How to Be a Proper Lady

by Katharine Ashe

  How to Be a Proper Lady

  Katharine Ashe

  Following her sensational debut novel, Swept Away by a Kiss, author Katharine Ashe was named one of the 'New Stars of Historical Romance' by the American Library Association publication Booklist. With each new book she has proven them right – and never more so than with her novel How to be a Proper Lady.

  Continuing her phenomenal Falcon Club series, Ashe enchants with this tale of a woman kidnapped as a child by pirates and returned years later to her English family. She must now learn how to be a cultured lady…and to navigate the treacherous waters of love with the notorious sea captain who brought her, kicking and screaming, back to society. This is witty, emotionally rich, and wonderfully imaginative storytelling that readers of Lisa Kleypas, Eloisa James, and Johanna Lindsey will absolutely adore.

  Katharine Ashe

  How to Be a Proper Lady

  The second book in the Falcon Club series, 2012

  To Laurie LaBean and Kimberly Van Horn, women I admire so deeply. For your encouragement, affection, and enthusiasm I am forever thankful.

  And to Marquita Valentine, dear friend, in profound gratitude.

  Conscience, the torturer of the soul, unseen,

  Does fiercely brandish a sharp scourge within.

  JUVENAL, Satires XIII, 1ST CENTURY

  (QUOTED IN The Pirates Own Book, 19TH CENTURY)

  Family Tree

  ***

  Prologue

  Devonshire, 1803

  The girls played as though nothing could harm them. For nothing could on the crest of the scrubby green Devonshire hill overlooking the ocean where they had played their whole lives. Their father was a baron, and they wore white quilted muslin to their calves and pinafores embroidered with silk.

  The wind was mild, blowing their skirts about slender legs and whipping up their hair, dislodging bonnets again and again. The elder, twelve, tall and long-limbed like a boy, picked the most delicate bluebells, fashioning them into a bouquet. The younger, petite and laughing, swung her arms wide, scattering wild violets in a circle about her. She ran, dark ringlets streaming behind, toward the edge of the cliff. Her sister followed, a dreaming glimmer in her eyes, golden locks swishing about her shoulders.

  A sail appeared upon the horizon leagues away where azure sky met glittering ocean.

  “If I were a sailor, Ser,” the younger sister called across the hillock, “I would become captain of a great tall ship and sail to the ends of the earth and back again simply to say that I had.”

  Serena shook her head fondly. “They do not allow girls to become sailors, Vi.”

  “Who gives a rotten fig for what they allow?” Viola’s laughter caught in the breeze curling about her.

  “If any girl could be a sea captain, it would be you.” Serena’s eyes shone warm with affection.

  Viola rushed to swing her arms about her sister’s waist. “You are a princess, Serena.”

  “And you are an imp, for which I admire you greatly.”

  “Mama admires sailors.” Viola skipped along the edge of the sheer drop. “I saw her speaking with one when we were in Clovelly for the ribbons.”

  “Mama is kind to everyone.” Serena smiled. “She must have been giving the man an alms.”

  But it had not looked like Mama was giving him alms. She had spoken with the sailor for many minutes, and when she returned to Viola, tears teetered in her eyes.

  “Perhaps he wished for more alms than Mama could give him.”

  The ship came closer and lowered a longboat, twelve men at oars. The sisters watched. They were accustomed enough to the sight, living so close to a harbor as they did, yet ever curious as the young are.

  “Do you think they are smugglers, Ser?”

  “I suppose they could be. Cook said smugglers were about when she went to market Wednesday. Papa says smugglers are to be welcomed because of the war now.”

  “I don’t recognize the ship.”

  “How would you know to recognize any ship?”

  Viola rolled her dark eyes. “Its banner, silly.”

  The boat came toward the beach fifty feet below, knocking against the surf, its bow jutting up and down like a butter churn. Men jumped out, soaking their trousers in the waves. They pulled the craft onto the pebbly sand. Four of them moved toward the narrow path that wound its way up the cliff side.

