The next morning, Lavinia awoke to the sound of the front door-bell jangling away. She sat up, her eyes fluttering open with a single hope.
Perhaps Mr. Rowland had been correct. The terrible silence that had filled the house the previous day, had been, as he’d predicted, merely a temporary setback.
There was mail arriving. And mail meant invitations. She heaved a sigh of relief.
And for all Mr. Rowland had offered to make her the talk of the Town, she’d been entirely correct to refuse his offer of assistance.
Thankfully, Lord Charleton had come in the library right as she’d finished her refusal, and she’d been able to make her escape before she got caught up once again by Mr. Rowland’s charm.
She was beginning to suspect that Lord Charleton’s heir could talk a lady into anything.
Proper Rule No. 7. A lady is always mindful of the company she keeps.
Yes, that was exactly the proper rule she needed to remember. That, and it would be nigh on impossible to find the right gentleman if the wrong one was constantly in her company.
And if ever there was a wrong gentleman, it was Mr. Alaster Rowland.
Downstairs, the bell jangled yet again, and Lavinia smiled as she scrambled out of bed and dressed quickly. On the window sill, her sister’s horrid cat, Hannibal, watched with his one eye. Thinking better of awakening Louisa, she left her sister sleeping and went downstairs to discover what glad tidings awaited them, Hannibal trailing in her wake.
Indeed, as she got to the salver in the foyer, it held several notes, including one addressed to her.
Miss Lavinia Tempest.
The confident masculine scrawl stopped her.
She’d never received a note from a man before. She glanced down at Hannibal, who was sitting looking up at her with his usual expression of disdain. Biting her lip, she reached out and snatched the missive off the top of the tidy pile.
Even as her fingers held it, she felt a shiver run up her arm. “No,” she chided herself. Mr. Rowland wasn’t the one. And this note couldn’t be from him. Even if it had her heart pounding in an odd fashion.
Besides, he wouldn’t dare, not after she’d been most plain with him.
No, Mr. Rowland. I want no part in your mad plans.
Glancing around, she considered marching it to the nearest hearth and consigning the note to the flames, but her curiosity—that dreadful trait that always saw her run headlong into the path of trouble—prodded at her to slide her finger under the plain wax seal.
And yes, apparently Mr. Rowland did dare.
Miss Tempest, before you toss this note atop the coals, please hear me out.
“I thought I already had,” she muttered. And bother, how had he known that she’d most likely toss his note in the grate?
Experience, most likely.
Now that you’ve had some time to consider my offer . . .
Time to consider? Of all the arrogant, presumptuous . . .
I have the most excellent news—I have secured the services of one of London’s finest dancing masters, Monsieur Ponthieux.
Lavinia’s lips pressed together as she remembered what Mr. Rowland had said the day before.
Nothing a good London dancing master can’t fix in an afternoon.
A dancing master, indeed!
Yet, he’d never heard Mrs. Bagley-Butterton declare there wasn’t a fleet of such fellows who could help her or Louisa manage a simple reel.
With a sigh, and despite her better judgment, she continued reading.
Meet me in front of Wakefield’s house at half past eleven. Rowland.
That was it? Just like that. Meet him? After she’d made it quite clear she wanted nothing to do with him.
She had a much better notion, carrying the note like one of Hannibal’s recent kills between two fingers and out in front of her, she was nearly to the dining room when she heard Lord Charleton say from within, “Amy, it can hardly be as bad as all that.”
Lavinia stopped just before the door. Hannibal glanced up, then shook his tail a bit, stalking off toward the kitchen.
Apparently, eavesdropping was beneath even him.
Yet Lavinia couldn’t help herself, for even now, Lady Aveley let out a long sigh. “It’s worse,” she declared. “There hasn’t been a single invitation arrive since . . .”
Their chaperone didn’t need to finish the sentence. Lavinia knew exactly the defining moment in this conversation.
Since Almack’s.
She glanced over her shoulder at the salver. How could everything be so dire when there were invitations arriving.
Then a deep, dark cloud of realization settled around her.
