A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal Read online

  Nell looked blankly toward her bangs, which Polly had curled with a hot iron into ringlets at the top of her brow. “It’s nice as it is,” she said. A style for ladies who never left the house. One foot into the damp and these curls would melt away.

  The thought made her grin. “These clothes are for ladies who never do anything useful.” The edges of this open jacket would catch on corners. The tight sleeves would constrict her from lifting a basket onto a worktable. Clothes designed for doing nothing: the idea delighted her.

  “I reckon so,” Polly said hesitantly. “But they do suit you, milady.”

  Milady! Nell turned away from the mirror to cut the girl a wry look. “Orders given belowstairs this morning?”

  Polly blushed and looked to the floor: she knew she hadn’t pulled off that address.

  “If we’re to rub along,” Nell said more gently, “you’ll call me by my proper name—and never lie, either.”

  “I—I’d get in trouble if I called you such now.”

  Nell studied the blank crown of her mobcapped head. “Aye, right,” she said grudgingly. “Call me what you must, then.”

  Polly looked up, her round eyes earnest. “But I wasn’t lying. You do look lovely. It’s naught to do with the gown. But if you don’t like this one, we can try the others again—”

  “And spend another two hours at it?” Imagine that: having so many gowns that it took two hours to try them all! St. Maur had ordered a heap of silk petticoats to boot, as well as stockings in gay, vivid shades, hats and mantuas, and ten woolen combinations. The pile of clothing atop the sofa towered almost three feet high.

  As Nell cast another look over the upended boxes, an uneasy feeling snaked through her. Easy to feel that she’d awoken into a fairy tale. But this was real life. Happy endings were rare. She couldn’t think of any she’d witnessed firsthand.

  A wise woman wouldn’t permit herself to get comfortable in this place. She’d never take for granted that her good fortune would last. She’d stay sharp and continue to look for advantages, knowing that what came so easily could be taken away in an instant. That stash of lace and silver she was building beneath the mattress—she’d keep adding to it.

  Didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy the dresses, though.

  She smiled down at herself, at the unbelievable sight of her own rough hands against the fine silk underskirt, drawing it up to permit her a quick stride. “I should go,” she said. His high-and-mighty lordship was waiting downstairs to introduce her to some lady who meant to teach her manners. He’d spoken of a dancing master and a tutor for her speech as well.

  “Aye,” Polly said softly. “I—” She pushed out a gusty breath. “I have to thank you, milady, I can’t say what devil possessed me to play such an awful trick yesterday—”

  “It’s all right.” Nell winked at her. “We’d had words, so I reckon you owed me a bit of what for. Just so long as we’re square now.”

  “Oh, aye, we’re square,” the maid said fervently. “More than square, milady. Almost—a circle, I’d say!”

  Nell surprised herself with a laugh. “You’re a mad one. Show me the way to the morning room, then, ducky.”

  “Not quite right.” Simon ran his fingers across the piano keys, lightly plucking out the problematic passage. “Don’t be afraid to exaggerate here. You’re hiding the F-sharp in the middle of the phrase.”

  When the expected reply did not come, he glanced up to find Andreasson gaping at the far wall, on the other side of which lay the ballroom. The piano in that room had fallen silent several minutes ago, yielding to the heated tones of an argument.

  Another shriek now penetrated. The wondering look Andreasson turned on Simon bespoke an imagination running wild.

  It did rather sound as though the woman in the next room was being tortured.

  Simon tapped his nail against a key. While Nell claimed to understand the importance of appearing presentable and mannerly, she was not taking well to the instructors hired to tutor her. Simon gathered that the lessons came as unwelcome interruptions to her routine of reading and feasting and … costume changes. Every time he caught sight of her, she was sporting a different gown. She strutted about as proudly and loudly as a peacock.

  Her jaunty defiance made a peculiar sort of sense to him. He knew how unpleasant it was, how dispiriting, to be disciplined and commanded. He ran his fingers over the keys now, plucking out the scale in a mindless little exercise, as familiar and comforting as the breath in his lungs. Old Rushden, for instance, had removed all the pianos from Paton Park that summer after Nell’s disappearance. He’d claimed that Simon’s head was addled, his health weakened, by his obsession with music. That had been the final straw, the snapping of which had severed any kinder ties that might once have existed between them.

