Rules for a Lady (A Lady's Lessons, Book 1) (18 page)

Stephen did not respond, leaving her to wilt beneath his implacable scrutiny. Eventually she could not stand staring at her white knuckles any longer. She glanced up, and then wished she had not. His face seemed haggard, his shoulders stooped as he regarded her.

"Stephen?"

"I hoped," he began, his voice once again tight with control, "between my mother and I, we would see you on the path of social decency. I even pictured myself presenting you to the regent himself."

Gillian stared at him, her heart sinking with his every word. "The crown prince?" she whispered.

"Do you know what these are?" He took quick strides around his desk, pulling open his bottom drawer and retrieving, one by one, her crumpled "Rules for a Lady." It had become a game to her in the past weeks, ripping down his signs, tossing them out the window, then dreaming up ways to prevent him from putting up another. She had tried everything from locking her door when she left it to blocking her room at night, but still, each evening when she went to her room and each morning when she awoke, she found yet smother one of his supercilious little lists hanging on her wall.

Now, one by one, he brought out her discards from his desk. She had not realized there were so many. And that did not count the ones she had burned. She looked down at her hands, unable to face the growing pile.

"Are you happy here, Amanda?"

Gillian started, confused by his abrupt change of topic. "My lord?"

He settled into his desk chair with a heavy sigh. "You have been restricted these past weeks, jailed in the house while my mother attempted to teach you how to go on."

More like terrified me into submission, she thought sourly. Then she chastised herself silently for her ill thought. The countess tried her best to make Gillian into a proper lady. It was just her methods that were singularly heavy-handed.

Though she did not speak aloud, Stephen must have read the emotions that chased across her face. "She and I have used every means available to us—pleas, anger, threats—everything short of violence. But it now occurs to me it may be impossible for you to change a lifetime of habits in barely a month."

She looked up, hope kindling within her. Could he possibly be about to forgive her? To ease up on the thousands of ridiculous rules hedging her in from every direction? She could barely contain her glee.

"I think, Amanda, you would be much happier back in York. You have an adequate competence, your own home, and servants you have known for a lifetime. You would never lack for anything."

All her spiraling hopes came crashing down upon her. "You are sending me back?"

He sighed, holding up his palms in a gesture of futility. "Surely you can see now how much happier you would be there."

She shook her head, panic making her heart beat triple time. "No! I have waited nearly my whole life for a Season."

"If I let you come out now, your Season will be a disaster. You are much too wild. Perhaps you could return in five or ten years when you are more settled."

"But—"

"I cannot present you now. You will be completely ruined, Amanda. No one in London will ever receive you. At least this way, you retain the option for the future."

"No!" She pushed out of her chair, her hands pressed tightly together to keep them from clenching into fists. "It would be years too late. I must make my come-out now!" She turned to him, pleading with him to understand. "Please, Stephen, you cannot mean it."

But she saw in his face he did indeed mean it. She was to be sent back to York, her plans in ashes.

"A spinster's life is not such a terrible fate," he said softly. "I will make sure you are well provided for. You may even grow to appreciate it."

She shook her head, thinking of her sick mother, knowing she could not return to York without the protection of a husband's name and money. "Please, Stephen, I beg you—"

"Go to your room, Amanda. There is nothing else to discuss."

She would have stayed, she would have gotten down on her knees and kissed his feet if she thought it might help. But she saw it was too late. His mind was made up, and the earl was nothing if not steadfast in his decisions.

But it did not matter what he thought. She would not leave. She could not leave.

"I will never go back, Stephen. Never."

Then, choking back a sob, she ran from the room.

* * *

His mood was quite foul.

Nothing had improved his temper since the moment Amanda had burst unannounced into his meeting with Wheedon. Not seven hours, a congenial dinner, whist with his mother, or even the nighttime solitude of brandy and Aristophanes in his library.

He poured himself another brandy and sank slowly into his mother's library chair. He could not sit at his desk, in the chair molded first by his perfect father, then by his brilliant brother. He sat in a different chair, one not so touched with memories or the tinge of failure.

This chair was new. It was hard and uncompromising and very fashionable. Everything he wished he could be right now.

He must send her home, he told himself. Even now his blood burned with anger at the memory of her storming into his library this afternoon. No one, not even his sister at the height of her rebelliousness, had ever dared defy his father in such a way. He could not allow Amanda to do so either.

He was the new earl. And he was right, damn it. She was much too wild to foist off on polite society now.

The irony of the situation, of course, was that she'd thought she was helping him. Heedless of the consequences, she had rushed to his defense, just as she'd rushed to Tom's defense in the coaching inn and later in the dark alley behind the house.

It was one of the qualities he liked most about her. It was also the one quality he could not allow to continue unchecked. She must learn proper manners, not to mention good sense. Otherwise she might run after some damned puppy and end up in the wrong area of London with her throat cut or worse.

It was much safer for her in York, where everyone knew her, and her savior instincts could continue with relatively little danger. If worse came to worst, he would simply hire someone to keep a protective eye on her. She could not stay in London, where her heedless attitude would expose her to too many dangers—both in society and outside the
haut ton
in the darker areas of a deadly city. She must go home to the country.

Taking a sip of his brandy, he waited for the familiar burn to ease the ache in his chest.

