“Bless you, son,” she rasped, opaque eyes restive in a face weathered by day after day of hopeless labor on her street corner.
“I have never been a son, grandmother,” he said quietly. “But I will take your blessing, nevertheless.” He returned the pressure on her bony fingers, released her, and continued on his way through the bustle and life that no longer held the sharp fascination it always had for him. He did not wish to ponder the change or how it had come upon him. He did not wish to walk down that road. He knew better than to even consider it.
Malta looked more attractive every minute.
Chapter 21
“Your sister, Lady Savege,” the curate’s wife said in pale tones, “will never be a great proficient, I fear.”
“Won’t she, Mrs. Appleby?” Serena’s voice sympathized.
“She does have the necessary calluses to pluck, you see…”
From behind the doorpost in the corridor, Viola could not see the shadow of a woman, but she knew Mrs. Appleby must be wringing her hands. She had done so through each of her harp lessons. She was an accounted virtuoso on the instrument, but she was a sad shade of a person. Viola thanked God she hadn’t had to contend with women aboard her ship. She would have gone stark raving mad.
Although, of course, Jin already thought she was mad.
“… but she hasn’t the delicacy for it.”
“The delicacy?”
“The grace of poise a harpist must bring to her art.”
“I haven’t got grace of poise,” Viola whispered to the gentleman leaning over her shoulder.
“I would never say so,” he rejoined in a hush.
“But you believe so.”
“I should rather be horsewhipped than admit to it.”
“You are very peculiar, Mr. Yale.”
“A lady has never called me quite that. Dashing. Handsome. Debonair, yes. Peculiar, no.”
“Well, according to Mrs. Appleby I am not a lady, so you are still safe.”
Serena and the curate’s wife turned toward the door. Mr. Yale snatched her arm, then moved forward decorously across the threshold.
“Ah, Mrs. Appleby, we will be so unhappy to suffer your absence but it seems that Miss Carlyle has injured her pinky finger on a… a…” He squeezed her hand.
“Block! That is to say… a pulley!”
“Ah, yes, a pulley”-he shot her a speaking glance-“and thus cannot continue her lessons with you.” He released her and took Mrs. Appleby’s arm upon his. “Allow me to escort you to Lord Savege’s carriage. Albert will see you home himself.” They moved off. “Oh, Albert? Capital fellow, you know. Hasn’t any use for egg spoons, of course, and I cannot blame him a bit for it…”
“He is positively absurd.” Serena drew her arm in to link with her own. “And I think he admires you very much. He would be long gone back to London by now if not for you.”
“He is very nice. I hadn’t remembered gentlemen being so very… so very…”
“Young and handsome?”
“I was going to say silly, but then I recalled that the baron used to play ridiculous games with us. Didn’t he?”
Serena’s face sobered. “He did. I remember those games well.”
A servant appeared at the door and bowed. “My lady, a gentleman awaits you in the blue parlor. He asked to be unannounced, and for you to attend him alone, if you would.”
“How odd.” Then her eyes widened slightly. “Vi, I shall see what this is about and return in an instant. The gardener has cut dozens of flowers and I thought we might make some arrangements.”
“As long as it does not entail sewing or playing a musical instrument.”
Viola wandered to the window and stared out at the ocean stretching to the horizon. The day was blustery, suggesting a summer storm to come. If she were aboard her ship she would have the men batten the hatches and furl the sails, leaving a few aloft to guide her through the wind. She would send three quarters of them below and set a watch in shifts if the tempest raged long. Afterward, she would break out the rum or Madeira, Becoua would play a tune on his mandolin while Sam and Frenchie sang, and they would celebrate making it through yet another danger of life upon the sea.
She sighed, her exhalation condensing on the glass and disappearing just as swiftly. Two months now away from her ship and crew, and… She did not miss it.
She did not miss it.
She missed Crazy, her oldest friend, of course. She missed Becoua’s steadiness, Sam and Frenchie’s good humor, and little Gui who had cried hearty tears when she departed from Port of Spain. She missed her cozy, shabby cabin, and wondered how the men were getting along in Boston now. But she did not miss her life at sea, and it sat on her poorly that she did not.
