How to Be a Proper Lady

though you were enjoying yourself. I am so glad.”

“Thank you for the wonderful party, Ser. It was splendid.” And finally over, so that now she could go to her room and spend the remainder of the night crying over a man she had been quite, quite foolish to fall in love with. The last she had seen of him, Lady Fiona had been wrapping her hand about his arm while two other young ladies stood by looking on with patent jealousy. So at least Viola was not alone in her envy, which made her feel absolutely ill.

“Come,” Serena said, “I will tuck you in.”

“Oh, no. You will wish to visit Maria before going to bed, and you must be exhausted.”

“We will walk up together. And there is my lord to escort us. Will you see us up, Alex?”

He came toward them and took Serena’s hand to kiss. “I am charged with playing cards. Cards, as though I haven’t a lovely wife waiting for me. Some fellows will never learn.”

“But you must act the gracious host,” his lovely wife replied, and drew Viola toward the stair.

On the landing to the third story, Viola released her. “Thank you. Now go see Maria.”

Serena’s tired eyes smiled, and she went.

Dragging sore feet, Viola moved along the darkened corridor, wishing she’d brought a lamp or candle, then happy she hadn’t. She was so weary and wretched, she must look like she’d been through a squall. And to be so wretched after her sister had thrown her a fabulous party made her more wretched yet. Halfway along the corridor she met a pair of matrons, gray head to gray head, still gossiping madly. She bade them good night, they waved, never ceasing their whispered chatter, and she slogged along on blistered toes and heels.

Five minutes of slogging later it occurred to her that she was once again lost. This time quite literally. Amber circles from sconces lit the corridor at long intervals. She recognized nothing, not the side table nor the painting on the wall; she had never been in this corridor. Voices came from a distance. The ubiquitous footmen seemed to have eschewed their ubiquity.

She halted and turned around. Jin was walking toward her. Her heart did an awful leap against her rib cage.

“What is the chance that I get myself lost and you appear out of nowhere to take me back where I belong?” she whispered very unsteadily.

“No chance.” He came right to her, as close as he had on the terrace the last time he spoke to her, and at the library door when he did not. “I was looking for you.”

“Me?” She could not bridle her tongue; it was apparently firmly attached to her heart. “Are you certain you weren’t looking for Lady Fiona, rather?”

“Quite certain.” His eyes covered her all at once, it seemed, her face and hair, shoulders, and the place where her quick breaths pressed her breasts against her bodice. She wanted him to look at her like this, but he had looked at her this way before and then rejected her.

“She wants you,” she uttered, trying to push him away with words.

“I don’t want her.” He grasped her arms, not gently, and bent over her mouth. “I want you.” Then, finally, he kissed her again.

Chapter 25

After what seemed a lifetime without him, he was kissing her. It was no tender, tentative caress, instead complete and perfectly confident that she would kiss him back. She did, meeting his seeking mouth eagerly, drinking him in like a drowning woman struggling for air and filling her lungs with yet more water. For surely this would kill her. But she simply could not deny him. His hand encompassed the back of her head, holding her to him as he had that first time, and quite swiftly it all got quite hot, and deep. Astoundingly deep. And not at all silent. His teeth grazed her lower lip, and she gasped and let him taste her tongue next. He groaned and broke away.

“I want you, Viola,” he repeated over her lips.

She fought it. “But I don’t want you.”

His fingers hooked in the edge of her bodice and tugged open gown, corset cups, and shift, exposing her breasts. “You will have to produce more convincing evidence.”

Viola looked down. Her nipples stood at aroused peaks. She met his gaze again, sinking inside at her body’s betrayal. “That is only lust.”

His clear irises seemed to melt with heat. “Do you need more?”

More? She needed everything more from him. Everything he would not give her. He was not the sticking sort, Mattie had said. His behavior with her proved it, and Alex’s words that he would leave soon frightened her beyond reason.

“You are an arrogant ass,” she uttered to save her pride, and perhaps even to try to convince her heart. But it had no effect upon him, or upon her heart; his gaze of sheer need did not alter, nor did the gripping pain beneath her ribs abate. “Why have you not spoken with me? Why didn’t you kiss me yesterday at the library?”

“I was trying to be strong.” His hands tangled in her hair, his gaze consuming her so that even her blood sought him.

“And now?”

“Now I have had to endure an entire night of watching Viola Carlyle command a house full of people like she commands a ship of sailors, charming every one of them.” His voice was very rough. “Strong can go to the devil.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and let him kiss her and touch her breasts, encouraging him with soft sounds of want she could not prevent. She should not do this. On her ship she’d been a sailor and free to do as she pleased. But Fiona Blackwood would never stand in the dark corridor of an earl’s house with a man’s hands on her breasts. A real lady would not allow it.

But she was not a real lady. They both knew that.

His tongue drifting across her lower lip melded with his caressing thumb, darting pleasure low in quick, aching bursts. She gripped his neck and flattened herself against his body. He kissed her harder, his hands sweeping around her rear and dragging her against his arousal. It felt good. Too good. And a little desperate. Because he only wanted her for this. But this was better than nothing, and he truly wanted her, with the same urgency as that first time on her ship. It felt like heaven. Or at least the path leading up toward heaven, never mind the gates remaining fully closed and locked against her.

“Come to my bedchamber now,” he whispered against her mouth as though he did not wish to separate enough to speak.

“I don’t take-”

“Orders. I know.” He kissed her, over and over now, a delectable repetition that despite its simplicity made her cling to him tighter. “Then your bedchamber.”

She pressed to him, aching to be closer than clothing would allow. “It shares a wall with Madame Roche. I cannot-”

He grabbed her hand and dragged her along the corridor. He opened the first door they came to.

“A linen cabinet?” But they had managed perfectly well on a staircase once. Perfectly.

She almost giggled, but he pulled her in, closed the door, and covered her mouth again. His fingers sank into her hair and she returned his urgent kisses; fierce, hungry kisses that filled the famine in her. He wrenched her around and pressed her back against the door panel, bringing his entire hard, perfect body against hers.

“You are yanking me about a lot.” She was breathless.

“I am. Feel free to reciprocate.” His mouth on her neck was delirium, his hands tugging her skirts to her hips sure and focused.

She pulled at shirt buttons and linen and found smooth, hot skin beneath. “Any parts in particular you would like yanked?”

“Whatever you wish.” He kissed her throat, fast hot caresses, to her smiling mouth. “Just don’t stop touching me.” His palms cupped her behind and fused her to him. “My God, you feel so good. I have wanted you in my hands