The Spinster's Guide to Scandalous Behavior

by Jennifer McQuiston

  Instead of gathering her in his arms, as she’d imagined he might, he took a decided step back. She opened her eyes to find him looking at her as though she were a strange, perplexing creature. Don’t stop, her heart whispered, though despite her addled judgment, she somehow swallowed the urge to say the words out loud.

  Surely there was more to the experience of a woman’s first kiss than that. She’d expected fireworks. Singing angels. Or at least a case of dyspepsia.

  “Well, Miss Westmore.” He exhaled loudly, but didn’t resume his path toward her easy, assured seduction. “It seems you are rather more experienced in this game of negotiation than I first credited you.” He dragged a hand through his already tousled curls, and then his mouth—the mouth that had just touched hers—slid into an easy, crooked smile. “Have you decided to offer yourself as part of the bargain after all?”

  She blinked up at him, confused.

  He lifted his brows, sliding back into his cocksure ways with the confidence of a professional swindler. His light laughter met her ears with all the subtlety of a branding iron. “You might have just convinced me to offer a solid seven hundred pounds.”

  All the pleasure his touch had just awakened vanished like a wisp of smoke. Embarrassment bloomed in its place. Oh, God.

  Oh, bloody, bloody hell.

  Understanding swooped in, driving its way through the hazy warmth of the wine, and it was brutal. He was offering her more money for Heathmore? Because of a kiss? She shrank back against the wall, whatever desire she’d felt drowning against the surge of indignation. She thought back to her fears for the future, the certainty that her Season would be naught but a long parade of suitors, wanting to get their hands on her money. Had she thought Branston was different, then? The opposite of the fop who’d come during calling hours, pretending to be charming and then laughing about his plans when he thought no one could hear?

  God, she was stupid. He was exactly the same, wanting to charm her for no reason other than getting his hands on something she possessed.

  Where had her wits gone? To hell, apparently. She’d always considered herself strong, different than other girls. She had important things to do with her life, grand causes to pursue. But she felt the slow burn of shame to realize she had just proven she was no better than the usual giggling, empty-headed debutante.

  Hadn’t she been wondering all day why Lord Branston was being so nice to her? So attentive? Why else would a handsome, titled, wealthy marquess show such attentiveness to someone like her, but to try to change her mind about Heathmore?

  “Only seven hundred pounds?” she somehow managed to choke out. “That would be rather unenterprising of me, especially if I am as experienced a negotiator as you just implied. Perhaps, if I threw my maidenhead into the bargain, we might get you up to one thousand?”

  His eyes widened. “Your maidenhead?”

  She lifted herself from the wall, pulling herself together in slow degrees. It wasn’t easy, given that the hallway seemed to be spinning. But all was not lost. Perhaps it would be better for him to imagine the kiss was part of her strategy, an intended piece of the negotiations. Better than the truth, which was that she was stupid enough to have begun to trust him.

  “Well, a girl like me has so little else to bargain with,” she retorted. Why, oh why hadn’t she followed the advice in Aunt E’s diary? Well, she wouldn’t make that mistake again. From this point on she would keep her thoughts centered on Heathmore and her legs firmly crossed. She was determined to stay a spinster, by God. And she didn’t need a man—especially a man like Lord Branston—to fill her head with thoughts of kisses.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “My titties, you see, have only inspired a bit of poorly formed poetry. I need to bargain with something worth a bit more, don’t you think?”

  He shifted his weight back on his heels, clearly struggling to find air, much less the appropriate response. She shook her head, almost disappointed to have silenced him so effectively. After all, it wasn’t even the most shocking thing she had ever said. “I am on to your scheme, Lord Branston. You are trying to charm me, apply a little light seduction in the hopes of confusing a silly young spinster into acquiescence.”

  That, finally, had his expression shifting. “No.” He shook his head, too vigorously for it to be the truth. “You misunderstand my intentions.”