She should. She had loved captaining her own ship, trawling the Massachusetts coast for ne’er-do-wells, remaining hundreds of miles away from Aidan because she could not bear to give it up. Now she had, and she did not miss it.
She missed Jin. Quite a great deal.
The project of becoming a lady was not proving sufficient to erase him from her thoughts. Or her insides. Inside, in her chest and belly, a dull ache reminded her daily that he had turned her life upside-down, but whether it was for the best was yet to be seen.
She toyed with the ribbons dangling beneath her breasts, trying to pull in a full breath against her stays. Her feet were pinched in the silly little slippers, and she was tired of sitting before her mirror every morning for an hour while Jane played with her hair.
“Starting tomorrow,” she murmured to the window, making mist again, “I will tie my hair in a queue and Serena will smile and Jane will glower and I will be much”-she poked her finger into the mist-“much”-another poke-“more comfortable.”
“Vi?” Her sister stood at the door.
“Yes?” She turned. “Who was it that called?”
“You will be cross with me, I am afraid.” Her hands folded together. “He heard that you were here through the servants, of course, and he wrote to me straight off. But I told him he mustn’t come until you were ready. You haven’t spoken of him, though, and I did not wish to rush you…”
“It is the baron, isn’t it? He is here.”
Serena nodded. “He wishes very much to see you.”
Viola crossed the chamber, drawing in as much air as the wretched corset would allow and taking her sister’s hand. “Then we must not keep him waiting.”
She walked the corridor to the blue parlor quite as steadily as Serena and Mr. Yale had taught her, but her palms pressed against her skirts were like clams. Serena gestured to the footman and the door opened.
The gentleman standing in the middle of the room did not suit it in the least. Amid the rich gold and sapphire of the parlor he was a sand-and-hay scarecrow, thin of hair and frame, and garbed somewhat shabbily. But his kind eyes were the same, and filled with tears.
Her throat thickened.
“Viola?” he uttered.
She attempted a curtsy. “Good day, sir.”
His papery brow crinkled. “Will you stand on ceremony with me, then? Has my little girl grown into such a great woman of the world that she will not come to me now and take my hand?”
She moved forward. He stretched out his hands, she put hers in them, and a tear overflowed onto his sunken cheek. Then onto both of hers.
“Your hands are the same,” she whispered-warm, encompassing, and safe as they always had been. As she had remembered every night aboard ship that first month and for so many nights after, dreaming of home and wondering if her papa would come after her. Then Fionn told her they all thought her dead, and she ceased dreaming. Dreams might suit Serena, but not an adventuresome girl like her. Not the girl her papa believed her to be. He would wish her to be brave.
And so she had been brave. But now she trembled like a ten-year-old again.
“You are a beauty, so much like your mother.” His face, careworn and aged as she had never imagined it, creased into a gent
le smile. “My little girl. My Viola. How I grieved for loss of you.”
Perhaps she saw in his eyes the extent of that grief. Perhaps she only felt it in her heart. But she could not withstand his affection, even were she to again lose it, Serena’s, and the affections of all whom she had striven so hard to forget.
“I missed you too,” she said on a catch in her throat. “Papa.”
His hands tightened around hers and Serena choked on a laughing sob.
After that there was much conversation and many, many reassurances.
“Vi, they are here!” Serena stood in the kitchen doorway on the balls of her feet.
“They?” Viola laid down a sprig of rosemary and drew off her apron.
“Alex. And friends. There are four carriages coming along the drive.”
Her heart did a strange little jig. Four carriages. With four carriages-even one-it was possible that…
She should not be so eager. She cast a quick glance at the herbs spread over drying pans. It was the most innocuous ladylike task she had accomplished yet, and her favorite so far. But it could wait.
She hated herself for hoping. But she could hate herself and still dash after her sister toward the front of the house where servants already were hauling in portmanteaus and traveling cases. They reached the foyer lined with maids and footmen as a gentleman came through the door. Tall, strapping, and remarkably attractive, with walnut-colored hair, an elegant air, and the smile of a man who knew his worth, he announced in a bold voice, “Where is my lady wife?”
