A Lady's Guide to Improper Behavior Page 3

  Her frown reappearing, Miss Weller stood. “Please mind your manners, Colonel. There’s no call for such language.”

  Ah, finally. “I bloody well disagree.”

  She slapped her palm against the tabletop. “Ooh, yes, we’re all very frightened of you,” Theresa Wheeler stated, this time not attempting to hide the frown that drew her fine brows together. “Can’t you tell?”

  “If you had any sense at all, Miss Weller, you would sit down,” he growled. She would do, although he preferred a fight with family. They were the ones he wanted to avoid, after all.

  “You obviously don’t wish to be here,” she continued forcefully. “As you were invited, in the future I would suggest that you merely decline to attend. It will save on the arguing.”

  “Tess,” Stephen’s wife whispered. “Don’t argue with him. He’s—”

  “He’s what?” Bartholomew broke in, grabbing onto the table and awkwardly shoving himself to his feet. “He’s damaged? I think we all knew that.”

  “I didn’t notice until your little tantrum,” Theresa retorted, lifting her chin. “Clearly, though, your manners are damaged.”

  “I’ll just let those of you with undamaged manners enjoy your dinner, then,” he snapped, levering his cane around and stalking for the door.

  “Tolly, where the devil are you going?”

  “Back where I came from.”

  “I want to see you tomorrow.”

  Damnation. At least the chit had enough sense to know that he wanted to be left alone. “You know how to reach me.”

  “Yes, but—”

  He hooked the door handle with his cane and slammed the door closed behind him. A sharp pain ran up his knee, but he wasn’t about to stop and see to it now.

  Swearing, he staggered sideways into the hall table. Do not fall down, he ordered himself, reaching out to steady himself against the wall. Drinking on an empty stomach in enemy territory—Lucifer’s balls, he’d been an idiot.

  The door opened behind him. To the hushed sound of “Theresa, don’t,” and “leave him be,” muffled footsteps tromped up behind him. And then she grasped his arm.

  He jerked around to face her, and nearly lost his balance again. “Do not put your hands on me,” he hissed.

  She looked up at him, gray-green eyes steady and completely unafraid. “Don’t be an idiot. They might all be terrified of hurting you or your feelings, but I’m not.”

  “You’re the damned reason I’m leaving.”

  “No, I’m not. You’re the reason you’re leaving. And when there’s no one about for you to offend, curse all you like. Damnation. You see? I can curse, too. It’s only that I choose not to do so because it’s terribly lowbrow.”

  “What happened to you being so polite?”

  “You made me angry.”

  “It took bloody long enough.” He stumbled again.

  “Yes, well now I’m attempting to apologize for my behavior.” She ducked beneath his arm, drawing up against him. “Do you have a coach, or are you riding?”

  “Riding,” he grunted. Whatever the devil was afoot, he certainly didn’t like it. And he didn’t like the way she put her free arm around his waist, as though someone as slender and delicate as she was could keep him on his feet. “And I don’t want your apology.”

  “You have it, regardless. So argue with yourself.” She reached out to pull open the front door and held on to him while he hobbled out to the portico. “Your horse is waiting; you never intended to stay.”

  Her tone was accusing, but considering that she was correct, he didn’t see any reason to deny it. “No, I didn’t. Hence me not caring about your apology.”

  “With those manners, I’m surprised you were invited here at all.”

  Bartholomew scowled. “They had to ask me; they’re family.”

  “And thank goodness for that, or someone would have punched you.”

  He sent her a sharp glance. “I don’t find you the least bit amusing, you know.”

  She gazed straight back at him. “Well, you shall have to improve your sense of humor. Why don’t you spend a few minutes at the Haramund soiree tomorrow night?” she returned, taking his cane as he grabbed onto the saddle horn. “I do like to dance, Colonel.”

  “I don’t dance.” With a stifled gasp he swung up on Meru and settled his bad foot into the stirrup. “Clearly.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to dance with you. You have no manners.” Shoving his cane into its straps, she stepped back. “I meant that you can watch.” With that she turned her back and returned to the house.