What if all these incoming missives weren’t invitations?
Lavinia sagged against the wall beside the door. And while she knew she shouldn’t listen in and that she should decidedly announce her presence, when Lady Aveley next spoke, Lavinia found herself rooted in place.
“All these others have written to withdraw their previous invitations.”
Lavinia’s mouth fell open. For as much as she had suspected the truth, hearing it was far worse.
“Withdrawn!” Bless Lord Charleton, his outrage filled the word with furious indignation.
There was a flutter of papers shifting over one another as Lady Aveley was most likely sorting through the earlier arrivals. “Oh, they all have proper excuses, but underlining each of them is the very real fact that they don’t want Louisa and Lavinia in attendance.”
“Of all the utter—” the baron sputtered.
“Yes, it is,” Lady Aveley hastened to say, if only to cut off Lord Charleton’s ire. “But it is exactly as I feared.”
“Worse, by the sounds of it,” he conceded. “Stubborn, dreadful cats.”
Lady Aveley agreed with a sad sigh of resignation.
“What of that soiree you mentioned?” the baron asked.
Again there was a sorting of paper, then a pause. “I don’t see anything here. Oh, my, Lady Gourley hasn’t written.” There was no small measure of shock to her announcement.
“Excellent,” Lord Charleton declared. “The girls will attend, then all of London shall see them in a proper light, see them dance, and they’ll know they aren’t—”
. . . see them dance . . .
Those words hit Lavinia with the force of a brick. All of London. To witness her next stumbling foray onto a dance floor. Suddenly, her chest began to tighten and the air left the room.
Oh, good heavens. Dance? She couldn’t. Not again.
“Dear me, I don’t see how. Not unless they—” Lady Aveley’s words came to an abrupt halt.
“They what?” Charleton prompted.
“Shine,” Lady Aveley said simply.
Oh, that was all. Lavinia shook her head. The only times she’d ever shone, mayhem had followed. And she didn’t suppose that was what Lady Aveley meant.
She glanced down at the note in her hand. It teased at her with as much mischief and temptation as the author’s eyes might.
Now that you’ve had some time to consider . . .
Lavinia shook her head, folding the note shut tight. No, she couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
“Bless their hearts,” their kind chaperone continued, “but they are not their mother. Where Kitty could command a room by just entering, her daughters are . . . are . . .”
“I hardly think comparing them to their mother is the right place to begin,” the baron told her. “After all, this is more Kitty’s fault than anyone else’s. Bother her and her licentious inclinations.”
“My lord!” Lady Aveley scolded—though even to Lavinia’s ears the rebuke was half-hearted. “I have said for years her reputation was only sullied after . . .”
“Yes, well, ‘after’ then. But you can’t argue that ‘after’ she turned into the worst sort of light skirt. And damn Ilford and the rest of his ilk—they’ll go out of their way to nose about that old scandal, if only for their own amusement.”
Lavinia could all but see the sad shake of Lady Aveley’s head as she said, “I had hoped no one would remember that part. That they’d see those girls and only remember Kitty in her earlier years, when she was so happy, so very much in love.”
“It’s unfortunate she couldn’t have stayed that way, but she made her choices and those are all that matter now. All that anyone will remember.” He sighed, and his chair creaked as he shifted about. “And they probably wouldn’t have remembered any of it, given how the two of them seem proper enough . . .”
“Yes, and they might have had a chance, if only . . . if only . . .”
“If only Lavinia—it was Lavinia, wasn’t it? I have a devil of a time telling them apart. Whichever one it was, it didn’t help matters when she tumbled into Pomfrey like a drunken opera dancer.”
“Oh, Charleton, don’t be vulgar.”
“But you do agree.”
It wasn’t a question, rather a statement. One that, most notably, Lady Aveley didn’t argue with.
“There is always their dowries,” the baron offered. “Sir Ambrose has written me with their arrangements—demmed generous ones. If it was known what they will come with—”
Lavinia shuddered. Oh, good heavens, to be bartered off like a shipment of damaged silks. The horror of it was too much to bear, and she nearly blurted out a heartwrenching “No!” but Lady Aveley beat her to the punch.
