How to Be a Proper Lady: A Falcon Club Novel (34 page)

“No, he did not. Even if Alex had offered him payment, Jinan would not have taken it. Why, he is rich as Croesus. Quite likely wealthier than my husband, given the many nights Alex spent at the card tables at one time. Didn’t you know that?”

She swallowed through her thick throat. “No” came out like a peep. “I did not.” She shook her head. “But then, why did he spend so many months searching for me, and so much effort convincing me to return here, if not for Alex’s money?”

Serena sat at her side. “It was rather the other way around. He felt he owed Alex a debt.”

“
He
owed a debt?”

“It is not really my place to share this information, but now I think you must be told. As a boy, for two years Jinan was a slave. Alex, not much older than him at the time, had him freed.”

Her breaths came fast. “But that was twenty years ago.”

“Then you do know.”

“I didn’t know Alex’s part in it.”

“Jinan found you for me because he believed it was the only manner in which he could repay my husband. Of course Alex never expected or asked it. Jin needn’t have ever done anything.”

Viola stood and crossed the chamber, abruptly hot all over.

“All this time I believed—” She could not think. “I never—” Her return to England had meant more to him than she had ever imagined. He had understood his friend’s love for his wife, and somehow also Serena and Viola’s bond as children. He was a man as alone as any could be, both by life’s tragedy and by choice, yet in this manner he had chosen to pay his debt. Because what Alex had given him meant everything to him.

She ached inside so profoundly, for the boy he had been and the man he had become. And she loved him beyond bearing.

“Viola, will you dress now for going out?” Serena’s voice sounded strange.

She turned and swallowed back her grief. “Ser, I don’t really wish to—”

“Please dress. I should like us to pay that call on Kitty before the party tonight, actually. You needn’t even dress for the evening. We will drop you off here again after we visit Lady Blackwood.”

“Well, all right.” She moved to the door, head heavy and not particularly caring where she went.

Jane buttoned her into a gown suitable for making calls, muttering all the while that Viola should use cucumber slices over her eyes at night to relieve the puffiness. Viola ignored her and met her sister and Alex in the foyer. Serena and the earl made superficial conversation as they drove the two blocks to Lord and Lady Blackwood’s town house, a more modest establishment than their home but still remarkably elegant.

The lady that met them in the receiving room was as elegant as her surroundings, tall and slender, with dark hair and gray eyes much like her brother’s, and exquisitely dressed in the richest shade of blue. She came forward, took both Viola’s hands into her own, and kissed her softly on either cheek.

“How eager I have been to make your acquaintance.” She spoke as beautifully as Viola had ever heard, her laughing eyes belying her superior mien and dress. “And how immeasurably glad I am that you are in our family now.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

“Kitty it shall be to you. And I shall call you Viola, the long-lost sister I never had.” She cast a sparkling smile at Serena and winked. “My other long-lost sister.” She glanced at her brother. “You will not find Leam at home. He has gone out for the evening. He is attempting to track down Wyn, who cannot be found lately and who, by the by, was so charmed by you, Viola, he vows he will never glance at another lady unless she possesses a thorough knowledge of the sea and no desire whatsoever to paint watercolors.”

Viola wished she could smile. She managed a wobbly grin. “I hope he is well.”

“He is playing least in sight these days, so we don’t have any idea and it is a bit worrisome.” Kitty released her hands. “But at least before he disappeared he told us all about his time at the Park and about you. Naturally, he was much more forthcoming than Jinan, who I suspect had many stories to share but was predictably reticent.” Her lips twisted. “One never does know what Jin is thinking or doing, does one, Alex?”

The earl leaned against the mantel, arms crossed. “Rarely.” He glanced at Viola.

She had the most peculiar sense they all expected her to speak next. And so, though it cost every ounce of her self-possession to hold her voice from trembling, she obliged.

“I suppose he was very busy preparing to depart. Perhaps now that he is on his way across the sea he will have leisure to write l-letters.” Her voice stumbled. “I always kept a journal aboard ship, of course. And—sometimes—I wrote letters.” The last came forth as a mumble. It was not pleasurable speaking of him. That he was apparently well known and liked by all her family and friends was a wretchedly unwelcome discovery.