“I am here, my lord.”
Viola had never heard Serena’s voice thus, low and touchingly sweet. Lord Savege’s regard alighted upon her, and his face relaxed into a raffish grin.
“She is there, indeed.” He came to her, took up her hand, and pressed quite a lengthy kiss onto the back of it. Then onto the palm. Viola’s toes curled watching it. Her gaze darted toward the door.
“How are you, my lady,” the earl said, “and how is our daughter?”
“Quite well, both of us. She is napping now.” Serena slipped her arm through his. “Alex, allow me to present to you my sister, Viola.”
“Miss Carlyle.” He bowed. “Welcome home.”
Three ladies and a gentleman entered the foyer then, none of them known to Viola. The footman closed the door behind them and her heart fell. Silently she berated herself.
In the next minutes she found it entirely believable that her sister had fallen in love with the Earl of Savege. He was not what she imagined an earl should be, stuffy and proper. He tended rather toward an open manner and enormous charm.
“My sister, Kitty, Lady Blackwood, wishes to meet you,” he said, “but remains in town with her little one in the hopes that we will all return there shortly. She has however sent her bosom companions with me as temporary replacements.”
A willow of a girl with tumbling silken brown locks and dark eyes curtsied. “I am Fiona Blackwood,” she said upon a gentle Scottish lilt. “Lord Savege’s sister, Kitty, is married to my brother and she is my very great friend. And you are ever so pretty.”
“But does she have two sticks to rub together in her head, is more to the point.” Behind gold wire spectacles framed by short flaxen locks, green eyes studied her. “How do you do, Miss Carlyle? I am Emily Vale but I would prefer you call me Lysistrata.”
“You have changed it again, my lady?” Mr. Yale drawled as he entered the foyer. “You must have wearied of Boadicea.”
“Boadicea was Emily’s chosen name before Lysistrata,” Lady Fiona whispered into Viola’s ear.
“I did not weary of it,” Lady Emily replied to Mr. Yale. “But I am already weary of you and I have only seen you for ten seconds.” She paused. “Now it is fifteen and I am still weary.”
Mr. Yale chuckled.
“Pay no attention to ma petite Emilie, chère mademoiselle.” An elegant lady of black, white, and red contrasts pecked Viola on either cheek in a waft of Parisian perfume. “She does not like the long carriages, you see.”
“This is Madame Roche, Miss Carlyle,” Lady Fiona said, dimples denting her alabaster cheeks. “She is Lady Emily’s companion and positively diverting.” Her gaze followed Mr. Yale. “But I see you are already enjoying diverting company.”
Serena drew forward a lean, fair-haired man with bright blue eyes. “Viola, meet our stepbrother, Sir Tracy Lucas.”
“You must call me only Tracy, I hope.” He bowed and gave her an attractive smile. “And I will be honored to call you sister.”
“This is a lovely party, isn’t it, Miss Carlyle?” Lady Fiona’s smile lit up her face. She was taller even than Serena, lithe maidenly perfection in white muslin. “It will be quite splendid coming to know you, and I know Lady Emily-rather Lysistrata-will like it too once she has thrown off the discomforts of travel.” She darted another glance at Mr. Yale, this time sly and not in the least bit innocent. “Do you think we may have dancing?”
Viola lifted her brows. “I do not know how to dance, actually.”
The girl’s face brightened. “How perfectly splendid! We shall give you lessons.”
The house abruptly became quite merry. Accustomed to living among many people in close quarters, Viola did not mind the activity. These people from London, however, were not like her sister and the baron, rather a bit more like Mr. Yale-clever, fashionable, and very gracious to her. Still, Viola found herself stealing away to the coastal path over the bluff where far below waves bathed the narrow beach in froth and gulls’ cries could be heard more stridently. She sucked in the briny air, the sun warmed her cheeks, and she was nearly happy, except for the empty, twisted space in her middle that would not seem to go away.