“Don’t you dare, Charleton,” she scolded. “That will only bring out every wretch and rogue in London. The sort who won’t have a care for their welfare . . . their future happiness.”
There was a catch to the lady’s voice that suggested she was speaking from experience.
Lavinia turned from the door, breakfast forgotten, all her hopes for a London Season now utterly dashed.
And it wasn’t the revelations about her mother that had her heartsick. She had heard all those rumors and the associated gossip since she was nine.
Poor Sir Ambrose . . . left to raise her daughters.
That was why Lavinia had spent every free moment trying her best to be worthy of Papa’s great sacrifice.
Her fingers curled around the note she still held clutched in her hand.
She looked down at it and—much to her horror—found herself considering his offer.
A London dancing master. What if this monsieur could untangle her feet? Teach her left from right?
What if she went to the Gourley ball and managed to give the ton something else to chatter about, as Mr. Rowland had promised?
Lavinia glanced at the clock across the foyer and realized she hadn’t much time to find out.
Rushing upstairs to the room she shared with Louisa, she found her sister sitting by the window, staring over at Lord Wakefield’s shuttered house.
“Has he stirred?” she asked, knowing her sister had grown fond of the bellicose man across the lane.
“Not unless you count tossing Hannibal into the garden.”
“Some might call that a good deed,” she replied, hoping to tease a smile from Louisa.
But none was forthcoming.
Instead, Lavinia caught up her pelisse, plopped her bonnet atop her head and took a quick glance in the mirror. Tucking a stray strand of hair back in place, she noticed one other thing.
Dear heavens, gloves! She’d nearly forgotten.
“Where are you going?” Louisa asked, sitting up and finally taking notice.
“Um, the lending library,” Lavinia told her, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. Tuck’s note lay on her dressing table, and she carefully palmed it, then shoved it deep in her reticule.
“Truly?” Louisa turned from the window and looked her up and down, lips pressed together. Part of being twins was that it was nigh on impossible to lie to the other. “Where are you really going?”
“To the library, as I said,” Lavinia huffed, all the while tamping down the guilt that reared its ugly head over telling a falsehood.
“Is Nan going with you?”
A maid? Oh, bother. The last thing Lavinia needed was Nan trailing along. But still . . .
“Of course,” she replied, not looking at her sister. “Actually, if you must know—” she began, trying to find some way to redirect Louisa’s scrutiny, “I recalled in Harriet’s recent letter that she’d found a new Miss Darby novel, and I thought I might see if they had a copy—for you—um, to lift your spirits.”
Louisa rushed over and hugged her sister. “Oh, you are too kind. Perhaps I’ll come with you,” she said, looking around the room for her bonnet. “That would definitely lift my spirits.”
Oh, no! Louisa’s joining her would never do. She could just imagine what her sister would say to an illicit outing with Mr. Rowland.
Lavinia looked around and saw her sister’s hat lying on the bed, half concealed by the coverlet, and quickly flipped the covering over to hide it completely while Louisa continued her fruitless search in the clothes press.
“Aren’t you worried where Hannibal might be?” Lavinia asked, making a grand show of looking out the window. “I don’t see him in the garden. I do hope he isn’t . . .”
Oh, there was a laundry list of things Hannibal could be doing, so Lavinia just let the entirety of that miserable cat’s misdoings rise between them like an unholy specter.
Louisa turned from her search. “He’s disappeared again? Oh, no. I suppose I should see that he isn’t causing more mischief.”
“More?” Lavinia asked, though in the next breath wished she hadn’t.
“He left something in Lord Charleton’s bedchamber yesterday,” her sister confessed. “And one of the maids quit because she said Hannibal has an ‘evil eye.’” She shook her head. “Have you ever heard such nonsense? Is it his fault he has only one eye?” She fussed a bit, coming to look out the window at the empty garden, her lips pursing in despair.
Lavinia shook her head. “Louisa, you cannot let Hannibal be the cause of any more problems. Lord Charleton has been nothing but kind. You must keep that beast in check.”