  “Do I?” she demanded. Was the man not even going to admit his culpability in the night’s ruse? “We were just standing here, having a lovely, friendly conversation, when—without invitation—you touched me, right here.” She tapped a finger against the side of her neck. “And then, to point out the obvious, you kissed me.”

  He swallowed. “I . . . ah . . . touched you because you’ve a rash.” His voice sounded halfway strangled. He lifted his hand again, motioning this time—no doubt wisely interpreting that another touch might not be as eagerly received. “There, just behind your ear. I noticed it during dinner.” His words took a moment to register.

  But when they did, Lucy’s cheeks burned hotter.

  The lobber was claiming he’d only touched her because she had a rash? She lifted a hand to the skin behind her ear, testing the hypothesis, and was almost dismayed when her skin responded with far more than a prickle of awareness. But despite the evidence that in this, at least, he was telling some semblance of the truth, she still didn’t believe he was being entirely truthful. How could she when he looked guilty as hell?

  And a rash couldn’t come close to explaining why he had kissed her.

  She needed to pay more attention to the advice in her aunt’s diary. Aunt E might have had her curiosity roused by the vicar, and consented to a kiss or two, but her aunt had at least had enough sense to question the man’s motives. She herself had just proven far less wise.

  Incensed, she turned and lifted the latch on her door, stumbling her way into her room. Holding up the candle, she peered at her reflection in the washstand mirror. Angry red welts trailed down her neck, just below her right ear.

  The evidence that this, at least, was no falsehood did little to soothe her wounded pride.

  Perhaps whatever this infirmity was had spread to her brain as well. That might explain why she’d lost her head around this man.

  “It looks very much like the sort of rash one sees with Toxicodendrum radicuns.” His voice pushed over her shoulder, grating now in its nearness. Lucy whirled around to glare at him. He’d settled a shoulder against the door frame, stopping on the threshold like a proper gentleman.

  Only he wasn’t a proper gentleman, was he? He’d just proven it.

  And she was a stupid, stupid girl.

  “What in the bloody blazes is that?” she snarled.

  He chuckled—though whether at her predicament or her language, she couldn’t be sure. “Poison ivy.”

  “You’ve tried to poison me?” she asked incredulously.

  “Not me.” He shook his head. “And it isn’t deadly. But as I said earlier, plants are something of a hobby of mine. It’s an exotic plant, from the Americas. Quite beautiful, though its leaves are noxious to touch. It’s not common in England, but many university greenhouses and specialty gardens have it. Have you come in contact with any?”

  Lucy scratched at her neck. “I . . . no . . . I only work with seedlings for the St. James Orphanage community garden. I can assure you, they are the usual variety of sweet pea.”

  “Pisum sativum.”

  She narrowed her eyes, wondering if he was insulting her. “I beg your pardon?” God, he was just showing off now. She’d never been good at Latin. Her older sister, Clare, was the secretive, scholarly Westmore.

  Growing up, Lucy had much preferred to swing from trees, rather than study them.

  “It is the scientific name for sweet pea.” He rubbed a hand behind his neck. “Sorry. I sometimes forget not everyone shares my interest in botany.”

  “Pisum sativum,” she huffed out, the very words sounding menacing to her ears. Surely
a plant with such a terrible-sounding name couldn’t be benign. “Well, I’ve come close to swimming in it this past week.” She recalled how many hours she’d spent in the greenhouse, up to her elbows in dirt. “Could that have caused this rash?”

  He shook his head. “No. Peas are quite safe to touch. I am certain you must have encountered poison ivy somewhere else. Can you think of another instance?”

  Lucy turned back to the mirror, running a finger over the offended skin. It had a blistered feel. Where on earth would she have encountered such a thing?

  Although, if it was common in university greenhouses . . .

  “Geoffrey,” she muttered, thinking of the grass-stained letter she had read two days ago, and how after reading it she had tucked her hair behind this very ear. “The bloody bastard.”

  She’d just been pranked. Again.

