A Season to Be Sinful

by Jo Goodman

  So they hadn’t seen everything; she had wondered. Then she wondered if they would tell her. Mayhap silence was best for all of them. “I have nothing else to say on the matter until I’ve spoken to his lordship.” She ruffled Dash’s flaxen hair with her fingertips. “Tell me about him. What title does he possess?”

  “’E’s a viscount.”

  “How do you know?”

  “’E told us the day we come ’ere. I think we must ’ave tweaked ’im proper because ’e puffed ’imself up a bit and told us ’e was the Viscount Sheridan. Midge was impressed, but I knew it wasn’t the same as if ’e was a duke.”

  Lily could only imagine Sheridan’s chagrin if he heard the boys talking now. “Well, it is still an important title. Have you learned his name?”

  Pinch looked puzzled. “Lord Sheridan. That’s wot they all call ’im.”

  “That is like you calling me Miss Rose when my name is Lily.” She saw their eyes dart away and their heads bow. “Yes, I know about that. Never mind, it is done with. You will continue to call me Miss Rose, and we will not speak of the other again. I only mention it because it is a respectful address in the same manner Lord Sheridan is a respectful address. He has another name. Norbert Pennywright perhaps. Or Neville George Whittington.”

  “William Toplofty,” Pinch said.

  “Simon James Toggery,” Dash said.

  Not to be outdone, Midge offered, “Arthur Macaroni.”

  They rolled away from Lily, holding their sides as they laughed at their own delicious wickedness.

  “Actually,” came the smooth voice from the doorway, “it is Alexander Henry Grantham.”

  There was immediate silence. Unlike the boys, Lily did not blush. She regarded Sheridan with perfect frankness and was emboldened by the presence of the children to take him to task. “Do you find knocking a terrible inconvenience?”

  He raised a single brow at the chilly tone she adopted. “In my own home, yes.”

  “Eavesdroppers hear no good of themselves.”

  “I was not eavesdropping. None of you noticed me standing here.”

  “You might have announced yourself.”

  “I thought that is what I just did. Alexander Henry Grantham, Viscount Sheridan. I shall keep that appellation, I think, though I admit to some fondness for Arthur Macaroni.”

  Midge burrowed his flaming face in a pillow.

  “We didn’t mean yer lordship offense by it,” Pinch said. “It was all in the way of fun.”

  “Do you think I’m offended?” Sherry asked.

  Dash felt like burying his head with Midge, but he risked a glance in Sheridan’s direction. “’Ow would we know? Ye always look like ye do now.”

  The irony of Dash’s observation was that it had a powerful effect on Sheridan’s countenance. He blinked widely, boggle eyed. Even the line of his taut jaw became a fraction slack. His nostrils flared and his lips parted. From somewhere under his intricately tied neckcloth a wave of red color washed over him and settled most distinctly in the tips of his ears.

  Now it was Lily who clutched her side as the laughter she could not hope to restrain truly threatened to burst her stitches.

  Watching her, the niggling thought returned to Sherry that it was no hardship to play the fool. Her laughter did not disturb him in the least this time. As was often the case, he reflected, one’s disposition could be favorably bent by which side of the door one was on. He liked being on this side.

  Sherry walked to the foot of the bed just as Midge was crawling out from under the covers and Lily was knuckling tears from her eyes. Midge handed her a corner of the sheet he had tucked in his hand.

  “Don’t you have a handkerchief, Master Midge?” Sherry asked.

  “Yes, m’lord, but it’s mine.” He glanced apologetically at Lily. “We’re not allowed to use our sleeves ’ere. Dunnet cuffs us if we do.”

  Lily glanced sharply at Sheridan and he raised his hands, palms out. “This is the first I’ve heard of blows being struck.”

  The boys laughed in unison, but it was Dash who explained the reason for it. “’E don’t swipe at us ’ard. Miss Rose ’ugs us ’arder than Dunnet pops us.”

  Now it was Sherry who gave Lily the significant glance. “Please give Miss Rose your handkerchief, Master Midge. It is always the politic thing to do to offer a lady one’s handkerchief.”