Her sister paused, then sighed. “Yes, I suppose you are right.”
Suppose? Oh, dear heavens, Lavinia loved her sister, but Louisa had a terrible blind spot when it came to that devil-cat of hers.
“‘A good guest next becomes an inconvenience to her host,’” Lavinia reminded her, quoting one of her most worn and beloved volumes, A Lady’s Essential and Thorough Guide to Deportment and Genteel Manners. But still feeling guilty about her deception, she added, “If I don’t find this new Miss Darby book at the lending library, we can make an afternoon of it—perhaps try some bookshops—how does that sound?”
“Perfectly delightful! You are the dearest sister ever,” Louisa told her, giving her another impromptu hug and leaving quickly to find her cat.
Lavinia certainly didn’t feel like the dearest sister ever. More like Hannibal’s acolyte.
But she had made this mess they were in, and she was determined to fix it all. Even though Louisa claimed to have no desire to marry, in the last few weeks, her sister’s heart had proven vulnerable in the form of one Viscount Wakefield, and Lavinia couldn’t let Louisa’s chance at happiness be ruined.
Even if it meant making a deal with the very devil.
Taking a deep breath, she made her way quietly out of the house and to the spot around the corner, the one Mr. Rowland had designated for their assignation.
Much to her shock, he was there waiting for her—she hadn’t thought him the prompt and orderly sort.
Except he wasn’t waiting. He’d picked up the reins and the carriage was rolling forward.
Lavinia hurried. “Mr. Rowland, please don’t go. Not yet. Not without me.”
He turned around, and when he spotted her, he pulled the horses to a stop, his features spreading into a warm smile.
“No maid, Miss Tempest?” he remarked as he climbed down from his carriage. “How daring of you. Then again, it lessens the chances we will be discovered.”
Good heavens, he made it sound like they were organizing an illicit tryst. What if someone overheard him?
Besides, in Kempton, ladies often walked unaccompanied even though strictly speaking it wasn’t perfectly proper.
But a rebellious part of Lavinia had never liked having some chatty maid trailing behind her.
“Mr. Rowland—” she began as she tried to catch her breath. “You mustn’t say such things.”
He stepped up on the curb in front of her. “Say what?” he asked, his eyes sparkling with feigned innocence.
Not that she had an answer, for suddenly he quite took her breath away. She hadn’t realized he was that tall. Or so very broad in the shoulders. And with his grand beaver hat, his coat brushed just so, and his boots polished, he cut a rakishly grand figure.
Save for one thing.
“You’re about to lose that button,” she said, pointing at the bottom of his coat.
He glanced down. “Suppose I am. Will have to tell Falshaw.” He smiled at her and continued, “I have to admit I didn’t think you would come. Was about to drive away.”
Lavinia took another baleful glance at the woeful state of his button, hanging as it were by a thread—he was going to lose it, knowledge that pricked at her thrifty and proper sensibilities—but then another part of her realized what he was going on about.
“—just a minor setback. After Monsieur Ponthieux has worked his magic, you shall be the most celebrated lady in London. Invitations to every ball and soiree—”
Invitations. And suddenly the entirety of it burst down on her, and tears welled up in her eyes.
Oh, she was far too sensible for tears, especially tears two days in a row, and tried to wipe them away, but in the blink of an eye, she was a veritable watering pot, as if a chorus of doubt taunted her.
. . . they are not their mother . . .
. . . drunken opera dancer . . .
. . . hasn’t been a single invitation . . .
“Oh, good Lord, not this again,” she heard Mr. Rowland mutter even as he pressed a handkerchief into her grasp.
“I fear I might ruin it,” she managed.
“Better that than my sleeve,” he replied.
In between gulps, the entire story spilled out. Lord Charleton and Lady Aveley’s doubts—that there wasn’t a hope or prayer that she and her sister could repair the damage that had been wrought. And when she’d come to the end, she hiccuped and tried to find the right words to tell him that no matter if he’d found the finest dancing master in all of London, nothing could save her, he caught hold of his handkerchief—more like rescued it—and dabbed at a few stray tears, then tipped her chin up so she looked up at him.
