A Lady's Guide to Improper Behavior by Suzanne Enoch (6)

I’m so pleased you’re living at James House again,” Violet gushed, taking the chair beside Tolly’s and grabbing his right hand in both of hers. “I’ve missed you terribly, you know.”

“You’ve only seen me for two months or so every two or three years as it is, Vi,” he returned, freeing his hand as swiftly as he could do so without dumping her off the chair in the middle of the damned Ridgemont ballroom.

“Yes, but you always stayed with us the entire time you were on leave. This time we had to come to London just to find you, and then you still wouldn’t come near us.”

What could he tell her about that? That he’d become more comfortable among strangers he could watch with suspicion than with friends and family he was expected to trust? Trust. That word had certainly taken on new significance in the past year.

Of course his obsession with that word in no way explained his immediate fascination with Theresa Weller. Even with his gaze on his sister he knew precisely where Tess was in the large ballroom, and with whom she was dancing—currently stocky, round Francis Henning. Apparently she enjoyed dancing so much that she would partner with anyone.

Except him. He shifted a little, though it had been months since he’d found something close to a comfortable position. Bartholomew glanced at the dance floor again, catching a glimpse of violet gown and hair the color of morning sunshine.

“Stephen’s letter said he met Amelia at the Hutchings recital last year,” he commented, making a final attempt at distracting himself.

Violet snuggled in against his shoulder as she used to do, and he steeled himself as both her arms wrapped around his. “Yes. He complained about going, you know, but my good friend Celia was going to play the pianoforte, and so I forced him to escort me.”

“Love at first sight?”

His sister chuckled. “Most definitely. We only realized later that Tess had forced Amelia to go because she reckoned Stephen might be there. She thought they would suit.”

With a slight scowl he looked again at the lavender butterfly floating elegantly across the dance floor. “Amelia and her cousins do seem very close.”

“They were all raised together by their grand-mother. That’s her,” Violet said, gesturing with one forefinger. “The Dowager Viscountess Weller. She’s very nice, too. And quite funny. She’s obsessed with cats. She asked us all to call her Grandmama Agnes.”

Bartholomew glanced over at her—and blinked. Grandmama Agnes wore a hat topped with three brightly colored ostrich plumes, the thing so enormous he was somewhat surprised she didn’t topple over. Despite her advanced age she looked bright-eyed enough, with an open, friendly countenance very like all three of her grandchildren.

But his curiosity had little to do with grandmothers. “What’s your opinion of Amelia’s family?” he pursued. “The cousins, I mean.”

“Well, I think Michael is excessively handsome,” she said, and sighed. “Extremely excessively handsome.”

“Mmm-hmm.” He wondered whether Stephen knew of their sister’s infatuation, but then Violet had had a new beau for every letter she’d written him since she’d turned fifteen. “And the sister?”

“Tess is wonderful. And very witty. And she knows a great deal about how to encourage or deflect the attentions of a gentleman. So I hope you don’t hate her simply because she spoke a bit harshly to you the other night.”

Hate wasn’t the word. “Confounded by” fit much better. And “infatuated with.” He shook himself, realizing that his sister expected a response. “I spoke harshly first,” he decided. Then he blinked. “What does she know about encouraging the attentions of a gentleman?”

“Oh, a great deal. She’s already published a booklet on proper behavior. Anonymously, of course, but Amelia told me it was Tess after she saw me reading it.”

“Really?” He doubted some of the things she’d said to him were in that booklet.

“Truly.” The cotillion ended, and Violet bounced to her feet as a young man approached. “Hello, Andrew,” she chirped, and took his arm without a backward glance at her brother.

Tolly stopped her with his cane. “Introductions, Vi,” he said. This fellow might be known to Stephen, but as Violet had already noted, he’d been away. And he was not a damned sack of potatoes, for God’s sake.

“What? Oh. Apologies, Tolly. Andrew, this is my brother, Colonel Bartholomew James. Tolly, Mr. Andrew Carroway, Lord Dare’s third brother.”

With a nod, Tolly dismissed the pair of them. He couldn’t very well tell Andrew that he’d met his older brother, Captain Bradshaw Carroway, at the Adventurers’ Club, unless he wanted to be asked to leave it.

“How’s the leg?”

Alexander Rable, the Marquis of Montrose, sank onto the chair beside him. Alarm bells immediately began ringing in Tolly’s skull; the two of them hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words together over the past five years, and there was a quadrille being played thirty feet away. “I still have two of them,” he returned.

