How to Be a Proper Lady

by Katharine Ashe

  Chapter 29

  In the deep gray of London midnight Jin stared at the ceiling, his heart racing as he sat perfectly still in a chair in his flat. Though his body ached with need, no female companion awaited him in the bedchamber. Not with Viola Carlyle two hundred miles away. Never again, no matter how many miles distant she was. Thus his life of celibacy commenced.

  But it was not a time that would linger long. She had taken his heart and after all he had done, all his voluntary damnation, he was quite certain he could not live without it. He could not live without her. So he may as well throw himself into certain danger. If unrest stirred in Malta, it would be as good a place as any to die. There he might finally be killed, after all, and end the torture of not having her, and of knowing another man would.

  She deserved more than Aidan Castle. She deserved everything.

  Unprofitable thoughts. She would have what she needed, whether it was Castle or some other man lucky enough to win her. And, as he had been for twenty years, he would be alone, as it should be. Or dead.

  But it was all a lie. A blasted lie. Not to Viola this time. To himself.

  He had come back to London and remained here, delaying his departure for the East on the Club’s mission, because he wanted that damned box. He’d made a second and third attempt to purchase it, anonymously through his own man of business days ago, then through Blackwood’s agent again today. The bishop was immovable, and suspicious now of the interest others were taking in the antiquity. He would not sell. He was adamant.

  But Jin had to have it. He could think of nothing else-except Viola. He would never be a good man; his past would remain with him always. But he was damned if he would let her go forever without first knowing if he was a man with a real last name. He owed at least that to himself. And to her.

  He stared into the darkness, night sounds coming to him through the open window, and waited for the Watch to call the hour. Then he waited longer. He had no master ordering him to his nightly prowl, no purpose to prowl in the first place. He would not steal the box from the bishop’s house and he would not harm anyone to get it otherwise. He was through with that. Seamus Castle’s bloody face and Viola’s impassioned defense of the punishment had seen to that. He never wished to hear her excuse him again, for in doing so she sullied herself. If he were ever going to deserve her-if he had a chance of deserving her-he would do it by cleaning his soul first.

  Finally, he rose from the chair and dressed in clothing suitable for such work. He had not yet spoken with the bishop’s junior footman. He had studied him, though, every night for nearly a fortnight. Within the hour the man would be leaving his employer’s house. As he did each night he would walk three blocks to his favorite gin house where he would drink two drams of Blue Ruin, then spend fifteen minutes in the back room with the red-haired whore before heading home. If the redhead was not working, he would go with the blonde rather than the brunette. Some men were misguided that way, Jin supposed.

  He walked to the bishop’s house. It was not far from his rooms in Piccadilly, and the muted rumbling activity of London at night kept him alert, his mind focused and off a beautiful little sailor with violet eyes.

  The moment he arrived he felt the change in the night air. The windows of the house, usually black at this hour, were not all dark now. From a window on the ground floor, a sliver of gold light peeked out between drawn drapes. It flickered. Then receded.

  Someone was moving through the house with a lamp; but it was not Pecker. From where he stood hidden in a shadow across the street, Jin watched the footman stroll up the narrow alley between the bishop’s house and the house beside it. Pecker whistled cheerfully, tossing an object into the air as he went, up and down. It caught a glimmer of moonlight and Jin stilled.

  Gold coin. Payment for allowing a stranger’s entrance?

  His anger simmered. That morning again they had tried to convince him to allow them to break into the house and steal the box. Matouba had been quiet but firm, and Billy typically enthusiastic. But Mattie had only stared at him above his cauliflower nose and said, “S’about damned time.”

  Now they had gone in, despite his forbidding them to. But they were sailors, trained to thieve in open waters on ship decks, not to skulk about a gentleman’s drawing room. They would get themselves caught on his behalf, and he could not allow that.

  It looked like his appointment with death might come sooner than anticipated.