  “It looks as though they mean to climb straight up,” Serena said, taking her lower lip between her teeth. “Onto Papa’s land?”

  Viola grasped her sister’s fingers. To be so close to real smugglers was something she had only dreamed. She might ask them about their travels, or their cargo. They could have something truly precious aboard, priceless treasure from afar. They would surely have stories to tell of those far-off places.

  “Hold my hand, Ser,” she said on an excited quaver. “We shall greet them and ask their business.”

  The sailor in the lead was a stocky man and well-looking in a dark fashion, not in the least scabrous or filthy as one might expect. He and his companions came along the crest of their father’s land directly toward Viola and Serena.

  “Why,” Viola exclaimed, “that is the same sailor Mama gave alms to the other day.”

  But nothing concerned the girls in this, or in the sailor’s greeting, broad and smiling as he glanced at their locked hands. For they had the love of sisters, fierce and tender, and nothing could harm them.

  Chapter 1

  London, 1818

  Fellow Britons,

  The people of our great kingdom must not suffer another farthing of their livelihoods to be squandered on the idle rich. Thus, my quest continues! In rooting out information concerning that mysterious gentlemen’s establishment at 14½ Dover Street, the so-called Falcon Club, I have learned an intriguing morsel of information. One of its members is a sailor and they call him Sea Hawk.

  Birds, birds, and more birds! Who will it be next, Mother Goose?

  Unfortunately I have not learned the name of his vessel. But would it not be unsurprising to discover him to be a member of our navy or a commissioned privateer? Yet another expenditure of public funds on the personal interests of those whose privilege is already mammoth.

  I will not rest until all members of the Falcon Club are revealed or, due to my investigating, the Club itself disbands in fear of thorough detection.

  – Lady Justice

  Lady Justice

  In Care of Brittle & Sons, Printers

  London

  Madam,

  Your persistence in seeking the identities of the members of our humble club cannot but gratify. How splendid for us to claim the marked attentions of a lady of such enterprise.

  You have hit the mark. One of us is indeed a sailor. I wish you the best of good fortune in determining which of the legion of Englishmen upon the seas he is. But wait! May I assist? I am in possession of a modest skiff. I shall happily lend it to you so that you may put to sea in search of your quarry. Better yet, I shall work the oars. Perhaps sitting opposite as you peer over the foamy swells, I will find myself as enamored of your beauty as I am of your tenacious intelligence-for only a beauty would hide behind such a daunting name and project.

  I confess myself curious beyond endurance, on the verge of seeking your identity as assiduously as you seek ours. Say the word, madam, and I shall have my boat at your dock this instant.

  Yours,

  Peregrine

  Secretary, The Falcon Club

  Dear Sir,

  I planted the missive bearing the code name so that LJ might find it and busy herself chasing shadows. The old girl’s pockets are no doubt as empty as her boasts, and she must keep her publishers happy.

  In
fact, the code name Sea Hawk may well be defunct. I have had no direct communication from him in fifteen months. The Admiralty reports that he yet holds a privateer’s commission, but has had no news from him since the conclusion of the Scottish affair more than a year ago. Even in his work for the Club he has rarely followed any lead but his own. I suspect he has resigned as we previously imagined. We must count England fortunate that he is now at least nominally loyal to the crown, rather than its enemy.

  In service,

  Peregrine

  Chapter 2

  Jinan Seton stared at his true love, and the blood ran cold in his veins. Rain-splattered wind whipped about him as he watched her, beauty incarnate, sink in a mass of flames and black smoke into the Atlantic Ocean.

  The most graceful little schooner ever upon the seas. Gone.

  His chest heaved in a silent groan as the final remnants of burning wood, canvas, and hemp disappeared beneath foamy green swells. A scattering of parts bobbed to the surface, slices of planking, snapped spars, empty barrels, shreds of sail. Her lovely corpse rent asunder.

  The American brig’s deck rocked beneath his braced feet, rain slashing thicker now, obscuring the wreckage of his ship fifty yards away. He clamped his eyes shut against the pain.