  If Rushden had left the pianos alone—if only he’d been willing to let Simon have this one pleasure—then perhaps things might have gone differently between them. But it was as if he had seen Simon’s absorption at the keyboard as a threat to his own authority as the earl, the rightful giver—and denier—of all joys.

  Ah, well. Suffice it to say, Simon knew very well that disciplinary strategies never inspired happy cooperation among the governed. He was willing to tolerate Nell’s airs; indeed, he could admire her pluck. And then there was her mouth, and the memory of what he had done with it …

  “You can bugger off, then!”

  The muffled curse caused Andreasson to flinch. His English vocabulary might be weak, but as a musician, he certainly understood tone.

  Simon allowed himself a half smile. “Please forgive my cousin. A dear, young girl, new to London ways. I fear she dislikes her dancing master.”

  “Oh.” The Swede gave an abashed tug to his waistcoat. Raw-boned and blond, he towered a full head over Simon’s six feet, and was constantly adjusting and twitching his clothes: his tailors, perhaps, did not know how to accommodate such bulk. “He is … strict with her?”

  “No. Merely French.” Nell strongly disapproved of the race. She had a new, Parisian lady’s maid as well. Sylvie’s attempts to lace her as fashion dictated had earned Nell’s suspicion that the woman was trying to squeeze her to death.

  What excuse she had for mistrusting Mrs. Hemple, who had been hired to teach her deportment, Simon could not guess. The woman was as English as suet pudding. But Nell greatly resented, for instance, Mrs. Hemple’s assertion that she did not know how to take her seat properly. “I’ve been sitting me whole life,” Nell had snapped to Simon over breakfast this morning. “Hasn’t been a chair yet to complain of me. The bint’s daft.”

  Now came through the wall a distinctly French, masculine voice: “I ‘ave ‘ad enough!”

  The piano groaned out a dark chord. Simon removed his hand from the keyboard. Nell had a specific goal in working with these tutors, and he saw no sign that she was taking it seriously. Indeed, he’d arrived home from the symphony last night to discover Mrs. Hemple weeping in his entry hall, determined to give notice. It had taken an hour or more to calm her.

  The last thing he needed was Nell’s own tutors running about town wailing of her savagery—or, worse yet, taking the stand in court, at Grimston’s behest, to testify to her character.

  “We’ll work on this piece later,” he said. He’d given Nell a week to adjust. He was not like Rushden before him; he had no interest in crushing her spirit. But her spirit needed to conform to the main aim: becoming Lady Cornelia. Otherwise he had no use for her.

  “Yes,” Andreasson murmured. “Of course, your lordship. At your convenience.”

  He was everything amenable, was the Swede: he knew whom to thank for his current popularity. As Simon saw him out, he found himself wishing that Nell might prove so wise. She was sabotaging her chances with these tantrums. If she did not intend to cooperate, he would overcome his interest in her and put her back on the street so he could look for a rich woman to marry.

  He would not feel a moment’s guilt over it, ei
ther. Where Nell misunderstood him was in her apparent belief that he took his wealth for granted; that this whole exploit was a lark to him. How wrong she was. No day was brighter than those in which he discovered some new aspect of his power. The House of Lords was largely toothless these days, but he’d taken his seat at the first opportunity. He belonged to all the best clubs, though he had no interest in the company. Various corporations asked him onto their boards, not for his nonexistent business acumen but for the honor of having his name on the charter, and he always immediately agreed. The fawning adulation of shareholders did not interest him, but he simply liked that he could have it, should the mood ever seize him.

  Wealth gave one so many choices. If she imagined he would risk losing them, she was badly mistaken.

  As he neared the ballroom, he realized that his irritation had sharpened into something nearer to anger. Knowing that rash words would not serve him in the coming confrontation, he paused in the doorway to collect himself.