  “’E means it’s good form,” Pinch said. “Go on.”

  Midge retrieved his handkerchief and looked at it rather longingly before holding out it to Lily. “Thank you,” she said gravely. “It is enormously kind of you.” Unfolding it, she couldn’t help notice its crisp and pristine condition. “And so clean.”

  Midge’s shrug had overtones of guilt. “I mostly use my sleeve. Ain’t comfortable blowin’ my nose in something wot’s so pretty.”

  Lily was able to use the handkerchief to shield her smile as she dabbed at her eyes, but Sherry had to be more circumspect. He studied the carving on the walnut headboard beyond Lily’s right shoulder and worked very hard at not catching her eye.

  When Lily was finished, she folded the handkerchief carefully and began to return it to Midge. Before he took it, the boy looked to Sheridan for direction.

  “You may tell her to keep it, or take it back for yourself. If it makes a difference, I will see to it that you get another.”

  “Oh, that’s all right, m’lord. I know ’ow to get more. Fogle-’unting is wot us errifs learn first.”

  Lily was fortunate to still have the handkerchief. She crushed it in her fist and pressed it against her mouth. Even so, she looked as though she might choke trying to contain her amusement.

  For his part, Sherry had to make do with a good effort at looking appalled. “Fogle-hunting. Is that cant for drawing out a handkerchief?”

  Midge nodded.

  “I see. I believe you are a thorough scoundrel, Master Midge.”

  “Yes, m’lord. I am that.”

  It was no good. Sherry surrendered to the shout of laughter that was pressing at the back of his throat. “Go on,” he said when he was able to catch his breath. He jerked his head toward the door and watched them scramble off the bed. In their haste to leave, they jostled him as they swept past. It was like being in the center of a whirling dervish. “There must be something for you to do in Renwick’s kitchen,” he called after them. “Pots to scour. Vegetables to scrub. Tarts to steal.”

  That stopped all three of them in their tracks. “’Oo do you think told ’im about the tarts?” Dash whispered to Pinch.

  Sherry rolled his eyes at Lily but addressed the boys who were now behind him. “No one told me. It was a carefully reasoned guess.”

  “I told ye ’e was a clever one,” Pinch said, nudging Dash.

  “Can’t be too careful ’ere.”

  Midge was impressed. “Do ye think ’e knows about the custard?”

  “I do now,” Sherry said dryly.

  Pinch, Dash, and Midge fairly tripped over each other to get out the door.

  “Are they gone?” Sherry asked Lily.

  She leaned slightly to one side to see around him. They waved to her from the hallway, then disappeared. “Yes.”

  “They didn’t shut the door, did they?”

  She shook her head.

  He sighed. “I suppose it would have been too much to expect.” Turning on his heel, he crossed the room to close it. When he returned to Lily’s bedside, she was regarding him with an expression that was at once contemplative and amused. “What is it?”

  “You like them,” she said.

  “Are you accusing me?”

  “I think I might be.”

  “Then mea culpa.”

  Lily smiled. “They are perfect scoundrels. You were right about that.”

  Sherry leaned his shoulder against one of the posts at the end of the bed. “What about you, Miss Rose?”

  There was a small catch in her voice. “Me?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Are you a scoundrel
?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “A thief?”

  “Pinching purses. Shiving the froe.”

  “Shiving the froe?”

  “Cutting a woman’s pockets off with a razor.”

  Sherry wondered at her calm admissions. “You teach the boys what you know?”

  “Yes.”

  That was when he pinned Lily back with a dark, implacable glance and asked with remarkable indifference, “Are you a whore, Miss Rose?”

  Five

  Lily remained singularly self-possessed as she considered his question. “A whore? There are some that would say so.”

  “What is your opinion?”

  “I do not consider myself such.” A strand of dark coppery hair had fallen across her cheek. She tugged on it idly, straightening the curl before tucking it neatly behind her ear. “You will allow this is a curious interview.”