The room had gone silent. She glanced about. Kitty was looking at Alex, her brow drawn. Alex nodded.

“Viola,” Kitty said, “Jinan is not on his way across the sea. Not yet, at least. He is here in London.”

“Here?” She stared at Kitty, then Alex. “In
London
?”

“Yes.”

“He told me he was putting to sea, sailing to—” Her voice cracked. “He lied.”

“Not necessarily. That may be in his plans, eventually.”

“And until then?” But the truth didn’t matter. He had left Devonshire almost certainly knowing how she felt. “What is he doing in London?”

Serena said softly, “He is looking for his family, Vi.”

Viola’s heart tripped. “What family? He said his mother died long ago.”

Serena shook her head and shrugged. Viola found nothing useful on Alex and Kitty’s faces either.

“I suppose I am relieved not to be the only person with whom he shares so little,” she finally muttered, winning a grin from Alex and a tender smile from Serena. But Kitty remained sober.

“It is difficult not to understand him, I know, Viola. But Jinan is a good man. He is doing what he believes to be right. If you care for him—which I think perhaps you do?—you must trust him.”

A
n hour later, as Viola paced her bedchamber, Kitty’s words still racketed about her head. Perhaps he was doing what he believed to be right. But need he do so alone? He might not love her or need her. But she loved him and she wanted to help him. She
longed
to help him, as he had helped her.

She would.

Serena and Alex had no direction for him, nor did Kitty and Lord Blackwood. He lived like a shadow in London, apparently. But Viola knew her way around docks better than her aristocratic relatives. If his ship were still there, she would find him. She could not go about it, however, dressed as Viola Carlyle.

She darted to her garderobe, dug deep, and found her breeches, shirt, and waistcoat. The challenge of escaping the house and getting to the docks without being noticed by her sister’s solicitous servants would be considerable. She was tugging on her left shoe, tucking in her shirt, and hopping on one foot while sticking her head out the window to study the trellis crawling down the side of the house, when Jane entered.

Jane gasped.

Viola dropped her shoe.

Jane’s eyes narrowed. She backed toward the door.

“Don’t. You. Dare.”

Jane’s lips pinched. “Where are you going?”

“To the docks.”

“You won’t get away with it.”

“Of course I will.” Viola stalked forward, limping on one stockinged foot. “And you will assist me.”

“Oh, no, I will not.”

“Oh, yes, you will. Because if you do not, I will tell Lady Savege how you stole one of Mr. Yale’s neck cloths and are hiding it amongst your underclothes.”

Jane’s palm shot up to cover her open mouth. “You wouldn’t,” she hissed.

“I would.” Viola cocked her head. “So what will it be? Assist me now, or never find another position amongst the Quality again?”

Jane glared. But she assisted.

Viola thought she was getting the hang of being a lady quite nicely.

S
he found Matouba first. It was remarkably easy. The footman that Jane bribed with intimate favors (possibly chosen for the task for his black hair and gray eyes that resembled a particular Welshman’s) found a hackney coach for Viola. Once spirited out the back door while said footman and Jane distracted the other servants, it was a quick trip through evening traffic to the docks.

Pulling her hat down around her face, she went into the first pub she came to, and there he was. Ebony among chestnut and leather and walnut and rawhide, he stood by the crowded bar, his white globelike eyes trained directly on her. Her father’s Irish luck was with her tonight. Or perhaps her father himself was watching over and guiding her actions. Fionn was wily enough to succeed in this plan. He had stolen a girl from a baron, after all. Stealing back a man’s family ought to be a breeze.

She shoved her way through the crowd.

“I am glad to see you. Where are Mattie and Billy? But more to the point, where is he?”

To Matouba’s credit, he tipped his hat respectfully before grasping her arm and trundling her out of the pub without a by-your-leave. She yanked out of his hold. Lamplight from the pub’s door shone on the pavement and voices and laughter tumbled across thresholds all down the block. It was the sailors’ district, and she was perfectly comfortable. But Matouba clearly was not happy with her presence. His eyes continually flickered about, and he stood close, his stance protective on the dark street.

“Where is he, Matouba?”