“I heard you lost everyone under your command. And by ‘lost’ I mean they died.”

The hostility didn’t surprise him; they’d never been on friendly terms even at Oxford. He did not, however, appreciate the path this little conversation was taking. “They were murdered,” he corrected, keeping his voice level.

“But you weren’t.”

“Are we playing a game of state the obvious? You should have told me, so I could mention that you’re acquiring that hanging jowl that runs on your father’s side of the family.” He gestured at the base of Montrose’s jaw.

“If you weren’t a cripple, I would flatten you for that.”

Bartholomew sent a quick look toward the dance floor. Theresa was on the far side of the room, well out of earshot. For some reason that was important. “Don’t talk to me about India, and I won’t mention your wobbling jowls.”

“I actually only came over here to tell you to stop staring at Tess Weller. You’re embarrassing yourself, and if you keep it up, you’ll embarrass her.”

He could explain his attention away, he supposed, mention that her cousin had recently married his brother and that he was attempting to become acquainted with the family. It would be a lie, though.

“Thank you for the advice,” Tolly said coolly. “Have you warned away everyone who looks in her direction, or is it just the cripple you feel threatened by?”

“I’m not threatened by you,” Montrose shot back. “I told you, you’re an embarrassment. You carry damned rumors with you, and she won’t want them touching her.”

“I suppose I’ll wait for her to tell me that.”

“If you want to appear that pitiful, then by all means.” The marquis stood. “I was only trying to be kind.”

“Ah. Then you’ve changed.”

With a cold smile, Montrose nodded and vanished into the large, festive crowd. Tolly curled his fingers around the brass handle of his cane so hard his knuckles turned white. He should be gratified, he supposed, that anyone had taken enough notice of his presence to warn him away, but mostly he was angry because Montrose was correct. He didn’t have much to offer, and he’d heard the rumors, too. Both the ones about his cowardice and the ones that he’d manufactured the entire incident with the Thuggee. They couldn’t possibly help his reputation, or his standing with Tess Weller.

Was he actually in pursuit, though? Yes, in her presence he tended to forget the blackness and pain of the last months. And she was definitely pleasant to look at. But she also made him want things, made him feel things he wasn’t certain he had the right to enjoy any longer.

Dancing, first and foremost. And sex. As he considered it, he would place sex first, with dancing a far-following second. At least he could still manage sex, though it hadn’t been much on his mind until he’d crossed Theresa Weller’s path.

She twirled into view, shimmering in the light of a hundred candles. She laughed and spun, happy and safe amid her large circle of friends and admirers, while he crouched, steeling his thoughts against the creeping, silent dark that threatened to overwhelm him every night. The worst of it was the knowledge that the horror was real, because that one night, back when he’d thought that kindness and vigilance and honor would be met with the same, it had caught him.

At least he’d learned the lesson and accepted the pain and punishment that had been dealt him. Sommerset said that he didn’t deserve either, but it wasn’t about what he deserved. His men couldn’t change their circumstances. It was wrong of him to attempt to alter his.

The quadrille finished. Amid the chatter and the applause, a swirl of rose-scented lavender gown dropped into the chair Montrose had vacated. “Well?” Theresa prompted.

“Well what?”

“I told you that I wouldn’t ask you to dance again. I left a space open on my card later in the evening because you’re somewhat dim-witted, but you still have to ask me.”

That was bloody enough of that. Keeping his gaze sightlessly somewhere three or so feet ahead of him, he clenched his jaw. “Tease and prod at me as much as you please, Theresa, as long as you stay out of my damned reach,” he uttered in a low voice.

“I—”

“Because while I am slow-moving,” he continued, ignoring her interruption, “I am not a simpleton, and I believe I mentioned already that I am not a eunuch. I have some pride, and I must still have the remains of a gentleman about me, or I would tell you precisely what I would like to do with you right now. And it has very little to do with dancing.”

He heard her sharp intake of breath, waited for her to scream, faint, or stand up and stalk away. She had spleen, but he’d become well enough acquainted with her to know that she didn’t like being spoken to that way. And now she knew that he didn’t like it, either.

“Don’t you have a dance?” he demanded when she neither spoke nor fled.

“What, exactly, happened to your leg?”