  “Geoffrey is your brother?” he asked from over her shoulder. “The same one who taught you to swear like a sailor?”

  “He’s something of a professional trickster.” Her cheeks felt feverishly hot. Oh, but could this night get any more humiliating?

  “You might want to put something on it before it worsens. Would you like me to fetch some grease from the kitchen?” he asked. His voice sounded as if it was laced with concern. But then, he was a scoundrel of the highest order. Pretending to care, hovering over her, entertaining her on the train.

  Kissing her in shadowed hallways.

  While all the while he was laughing at her rash and keeping his eye on her prize.

  Lucy shook her head. “No, I can manage myself, thank you.”

  “Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do?” he pressed. “Distract you, perhaps?” He cleared his throat, and in the reflection of the mirror she could see his mouth curve into a grin. “There once was a very fine neck—”

  “No!” She whirled around to face him properly, wincing as the wax from the candle tipped onto her bare skin again. She contemplated snuffing the flame, but then she would be alone in the dark with him, and she’d just proven herself a very bad judge of character. She took a deep breath. “Just go. I would like to be alone now.” In fact, she wanted nothing more in this moment than to see the back of him and the door closing behind him.

  He spread his hands. “Lucy—” he started.

  “Miss L,” she countered sharply.

  He hesitated. “Miss L, then. If you are bound for bed, please lock the door behind me. You’ve had a good deal to drink tonight. And a woman traveling alone can’t be too careful.”

  A point he’d well demonstrated, now, hadn’t he?

  She nodded stiffly, not trusting herself with words. As he pulled the door shut behind him, she stared at the spot where he had just stood, scratching at her neck and trying to remember all the pertinent reasons why Aunt E said she shouldn’t trust men.

  They lectured women about living on cliffs. They gawked at red ribbons in church.

  And oh yes, there was this new piece as well:

  They tried to charm young ladies into selling their property.

  She lunged toward the door and locked it, as much to secure some distance from him as anyone else. She might have had too many glasses of wine, but at least she’d had the wherewithal to call him out for his actions, and pretend that the kiss had been calculated. She didn’t know what his motivations were, or why he wanted Heathmore so much, but a man who paid this sort of close, personal attention to a plain, short-haired spinster like herself had to have an ulterior motive.

  And she intended to find out his.

  From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore

  December 26, 1815

  It was a Boxing Day to remember.

  Is it really so hard for a vicar to admit that a woman—and worse, a scandalously unwed woman—might contribute to the moral and financial needs of the town? I may not be wealthy, but compared to most in Lizard Bay, I have far more than I need.

  I only wanted to share some of my good fortune.

  Though the role of distributing Christmas boxes has traditionally been managed by the church, this year I prepared several Christmas boxes of my own, as thanks for all the villagers have done for me. For Mr. Jamieson, who faithfully orders my periodicals from London each month, I knitted a lovely set of mittens. For the postmaster, Mr. Bentley, I knitted a warm cap to thank him for always ensuring my mail is delivered promptly, even though my cottage lies so far away from town. Apparently, however, I have stepped on the toes of the bloody Church.

  When Reverend Wellsbury saw me coming out of Mr. Jamieson’s store, he proceeded to stand in the street and lecture me again about the evils of leading men astray. Well, I can tell you I carried the box and the gift I had prepared for him straight home.

  The pompous ass.

  What need has a vicar for a length of red ribbon, anyway?

  Chapter 10

  The coach ride from Salisbury to Lizard Bay proved somewhat less than enjoyable. A week ago Thomas would have been grateful for the silence inside the mail coach. He would have been able to think, to write even, at least on the smoother sections of road. He might have extended his scientific observations on the manuscript he’d been writing, the one he was preparing for the Linnean Society of London describing plant life on the Lizard Bay peninsula.

  But after yesterday’s laughter-filled train ride, the silence felt awkward, almost painful. He had a notion it was going to take more than a limerick to soften Lucy’s hunched shoulders today. She had been withdrawn from the moment she stepped into the public room for breakfast, sitting on the opposite side of the table, avoiding him even when their start was delayed several hours to repair a damaged axle on the mail coach.