“Well, miss, I reckon I can’t be tellin’ you that now.”

“Why? Because I am not supposed to know?”

“Because he don’t know,” came from behind her.

She swung around to face Mattie. Billy hovered at his beefy elbow wearing a toothy grin.

“It sure is good to see you again, Cap’n ma’am.”

“Thank you, Billy.” She turned her attention up to the hulking helmsman. “Do you know where he is?”

Mattie shook his head.

“We don’t never know, Cap’n ma’am.” Billy’s head bobbed. “He don’t never tell us.”

“Then how do you communicate with him?” Her gaze flashed between them. “He tells you when and where, doesn’t he?” She lodged her fists on her hips. “And he says
I’m
impossible.”

“Begging your pardon, miss.” Mattie’s grin lacked several teeth. “But we know where he
ain’t
tonight. Where we were thinking about going us’selves. Fact is, we could use a sailor that can talk good as a lady for the job.” Bowls and jugs clinked from within the pub and a fiddler took up a tune, a cart clattered past, stirring up dust that smelled like sweat and fish, and the most glowering, harrumphing sailor Viola had ever known winked.

Her heart pattered fast. She thrust out her hand, palm down. “I’m in.”

A skinny freckled hand slapped atop hers. “I’m in, Cap’n ma’am.”

Fingers like pitch-coated sausages covered Billy’s. “Me too, miss.”

Mattie’s came last, big and brown and as comforting as a whole ham on Easter Sunday. “Let’s go.”

Chapter 29

I
n the deep gray of London midnight Jin stared at the ceiling, his heart racing as he sat perfectly still in a chair in his flat. Though his body ached with need, no female companion awaited him in the bedchamber. Not with Viola Carlyle two hundred miles away. Never again, no matter how many miles distant she was. Thus his life of celibacy commenced.

But it was not a time that would linger long. She had taken his heart and after all he had done, all his voluntary damnation, he was quite certain he could not live without it. He could not live without her. So he may as well throw himself into certain danger. If unrest stirred in Malta, it would be as good a place as any to die. There he might finally be killed, after all, and end the torture of not having her, and of knowing another man would.

She deserved more than Aidan Castle. She deserved everything.

Unprofitable thoughts. She would have what she needed, whether it was Castle or some other man lucky enough to win her. And, as he had been for twenty years, he would be alone, as it should be. Or dead.

But it was all a lie. A blasted lie. Not to Viola this time. To himself.

He had come back to London and remained here, delaying his departure for the East on the Club’s mission, because he wanted that damned box. He’d made a second and third attempt to purchase it, anonymously through his own man of business days ago, then through Blackwood’s agent again today. The bishop was immovable, and suspicious now of the interest others were taking in the antiquity. He would not sell. He was adamant.

But Jin had to have it. He could think of nothing else—except Viola. He would never be a good man; his past would remain with him always. But he was damned if he would let her go forever without first knowing if he was a man with a real last name. He owed at least that to himself. And to her.

He stared into the darkness, night sounds coming to him through the open window, and waited for the Watch to call the hour. Then he waited longer. He had no master ordering him to his nightly prowl, no purpose to prowl in the first place. He would not steal the box from the bishop’s house and he would not harm anyone to get it otherwise. He was through with that. Seamus Castle’s bloody face and Viola’s impassioned defense of the punishment had seen to that. He never wished to hear her excuse him again, for in doing so she sullied herself. If he were ever going to deserve her—if he had a chance of deserving her—he would do it by cleaning his soul first.

Finally, he rose from the chair and dressed in clothing suitable for such work. He had not yet spoken with the bishop’s junior footman. He had studied him, though, every night for nearly a fortnight. Within the hour the man would be leaving his employer’s house. As he did each night he would walk three blocks to his favorite gin house where he would drink two drams of Blue Ruin, then spend fifteen minutes in the back room with the red-haired whore before heading home. If the redhead was not working, he would go with the blonde rather than the brunette. Some men were misguided that way, Jin supposed.

He walked to the bishop’s house. It was not far from his rooms in Piccadilly, and the muted rumbling activity of London at night kept him alert, his mind focused and off a beautiful little sailor with violet eyes.