  Swiftly on silent boots he crossed the street and stole into the alley. The tradesman’s door stood propped open. Cautiously, he entered the narrow basement corridor and ascended to the first floor, no servants in sight. Peculiar. But the hour was late and the elderly man kept an early schedule. Two doors let off the short corridor that ran to the foyer-a parlor and a dining room, most likely. Bishop Baldwin’s house was stacked in every corner with objects-statuettes, compasses, clocks, books, jewels on pedestals, musical instruments, and a thousand other trinkets, but it was nevertheless a modest establishment for a retired man of the cloth.

  Light flickered at the base of a door. Then from within-all in rapid succession-furniture scraping across floor, shattering glass, a muffled curse, and a thud.

  There was nothing to be done for it; he opened the door. In the near perfect darkness, a lamp lay in pieces on the floor at the edge of a thick carpet. A slight figure stood over it, a small casket clutched in her arms.

  Emotion rocked him like a gale force wind slamming him down and under. He remembered the gold and enamel mosaic box as if he’d seen it only yesterday sitting on his mother’s dressing table in her chambers strewn with silks and cushions. And he would recognize Viola Carlyle no matter how dark it was or what she wore-even if he were blind, deaf, and bereft of all other senses-until the day he died.

  Her gaze shot to him, then swiftly up at the ceiling. Footsteps sounded above.

  “Damn.” Her hushed curse was as smooth and rich as every word of hers he carried in his soul.

  He widened the door and stepped back from it, gesturing her through. They would not escape; pursuers, three men at least, were already on the landing above. But he must make the attempt, if he could force his thoughts to function properly. But his head swam and all he wanted in the world was moving toward him now.

  She barely glanced at him as she darted into the corridor. He followed. Lamplight scorched the stairs above, bouncing closer, the footsteps quick, feet and legs appearing.

  “You there! Halt!”

  She shot down the narrow steps to the basement, he behind. Billy leaped from a doorway, tugged his cap, and ran for the rear entrance where Matouba stood in silhouette framed by two uniformed men.

  They were caught. But he could assure she would not suffer for it. He reached forward and grabbed her shoulder.

  Billy skidded to a halt at the other end of the corridor as Jin slammed her back against his chest.

  “Do not speak unless I tell you to,” he whispered harshly into her ear as the sheer relief and joy of being touched by him again flooded her. Then he released her and there was a great deal of commotion-men crowding into the basement corridor from either end with lamps and candles and at least one fireplace poker-in livery and uniform. An old man with a long hooked nose and nightcap askew atop his scraggly yellowish-gray hair stepped forward.

  “Ha ha! I anticipated subterfuge.” He shoved his candle in her face, wax spitting onto her coat. “Set a trap for you! I let that fool Pecker take your money, you thieving whelp. Ha! I have you now, by George.” He thrust his candle into a servant’s hand and gripped the box. “You won’t have my casket now, but ten years in Newgate.”

  Viola held on tight. “Oh, just let me have it, you mean old man. I will pay you for it.”

  Gasps all around, except from Billy in the hands of two servants, and except from the silent man at her side.

  The bishop’s face opened in surprise, the candlelight making his wrinkles into a complex set of tracks across his skin.

 
“A girl!”

  “I am not a girl. And you are a selfish, miserly fellow. Why won’t you sell this box?”

  “Because I found it fair and square and I don’t sell my treasures, young missy.” His eyes narrowed. “I suspect you think that because you are a female I won’t turn you in. But you are wrong. God forgives penitent miscreants, but the law makes examples of them first.” He yanked the box out of her grip, and her stomach plummeted to her shoes. “Officers, I shall want to visit her cell in Newgate tomorrow to hear her apology. Take her, and her thieving, good-for-nothing companions in crime.” He flicked a disinterested gaze at Jin. “I am going back to bed. With my casket.”

  “She’s not to blame, Your Grace.”

  Viola started. Jin’s voice was not quite his own, deep and beautiful as always, but tinged with some other sound, like Billy’s twang or like the footman Jane had bribed.

  “Oh she isn’t, young man? Then who is? You?”

  “Well, you see, it’s my sister who’s the troublemaker, Your Excellency.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other as though uncomfortable. Viola gaped. His sister? What was he doing?

  “This is your sister?”

  “No, sir.” He flickered her a glance she could have sworn seemed shy. But that was impossible. “My sister is this here lady’s maid.”