“But you missed the one bit that ought to give you hope, Miss Tempest,” he said softly, a warm light in his brown eyes.
“Which is?” she asked between hiccups and sniffs. She couldn’t think of anything about this entire situation that might lend her any bit of hope.
“My uncle had the right of it,” he assured her.
“That I appeared at Almack’s like a drunken opera dancer?”
Mr. Rowland scoffed at that. “Oh, bother my uncle and his opera dancers. When you attend that soiree tomorrow night, and if you look as fetching and pretty as you do this morning, all of London will see how wrong they’ve been. One session with Monsieur Ponthieux and you shall be ready to dazzle even the most discerning old cat.”
“I don’t know—”
“What will it hurt?” he asked. “Besides, standing here is giving the entire neighborhood something to discuss.” He nodded toward one of the viscount’s windows.
She looked up and found two small noses pressed to the panes. Bits and Bobs. Louisa had mentioned that the cook she’d hired for the viscount had brought along her orphaned niece and nephew. Lavinia braved a smile up at them, and one of them waved back.
Looking at the stately residence, she felt a pang of jealousy, for this was exactly what she wanted. A house of her own. A loving husband. A respectable life. She hadn’t come this far—all the way to London—not to find her heart’s desire.
What had he asked her yesterday? Was she going to let one ill-fated night dictate the rest of her life?
Lavinia took a deep breath. That would never do.
Dashing away the last of her regrets, she let a familiar, stubborn determination straighten up her spine.
Just because her carefully laid plans had come to a crashing halt—quite literally—that didn’t mean she couldn’t make allowances for complications.
Like Alaster Rowland? a wry voice teased.
She ignored it. She had no place for rakes and knaves, save if they could help her, as this one had promised to do.
“Then a dancing lesson it is,” she told him as he handed her up into his carriage.
Yes, Lavinia was quite determined. That is until Mr. Rowland retrieved the reins, and the horses stepped forward in a lively fashion.
If ever there was a headlong course onto the path of trouble, this had to be it.
She caught hold of the rail beside her and hung on, even as she glanced over her shoulder at the retreating vision of Lord Charleton’s proper and respectable London town house.
Wherein she was safe. Chaperoned. In good company.
“Oh, dear, I fear I am violating half a dozen rules at the very least,” she said.
“Rules?”
“Exactly,” she replied. “This isn’t proper.”
“It probably isn’t, but I’m no expert.”
She didn’t think he would be. But she was.
They wheeled around a corner and drove into the busy thoroughfare. “No, I am quite convinced this isn’t proper.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. I keep a list, you know.”
“A l-l-list?” He sort of stammered this out, glancing quickly at her, then back at the road before him.
“Yes,” she said, folding her hands primly on her lap. “A list of Proper Qualities.”
“Truly, a list?”
“Well, yes. How else would one maintain a proper and respectably ordered life without one?”
He shrugged. “You have me there. Though I will admit, I haven’t really given such a prospect much thought.”
“You ought to,” she suggested. “For if you had, you wouldn’t have suggested this outing.”
“And yet here you are.”
“A moment of weakness and desperation I fear.”
He slanted a glance at her. “Perhaps you should regard your list as more of a lofty pinnacle to which to aspire rather than a bridle on your life.”
“Abandon my list?” She shook her head at the very notion. “I could never—”
And yet, she had, as he’d so astutely pointed out. “Normally, I adhere to it to the letter.”
“Truly, to the letter?” This seemed to amuse him.
“Of course.” She tried not to be affronted.
“Then what’s changed?”
What a ridiculous question. “You entered my life,” she replied as tartly as she could—without being overly rude.
Proper Rule No. 37. Rudeness is not a proper answer to a ridiculous question. But a pert reply may be warranted in extreme cases.
“Me?” He laughed, a rich deep timbre that sent shivers down her spine. “I have a way of doing that.”
“A way of—” she stammered, a bit of outrage simmering up. He needn’t sound so proud over the fact. “What? Unraveling order?”