  They might finally be moving, but now she was sitting stiff as a board on the opposite seat, reading some old book she kept angled away from him, ignoring him as the mail coach careened over Cornwall’s rough and tumble roads.

  It was galling to sit in such a pointed absence of conversation. He could hear only the creak of springs beneath them and the stutter of the wheels as they scraped the occasional rock, and it had been thus for hours. Yesterday he’d imagined they were making progress. That she’d started to look at him without that pinched expression and clouded veil of suspicion. That they could laugh with each other and be easy friends.

  But today the veil was firmly back in place.

  Finally, he took it upon himself to say something. Anything. “Does your head hurt terribly?”

  She looked up, frowning. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Your head.” He tapped a finger against his forehead. “ ’Tis the usual casualty of one too many drinks. You had three glasses of wine last night, by my count, and you are being very quiet today. I thought perhaps you weren’t feeling well.”

  She looked back down at her book. “I can’t see that it is any of your business to care how many glasses of wine I may have had.” She turned a page. “Or whether my head aches this morning. Especially given that yesterday you smelled entirely too strongly of brandy.”

  Her verbal observation landed like a well-aimed arrow. “I . . . that is, I do not usually drink,” Thomas ground out.

  Not anymore.

  “The evidence suggests otherwise.” She sounded almost bored, her gaze firmly focused on the page before her. “You smelled like a distillery yesterday morning.”

  His hands knotted on the seat. “I only meant I understood. If your head ached.”

  She looked up then, and that was when he realized she was not nearly as bored—or unaffected—as she was pretending. Blue eyes flashed at him across the narrow space of the carriage. “Let us get one thing straight between us. I do not seek your understanding, nor your empathy. We may have exchanged a strategic kiss last night, but you can lay no claim to my health or my feelings. We are only sharing this coach today because you are apparently too much of a spendthrift to have arranged your own private conveyance. If my silence bothers you, perhaps you might want to ride outside with the driver. I know I w
ould certainly better enjoy the ride.”

  He frowned as she turned her pointed attention back to her book. She was miffed because of the kiss last night? He couldn’t understand why, when she all but claimed it was calculated.

  It hadn’t been—at least, not on his part.

  He still didn’t know what had possessed him. One moment they were locked in an enjoyable bit of banter, and the next his brain had just taken over. No, that wasn’t quite right. He might be rusty, but it hadn’t been his brain in charge of the decision-making process. The experience had shocked him. He’d not kissed a woman in three long years, and he didn’t recall the experience being so bloody vivid. Was it because he’d been stripped of the haze of drunkenness that had so frequently accompanied him during his courtship of Gabrielle?

  Or was it because this woman herself was so different?

  Miss Westmore was nothing like his former fiancée. Gabrielle had been coiffed and perfumed, perfectly poised and faintly manipulative. In contrast, Miss Westmore was a wild, rash-covered mess of a thing, her blond hair flying like a halo about her frequently red face. Far from planning her approach, she appeared to lurch from one unplanned disaster to another, climbing out of windows and kissing gentlemen she barely knew.

  And yes—no matter her sputtered claims to the contrary, she had kissed him back.

  He wasn’t so rusty he didn’t know a willing woman when one kissed him.

  He still didn’t understand what had made him say those things in the aftermath of such an indiscretion, to awkwardly tease her about the kiss being part of the negotiations. They’d spent so much of the day locked in laughter that it seemed safer, somehow, to turn it into a joke.

  Safer than acknowledging what else was happening.

  Yesterday he’d felt . . . well, he’d felt. She ignited something in him he hadn’t felt in three long years—quite possibly ever—and it went so far beyond the urge to make her laugh. He’d been beyond tempted to take more than that quick, fumbled kiss, to pull her against him, to explore the sweetness of her mouth until she was gasping for more.