  He gave no indication that he was willing to admit as much.

  “Then it is your practice to put these questions to all your guests. In that case, I should wonder that you have any.”

  Sherry went on as if there had been no interruption. “Are you French?”

  Lily frowned. “Why would you think so?”

  “It seems to me that is the question you should have posed when I asked if you were a whore. It is more than a little peculiar that you would practice prevarication when the subject is your origins and speak quite frankly when you are asked about your morals.”

  “I am responsible for my morals,” she said. “I cannot help the other.”

  “Then you are French.”

  “I did not say so.” Lily drew her knees up and laid her forearms across the top. “I cannot imagine of what import it is. It was not to my particular liking that you put questions to me about thieving and whoring, but I could understand their relevance. Certainly the circumstances of our meeting would permit you to make some assumptions about my character, but I cannot fathom what has suggested to you that I might not be one of His Majesty’s subjects.”

  Sherry could not help himself. Incredulity caused him to grin quite openly at her. “Why, you are offended,” he said, shaking his head. “Do you think you will stand accused of being some sort of spy?” He watched her cheeks pinken and her eyes dart away. “Bloody hell. You do. What sort of maggot have you got in your head that would make you think that?”

  The deep rose color in Lily’s cheeks continued to blossom. She shrugged.

  “I doubt that Boney sends his female spies to Holborn. To the Court at St. James, mayhap, but not Holborn or even Covent Garden. It would be ill-advised of them, and they are damnably more clever than that. Do you think they give so much as a fig that Blue Rutland is in receipt of smuggled brandy? That is the sort of intelligence our own excise men would like to know, while the French are happy for his industry as it supports their efforts to overrun the whole of the Continent.”

  Sherry finished his discourse abruptly when he saw she was regarding him worriedly. He held up his hands, palms out, and adopted what he hoped was a more reasoned tone and tack. “If I promise that I acquit you of being a spy, will you admit that you are French?”

  “No.”

  He sighed. Perhaps appealing to her reason was not the better course. He tried approaching the thing directly. “Then how is it that you are fluent in the language?”

  Lily’s lashes flickered. “Does someone say that I am?”

  “I do.”

  “I don’t suppose there is a maggot in your head?”

  “No. No maggot.” He watched her chin come up and cautioned her. “Think carefully before you answer, Miss Rose, especially if you mean to tell me you don’t speak the language.” When her eyes darted away, he knew he had been right to suppose she meant to lie. The long silence that followed made him wonder if she would speak to him at all.

  “Je suis anglaise,” she said finally. “Le même que vous. Je parle français parce que j’étais ene élève à l’Abbaye de Sacré Coeur. J’y suis arrivée avant de la mort de mes parents, mais j’y restais pendant dix année. L’abbaye est dans la compagne en dehors de Paris. Es-ce que vous la connaissez?”

  “Non.” He had never heard of the abbey where she said she’d spent ten years after the death of her parents. He imagined there must be many like it in and around Paris.

  “C’est une école sans importance avec seulement vingt-cinq étudiantes et quatre enseignante avec la Mère Révérends.”

  He wondered why she’d left and put the question to her. “Pourquoi est-ce que tu as partir?”

  “Vous parlez bien le français, mais vous parlez mieux l’anglais.” Lily switched effortlessly to English after this critical assessment of his French. “I was sent away,” she said. “I could not live out my life there, not without taking my vows and joining the order. It was only because the abbey had been my home longer than it had not that I contemplated remaining. I believe the Reverend Mother was horrified that I might not be dissuaded.” The shadow of a wistful smile momentarily changed the shape of her mouth. “You can appreciate, I think, that she was of the opinion that I was ill-suited to that life.”

  Still leaning against the bedpost, Sherry folded his arms in front of him and studied her. It was true that on their short acquaintance he had glimpsed a hint of mischief in her eyes. There was also that impish, slightly reckless smile of hers that would give a more prudent man pause. Her hair, with its extraordinary deep copper coloring, would not be tamed by the close cropping she’d given it or straightened by her frequent tugging on the curling tendrils. He tried to imagine it tucked under the severity of a wimple instead of as a halo about her heart-shaped face and found his imagination failed him.