He grinned at her. “Perhaps, Miss Tempest, your list is holding you back.”
Holding her back? Of all the ridiculous notions. Excellent manners and an adherence to propriety were the very backbone of good society.
But he wasn’t done yet. “Take your dancing,” he pointed out. “Or your professed lack of skill therein. If you weren’t so overly concerned about getting it right, appearing the proper miss, you might find you enjoy it.”
“Enjoy it?” This time Lavinia shook her head adamantly. “Dancing is hardly meant to be enjoyed.”
“Yes, well, perhaps you should add that to your list,” he offered.
She tucked her nose in the air. “I don’t believe you quite understand the concept of a list of Proper Qualities.”
“Apparently not.” And with that, he continued to drive, but the strained silence between them was even worse than listening to his nonsensical notions of propriety.
“Lord Charleton was your father’s older brother, and you are Lord Charleton’s heir,” she said, for a conversation on titles and inheritance could hardly be steered in the wrong direction.
Then again, this was Mr. Rowland.
“Presumptive heir,” he corrected. “My uncle could very well set up a nursery, and I’d be on the outs.”
“Lord Charleton is far too old to marry again,” she pointed out. Not to mention starting up a nursery.
She looked anywhere but at Mr. Rowland. For here was a subject that was definitely not proper.
“One can never assume,” he told her, wading into those murky waters without a care in the world. “Besides, with my uncle and Lady Aveley thrown together again . . . you never know. They could rekindle their former romance and . . .” He waggled his brows.
Lavinia’s mouth fell open. “Your uncle and Lady Aveley? Oh, do not be ridiculous. Why your uncle is . . . and Lady Aveley is . . .” She waited for him to recant his statement, but when his only reply was to whistle a tune that she would have bet her pin money had a very ribald set of words to go along with it, she continued on. “I can’t believe they were ever . . . why they haven’t shown the least . . .”
He looked over at her, eyes sparkling wickedly. “You really don’t know?”
“No! And I still don’t believe it’s true,” she told him—for it put their entire living arrangements in jeopardy. Lady Aveley had moved into Lord Charleton’s house for the sole purpose of being a chaperone for her and Louisa.
She was a mature widow. A respectable lady. Hardly the type to be carrying on some illicit . . .
Lavinia didn’t even want to venture down that path.
Mr. Rowland must have it wrong.
“How like Aunt Charleton—your godmother—to toss them together again—since she was the one who stole my uncle’s affections away from Lady Aveley in the first place. Of course, she wasn’t Lady Aveley then. She married the marquess shortly after my uncle abandoned her.” He glanced over at her and must have seen the skepticism in her eyes. “Ask her if you don’t believe me.”
“Ask Lady Aveley if Lord Charleton threw her over for another?” Lavinia shook her head. “That would be beyond the pale.”
“Is that according to your list?”
“That doesn’t even need to be written down. Every lady knows that rule.”
“Still, you might want to write it down when you get back to my uncle’s,” he said. Once he’d stolen a glance at her and saw the look of utter disbelief on her face, he added, “Then again, maybe not.”
“Definitely not,” she said. Taking a deep breath, she decided to take the conversation in a different direction. “What exactly does one do when they are a presumptive heir?”
“Good God!” he barked out. “As little as possible.”
Her lips pursed together.
“What?” he asked.
“Well, I understand that as a gentleman you can’t very well take up a trade—”
“Thank heavens for that.”
“But don’t you want to be useful?” A notion that had been drummed into every young lady in Kempton from the time they had been old enough to help fill a basket for the elderly spinsters in their village.
“I’m being useful now, aren’t I?”
His teasing left Lavinia rather unsettled. She glanced away. “Yes, but I have to imagine you don’t make a habit of rescuing ladies.”
She had hoped it would work as a set down.
“No,” he said, bellowing out a laugh. “I’m usually the one they need rescuing from.”
“That is hardly something to be proud about.”
“It isn’t my only skill,” he informed her, but his lips twitched with amusement.
If he thought she was going to ask him to elaborate, he was entirely wrong.
