How to Be a Proper Lady

blanches not at deeds.’ Sophocles. I encountered him in the library this morning settled comfortably with Herodotus. An inestimable companion.”

Herodotus? It could be coincidence. Then why did her heart beat now as it had that evening when he stood at her cabin door and she touched him for the first time?

She adopted her most innocent posture. “Herodotus? Did another gentleman arrive at Savege Park that I have yet to meet?”

“Herodotus perished in Greece over two thousand years ago. I should hope he is not present at this gathering.” She looked so sincere. Viola laughed.

Lady Emily’s emerald eyes narrowed. “You quiz nearly as well as Mr. Yale, Miss Carlyle.” But she grinned.

“You do not hate him, do you?”

“Unfortunately I cannot. He helped me in a difficult situation with my parents and I cannot forget that, although I certainly wish to. He is like a bothersome elder brother.”

“I am glad. I like him. He has been very good to me.”

Lady Emily bent her fair head over her volume anew. “I should not account that a particular accomplishment on his part, Miss Carlyle.” She turned another page. “You are quite easy to like. If all ladies were more like you I shouldn’t mind going about in society half so much.” With that, she wandered through the opposite door, head in her book.

After lunch from which the gentlemen were absent, Viola went to the library seeking out something or another to read. More than once.

She was the greatest idiot alive. He was not there, of course. Back in the parlor, Lady Fiona said the gentlemen had gone out riding. Viola considered going to the stable and saddling up a horse, but she didn’t know how.

The gentlemen returned just before dinner. In the drawing room Sir Tracy said many pretty things to her, but she didn’t mind his foolishness. At least he spoke to her.

At dinner and afterward during tea conversation was lively and general and Jin did not come near her. She had learned enough of polite manners to know that she could not very well abandon her seat and put herself near him. But she would if he showed any interest in her doing so, which he did not. He seemed distracted, his attention little on the group and occasionally directed toward the terrace again.

She slept poorly, listening to Madame Roche’s snoring through the wall from the bedchamber beside hers and wondering where his bedchamber might be. The idea that he might be in one of the more accessible rooms now, perhaps in the parlor having a drink or playing billiards with Alex and Sir Tracy, nearly inspired her to dress and go searching. But the wound to her pride would not allow it. He did not want her; she would not chase after him.

The following day, Serena enjoined the ladies to take tea with her at the teahouse in Avesbury, a quaint establishment beside the modiste’s shop. After the repast, Serena took Viola alone next door.

“What are we doing, Ser?” She looked about the tiny place stacked with bins of ribbons and laces and skeins of fabric. “I am certain Mrs. Hamper delivered all my dresses directly to-” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Holy Mary Magdalene. For me?”

Serena’s delight shone so clearly, the shimmering gown in the dressmaker’s arms must be for her.

“Do you like it?”

Viola reached out to stroke the butter-soft silk in the perfect shade of sunset, sewn with tiny pearls and sequins across the bodice and dripping down the filmy skirt like rain falling through sunshine.

“How could I not? But-”

“It is for the party tomorrow night. The gowns we made for you are all so lovely yet none of them suited a truly grand celebration.”

Viola’s eyes widened. “Do not tell me this party is for me.”

“It is. Everyone for miles around has heard you are here. They are all mad to meet you again after so many years.” Serena’s face crinkled. “But… you do not want this?”

“Of course I do.” Not at all. The mere idea of being the center of this sort of attention turned her hands cold. She was certain to do something atrociously wrong and shame Serena, Alex, and the baron. “Thank you, Ser. You are so generous and I will be happy to meet everyone again. I wonder if I will remember them?” She didn’t much care. She wanted only the company of one man whose company she would soon be denied forever.

Malta. Malta. Halfway across the world… Wasn’t it?

When they returned home she went to the library. He was not there, but a gold-embossed atlas of the world was. She flipped open the huge volume, found England, and traced a path all the way to the boot of Italy with her fingertip. She blew out a giant breath. Good Lord, she was acting like a child, just as he had said. But the tear upon her cheek came from a woman’s sorrow.

She scrubbed it off, slammed the book shut, and shoved it back in its place on the shelf.

She didn’t give a fig where he went or what he did. She would be perfectly fine without him. And perhaps when the project of becoming a lady finally wearied her beyond endurance she would go back to Boston where she belonged. If Alex floated her a loan, she could purchase a new ship and, better equipped, take on new projects. The trip to Port of Spain with that cargo might have been lucrative if she had gone about it with the intention of making money. She would hire out her ship to one of those outrageously wealthy merchants like Mr. Hat, and pay back her brother-in-law within a year or so. Hopefully. With a truly sturdy vessel she would also be able to return to England every so often to visit her family. That would be lovely. Activity suited her so much better than this ladylike sitting around waiting for something to happen, or waiting for other people to make decisions for her such as throwing a big party at which everyone for miles about would attend, or waiting for a man to look at her again like he wanted her and wished to tell her something significant.

Oh, God.

She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes and drew a long, shuddering breath. She did not wish to return to Boston or the sea. She only wanted Jin. But she was not to have him. She must get a hold of herself. Straightening her shoulders, she marched to the door, pulled it open, and slammed into a hard body.

Jin grasped her shoulders. And just like that, she was lost, drowning in the pleasure of touching him again, heat filling her. She dragged lashes that seemed remarkably heavy up to see his beautiful mouth hovering above hers, a muscle working in his jaw. In silence she begged, Kiss me. Kiss me.

He put her away from him, turned, and disappeared down the corridor.

Shaking, confused, and furious that for the first time in her life she could not manage to tell a man exactly what she was thinking, Viola went to find Serena to help prepare for the party the following day-the grand event that would introduce her into polite society, when all she wished was to be back sitting on the forecastle of her old ship in the sunset with an Egyptian pirate.

Her sister reclined on the chaise in her dressing chamber draped in a blue dressing gown, a tiny bundle of infant in the crook of her arm.

“You are very relaxed for a woman about to have a party,” Viola commented.

“I am savoring a moment of peace. I have spent the day greeting all our guests who will remain the night here and seeing to everything that needed seeing to. Now my husband is managing the rest. He is quite good at throwing parties.” She smiled a sweet, private sort of smile. Viola’s chest ached a little.

“Did Papa hate Mama after she died, or only Fionn?”

Serena’s eyes popped open. “I don’t believe he hated either of them.”

“No. I am quite certain he hated my father.” Viola toyed with the string of her delicate gold and white fan painted with exotic birds. Serena had just given it to her, after Jane strapped her into her pretty gown and fussed with her hair. “He was remarkably uncivil to Mr. Seton when they spoke the other night. Especially when he said the word ‘sailor.’ He nearly choked on it.”

“He did?” Serena chewed on her lower lip. “That doesn’t sound like Papa at all. But I guess it should come as no surprise given Mama and Fionn’s attachment to one another.”

“I suppose devotion that lasts ages despite them never seeing one another is impressive.” Again she had not seen Jin all day, yet her nerves tangled merely thinking of spending the evening with him. That she would be spending the evening with about seventy other people really mattered very little.

“They never should have met, let alone spoken.” Serena sighed. “But they did, and he could not give her up, nor she him entirely.”

“No wonder Papa dislikes sailors.”