  “That little…” Bartholomew stopped. He had absolutely no idea how to finish the sentence. As far as he was from being a virgin, Theresa Wheeler in a matter of five minutes had set him so far back on his heels that he’d nearly fallen over. Literally.

  He’d set out to be curt and uncommunicative. What he hadn’t expected was to be called on his poor behavior. The last time he’d been so unsure of his footing had been when he’d literally had his legs cut out from under him. He didn’t like the sensation any more now than he had then. This time, though, he could do something about it. Something simple. He could avoid the Haramund soiree.

  The other members of the James family weren’t terribly pleased with her, Theresa realized, but compared with how she viewed her behavior, their opinion of her actions couldn’t possibly be worse than her own. Conversation throughout dinner remained stilted and far too cautious. Even Amelia sent her glances of veiled annoyance whenever no one else was looking, and considering that she’d promised conversational compassion, she couldn’t blame her cousin for her annoyance. Yes, the colonel had overstepped, but he didn’t pride himself on his manners. She did.

  “What were you thinking?” her cousin finally demanded, wrapping both hands around her arm once they left the men to their cigars and port.

  “I was thinking that he was rude,” Theresa whispered back, watching as Violet pranced upstairs to the drawing room ahead of them. “I tried to keep my temper, but…well, there’s no excuse for my behavior. Should I leave?”

  “No. Of course not.” Her cousin frowned thoughtfully. “You’re generally so much more careful about what you say.”

  Yes, she was. “I apologized to him.” Well, she hadn’t, precisely, but at least she had helped him down the front steps. If he’d fallen, she would have been worse than mortified. “If you and Stephen and Violet wish to be angry with me, then do so. Heaven knows I deserve it.”

  “Tolly didn’t used to be rude like that,” Violet put in unexpectedly. “When he last came back on leave three years ago, he was funny and warm and kind, just as he always was. He was awful tonight. Much worse than you were.”

  Now she felt even more terrible. “I’m never rude like that, Violet. I’m so sorry if I drove him away.” Even though she hadn’t. The fact that he’d been attempting to goad someone into snapping back at him, however, didn’t excuse her. She should have been the last one to lose her temper. She never lost her temper. Not in thirteen years.

  Amelia hugged her sister-in-law. “Everyone’s more than likely been prodding at him for months. Perhaps he just needs a bit of fresh air without being smothered.”

  “I can hardly smother him if he won’t even tell me where’s he’s staying.” Violet shrugged free and plunked into a chair. “He is very mean now.”

  “He’s hurt,” Theresa offered. “He deserves compassion.”

  “At least you made him think about something aside from his injuries.” With a grimace, Violet looked away. Then the eighteen-year-old faced her again. “I’ve changed my mind,” she announced. “I’m glad you spoke up, Theresa. I wish I’d done so.”

  With a forced smile, Theresa sat beside her. “I’m glad you didn’t. I suppose this way he can know you’re not happy with his behavior, and he can be angry with me instead of you. I’m more than willing to take that upon my shoulders.” She deserved to have it there.

  Amelia was looking at her again,
her cousin’s expression more concerned this time, but Theresa pretended not to notice. The last thing she wanted was for Amelia to begin comparing her outburst tonight to the one that had inspired her concern with propriety, her booklet on proper behavior, and everything else she’d done over the past thirteen years.

  Once Michael and Stephen rejoined them, Lord Gardner evidently realized that with Violet and Amelia no longer annoyed with her, he’d best give in as well. By the end of the evening they were all the dearest of friends once more.

  That was just as well, because Theresa didn’t quite feel up to further explanations, or even apologies. In fact, she felt unusually distracted with trying to decipher why she’d allowed herself to be goaded into snapping back. She wanted to blame her odd behavior on the very provoking Bartholomew James. At the least he’d set her off kilter from her very first view of him.

  It was quite late when she and Michael boarded their coach to return to Weller House. With a sigh, she settled into the corner, happy to have a moment to sort through her thoughts.