Unfortunately, he seemed determined to press the matter. “Don’t I strike you as an industrious and respectable—”
“No.”
He turned to face her. “That’s it, just ‘no’? Just like that? You didn’t even hesitate.” His brow arched upward slightly. “Nor did I finish, I might add.”
“I think the answer was self-evident.”
He shook his head and went back to minding his driving. “You are an opinionated handful.”
“A regular harridan,” she suggested before she could stop herself.
His head spun toward her. “How did you—” He looked her up and down. “That was a private conversation.”
It had been. A few days earlier, Viscount Wakefield and Mr. Rowland had been summoned to Lord Charleton’s study. And Lavinia had caught Louisa with her ear to the door.
And when she’d pressed hers there as well—well, even a proper lady was subject to a moment of unrestrained curiosity from time to time—she had heard the viscount distinctly telling Mr. Rowland that she and her sister were destined to be a pair of harridans.
“Is eavesdropping on your list of ‘Proper Qualities’?” he asked. Now his nose tipped a bit in the air.
“Certainly not,” she replied, nonetheless feeling a rosy heat rising in her cheeks.
“But you seem to be prone to it—”
“I am hardly—”
“Were you invited to listen to Lady Aveley and my uncle this morning?”
“Well, no—”
“And was the door closed on the study when you decided to press your ear to it?”
“You know it was.” This conversation was hardly going as she’d planned. They were supposed to be discussing his failings as a gentleman.
Not hers as a proper lady.
Mr. Rowland’s reply was to pick up whistling that jaunty tune again.
They continued through the streets, and Lavinia made a determined effort to enjoy the sights of London. Not that she would probably enjoy them for long. For if everything that Lord Charleton and Lady Aveley said this morning was true, there was little hope of restoring her and Louisa to society’s good graces.
Especially given that now their mother’s old scandal was being bandied about.
It would cast a shadow over all of them—including Lord Charleton and Lady Aveley, and might even taint Mr. Rowland, since he seemed determined to help her.
Lavinia’s fingers curled into a hard knot in her lap. “You know about my mother—”
If anything, she was giving him a perfectly good way of bowing out.
“Yes.”
She felt, rather than saw, the shrug that went with his answer. “That’s it? Just ‘yes’?”
He kept his gaze fixed on the road ahead. “What else is there to say?” He heaved a deep breath. “Your mother is not you.”
He said it with such force, such finality, that for a moment she held the suspicion that he was talking about someone else.
“Unless, that is—” he added after a few moments.
She found his head cocked as he studied her, and worst, that light of mischief was back in his eyes.
Unless, that is, you are very much like her.
“Hardly!” Lavinia exclaimed, smoothing out her skirt though it didn’t need it. “I want a respectable match, with a proper gentleman. I would never throw away . . . Leave behind . . . Be like . . .”
He held up his hand to stave her off. “Yes, yes. Never mind the rest. I can see you aren’t.”
“Certainly not,” she shot back. Never like her. All Lavinia had ever wanted was everything her mother had spurned that day when she’d ridden off from Maplethorpe with her dancing master swain beside her.
Standing all alone in the nursery windows, Lavinia had watched her go, her beloved, beautiful Maman, in her pretty bonnet and gay smiles. Watched her run away, leaving behind the broken-hearted man who had given her everything—including a respectable name when she’d needed it most.
As always, when plagued with memories of her mother, Lavinia found herself decidedly out of sorts.
“Truly, Mr. Rowland, do you think a single dancing lesson can restore my reputation—given that everyone would much rather discuss my mother’s sins?”
Tuck glanced over at her. No, he didn’t think it would. But he could hardly tell her that.
No, he needed her to believe she could be the rarest, finest Diamond in London. And then, perhaps . . . perhaps . . .
Oh, it was the most desperate wager of his life.
He’d spent the previous afternoon and evening gaining intelligence as to the battle before him. And he’d found out quite quickly he was outgunned and outmanned. Everywhere he went, Ilford had been there before him—or one of Ilford’s many sycophants, Lady Blaxhall in particular—stoking the flames of public opinion against the Tempest sisters.