Tolly flinched. That hadn’t been on his list of her possible reactions, blasted chit. “You don’t want to know. Leave me be.”

“I asked because I do want to know, and no, I won’t leave you be. Not until you answer my question.”

For a moment Theresa thought he might refuse to say anything. With her next dance partner hovering at the edge of her vision, she didn’t have much time to convince the colonel to talk to her. What she did have, though, was a very fresh memory of a kiss on the servants’ stairs. A kiss that had positively curled her toes. And quite possibly his, as well. He didn’t want her to walk away. He couldn’t want that. And so she asked an improper question, one that a lady wouldn’t ask. At least she’d made certain that no one but Tolly had heard her.

“Very well, Tess,” he said in a low, toneless voice, his gaze lowering to the floor. “I was stabbed and shot and thrown into a deep, damp well, and the corpses of my men were dumped in after me. That is what happened to my leg. Now go waltz with Lord Lionel.”

Theresa couldn’t breathe. She’d known it would be something awful. She’d even steeled herself against a tale of a battle and bloodshed. But this—no matter what she imagined, the reality must have been much, much worse. Shaking, she clasped her hands tightly together against her thighs. “Bartholomew,” she whispered, willing him to look at her.

He didn’t. “Will you go away now?”

She nodded. For heaven’s sake, she wanted some fresh air. A strong wind out in the open, in the sunlight, and preferably on the top of a hill. Grabbing onto the back of her chair, she stood.

As Lionel approached, though, Theresa stopped. She could fill her mind with other things, push the images that Tolly’s words conjured far away from her. He couldn’t. And she’d asked the question because she’d wanted to know the answer. Taking a deep breath, she faced him. “Look at me,” she murmured.

Golden brown eyes lifted to meet hers.

“I wasn’t teasing,” she continued in the same low voice. “I wanted to dance with you. What you just told me is horrific, but it is not my fault. And I would still like to dance with you. I would settle, however, for you coming to call on me.”

“Would you, now? You would settle for a social call?”

At this moment, she could recall the exact passage she’d written in her lady’s guide about how a lady did not ask a gentleman to call on her. And that wasn’t even the first of her own rules she’d broken where Tolly James was concerned. He intrigued her mightily, and though the reasons for that were still madly baffling, she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him. And she wanted to figure out why.

“Since you haven’t managed a social call yet, I think that would be a good beginning.” She favored him with a slow smile, excitement tingling down to her toes. “And we both know you’ll be stopping by.” Before he could reply to that, however, she took Lord Lionel’s arm and pulled him onto the dance floor.

“That fellow always seems to be about, don’t he?” the marquis’s second son commented as they turned about the floor.

“Everyone’s about all the time during the Season,” she returned with a brisk smile. She wanted a bit of time to sort through her thoughts, and thankfully Lionel didn’t tax her mind too severely.

“Yes, but he’s always about you.”

Theresa stifled an annoyed sigh. At times, dancing was quite overrated. “Shall I name all of the gentlemen who are about me all the time? Your name would appear on that list, my lord. And you and I don’t have a close familial connection as Colonel James and I do.”

“But Montrose don’t mind me being about you. He ain’t so fond of Bartholomew, there.”

“And why is that?”

“You’d have to ask Alexander. I ain’t a wag.”

Theresa just barely restrained herself from pointing out that Lionel had done nothing but gossip since the moment they’d met. Instead she glanced again in Tolly’s direction, as she’d been doing all evening. His chair was empty.

Keen disappointment touched her, in herself for ignoring the rules of politeness and decorum and quite probably saying the wrong thing, and in him for taking the excuse of their conversation to leave when he hadn’t wanted to be there in the first place.

After those blasted kisses he had best manage to pay a call and say hello properly, or she would be forced to track him down and find out why. And that was something that would never appear in her Guide.

 

Bartholomew stepped down from the hired hack and stopped on the street for a moment to gaze at the modest Cheapside home. Every instinct he possessed yelled at him to climb back into that carriage and return to James House posthaste. Instead he dug the tip of his cane into the hard ground and limped forward.

With his free hand he swung the brass knocker against the door. At ten o’clock the hour was still fairly early for the peerage during the Season of balls and parties, but this wasn’t the home of a nobleman.

The door swung open. A stern-looking woman in a voluminous night rail and a robe, a lit candle in one hand, peered out at him.

“This house is closed for the evening, sir,” she said, her voice softer than he expected.