  Perhaps it had been the same for the Reverend Mother, though if that were true, the judgment struck him as having no real substance. Shouldn’t it have mattered more what was in Lily’s heart? “I think I understand her counsel,” Sherry said at last, “but was she right to advise you to leave?”

  “Never say you doubt it? I am far and away more astonished by what I have become than she would be.”

  “But if you had not left . . .” He let his voice trail off, prompting her with his silence.

  Lily shrugged. “I think I would have been content.”

  Sherry considered this, wondering as much about what she’d told him as what she’d left unsaid. “It does not seem that—” He stopped because she was shaking her head slowly and had lifted a cautionary finger. “You are tired,” he said. “I have taxed your strength.”

  “You have taxed my wits,” she said. Her faintly amused smile faded, and now she regarded him with solemn purpose. “You have been most gracious to me, my lord, but not even for you will I reveal more. If you cannot accept this, I truly understand. Naturally you have the right to know the character of those you invite into your home. I think you have already made a great allowance on my behalf because you brought me here in spite of all you suspected about mine. I honestly cannot say that if our positions were reversed that I would have done the same.”

  “You are firm on this?”

  “Yes.” She was certain he didn’t like it, and she did not expect him to. Her only regret that she must be adamant was because of the children. She knew he liked them well enough, but she was less confident that he would take them in if she was not cooperative. “There is one thing I would tell you, though.”

  Sherry cocked an eyebrow at her. “Oh?”

  “It has very little to do with me and everything to do with you.”

  “How so?”

  Lily pushed her back more firmly against the headboard, bracing her spine and shoulders, screwing her courage to the sticking place. “I find it odd that you have asked me nothing about Covent Garden. I recognize you from that night, you know.”

  “I know. You told me as much when we were yet at the Blue Ruination.” Her look remained blank. “You don’t remember, do you? I had begun to think that must be the case, else you would not hav
e hesitated to answer my questions regarding your fluent French.”

  Lily understood at last what she must have done. “J’ai parlé française à vous.”

  “You did indeed speak to me in that language. You asked, ‘Que faites-vous ici?’ ”

  Feeling weak of a sudden, Lily translated quietly, “What are you doing here?”

  Sherry nodded. “I could have concluded from that that you recognized me, but you will understand that I wanted to be certain. I asked the question plainly, and you confirmed it. You pointed out that I go to the theatre. Do not strain your gray matter trying to recall our conversation. It was cogent but disappointingly brief.”

  “I did not say anything untoward, did I?”

  “You were discreet. It seems you are of a mind to reveal very little in any language.”

  Lily discharged a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “That is something at least.”

  “Relieved?”

  “Yes.”

  The bed shuddered as Sherry pushed away from the bedpost. He regarded his choice of chairs and selected the Queen Anne at the escritoire. He carried it back, placed it at Lily’s bedside, then set himself comfortably upon it, folding his arms again and stretching his long legs before him. In every way he gave the impression of a man prepared to hear a story. Whether or not he would believe it was less clearly defined. The tilt of his head and the thrust of his chin spoke to some measure of skepticism, while his dark eyes were more warmly inviting.

  “We have established that you recognize me from Covent Garden,” he said as if there had been no interruption. “Perhaps you should proceed with how you came to be there. You were not at the theatre yourself, I collect.” He was immediately sorry for provoking her with this last observation because the splendidly curved line of her mouth flattened. “Very well. You must tell the tale in your own way.”

  “I have been to the Royal Opera House,” she said with quiet dignity. “Perhaps you think it is the sole province of the ton or that it would be better if that were so.”

  “I beg your pardon,” he said. “I meant no slight.”

  Lily cast him a sideways glance to gauge his sincerity but had to accept his words for what they were. Sheridan did not seem to know how to affect an expression of contriteness. She supposed it was because, like so many others of his class, he seldom believed there was a need for it.