Sadly, their mother’s scandal turned out to be the perfect kindling to get every tongue aflame as matrons and gossips and cats rehashed the old tattle.
He hadn’t found a single solitary sympathetic ear. And more than a few doors had been shut in his face.
This wager would be his ruin if he didn’t find a way to change the Tempest sisters’ fortunes. Starting with this one and all her proper notions.
But the very fact that she’d shown up, stopped him from driving away, had been like drawing a queen when one held naught but a six and five in a game of vingt-et-un.
Hell, he’d have wagered his boots that his note would most likely end up consigned to the flames. Unread. Unopened.
But when Tuck pulled the carriage up in front of the building where his aforementioned and most infamous Monsieur Ponthieux lived, he knew the real battle was just beginning as she glanced around their surroundings, her nose wrinkling noticeably.
Unfortunately the lady wasn’t such a country rube that she didn’t recognize that this wasn’t the finest of addresses.
“I thought you said he was in demand,” she remarked as she climbed down from the carriage. “That he is famous.”
He could hardly tell her that Ponthieux was more infamous than famous, and then again, for the amount he could drink and his many paramours, but nonetheless, the fellow had once been the finest dancing master in Paris.
Or so the old fraud claimed.
“He is,” Tuck told her, then looked around, seeing the place through her eyes. “Miss Tempest, do not let his address concern you. He is an eccentric. And French.”
He tried to make it sound as if that explained everything. Including the man’s choice of residence.
Which also happened to be Tuck’s. Which is how he’d met Ponthieux. The man had the rooms one floor below Tuck.
Nor was he about to tell her that. Even he didn’t need a list of Proper Qualities to know that bringing her here—to the same building where he had his bachelor rooms—was in itself beyond the pale, but he was desperate.
“French sensibilities are not the same as yours and mine,” he continued, as if this too was common knowledge. He could only hope that she hadn’t met all that many French and therefore could not argue the point.
“If you say so—” she began, her feet still planted on the sidewalk and not moving up the stairs.
“He’s a rare master,” Tuck continued to proclaim. He knew he sounded like some traveling peddler extolling the quality of his questionable goods, but right now, Ponthieux was his only hope. “That he even has an opening to extend to you is a miracle—given the extraordinary demands on his time. Why, it’s said he taught at Versailles.”
“And yet the French were not impressed enough to let their poor queen keep her head, were they?” she pointed out, looking at him with those very piercing eyes of hers.
How was it that when this chit looked at him like that, he had the strangest compulsion to stand up a bit straighter. Not even his dragon of an aunt, the indomitable Lady Craske, could get him to do that.
That, and her wit surprised him. He’d had it in his mind that she was naught but a simple country miss—and yet today, the lady who had walked out of his uncle’s town house was anything but. Oh, she wasn’t wearing the first stare of fashion, but it was her eyes, blue and deep, that told him she could gather much in just a glance.
And now that glance was fixed on him.
Tuck stilled, his hand halfway to the latch on the door, and he realized that perhaps he might have overplayed his hand.
So he resorted to the one thing he knew very well: charm.
“Think of how lovely you will look making a pretty turn about Lady Gourley’s ballroom tomorrow night, proving every ugly rumor untrue. The gossips will be utterly shamed, apologetic for mistaking the matter.”
His words, the pretty picture he painted seemed to do the trick, for her lips turned up slightly, a sign of hope, before she thought better of such woolgathering and pursed them back together.
“And you think this dancing master can teach me?” she asked, skepticism lacing every word.
Her question pricked at Tuck.
Like finding one’s powder damp in the middle of the battlefield.
What if his eccentric, half-mad French neighbor couldn’t teach her to dance? Instill in her that bit of poise and confidence that she seemed to lack. He could tell her she was the prettiest little minx he’d met in ages, but she wouldn’t believe him.
She needed that confidence to live in her bones.
Besides, the one thing he did remember very clearly from that fateful night was being a bit charmed by her.
So truly, how bad could her dancing be?