Mr. Yale remained kindly attentive. But his pleasure in his visit to Savege Park seemed to have paled.
“Lady Fiona admires you.” She slid her gaze to the pretty girl perched at the pianoforte playing a lilting tune, her voice sweet as nothing at sea ever was, rather more like the songbirds in Serena’s terraced gardens on the inland side of the house.
“Yes, well.” He swallowed a mouthful of port. “If I were to pursue that admiration her brother would have my neck in a noose.”
“I thought you and Lord Blackwood were quite good friends.”
“Precisely.”
She studied his silvery eyes, not a bit misty with drink although she had watched him consume at least three glasses of wine with dinner.
“You have no interest in her, do you?”
“She is all that is lovely.” He sipped again.
“But-”
“Miss Carlyle, I find that I am unable to pursue this particular avenue of conversation. Pray, forgive me.”
“Mr. Yale, after three weeks in my company, you have not yet come to understand the measure of me?”
His mouth slipped into a grin. “Ah. I have mistaken myself.” He looked at her directly. “I shall put it differently: I haven’t any interest in girls barely out of the schoolroom.”
“And yet you tease Lady Emily nearly every occasion offered to you. She cannot be more than twenty.”
His silvery eyes sparkled. “She is quite another sort.”
“She thinks you are an indolent fop. Are you?”
“Naturally you must make your own judgment.”
“I have very little upon which to base a comparative judgment. Only Lord Savege, Sir Tracy, and Lord Carlyle, really.”
“You omit our mutual friend from that short list. Is he not a gentleman, Miss Carlyle?”
Her cheeks warmed. “I don’t know what you can mean.”
A grin split across his face. “Why, you have done it! You have truly become the lady you sought a month ago.”
She did not know whether to laugh with him or to cry. Had the world she had inhabited for fifteen years truly disappeared in a matter of weeks? If she donned again breeches and sash, would the calluses on her palms renew themselves swiftly, or slowly as when she had first trained her hands to labor?
The skirts of a white dress flittered into her sight like the wings of gulls about a topsail.
“Mr. Yale,” Lady Fiona said, her long lashes dipping over pretty brown eyes. “If I play tomorrow, will you teach Miss Carlyle how to dance? Lady Savege says we are to have a party at week’s end, with the neighbors from all about. But Miss Carlyle insists she cannot dance and I will not have her sitting on the side while the rest of us enjoy ourselves. She is far too pretty for that.” She grasped Viola’s fingers and pressed them warmly. “Our host is an exceptional dancer as well. With your assistance, Mr. Yale, I am certain Miss Carlyle will be more than prepared to take the floor for the party. Will you, sir?”
“It would be my honor. Miss Carlyle?”
“Well, why not?” She could not possibly acquit herself worse at dancing than at painting and the harp.
She did. Considerably worse.
“Oh! I am sorry.”
“No need for apologies, my dear. I am no doubt at fault.” Lord Savege’s grin glimmered.
Viola narrowed her eyes skeptically and tripped over the earl’s feet again.
“This is hopeless.”
“Ladies do not mutter on the dance floor.” Mr. Yale winked as he took her hand from the earl’s.
“Ladies do not wish for their cutlass to cut off the bottom six inches of their dress either, or to tear a space to breathe in their stays, I suspect.”
“Oo, la!” Madame Roche laughed. “Miss Carlyle, she is vraiment charmant, no?”
“I daresay,” Mr. Yale said with perfect equanimity. Serena chuckled. From Lady Fiona at the pianoforte came a delighted ripple of notes. Even Lady Emily sitting removed from the dancing with a book cracked a smile. Warm breeze drifted in through long windows open to the late-summer afternoon, billowing the draperies out like Viola’s skirts, and she could not be unhappy. There was great joy to be had in her new friends’ company, great challenge to overcome in mastering new skills, and great comfort in which to revel in her sister’s beautiful home. To feel this persistent emptiness inside, despite all, seemed ridiculously contrary. She should have become accustomed to it by now.
How to Be a Proper Lady Page 23