  Inside, Palmier stood, fists on hips, his tufted white brows raised in affront. Nell paced a tight circle in front of him. She’d changed since breakfast, and her pale pink gown—designed no doubt with a banker’s daughter in mind, some girl who spent afternoons watering flower boxes in a bourgeois bungalow in Hampstead—did not suit her aggressive strides. She put Simon in mind of a feral cat dressed up in a ruff.

  Or of Kitty, upon discovering a rip in her hem. Another tantrum was coming.

  “You turn too fast,” she was saying. “And if I can’t lift my blooming skirts, it’s hardly my fault if they get in the way, now, is it?”

  “Ha! The train of a ball gown—”

  She spun toward him. “I’m not at a ball, am I? And if I were, sure and I wouldn’t be dancing with the likes of you!”

  “You would not dance at all,” Monsieur Palmier snapped. “No gentleman would dare to partner you. An elephant has lighter feet!”

  Nell’s spine snapped straight. An ominous silence descended as codger and guttersnipe glared.

  Nell loathed this little elf. She’d met with him six days in a row, and they’d started out well enough; the movements of the quadrilles and polka and gavot were familiar and didn’t challenge her. But once leaping had left the picture and gliding entered it, she’d faltered. She’d never waltzed before or danced any form like it; there wasn’t room for sweeping turns in the pubs where she’d danced.

  “You must be graceful,” he told her now—sternly, as though she were deliberately trying to lurch and stumble. His scowl shouldn’t have looked so fearsome on a man of his small height, but he was wizened as a gnome, with the most peculiar white eyebrows, tufted into points. He looked so close to a fey creature that had he gone walking down Peacock Alley to pick up the dishes of milk left out by the Irishwomen, not a soul would have dared to stop him.

  “I’m trying,” she said. “You can’t fault me for putting weight on my feet! Ladies have legs, too, don’t they?”

  From the piano in the corner of the ballroom came the sound of a throat being cleared. “One doesn’t refer to legs in the company of gentlemen, Lady Cornelia.”

  Nell grimaced. Mrs. Hemple was yet another of the lot St. Maur had inflicted on her—one of those plump, self-satisfied, older women with opinions on every-bloody-thing. She was serving as the pianist right now but her main specialty was manners. She followed Nell about the house, from dancing lessons to elocution to the dining table, commenting on every single thing Nell did wrong.

  Apparently ladies weren’t meant to eat cheese at dinner. No savories, either. They took at least a minute to strip off their gloves lest they appear fast. They didn’t comment on their own bodies. Perhaps they weren’t meant to know they had bodies. That probably helped them avoid mentioning their own legs. What legs? They floated, Nell supposed. Maybe they imagined they had wings.

  She had a sudden flash of herself, flapping her arms as she whirled across the slippery oak floor. A giggle slipped out.

  Palmier visibly bridled. “If you laugh once more, I will have no choice—”

  “But what?” She was tired of being judged and found wanting. Wasn’t a soul on the staff who didn’t gawp at her like a creature from the zoo. But she wasn’t an idiot or incompetent, either. She’d made her way by far more difficult means than sweeping floors or teaching ladies how to twirl and sit properly. “What’ll you do to me?” She stepped toward him. “I’d like to see you try!”

  A lazy voice came from the doorway. “What an intriguing pedagogy.”

  Palmier whirled as St. Maur strolled in. “Your lordship! Ah—we’d paused for a brief respite.”

  Nell felt her mood brighten. St. Maur looked properly rich in his dove-gray suit, and how absurd was it that she felt glad to see him? At least he spoke to her like a fellow human being.

  As well he should, she reminded herself. It had been his idea to keep her here and put on this farce. She hadn’t asked for any of this.

  He paused before her to make a short bow. “Lady Cornelia.”

  “So they tell me.”

  He locked her in a look that took on an edge of challenge as the silence extended.

  With a roll of her eyes, she put out her hand as Hemple had instructed. “Good morning to you,” she said, sing-song.

  He took her hand and gave it a light press. “And to you.” He released her, the warmth of his fingers seeming to linger as he said to Palmier, “You may continue, sir.”

