How to Be a Proper Lady

“You say? How? By whom?”

“By a lady.” His gaze flickered over Alex’s shoulder to Viola once more. Alex followed, then came back to him, open eyed. “Yes.” Jin smiled. “She is… remarkable.”

The others waited for their host’s cue, curious. But the lady whose dark eyes he saw in his dreams each night averted her face from him now.

Serena came to them. “Welcome back, Jinan. Allow me to introduce you to the others. Lady Emily-”

“We are already known to one another from a brief encounter at my parents’ house nearly two years ago,” Lady Emily said from her chair with a nod at him. “How do you do, Mr. Seton. I don’t suppose you will take Mr. Yale away with you when you go this time, will you?”

“The lady is all charm, as always,” the Welshman drawled. “How was town, Seton?”

“Well, thank you.” Empty of the one person he wished to see, who still did not look at him. “Lady Emily, it is a pleasure to meet you again. I am afraid, though, that I haven’t any plans to depart soon.”

Then Viola glanced, a flicker of her violet eyes in his direction, her lips parted. He had not known his intentions until he spoke them, and he had spoken them entirely to draw her gaze.

Panic slid through him again. He should not have come. But he had been drawn and now it was too late. Willing himself steady, he turned to Lady Emily’s companion and bowed.

“Madame Roche, j’espere que vous allez bien.”

“Je vais tres bien, monsieur. Merci.” She curtsied, then gestured to the girl standing by the piano. “But you know Mademoiselle Fione, the sister of your good friend, the Lord Blackwood, I think?”

He bowed. She curtsied, a flutter of lashes over dark brown eyes.

“Of course, I needn’t introduce you to my sister.” Serena beamed as she took Viola’s arm snugly. “Now, shall we have tea? All that dancing has given me a dreadful thirst.”

“My dear,” Alex said, “if you will excuse us, I will take the gentleman to seek out stronger refreshment. Seton, Yale, Lucas, shall we?”

“Superb suggestion,” Yale murmured and, casting Jin a grinning glance, moved toward the door. Jin bowed to the ladies and followed willingly. It was one thing to dream of a woman’s eyes and lips and touch from hundreds of miles away, and to regret the distance from her. It was another entirely to remain in the same room with her, his blood spinning with need and that hot thread of alarm, and to remain any saner than she.

He had returned. Just like that. Viola had no warning of it, no announcement even of his name by the servants who seemed to otherwise declare it each time a member of the company of ladies and gentlemen at the Park yawned or blinked.

Not this time. In the midst of the minuet he had appeared, standing at the threshold to the drawing room as though he had been watching the spirited group romping about the floor for ages and was perfectly content to remain there indefinitely. And now as the party gathered in the drawing room before dinner, he again enjoyed a comfortable position, this time by the piano. Lady Fiona flashed her pretty dark lashes at him, showing him her sheet music. Madame Roche stood nearby, but the thrice-widowed Frenchwoman of indeterminate age and a remarkable froth of black organza did not bother Viola, despite her sharp eyes and elegant looks. Only the lovely, highly maidenly Fiona mattered, the girl she had come to like very much and felt absolutely wretched envying now. Lady Fiona had his attention, and it made her sick to her stomach.

He wore a dark coat, buff trousers, and white linen, as though he had not come from the road only that afternoon. But so he had always appeared aboard ship, in command of himself and of everyone else he encountered. Including his very foolish captain.

She found it difficult to breathe properly and she felt like a ninny. Violet la Vile was most certainly not a ninny.

She would best this. This time, she would not allow him to affect her. Now she had her family around her-the affection of her sister and the baron, and new friends, however grand they all seemed at times. Moreover, she had the strength to resist him. In Trinidad, her feelings had blindsided her. But now she knew the danger in which she stood. Even without her pistol and dirk, she would fight it. And if that didn’t work, she was not averse to digging her weapons out of her traveling trunk and threatening him to depart at dagger’s point.

Beside her, Serena and Mr. Yale discussed potted plants or piquet or something equally mysterious, she hadn’t an idea. But the baron’s stepdaughter, Diantha Lucas, apparently did.

“Lord Abernathy and Lord Drake played for prize orchids, but it ended in a draw.” Her wild chestnut curls bobbed, obscuring a pair of blue eyes shaded with curling lashes. “I read it in the gossip column in The Times.”

“How eccentric of them.” Serena chuckled.

Mr. Yale’s mouth slipped into a grin Viola had come to recognize. That grin said, I have consumed a bottle of brandy this afternoon and cannot be moved by anything, even foolish lords playing cards for hundreds of pounds over exotic plants. But he only said, “How admirable that you read the paper, Miss Lucas.”

Beneath a liberal sprinkling of spots no young lady could like, Diantha’s cheeks and chin clung firmly to the roundness of childhood, and then some. But her regard remained bright. “Papa does not like the paper, but I learned to enjoy it at the Bailey Academy, of course.”

“Of course.” His silvery eyes glistened.

“Mr. Yale, you should drink less and read the paper more often.”

“Diantha!”

“I am only saying, Serena, that handsome young men ought not to ruin their lives in this manner. There are ever so many alternatives to depravity, you know.”

“For a lady of-” He broke off, his brow creasing. “What is your age, if I may be so brash as to inquire, Miss Lucas?”

“Sixteen and nearly three quarters.”

“For a lady of sixteen and nearly three quarters, Miss Lucas, you have a remarkable quantity of opinion.”

Her face opened in innocent surprise. “Why shouldn’t I?”

His brows quirked up. “Why shouldn’t you, indeed? It is admirable.”

“A moment ago you thought it impertinent.”

“Never. Or if I did I must have forgotten myself for an instant. I beg your forgiveness.”

Her lips screwed up into a skeptical frown. “You are not sincere.”

“Nearly always. But I do indeed find an informed mind admirable, Miss Lucas, even when paired with impertinence.” With a slight grin, he unfolded from his chair and stood, bowed to each of them, and moved off.

Serena patted her stepsister on the arm. “Don’t pay him any attention, Diantha.”

“Miss Yarley at the Bailey Academy says gentlemen always drink to excess. I told her Papa does not, but my real father did, so perhaps Miss Yarley is correct in the case of some gentlemen.” She stared after Mr. Yale, her eyes bright with curiosity and something warmer. Lady Fiona played a trill of notes and Viola’s gaze crept back toward the pianoforte.

Jin was looking at her.

She snapped her eyes away, the hollow ache inside her never greater. Beyond the propped terrace doors, thunderclouds gathered to the ocean, bands of fiery gold striped across their bottom swells from the setting sun. She stood and went through the glass doors onto the terrace. The air glowed pink all about, and she forced herself to appreciate the beauty as she always had from her helm.

“Missing your quarterdeck?” His voice came at her shoulder, quiet and deep.

She sucked in breath and turned to him. “Thanks to you.”

He bowed. “It is a pleasure to see you again too, Viola.”

“I suppose you expect me to curtsy now.”

“That is the usual custom, I believe.” His eyes glimmered. Her belly felt quivery.

“I have learned how, you know. And countless other ladylike accomplishments.”

“I have no doubt of it.”

“Why did you come out here? To bother me?”

“Merely to say hello. But I will certainly congratulate myself if I achieve more with so little effort.”

“Oh. I am laughing uncontrollably. Can you see?”