How to Be a Proper Lady

spray of sugar across the lap of her pretty green gown.

“Oh, bother.”

The next lesson had to do with cutlery, the lesson following that with taking a gentleman’s arm, and the lesson after that with her speech.

“I know I’ve got an American accent. A little. But I don’t see what’s so bad about that,” Viola said, clutching her bonnet to her head as the sea breeze whipped across the coastal road. The sight of two horses’ rear ends so close in front of her was still a little unnerving, but Mr. Yale handled the ribbons with ease and Serena seemed comfortable. Both had said she must become accustomed to riding in this sort of vehicle.

“Your accent is charming, Miss Carlyle.”

“Then what’s wrong with the way I speak?”

“You must curtail your use of contractions.” He always gave instruction like this, with masculine grace, whether he was sober or inebriated. He had not yet been drinking today but would probably as soon as they returned from their drive. It never seemed to affect his manner with her, though, which remained openly admiring and entirely unthreatening. Why she imagined he should feel threatening, she hadn’t a very clear idea, except that he was an actual gentleman and she had not known one since she was a girl. And he was quite attractive.

“What’s wrong with contractions?”

“Not a thing,” he replied readily. “If you wish to appear very fashionable and somewhat fast, you may employ them.”

“Fast?”

He lifted a single brow.

“Oh. I don’t suppose I do. Do I?”

“Definitely not,” Serena stated.

Lessons in comportment were interspersed with visits to the nursery to coo and tickle her niece’s tiny fingers and toes, as well as periods of torture visited upon her by Jane and her sister’s haughty maid, whom Serena insisted was quite nice once one got to know her. But since on one occasion she plucked viciously at Viola’s eyebrows until her head ached, on another she commanded the maids to scrub the soles of her feet and elbows and palms with pumice until raw, and on a third submitted her to the sheer boredom of having her nails cut, cleaned, and buffed as though she weren’t capable of grooming herself, Viola had no very high opinion of the woman. When the maid suggested to her mistress that her hair be cut short to suit present fashion, Viola finally balked.

“My hair stays. When the wind is high, it must be long enough to tie back in a queue.”

Serena stroked her fingertips through Viola’s thick waves. “It is perfect as is.”

When Viola mastered the proper use of forks, spoons, and knives, and the task of pouring out tea, she felt ready to move on to more challenging tasks. Her optimism proved overly ambitious.

“My hands aren’t made for this.” Her fingers, raw from the scrubbing, slipped on the paintbrush. A smear of blue watercolor decorated the paper on the easel before her.

“Are not suited,” Mr. Yale corrected. “Your hands are not suited to this. But in any case ladies must never speak of their hands.”

“Why not?”

“Because it gives gentlemen ideas they ought not to entertain in company.”

Serena’s eyes popped wide. Viola grinned.

Mr. Yale looked between them, his brows innocently raised. “I understood we were being frank in the service of Miss Carlyle’s education.”

“We are. But Wyn, really.”

“My lady, given that your husband was once one of the greatest libertines to grace London drawing rooms, I wonder at your squeamishness.”

“He is reformed. Of course.” Her mismatched eyes danced.

Viola dashed more paint onto the canvas and tilted her head sideways. Her ship looked a lot like an armadillo. She sighed. “He has a good point, Ser. It isn’t as if-”

“It is not as though.”

“It is not as though I don’t know what men are thinking half the time. I lived with fifty-four men aboard ship-”

“You have been marginally acquainted with fifty-four- Good God, fifty-four?”

“I have been well acquainted with fifty-four men for a decade. Men are interested in one thing above all else.” Like the man she had imbecilically fallen in love with who had wanted her only for that one thing… other than bringing her home.

“Not all men.” Serena dabbed at her own canvas with a cloth, her lip caught between her teeth. “Mr. Yale has spent a sennight helping us school you without any thought of that sort of thing, haven’t you, Wyn?”

She and Viola both looked at him for confirmation.

“Quite so,” he said without inflection.

“See?” Serena returned her attention to her painting.

The gentleman’s mouth lifted at the corner and he winked at Viola.

She laughed. “Don’t fret, Mr. Yale. I know you haven’t that sort of interest in me.”

His eyes widened. “I beg your pardon. I am as susceptible to a pretty face and form as the next fellow.”

“You don’t have to- That is, you needn’t pretend indignation with me, sir.” She flapped the paintbrush back and forth.

“I shall endeavor not to consider that an insult.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t. Mustn’t. Although I’m- I am still uncertain as to why you remain here helping when you are not interested in me in that manner.”

Serena chuckled. “You are as refreshingly honest and confident of your charms as ever, Vi. I adore you for it.”

“Was I confident when we were children?”

“Entirely, to the very moment those sailors walked up that cliff and strode toward us. You flicked your black lashes and gave them a saucy grin, demanding in the sweetest tones imaginable that they state their names and business on your father’s land. They were so bemused that I believe if we had thought to run we would have had plenty of head start on them.”

“But we did not think to run. And now I am here learning how to paint watercolors instead of having already mastered it ten years ago.”

“You never would have mastered it.” Mr. Yale peered over her shoulder. “You haven’t a jot of natural talent for it. Piano, anyone?”

Serena set down her brush. “What a relief. I don’t care for painting in the least.”

“Then why on earth have-”

“You said you wished to learn a lady’s every accomplishment.” Serena moved toward the door. “The piano is in the drawing room, as well as the harp, of course, and so shall tea be in a quarter hour.”

Viola watched her sister disappear and chewed on the end of her paintbrush. She glanced back at her mishmash of a painting. Her shoulders sagged. Merely seven days of this and already she’d had enough. She would master it, but she wished painting and eating and walking were as easy as tying an anchor bend or rigging a jib sail.

Mr. Yale stood and offered his arm.

She expelled a frustrated breath. “I don’t really need to take your arm to walk to the drawing room two doors away, do I?”

“Practice, practice.”

She eyed him. “You are as disinterested as you insist, aren’t you, Mr. Yale?”

“Not disinterested, Miss Carlyle,” he said quite soberly. “Merely loyal to a man who has saved my life more than once.”

She stared.

“Ladies do not gape.”

She snapped her mouth shut and stood. She looked down at their feet, his shining shoes, her delicate slippers peeking out from beneath her hem that did not look like her feet or hem at all.