  “What the devil happened to you, Tess?” Michael asked abruptly, pressing the toe of his boot against her slipper.

  “Stop that.” She sat upright. “I’ve already attempted to explain myself to Violet, and no one’s angry with me. Leave be.”

  “I don’t mean your upset of our in-laws, Troll. I mean you lost your temper.”

  Theresa scowled, as much at the use of his old pet name for her as his words. “I don’t know what happened. I’ve been trying to figure it out, and I can’t.”

  “I’m actually relieved to know you still have a temper.” He leaned forward to pat her on the knee. “Still, you might have chosen your target a bit better.”

  “Yes, I know. Colonel James is a wounded hero.”

  “Not just that. Rumor is, these Thuggee don’t take prisoners,” he returned. “They ambushed his unit and killed everyone they could. Then they hunted down the survivors.”

  “And Colonel James escaped.”

  “That’s one story.”

  She looked at her brother. He had a definite flare for the dramatic, and he did torment and tease her on occasion, but he sounded serious. “What’s another story, then?”

  “That he hunted them down.”

  “Oh.” If she asked, Michael would no doubt regale her with every gory detail, real or fantastical, but she could imagine it well enough herself. And she knew what he meant, now. That she’d begun an argument with a man who killed people, and one who clearly wasn’t…balanced. “That’s only a story, though, yes? You don’t know for certain what happened.”

  “Not for certain,” he conceded, clearly reluctant to do so. “Stephen wouldn’t say. He may not know, either. Colonel James doesn’t seem to be very communicative.”

  “Violet said he didn’t use to be that way.”

  “If I saw everyone under my command slaughtered and then either ran from or killed the men who’d done it, I wouldn’t be chatty, either.”

  “No, you’d be chatty, regardless.”

  “Ha-ha. Don’t antagonize him, Tess. That’s tonight’s lesson.”

  Don’t antagonize him. Theresa turned her gaze out the window at the darkness of Mayfair. Just to herself, without taking into account what she should be feeling, she could admit that she’d rather enjoyed unseating the colonel. And she half hoped she would have another chance to do so. Where no one else could overhear and be appalled, of course.

  It didn’t seem at all proper, but it had been very…interesting.

  Chapter Three

  “If a gentleman you favor is late arriving at a party, save him a dance—but not the waltz. Save him a country dance, because you won’t mind missing one of those if he should fail to appear.”

  A LADY’S GUIDE TO PROPER BEHAVIOR

  Bartholomew awoke with a start, springing out of bed before his body remembered that his left leg would no longer support him in such an athletic move. With a sharp gasp he fell to the floor.

  “Damnation,” he growled, shifting to straighten his leg, concentrating on taking short breaths to avoid shrieking like a chit.

  In one sense, the pain was welcome. It roused him from an endless night of gunfire and screaming and the more muffled sounds and sensation of choking. He leaned back against the side of the bed. At least he could tell even in the pitch dark that he wasn’t back in India. The air was too cool, and faintly smelled of cigar and chimney smoke rather than forest and earth and dust.

  Knuckles rapped faintly against his door. “Colonel?”

  Scowling, Bartholomew glanced over his shoulder up at the bed. The very high bed. “Come in, Gibbs.”

  The door opened. The Adventurers’ Club morning caretaker slipped into the small room. Wordlessly the stout fellow stepped forward and bent down, grasping Bartholomew beneath the arms and lifting.

  “Thank you,” Bartholomew grunted, as he pulled free to sit on the edge of the bed again. “Sommerset doesn’t have you listening at my door, does he? This isn’t precisely the club.”

  “It is a part of the club, Colonel. And no one is in the lounge, so I thought to take a bit of a stroll.” He gestured at Bartholomew’s bad leg. “Want me to have a look at it?”

  Tolly started to refuse without even considering his answer; he could barely stand to look at it himself. That was one of the reasons he wore a pair of old trousers to bed; so he wouldn’t have to see it. The other reason was habit. Over the years he’d become accustomed to having to rise in the middle of the night. The army didn’t precisely keep regular hours. “No.” The pain had begun to subside, and he didn’t think his leg could get much worse without falling off completely.

