she owned, most of which had been rolling about forgotten in the bottom of her desk drawer. Father was right: she could count less than a pound to her name. Worse, he had proven true to his word and refused to give her any pin money this week.

  No doubt he thought she’d hie herself straight off to Cornwall.

  No doubt he was right.

  She considered whether she ought to just ask her older sister, Clare, to loan her the money. Clare, happily married now, was expecting a second child in August. While her sister and brother-in-law lived sensibly, they had enough money to spare.

  But aside from Mother, Clare had been one of the family’s most vocal champions of Lucy’s coming Season. She had accompanied them to every dress fitting, supplying her bountiful fashion advice on the merits of each gown Lucy had been forced to choose. She’d encouraged her to steer clear of the sort of friends who put others down, explained how to repair a torn hem and go on dancing into the night. Clare seemed determined to make her a smashing success—no doubt on account of her guilt over the delayed Season.

  No, she couldn’t ask Clare for help. The risk that her older sister might tell Father—or worse, Mother—was too great.

  Lydia, on the other hand . . . now there was a sister she could always depend on.

  Lucy fixed her with a hopeful stare. Lydia hardly ever spent her pin money. And that meant she probably had over one hundred pounds squirreled away, just waiting for someone to need it. Lucy took a step in her sister’s direction. “Couldn’t you just loan me a few pounds? I don’t have need of much, just enough to get me to Cornwall and back. Father would never even need to know where I found it.”