  “She was a good ’un, Master Jin.” The hulking beast standing beside him shook his chestnut head mournfully. “Weren’t your fault she’s gone into the drink.”

  Jin scowled. Not his fault. Damn and blast American privateers shooting at anything with a sail.

  “They acted like pirates,” he said through gritted teeth, his voice rough. “They lowered a longboat. They shot without warning.”

  “Snuck up on us right good.” The massive head bobbed.

  Jin sucked a breath through quivering nostrils and clenched his jaw, arms straining against the ropes trapping him to the brig’s mast. Someone would pay for this. In the most uncomfortable manner possible.

  “Treated her like a queen, you did,” Mattie mumbled above the increasing roar of anger in Jin’s ears that obscured the shouts around him and the moans of wounded men. Jin swung his head about, craning to see past his helmsman’s bulk, searching, counting. There was Matouba strapped to a rail, Juan tied to rigging, Little Billy struggling in the hands of a sailor twice his breadth. Big Mattie blocked his view of the rest of the deck, but thirty more-

  “Th’ others scrambled for the boats when she caught afire,” Mattie grunted. “Boys are well enough, seeing as these fellas ain’t pirates after all. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Nothing to worry about.” Jin cracked a hard laugh. “I am trussed like a roast pig and the Cavalier is hundreds of feet below. No, I haven’t a care in the world.”

  “Don’t you try fooling me. I knows you care more about our boys than your lady, no matter how much you doted on her.”

  “Wrong, as usual, Matt.” He glanced up and saw clearly now the flag of the state of Massachusetts hanging limp in the rain that pattered his face. He’d lost his hat. No doubt it happened at some point during the scuffle from longboat to enemy deck when he’d abruptly realized he had ordered his men to board an American privateer, not a pirate vessel. Rain dripped from the tip of his nose into his mouth. He spit it out and slued his gaze around.

  Shrouded in silvery gray, the deck of the brig was littered with human and nautical debris. Men from both crews lay prone, sailors seeing to wounds with hasty triage. Square sails hung loose from masts, several torn, a yardarm broken, sections of rail splintered and cut through with cannon shot, black powder marks everywhere. Even taken unaware, the Cavalier had given good fight. But the Yank vessel was still afloat. While Jin’s ship was at the bottom of the sea.

  He closed his eyes again. His men were alive, and he could afford another ship. He could afford a dozen more. Of course, he had promised the Cavalier’s former owner he would take care of her. But he had promised himself even more. This setback would not cow him.

  “We seen worse.” Mattie lifted bushy brows.

  Jin cut him a sharp look.

  “What I means to say is, you seen worse,” his helmsman amended.

  Considerably worse. But nothing quite so painfully humiliating. No one bested him. No one.

  “Who did this?” he growled, narrowing his eyes into the rain. “Who in hell could have crept up on us like that so swiftly?”

  “That’d be Her Highness, sir.” The piping voice came from about waist-high. The lad, skinny and freckled, with a shock of carrot hair, stretched a gap-toothed grin, swept a hand to his waist, and bowed. “Welcomes aboard the April Storm, Master Pharaoh.”

  Every muscle in Jin’s body stilled.

  April Storm.

  “Who is the master of this vessel, boy?”

  The lad flinched at his hard tone. He flashed a glance at the ropes binding Jin and his helmsman about waists, chests, and hands to the mizzenmast, and the scrawny shoulders relaxed.

  “Violet Laveel, sir,” he chirped.

  “Quit smirking, whelp, and call your mistress over,” Mattie barked.

  The boy’s eyes widened and he scampered off.

  “Violet la Vile?” Mattie mumbled, then pursed his thick lips. “Hnh.”

  Jin drew in a slow, steadying breath, but his heart hammered unaccustomedly quick. “The men are prepared?”

  “Been pr’pared for months. Won’t do a lick o’ good now they’re all tied up.”

  “I will do the talking.”

  Mattie screwed up his cauliflower nose.

