How to Be a Proper Lady

Aidan the truth about your family once you were married, with the request that he encourage you to come back here. Is Mr. Crazy typically a liar, Viola?”

“A letter? Why on earth would you have a letter from Crazy? What have you been doing, spying on me?”

“It is one of my many talents,” he said, but it passed her by.

“Crazy must have misunderstood. My father liked to invent stories. He was a sailor.” But she looked like she was struggling not to believe it. Behind her rich violet eyes he could nearly see her recalling the moments Fionn had encouraged her to return to England, and her willful choice to defy that. It sufficed for Jin. But driving her away was even more painful than he had anticipated. He could not have her, but he did not want to throw her into Aidan Castle’s arms either.

“Did you know Aidan planned to return to England at this time?”

Her brow drew down. “I thought he would stay in the Indies for a few more years. His decision to return here so soon after the fire surprised me.”

“As much as it surprised him, I suspect.”

“What are you saying?” Her eyes narrowed. “Did he tell you something? That day at the inn, after the fire, you both looked so peculiar when I came upon you. He told you something, didn’t he? And he kept it from me.”

He could tell her the truth, but then he would not be able to leave her. He could barely leave her now. Carefully he fashioned the words to seal his fate.

“Viola, I have lied to you since the moment we met. Yet still you trust me.”

“I do not understand. You have not lied to me.”

Her heart racketed and she was shaking, but he only met her gaze with that cool, steady glimmer of distance. Then he went through the door and was gone.

For a moment, she stood absolutely still, stunned.

She bolted from the room and grabbed a footman. “Which way did Mr. Seton go?”

He pointed.

She caught up with him as he descended the stairs to the drive empty of carriages now, the expanse of the Park’s sloping lawn mottled with trees and sheep. She ran through the puddles.

“Don’t you dare imagine you can make cryptic statements, then turn around and walk away.”

He halted. “I said nothing cryptic. But if it will help for me to repeat it, I have lied to you. A number of times. Is that plain enough?”

She gripped her hands together so she would not grab him instead, rain falling between them.

“It is plain. Now.” She bit down on her uncertainty. “But I don’t know that it matters.”

“You don’t know,” he repeated. He passed his hand over his face and released a hard breath. “Viola, go back inside where you belong.”

She shook from the cold rain on her arms and the certainty that this quarrel was not about Aidan or Fionn or her crew and ship. It was about this man and the life he had led and still wished to lead. A life that was truly unlike anything she had known, that frightened her a little bit. But he did not frighten her. He felt like a part of her.

“This is because of Seamus, isn’t it? If I had seen him do that, Jin, I would have beaten him to a pulp too. That is, if I possessed the strength for it.”

He came to her in a stride and stood so close she could trace each drop of rain on his jaw and lips with her hungry gaze.

“Why did you challenge me with that wager on your ship, Viola? After fifteen years on the sea did you understand nothing of men like me? Did you not?”

A fist clenched her heart. There were no other men like him. None.

“I challenged you because-because I wanted to come home.” Her voice quavered. “Is that what you wish to hear? I missed it more than I could bear, even after so many years, though I tried to pretend I did not, and I longed for it.” As she had longed for him. She had believed she could not lose.

But now she was losing again. The hunted light in his eyes told her that more clearly than anything had yet, and the violence he had done against Seamus earlier. This life was killing him. He could be a gentleman if he wished. His manner and education allowed it. But he would not choose this. And, even if she cast all this aside and went back to the sea, clearly he was not choosing her either.

She backed away. “Why did you even return here if you knew you would only leave again? And don’t tell me it was to settle that debt with Alex, because you could have seen him in London.”

“I returned here, Viola, because I could not stay away from you. Even now when I wish to be gone from here, when I have matters I must attend to elsewhere, you hold me here. You alone.” The manner in which he spoke these words was the least loverlike she had ever heard him. Instead, anger seemed to color them, attuned to the sharply glittering crystals of his eyes. Yet still her joints turned liquid.

“At this particular moment you do not seem as though you wish to be where I am,” she managed to utter.

He came to her, wrapped his hands around her arms, and bent his head.

“I once believed you were insane. I was quite certain of it. But now I know, rather, that I am.” His voice was rough by her brow. “You are merely willfully naive.”

“I cannot imagine how you think that, when I know a great deal more of the world than any lady I have encountered in England.”

“You do not understand why I am not the man for you. That makes you naive. And impossible.”

He wanted her, yet he did not want to want her. This was quite clear. Raw panic enveloped her, colder than the rain. This was truly the end.

“So you are really leaving? At this moment? Now?”

He released her and nodded.

No. God, no. “From London? Is that where you have your ship berthed?”

“Yes.”

“London? All this time since we returned? That must be costing you a fortune. How on earth can you-?”

“Viola.” He looked away, it seemed with impatience.

“Where will you go?” She had lost. She had lost again. But this loss was beyond the greatest pain she had endured, beyond the cruelty of heartbreak during those first months in America, beyond the endless ache of loneliness. “To Boston, to your new ship? Or I suppose Malta.”

“East.”

“After you conclude your business there, you could return here.” Her tongue ran on its own, driven by desperation. “Or you could simply delay your journey a bit.” She was laying her heart open for him to stomp on again. She didn’t care. She could not let him go. “Serena and Alex were talking about having an open house at the Park soon, which from all I have heard seems to be a lark, although-”

“Viola, stop.”

Her lips snapped shut. He watched her distantly, like that day on her ship when her hope had been new and untested, when she had indeed been naive enough to believe this man could love her.

“Just say it.” She steadied her voice with the greatest effort. “You may as well. You look exactly as you did that day when you won the wager.” She needed to hear him say he did not love her. Of all things, she knew he would not lie to her about that.

“My sentiments have not altered since then.” Just as on that day, it seemed difficult for him to tell her. He cared for her enough to pity her.

Viola’s insides quivered, then simply melted into misery.

“Well, I suppose you are entitled to your sentiments, whatever they are.” She squared her shoulders, but the gown pulled and the stays poked and she felt trapped and quite like she might begin to cry shortly, which would be categorically disastrous if she were still standing before him.

“Well then, good-bye, Seton. I hope you have a nice life.” She thrust out her hand for him to shake. He did not move to take it.

“Aidan Castle does not deserve you.”

Viola swallowed over the foremast stuck in her throat. “As astounding as it may seem to you, Master