  Palmier made a swift advance. “Chin up,” he said in an undertone. “Recall your arms.”

  As if she could forget them! They were attached, weren’t they? She bit her tongue but didn’t bother to check her scowl. She could do this stupid waltz. Even Mum had admired her skill at dancing—grudgingly, of course; Mum had always said that the dances in Bethnal Green were naught but excuses for sinner’s mischief.

  She shoved the thought away. She couldn’t think of Mum. Otherwise grief would find her again, that blue ache that stabbed at the spot where the corset boning dug in sharpest. She put her fist there and took as deep a breath as she could manage. “All right,” she said to Palmier, who was shifting impatiently. No point in feeling stupid or foolish at her clumsiness. Mum had told her to come to Rushden for help. As long as she left this place with a nice collection of things to sell, she’d count herself successful.

  She stepped forward and gave the Frenchie her hand. Mrs. Hemple launched into the song.

  The first few turns went well enough, but at the far corner, she tripped and then somehow took control of the dance: all of a sudden she was guiding instead of following, and the next she knew the music had died and Palmier was pulling free of her.

  He turned toward St. Maur as reluctantly as a man facing the firing squad. “She is making progress, but …”

  “Yes, so I see.” St. Maur’s mouth thinned as he studied her, his disappointment so clear that she felt herself biting back a nasty remark. It wasn’t her fault if he’d been fool enough to think he could convince people that she’d been born to this world. And God help her if she had been! The rules here were rotten.

  “That will be all for today,” he added, and as though he’d pressed a button on one of those mechanical dioramas they displayed at the fairs, Hemple popped up from the piano bench and Palmier spun for the door. Not an inch of spine in either of them.

  She didn’t wait for their exit to defend herself. “It’s not my legs that are the problem. That Frenchie—”

  “As Mrs. Hemple said, your legs are not an appropriate subject for discussion.”

  The cold rebuttal startled her. The door shut softly behind the servants, closing her into silence with him. He put his hands behind his back and set his jaw, doubtless waiting for an apology from her, some groveling plea for failing his bloody expectations. Well, he could think again! “If you’re to lecture me on manners,” she said, “you might try them out yourself. Shooing people away like flies, not sparing them a word of farewell—”

  St. Maur lifted h
is brows. “No. One doesn’t owe the staff such courtesy.”

  “Then it’s not courtesy,” she said. “If it’s only to be used around certain people, it’s hypocrisy.”

  “An interesting perspective,” he said calmly, “but irrelevant for our purposes. Manners are merely a game, Nell. As with all games, one applies the rules in particular situations, but not in others.”

  She’d heard similar logic before. “That sounds like the rules of a cheater.”

  “Goodness.” He pulled out his gold pocket watch and flipped it open to regard the time. “A moralist, are you?”

  “I don’t like hypocrisy,” she said flatly. “Showing a different face to different people.” She’d always known the world was unjust, but she’d not been prepared for firsthand evidence of how easily the fortunate ignored the injustice. Let them dress up their blindness as good manners, if they liked, but she wanted none of it.

  He snapped the watch shut and tucked it away again. “How far will this dislike guide you?” he asked. “Would you be a hypocrite, for instance, for learning to alter your speech?”

  “I expect I would, if I actually cared to try.”

  “Yet I notice you’re already capable of speaking more genteelly when you choose to do so. Were you always a hypocrite, then?” He smiled. “Or do I inspire you?”

  She pulled a face. Over their conversations at breakfast this last week, she’d grown to recognize the patterns of his slippery logic. He liked to turn an argument back on a person. Just this morning, they’d had a healthy debate about Caliban from The Tempest. In her view, Caliban’s ignorance didn’t excuse him: he was a clear villain who should have been killed for trying to ravish Miranda. St. Maur hadn’t disagreed, but he’d asked her if she thought a crime ever could be mitigated by the circumstances in which it was committed. Had she, for instance, ever been tempted for selfish reasons to steal from someone who’d done her a good turn? If so, why?

  “Is this about that bleeding handkerchief?” she’d demanded.

  “Not the handkerchief,” he’d said.