He was draining his fourth glass when a slight tap interrupted his thoughts. He knew who it was immediately. Not his mother—she had already retired—and no one else dared disturb him when the library door was closed.

No one but Amanda.

Pouring another glass, he studied the candlelight as it filtered through the amber glow.

The tap came again, louder this time. Then louder again.

He could not help but smile. He'd best let her in, he decided, or she would soon bang on his door with a mallet.

"Come in, Amanda."

She slipped through the doorway, shutting it quietly behind her. She was as beautiful as ever, her hair coiled like burnished copper about her face. Her movements were graceful and, for once, a bit subdued. It took her a moment to find him in his mother's chair, situated as it was in the corner, away from the spill of moonlight from the window. But eventually she saw him, and her green eyes widened with surprise.

"Am I disturbing you?"

"You know you are," he said without heat. "But that has never stopped you before."

Even in the dim gloom of evening, he could imagine her blush. Seeing the slight duck of her head, hearing the way her breath seemed to catch on a sigh, he knew her cheeks would be brushed with that soft tinge of rose he found so enchanting.

This was torture. She had become achingly familiar in the last weeks. He had not realized how much he liked her here, how much he longed to hear her soft tread or her saucy voice each morning.

And now he must send her away.

He turned to look out the window. "You must know it is too late, Amanda. I will not change my mind."

"I know." Her voice was a whisper, but he caught the note of disappointment, and he grinned.

"Minx," he teased, his gaze drawn inevitably back to her. "You know, but you mean to try anyway."

He expected her to grin impishly at him and continue with her campaign, but she did not. Instead she brought out a piece of paper from behind her back.

"I brought you something," she said, stepping forward. Slowly, almost warily, he took it from her hand. What did she think would sway him? A written note of apology? Some watercolor or sketch meant to be a last tearful good-bye present? Would any of those change his mind?

He rather doubted it, but whatever her choice, it would make their parting that much more painful.

"Please look at it," she said, her voice slightly strained.

Reluctantly he held the paper up to the candlelight. It was a neatly copied version of her "Rules for a Lady." All fifteen of them were there, plus two more that read:

16. A lady does not listen at doorways.

17. A lady does not enter a room or conversations uninvited.

"Very nice, Amanda, but what is your point?" His voice was unnecessarily harsh to cover up the emotion that sat like a cold stone on his heart.

She knelt beside him, and he did not miss the submissive posture. Neither did he appreciate it until he realized she had placed herself there not to plead with him, but so she could look out the window at the clouds drifting past the moon.

"I used to look out my window at night, and I would pretend I was a bird, winging my way to London, my journey lit by the soft light of the moon." She glanced back at him. "Daylight was much too cruel, you understand. I had responsibilities during the day, jobs and tasks. But at night I was free, and I would fly to London, where all my dreams could come true."

"London is not a haven, Amanda. It is a place, just like any other place, with its own special rules and dangers." He spoke harshly, his heart beating faster as he watched the moonlight limn her features in silver.

God, she was beautiful.

"I know, Stephen. It was just such a shock to discover that everything I dreamed of for so long was nothing like I expected." She turned and gently pulled the list out of his hand, smoothing down the edges. "I wrote these down so you would know I did learn them. Up until today, I thought they were silly restrictions you made up just to plague me."

"Silly restrictions!"

She bristled slightly. "Well, yes. Rules like I cannot go to the lending library without someone to accompany me. Literally hundreds of books just within reach, and I cannot go because your mother took the carriage and you did not trust me out from under her eye."

He winced, remembering the argument following that particular dictum. He was sure it had been heard all the way in Cheapside. "So you ignored my rules because you thought I was motivated by pique?"

She shrugged, confirming her unflattering image. "That or perhaps you were too narrow-minded to see reason."

"How flattering to know I am not just a creature of spite," he commented dryly.

She did not answer, running her long fingers down the list, as though she counted each item or perhaps committed them to memory once again. "Except now I know is not true. I see your rules are there for good reasons."

"I see," he said. "And this great revelation came in a flash of insight? Is it perhaps because I intend to send you home?"

She shook her head, her hair shimmering in the candlelight. "Because I spoke with Tom."

He started slightly, surprised by her unexpected confession. "Tom? When?"

"This afternoon."

"But you were in your bedroom all afternoon with the door locked."

She flushed under his intent stare, and this time he was close enough to see her cheeks turn rosy. "Surely, my lord, you recall my most excellent skill with a lock pick?"

"You unlocked your door, then sneaked out through the back stairway?"

She nodded. "I would have used the trellis except it was broad daylight and someone surely would have seen me."

He sighed and reached for his brandy. "And yet you swear you are a reformed soul."

She pressed closer, letting the list drop to the floor in her need to explain. "I spoke with Tom for a very long time, Stephen. Mostly, I complained about you, but then... Then he started saying things."

He set down his brandy untouched. "What things?"

"Stories. Terrible things, really. About young girls from the country, kidnapped into unspeakable horror. Or rich young men with a reforming spirit, robbed and murdered by the very people they sought to help."

Stephen felt his stomach clench at the thought of what she must have heard. He remembered things from Spain best left buried behind a wall of brandy and polite banter. Horrors no young girl should ever hear. "He should not have spoken about that to you."

She lifted her head, her eyes a wash of silver and green, her sympathies making her appear all the younger and more vulnerable. "How can you stand it? How can you not try to stop it?"