How to Be a Proper Lady

The bishop’s face opened in surprise, the candlelight making his wrinkles into a complex set of tracks across his skin.

“A girl!”

“I am not a girl. And you are a selfish, miserly fellow. Why won’t you sell this box?”

“Because I found it fair and square and I don’t sell my treasures, young missy.” His eyes narrowed. “I suspect you think that because you are a female I won’t turn you in. But you are wrong. God forgives penitent miscreants, but the law makes examples of them first.” He yanked the box out of her grip, and her stomach plummeted to her shoes. “Officers, I shall want to visit her cell in Newgate tomorrow to hear her apology. Take her, and her thieving, good-for-nothing companions in crime.” He flicked a disinterested gaze at Jin. “I am going back to bed. With my casket.”

“She’s not to blame, Your Grace.”

Viola started. Jin’s voice was not quite his own, deep and beautiful as always, but tinged with some other sound, like Billy’s twang or like the footman Jane had bribed.

“Oh she isn’t, young man? Then who is? You?”

“Well, you see, it’s my sister who’s the troublemaker, Your Excellency.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other as though uncomfortable. Viola gaped. His sister? What was he doing?

“This is your sister?”

“No, sir.” He flickered her a glance she could have sworn seemed shy. But that was impossible. “My sister is this here lady’s maid.”

“Lady? This one?” The bishop grabbed a candle and pushed it up to her face again.

“Yessir. Sister of a lord, just like you, begging your pardon, Your Grace.”

“Well I don’t see it. She doesn’t look like a doxy, it’s true. But she’s got the look of an urchin about her.”

Jin nodded. “She’s not your typical lady, that’s for sure, Your Lordship. But, well, take a look at her hands.”

The bishop frowned. “Show me your hands, missy.”

She did so.

The bishop’s brow terraced. He leaned to the servant beside him. “Do those look like the hands of a lady to you, Clement?”

“Yes, Your Grace. I believe they do.”

The bishop’s lips screwed up and he narrowed his eyes at Jin. “What is she doing in my house stealing my casket, then?”

“Well, sir, I want that casket. And my sister, well, she’s a troublemaker. This lady here-” His whole demeanor spoke abashed. It was astounding. Viola would have stared wide-mouthed if her heart weren’t aching so fiercely. “This lady likes a bit of fun and games, you see, Your Grace. So when my sister dared her to steal the thing, she thought it’d be something of a lark.”

“And you came with her to steal it?”

“I couldn’t very well leave her to it alone, sir, she being a lady and all.”

Viola nearly fell to the floor. He was actually blushing. She had not thought it possible. It made her a little nauseated to realize that he could act so well. A lot nauseated.

The bishop nodded. “Then you are the one bound for Newgate tonight, young man, if not for aiding in a robbery then for not being man enough to take your sister in hand and teach her right and wrong. Eve is the weaker sex and prone to sin. Adam must subdue her wild spirit and with his strong hand demonstrate both his superior will and compassionate mercy.”

Churchman or not, Viola could not be happy for this chastisement.

“But he did not-”

“Be still, missy, and give me your brother’s name.”

“The Earl of Savege, Your Grace,” Jin replied.

“Savege, you say? The libertine.” He scowled. “But he’ll have her back tonight. A man should keep better rein on that which is his.” He clutched the box tight to his chest.

“But-”

“Hush, missy, or I’ll send you to Newgate with the rest of these thieves after all. Officers, I’ll see you at the prison tomorrow. Clement, bring Lord Savege’s sister up to the parlor, and call my carriage.” He pushed away through the crowd.

Men’s hands circled Jin’s arms.

“Wait,” Viola exclaimed. “No-”

“Woman,” Jin said in his own perfect voice, “if you do not follow the bishop up those stairs and return home now, I vow I will never speak to you again.”

Her lungs compressed. “Does that mean you were considering speaking to me ever again before this?”

“Go,” he growled.

“But-”

“Go.”

They pulled him away, and Billy and Matouba. Where Mattie had gone she hadn’t an idea. But she would get them all out of jail. Alex would. She turned from the sight of him being taken away in handcuffs, and hurried up after the bishop.

Not long before dawn, Mattie arrived at the mass of stones and mortar called Newgate Prison, which was grand and superior on the outside, thoroughly stinking and filthy within. With the contents of a sac the size of his fist, Mattie bribed the entry officer, the wing warden, and the cell guard.

The guard drooled over the two sparkling guineas in his palm as he picked his teeth with a rat’s bone, then he unlocked the cell.

“Be seein’ ye, Mr. Smythe. Do come again. And bring yer friends too.” He bowed with a smirk and spit in the dirt.

The sky was still dark, the autumn air chill when Jin walked out the front door of the prison as though he hadn’t been brought up on charges of thievery by a lord of the church mere hours earlier. Wealth had its advantages.

His clothing clung to him, soaked with sweat from his brief tenure in the dank cage of men, his body’s uncontrollable response as he’d sat motionless, swallowing back the dread. But she had not had to endure the filth or discomfort of a similar cell, or the real dangers a woman faced in such a place. The regular denizens of jailhouses knew no shame, modesty, or pity; they would have made a meal of Viola Carlyle. Unless, of course, she cozened them as she did everyone else-except unfortunately the bishop. With him she had been inconveniently petulant.

He crossed the yard and passed through the outer gate, sucking in air, the sour remnants of terror slipping away from his exhausted limbs.

“You ain’t gonna talk to us?” Mattie grumbled. Matouba and Billy slogged silently behind. The boy was wily, but the hue of Matouba’s skin had not been popular with several of their cellmates. Jin had allowed them to manage on their own. They deserved whatever discomfort they suffered for dragging her into it, as did he. But he would spend a thousand nights of hell in a prison cell if it meant Viola would be well.

“I have nothing to say which you do not already anticipate.” He walked to the street. “Did you manage to set aside a coin for a hackney coach, or must I walk home?”

Mattie jingled the remains of the purse. Jin took it.

“Not even a thanks, a’course,” his helmsman grunted.

He halted and turned to them. “Mattie, give me your knife.”

Three pairs of eyes went round. Even Matouba’s cheeks turned gray.

Jin rolled his eyes. “For later. As mine was taken from me by our hosts, I am now left without, and you have another on the ship.” He accepted the blade and slipped it into his boot. “If I wanted to kill you,” he added, turning back to the street, “I would have done it years ago.”

“We’re plumb sorry Miss Viola dropped that lamp, Cap’n,” Billy peeped uncertainly. “She was doin’ a right bang-up job o’ the thing till then.”

He had no doubt of it. “Amateurs. You should all be ashamed.”

“Never meant for her to go into the house at all. Tried to stall, but she insisted,” Mattie mumbled. “We thought