The moment he arrived he felt the change in the night air. The windows of the house, usually black at this hour, were not all dark now. From a window on the ground floor, a sliver of gold light peeked out between drawn drapes. It flickered. Then receded.

Someone was moving through the house with a lamp; but it was not Pecker. From where he stood hidden in a shadow across the street, Jin watched the footman stroll up the narrow alley between the bishop’s house and the house beside it. Pecker whistled cheerfully, tossing an object into the air as he went, up and down. It caught a glimmer of moonlight and Jin stilled.

Gold coin. Payment for allowing a stranger’s entrance?

His anger simmered. That morning again they had tried to convince him to allow them to break into the house and steal the box. Matouba had been quiet but firm, and Billy typically enthusiastic. But Mattie had only stared at him above his cauliflower nose and said, “S’about damned time.”

Now they had gone in, despite his forbidding them to. But they were sailors, trained to thieve in open waters on ship decks, not to skulk about a gentleman’s drawing room. They would get themselves caught on his behalf, and he could not allow that.

It looked like his appointment with death might come sooner than anticipated.

Swiftly on silent boots he crossed the street and stole into the alley. The tradesman’s door stood propped open. Cautiously, he entered the narrow basement corridor and ascended to the first floor, no servants in sight. Peculiar. But the hour was late and the elderly man kept an early schedule. Two doors let off the short corridor that ran to the foyer—a parlor and a dining room, most likely. Bishop Baldwin’s house was stacked in every corner with objects—statuettes, compasses, clocks, books, jewels on pedestals, musical instruments, and a thousand other trinkets, but it was nevertheless a modest establishment for a retired man of the cloth.

Light flickered at the base of a door. Then from within—all in rapid succession—furniture scraping across floor, shattering glass, a muffled curse, and a thud.

There was nothing to be done for it; he opened the door. In the near perfect darkness, a lamp lay in pieces on the floor at the edge of a thick carpet. A slight figure stood over it, a small casket clutched in her arms.

Emotion rocked him like a gale force wind slamming him down and under. He remembered the gold and enamel mosaic box as if he’d seen it only yesterday sitting on his mother’s dressing table in her chambers strewn with silks and cushions. And he would recognize Viola Carlyle no matter how dark it was or what she wore—even if he were blind, deaf, and bereft of all other senses—until the day he died.

Her gaze shot to him, then swiftly up at the ceiling. Footsteps sounded above.

“
Damn
.” Her hushed curse was as smooth and rich as every word of hers he carried in his soul.

He widened the door and stepped back from it, gesturing her through. They would not escape; pursuers, three men at least, were already on the landing above. But he must make the attempt, if he could force his thoughts to function properly. But his head swam and all he wanted in the world was moving toward him now.

She barely glanced at him as she darted into the corridor. He followed. Lamplight scorched the stairs above, bouncing closer, the footsteps quick, feet and legs appearing.

“You there! Halt!”

She shot down the narrow steps to the basement, he behind. Billy leaped from a doorway, tugged his cap, and ran for the rear entrance where Matouba stood in silhouette framed by two uniformed men.

They were caught. But he could assure she would not suffer for it. He reached forward and grabbed her shoulder.

B
illy skidded to a halt at the other end of the corridor as Jin slammed her back against his chest.

“Do not speak unless I tell you to,” he whispered harshly into her ear as the sheer relief and joy of being touched by him again flooded her. Then he released her and there was a great deal of commotion—men crowding into the basement corridor from either end with lamps and candles and at least one fireplace poker—in livery and uniform. An old man with a long hooked nose and nightcap askew atop his scraggly yellowish-gray hair stepped forward.

“Ha ha! I anticipated subterfuge.” He shoved his candle in her face, wax spitting onto her coat. “Set a trap for you! I let that fool Pecker take your money, you thieving whelp. Ha! I have you now, by George.” He thrust his candle into a servant’s hand and gripped the box. “You won’t have my casket now, but ten years in Newgate.”

Viola held on tight. “Oh, just let me have it, you mean old man. I will pay you for it.”

Gasps all around, except from Billy in the hands of two servants, and except from the silent man at her side.

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.

N
ot 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.