  “Keep your mouth shut with her, Mattie, or so help me, I will find a way to keep it shut despite these ropes.”

  “Yessir, Cap’n, sir.”

  “Damn it, Mattie, if after all this time you so much as think of throwing a wrench in-”

  “Well, well, well. What do we have here, boys?” The voice came before the woman, smooth, rich, and sweet, like the caress of brushed silk against skin. Unlike any female sailor Jin had ever heard.

  But as she sauntered into view from around the other side of Jin’s helmsman, she looked common enough. Through the thinning rain, he had his first view of the notoriously successful Massachusetts female privateer, Violet la Vile.

  The woman he had been searching out for two years.

  Sailors flanked her protectively, casting soft, liquid glances at her and scowls at Jin and his mate. She stood a head shorter than her guard, coming to about Jin’s chin. Garbed in loose trousers and a long, shapeless coat of worn canvas, a thick bundle of black neck cloth stuffed beneath her chin, a sash with no fewer than three mismatched pistols hanging from it, and a wide-brimmed hat obscuring her face, she didn’t particularly resemble her sister. But Jin had spent countless nights in ports from Cape Cod to Vera Cruz drinking sailors and merchants under the table and bribing men with everything he had at hand in search of information about the girl who had gone missing a decade and a half ago. That she looked less like a fine English lady than any woman he’d ever seen did not mean a damned thing.

  Violet la Vile was Viola Carlyle, the girl he had set out from Devonshire twenty-two months earlier to find. The girl who, at the age of ten, had been abducted from a gentleman’s home by an American smuggler. The girl all except her sister believed dead.

  The brim of her hat rose slowly through the rain. A narrow chin came into view, then a scowling mouth, a slight, sun-touched nose, and finally a pair of squinting eyes, crinkled at the corners. They assessed Jin from toe to crown. A single brow lifted and her lips curved up at one side in a mocking salute.

  “So this is the famed Jinan Seton I’ve heard so many stories of? The Pharaoh.” Her voice drawled like a sheet sliding through a well-oiled block. Thick lashes fanned down, then back up again, taking him in this time with a swift perusal. She wagged her head back and forth and her lower lip protruded. “Disappointing.”

  Mattie made a choking sound.

  Jin’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know who I am?”

  “Your crewmen. Boasting of you even as the
y were losing the fight.” A full-throated chortle came forth and she plunked her fists onto her hips and pivoted around to the sailors gathering about. “Lookee here, boys! The British navy sent its dirtiest pirate scum to haul me in.”

  A cheer went up, huzzahs and whistles across deck. Seamen crowded closer with toothless grins and crackling guffaws, brandishing muskets and cutlasses high. She raised her hand and silence descended but for the whoosh of waves against the brig’s hull and the patter of rain on canvas and wood. Her gaze slued back to Jin, sharp as a dirk.

  “Guess I should be flattered, shouldn’t I?” Her voice was like velvet. For a moment-a wholly unprecedented moment-Jin’s throat thickened. No woman should have a voice like that. Except in bed.

  “Why did you sink my ship?” The steely edge he had learned as a lad came to his own voice without effort. “She was the fastest vessel on the Atlantic. What kind of privateer are you, putting a prize like that under water? You could have kept her, or sold her. She would have taken a fine price.”

  She screwed up her brows.

  “It’s true, I could’ve kept her, Master Brit. Or sold her. But I’d a feeling the master of the Cavalier wouldn’t allow his ship into another’s hands. Was I right?” She grinned. “Of course I was. Then when you found your freedom you’d be pestering to get her back until I’d have had to sink another of your ships until you left my coast alone. No thank you kindly.” Her eyes glinted.

  “Our countries are no longer at war. You should have released us when you realized who we were.”

  “You didn’t give me much choice, swarming aboard my vessel without invitation.”

  He shook his head in astonishment. “You were making to board us. What are you doing sneaking around like pirates in the rain?”

  “Looking for fools bent on glory,” she said with infuriating ease. “What kind of idiot attacks a pirate vessel?”