“Yes, I know,” he returned. “I wondered if I might have a minute of the good doctor’s time.”

“Well, come into the sitting room, and I shall inquire.”

More walking and sitting and standing again. “I’ll wait here,” he decided.

“Your name, sir?”

“Colonel James.”

With a nod she shut the door on him. Bartholomew clenched his jaw against the growing urge to run—or rather, to hobble away at his best speed. There was a damned war raging in his mind. To one side his own resolve to accept what misfortune fate had dealt him, to…honor his men by continuing to suffer from the attack that had ended their lives. That ongoing pain of the last months pushed and shoved against a woman’s words; Theresa Weller wanted him to call on her, wanted him to dance with her. And he quite simply wanted her.

The door opened for the second time, and the more familiar figure of Dr. Prentiss stepped forward. “What can I do for you, Colonel?” he asked. “Did you manage to tear that wound open again?”

“No.” He swallowed. “I wondered whether you might call on me at James House tomorrow. I…want you to break and reset my leg.”

Prentiss eyed him for a long moment, then nodded. “Is noon acceptable?”

Fourteen damned hours to contemplate how large a fool he was to intentionally risk losing a limb altogether. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet, Colonel. I imagine you’ll be hating me tomorrow.”

He was more likely to be hating himself by then. With a nod Bartholomew turned and made his way back to the waiting hack.

He knew he was being foolish, because he’d been driven to this moment by hope. Hope that he might in a few weeks be able to limp without excruciating pain. And hope that if everything went far better than he deserved, he would be able to waltz with Tess Weller. The only problem with all of that was that he and hope had had a very poor relationship for the past eight months.

 

“I can’t approve of this, Tolly.”

“I didn’t ask you to.” Wishing his brother would give up the argument, Tolly continued to pretend to be interested in the stack of calling cards on the hallway table. None of them were for him, but that didn’t signify.

“Who is this Dr. Prentiss, anyway?”

Bartholomew went through the stack for a third time. “I met him through a…friend.” Not that he considered the Duke of Sommerset to be a friend, precisely, but he wasn’t certain how else to describe him without revealing the entire Adventurers’ Club business. “And he’ll do as well as anyone, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t! You have both legs. You need simply to thank God for that and leave it be.”

Bartholomew gazed levelly at his older brother. “I do not have both my legs. I have one leg and one anchor dragging and clanking with me wherever I go. As I said, I didn’t ask your permission. I informed you because I’ll be off my feet for a time. If you prefer that I do this elsewhere, I w—”

“Don’t even begin throwing that garbage in my direction.” Stephen jabbed a finger at him. “You are not going anywhere. And whatever you think of my opinion, this is too risky.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, myself,” Bartholomew said slowly. “I need to risk this. I just wanted you to know.”

“Thank you for that, at least.”

“You’re welcome.”

When Stephen still showed no sign of going away, Bartholomew muttered a curse and limped to the base of the stairs. The narrow, closed-in servants’s stairs were easier to descend, but he needed to hang on to the railing of the main staircase to climb up.

Three steps up from the bottom, he heard Stephen start after him. As soon as his brother’s arm closed around his shoulders, he shoved backward. “No!” he growled, panicked at being grabbed from behind even though he knew damned well who it was. He’d known before, too, eight months ago.

“I don’t understand,” his older brother grumbled, returning to the foyer. “You never used to behave like this.”

“No, I don’t suppose I did.” Wrapping his hand around one of the balustrades, he hauled himself up another step. “He’ll be here at noon. I’m going to have a drink.”

Stephen stood back, watching his stubborn, fearless, athletic younger brother hitching himself up the stairs step by painful step. They’d received word from the damned butler that Tolly had returned to England. No word from Tolly himself, and still no explanation about what, precisely, had happened in India.

All he knew for certain was that Tolly had been injured, and badly. And he knew that his good-humored brother didn’t smile or laugh any longer, that he was curt and angry and on edge. If Tolly had decided to risk the loss of his leg by having it intentionally re-broken, there was clearly nothing anyone could do to change his mind.

That did not mean, however, that he could stop himself from worrying. And from wondering—if Tolly with an injured leg was unpredictable and barely civil, what might Tolly with only one leg attempt?

With a shudder Stephen returned to the morning room to explain to his wife and his sister that Tolly had not been joking and that they all might very well have just seen him on his feet—both his feet—for the last time.