  “Lady? This one?” The bishop grabbed a candle and pushed it up to her face again.

  “Yessir. Sister of a lord, just like you, begging your pardon, Your Grace.”

  “Well I don’t see it. She doesn’t look like a doxy, it’s true. But she’s got the look of an urchin about her.”

  Jin nodded. “She’s not your typical lady, that’s for sure, Your Lordship. But, well, take a look at her hands.”

  The bishop frowned. “Show me your hands, missy.”

  She did so.

  The bishop’s brow terraced. He leaned to the servant beside him. “Do those look like the hands of a lady to you, Clement?”

  “Yes, Your Grace. I believe they do.”

  The bishop’s lips screwed up and he narrowed his eyes at Jin. “What is she doing in my house stealing my casket, then?”

  “Well, sir, I want that casket. And my sister, well, she’s a troublemaker. This lady here-” His whole demeanor spoke abashed. It was astounding. Viola would have stared wide-mouthed if her heart weren’t aching so fiercely. “This lady likes a bit of fun and games, you see, Your Grace. So when my sister dared her to steal the thing, she thought it’d be something of a lark.”

  “And you came with her to steal it?”

  “I couldn’t very well leave her to it alone, sir, she being a lady and all.”

  Viola nearly fell to the floor. He was actually blushing. She had not thought it possible. It made her a little nauseated to realize that he could act so well. A lot nauseated.

  The bishop nodded. “Then you are the one bound for Newgate tonight, young man, if not for aiding in a robbery then for not being man enough to take your sister in hand and teach her right and wrong. Eve is the weaker sex and prone to sin. Adam must subdue her wild spirit and with his strong hand demonstrate both his superior will and compassionate mercy.”

  Churchman or not, Viola could not be happy for this chastisement.

  “But he did not-”

  “Be still, missy, and give me your brother’s name.”

  “The Earl of Savege, Your Grace,” Jin replied.

  “Savege, you say? The libertine.” He scowled. “But he’ll have her back tonight. A man should keep better rein on that which is his.” He clutched the box tight to his chest.

  “But-”

  “Hush, missy, or I’ll send you to Newgate with the rest of these thieves after all. Officers, I’ll see you at the prison tomorrow. Clement, bring Lord Savege’s sister up to the parlor, and call my carriage.” He pushed away through the crowd.

  Men’s hands circled Jin’s arms.

  “Wait,” Viola exclaimed. “No-”

  “Woman,” Jin said in his own perfect voice, “if you do not follow the bishop up those stairs and return home now, I vow I will never speak to you again.”

  Her lungs compressed. “Does that mean you were considering speaking to me ever again before this?”

  “Go,” he growled.

  “But-”

  “Go.”

  They pulled him away, and Billy and Matouba. Where Mattie had gone she hadn’t an idea. But she would get them all out of jail. Alex would. She turned from the sight of him being taken away in handcuffs, and hurried up after the bishop.

  Not long before dawn, Mattie arrived at the mass of stones and mortar called Newgate Prison, which was grand and superior on the outside, thoroughly stinking and filthy within. With the contents of a sac the size of his fist, Mattie bribed the entry officer, the wing warden, and the cell guard.

  The guard drooled over the two sparkling guineas in his palm as he picked his teeth with a rat’s bone, then he unlocked the cell.

  “Be seein’ ye, Mr. Smythe. Do come again. And bring yer friends too.” He bowed with a smirk and spit in the dirt.

  The sky was still dark, the autumn air chill when Jin walked out the front door of the prison as though he hadn’t been brought up on charges of thievery by a lord of the church mere hours earlier. Wealth had its advantages.

  His clothing clung to him, soaked with sweat from his brief tenure in the dank cage of men, his body’s uncontrollable response as he’d sat motionless, swallowing back the dread. But she had not had to endure the filth or discomfort of a similar cell, or the real dangers a woman faced in such a place. The regular denizens of jailhouses knew no shame, modesty, or pity; they would have made a meal of Viola Carlyle. Unless, of course, she cozened them as she did everyone else-except unfortunately the bishop. With him she had been inconveniently petulant.