  “I’ll see you in the morning, then.” With a nod, Gibbs turned on his heel.

  “Gibbs.”

  The servant stopped. “Yes, Colonel?”

  “Do you know how I might go about obtaining an invitation to a soiree?”

  Gibbs pursed his lips. “Which soiree?”

  “It’s at Haramund House. Tomorrow night. Or tonight, rather.”

  “Haramund House. Lord and Lady Allen. I’ll see what I can come up with.”

  “Thank you again, then.”

  Tolly lay back as the servant left the room and closed the door quietly behind him. He had no idea why the devil he was even considering attending the damned party. Hopefully Gibbs would turn out to be less resourceful than he generally seemed to be, and no invitation would be forthcoming.

  If he did attend, however, Theresa Weller was not going to have the last word. He wouldn’t even watch her dance. In fact, he would make a point of not watching her dance, and of making certain she knew that he wasn’t watching.

  For a time he attempted to return to sleep, but the memory of the dream provided very little incentive to succumb. Finally he sat up again, threw a shirt on over his head, then grabbed his cane and left the bed chamber for the main sitting room of the Adventurers’ Club. The back wall was lined with books and maps. Most of them were Sommerset’s taste, but in his favor at least the duke was well traveled and an avid collector.

  Settling for a silly and highly erroneous history of the Indian Sikh, no doubt written by an accountant who’d never left the protection of Fort William, he lit a candle and sat close by the fireplace. As Gibbs had said, no one else was about—which was pleasant for a change. The club never closed its doors, and he wasn’t the only member who didn’t sleep well.

  He glanced toward the door in the far corner. It led into Ainsley House proper, Sommerset’s London residence. Whatever had possessed the duke to create a very exclusive club in his front rooms, Bartholomew at least was grateful for it. Here no one gave a damn who was rude or who wasn’t, and no chits teased him about dancing.

  “The Sikh Mystery?”

  His eyes shot open, his fingers instinctively reaching for the rapier hidden inside his cane. Sommerset sat in the chair opposite, eyeing him. Judging by the light pouring in through the set of generous-sized east-facing window
s, he’d missed daybreak by at least an hour. “Damnation,” he muttered, lifting the book from across his chest.

  “I purchased that book for a laugh,” the duke continued, taking a swallow of steaming tea from a delicate china cup. “Glad to see it’s served a purpose other than for kindling.”

  “A cure for sleeplessness, yes.” Bartholomew motioned at the tea. “Is there more of that?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Sommerset gestured, and Gibbs appeared a moment later, carrying another cup and saucer. “Thank you, Gibbs.”

  “I live to serve, Your Grace.”

  The duke lifted an eyebrow as the servant vanished again into the shadows. “I would say he’s become high in the instep, but he might well have been serious just then.” He took another swallow of tea. “That reminds me. Here.” Producing a folded note card from one pocket of his coat, Sommerset handed it over.

  Bartholomew opened it. Embossed and complete with a small blue ribbon dangling from the bottom edge, it was an invitation to the Haramund soiree. “This has my name on it,” he said aloud, then sent a glance around the large room.

  “It’s just you and me in here for the moment,” Sommerset commented, following his gaze. “And it’s not a crime to attend a party.”

  “But this is addressed to me.”

  “I am a duke, you know. If I can’t perform a miracle here and there I might as well be a butler in expensive clothes.” He brushed at the sleeve of his well-tailored brown coat. “And butlers don’t get to dance with attractive women.”

  “I don’t dance,” Bartholomew returned, considering that he’d twice in the space of one day had to inform people of that fact. It should have been damned obvious. Fleetingly he wondered if Gibbs had mentioned the circumstances under which he’d made the request for the invitation, but then he decided that he didn’t care. It wasn’t the first night he’d awakened screaming. And Sommerset, he’d observed, tended to be very well informed. “Thank you for this.”

  “You’re welcome. And I presume you’ve put a stop to your family asking after your whereabouts?”