  He crossed the yard and passed through the outer gate, sucking in air, the sour remnants of terror slipping away from his exhausted limbs.

  “You ain’t gonna talk to us?” Mattie grumbled. Matouba and Billy slogged silently behind. The boy was wily, but the hue of Matouba’s skin had not been popular with several of their cellmates. Jin had allowed them to manage on their own. They deserved whatever discomfort they suffered for dragging her into it, as did he. But he would spend a thousand nights of hell in a prison cell if it meant Viola would be well.

  “I have nothing to say which you do not already anticipate.” He walked to the street. “Did you manage to set aside a coin for a hackney coach, or must I walk home?”

  Mattie jingled the remains of the purse. Jin took it.

  “Not even a thanks, a’course,” his helmsman grunted.

  He halted and turned to them. “Mattie, give me your knife.”

  Three pairs of eyes went round. Even Matouba’s cheeks turned gray.

  Jin rolled his eyes. “For later. As mine was taken from me by our hosts, I am now left without, and you have another on the ship.” He accepted the blade and slipped it into his boot. “If I wanted to kill you,” he added, turning back to the street, “I would have done it years ago.”

  “We’re plumb sorry Miss Viola dropped that lamp, Cap’n,” Billy peeped uncertainly. “She was doin’ a right bang-up job o’ the thing till then.”

  He had no doubt of it. “Amateurs. You should all be ashamed.”

  “Never meant for her to go into the house at all. Tried to stall, but she insisted,” Mattie mumbled. “We thought you’d get there sooner. You got there every night earlier this whole past fortnight.”

  “You ain’t never been late for nothin’, Cap’n,” Billy’s tenor piped.

  “Picked a fine night to dilly-dally.” This in Matouba’s bass.

  Jin pivoted slowly, restraining the laughter building in his tight chest.

  “You are a pack of imbeciles.”

  “We might be imbeciles.” Mattie crossed his thick arms. “What we ain’t is blind. Not nearly so blind as you, at least.”

  For a series of moment
s Jin stared at his crewmen. Then he hailed a hackney and went home to sleep.

  Chapter 30

  He awoke midafternoon, washed off the salt and stench of his prison sojourn, and sent a message across town by courier.

  He waited.

  Three quarters of an hour later a reply arrived. In illiterate phrases, Pecker explained how he had taken advantage of the bishop’s absence that morning (when His Lordship went to Newgate to check on his prisoners) to remove the box from his employer’s bedchamber and hide it. In the intervening hours, however, he had grown overly anxious to rid himself of his prize. Jin was to meet him at a specified location at the London Docks, where he would exchange the box for gold.

  The location was Jin’s hired berth.

  Removing Mattie’s knife from his boot, he set it on the table. He was not willing to harm another person again. Not gravely. Not since he had set eyes on Viola Carlyle standing in a dark parlor in the middle of the night dressed in breeches and a man’s shirt.

  He rode to the docks, stabled his horse, and made his way down the quay. Looking toward his ship, he could not resist smiling. Amid her distress in those last moments at Savege Park, she had paused to marvel over the exorbitant amount he was spending to dock at the busy port for so many weeks. She had a quick, relentless spirit, and a madness that twined about his heart and made him thoroughly hers. Whatever happened with the box, and whatever treasure it held for him-or did not hold-he would not let her go. He would rather forgive himself and ask the rest of the world for forgiveness every day of his life than lose her.

  The quay was settling down to quiet for the evening, lumpers hauling cargo onto ships that would depart in the morning and sailors busy with tasks on board vessels stacked two deep at each berth. The bishop’s footman was nowhere in sight. But a sailor leaned against the base of the gangway on the vessel before Jin’s. The angle of his hat brim revealed a face uncannily like Pecker’s.

  “Thought it was you,” he greeted Jin. “Told my brother Hole it was. But he was suspicious. Thought I just wanted to take all the money and run.” In the warm September breeze that clanked lines in blocks and fluttered banners atop masts through the failing sunlight, he wore a heavy overcoat, especially bulky at one side of his chest. “But I wouldn’t do that to kin, you sees. And I was curious.”