Louisa dashed out of the man’s house, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. “Whatever am I crying for?” she asked Hannibal.
The cat blinked as if he hadn’t the vaguest notion why they were in such a rush to leave.
“How can anyone be so horrible?” she whispered into Hannibal’s one whole ear.
After all, she’d only offered to help, as any young lady from Kempton would, and the wretched man had all but threatened her.
Get out!
No one had ever shouted at her like that. Not even Papa when she’d accidentally tossed his favorite shirt in the charity box.
Blindly, she went down the steps and hurried toward her original destination, but only managed to bump into a gentleman who was hurrying along the sidewalk.
“Have a care!” he huffed.
“So sorry,” she offered, pulling Hannibal closer.
Good heavens, she’d barely set foot in London and already she’d made a mess of things. And here she’d been quite convinced it was Lavinia who would make a muddle of their debut. They weren’t twins for nothing. Why, in Kempton, Louisa was considered graceful in comparison to her sister.
Which wasn’t saying much for either of them.
Dear heavens, what disasters would they find themselves in when she and Lavinia entered society? With two broken vases and a smashed piece of statuary to her credit, and having only just arrived, Louisa wanted to despair, yet her practical side rallied and gave her a moment of pause.
In her defense, she’d never met a man wearing only a robe.
And nothing else . . .
Oh, never mind that she’d tumbled into those antiquities before she’d met him.
Having met the man, she supposed she should just be thankful she and Hannibal had gotten out alive.
And unscathed. Well, for the most part.
Much to her chagrin, she shivered as she thought about him, standing there with his pistol waving about, roaring like some wild beast. It wasn’t fear that had her quaking—well, a fear of sorts. She felt . . . well, she felt so . . . undone by the entire encounter.
However could a man be so utterly unkempt, so undressed, yet be so utterly fascinating at the same time?
Perhaps it was the way he’d stared at her. He’d looked her over and most likely found her wanting, but there had been a moment when he’d looked at her with something akin to hunger, or so she thought . . . like he’d wanted to devour her.
Oh, heavens, she didn’t want to consider such a ridiculous notion, because when she did, she went right back to a vision of his bare legs.
Naked legs, indeed! A pair of muscled limbs covered in crisp dark hair. Whyever would that make her heart tremble so oddly? Especially when his manners had quite the opposite effect.
But still, she took another glance at the house and wondered what it would be like if he weren’t so beastly.
Oh, bother! Whatever was wrong with her? Surely the last ten minutes had proven that she was entirely unfit for London.
But whatever was she to do now? Standing as she was before Lady Charleton’s house, there was nothing left to do but continue forth.
Especially since John Coachman had already abandoned them.
She marched up the steps and into the foyer, where their bags and trunks had been deposited. She spied Hannibal’s basket and before he could protest, whisked him inside and tied it shut.
“Before you cause more mischief,” she scolded. “Besides, we want to make a good impression.”
For as long as we can manage, she mused. A hope that didn’t take long to come to fruition as a voice bellowed from a room at the end of the foyer.
“Provide a Season for a chit I’ve never met? Over my dead body!”
Louisa moved toward the door and peered inside. When she spied Lavinia near the entrance, she slipped inside and went to her sister’s side. “What is this?”
“Ssshh,” Lavinia warned, her finger to her lips, then taking another look at her sister, quickly went to work to set her to rights, straightening her bonnet and tucking the ringlets that had fallen free back up into their rightful place. After one last critical glance, Lavinia turned back to the tableau before them.
Louisa assumed the man behind the huge desk must be Lord Charleton—his iron gray hair, commanding presence and domineering manners certainly suggested he was a nobleman. Besides, the younger man to his right was too plainly dressed and had the resigned air of a secretary about him.
She assumed this fellow must be Mr. Haley, the man who had written Papa with Lady Charleton’s instructions.
Still, Louisa’s gaze remained fixed on their host’s choleric expression. Whyever was Lord Charleton in such a pet over their arrival? Surely he must have known.
“Underhanded, Mr. Haley. That is what I call this. I should have you removed,” Lord Charleton ranted, pointing at the door.
Apparently not.
“As I tried to explain, my lord, her ladyship’s instructions were quite specific—” the secretary was saying.
It was then that the baron noticed Louisa’s arrival and his face went from choleric to nearly explosive. “What the devil! There’s two of them? They’re multiplying like rabbits before my eyes. I won’t have this, Mr. Haley. I won’t, do you hear me?”
“Good heavens,” she muttered as Lord Charleton went back to lambasting poor Mr. Haley, “is every man in London so ill-tempered?”
“Every?” Lavinia whispered back. “What do you mean?”
Louisa shook her head and replied, “I’ll explain later.” Not that she wanted to, for it would mean telling her sister about her encounter with Lord Charleton’s neighbor.
And the vase. Oh, and the statue. And the gift Hannibal had managed to cough up. And what a horrid beast he was. His Lordship. Not Hannibal.
Quite frankly, when he’d been yelling so and waving that pistol about, she’d thought she was going to cast up her accounts.
But then it occurred to her that perhaps the man next door wouldn’t be so wretched if he wasn’t so unkempt. However could a man be in a decent humor if he was to be found prowling about in the middle of the afternoon in his altogether, as if he’d just gotten up?
At least she suspected as much considering his feet and calves and . . . oh, good heavens . . . higher had been bare beneath that blue silk wrapper.
She drew in an unsteady breath. Certainly she’d seen the masculine form before—Lady Essex kept an Italian statue of Mars in her second drawing room that Mrs. Bagley-Butterton liked to call indecent and improper.
A Roman god in marble was one thing, but seeing the same distinct lines in the flesh was quite another.
Louisa felt the now-familiar rush of pink to her cheeks, for a few inches higher and she might have glimpsed . . .
She looked down at the floor. No, a lady didn’t think of what was higher beneath a man’s robe. She just didn’t. Not even if she might have dared a glance at the aforementioned Mars when Mrs. Bagley-Butterton wasn’t looking.
Still, she couldn’t help wondering if Lord Charleton’s well-formed neighbor was that scandalous.
Up there, that is.
Not that any lady was likely to discover such information. What with that temper of his and his ill-kempt house. Whatever was wrong with the man—besides the cane that he’d leaned on so heavily—that he chose to live thusly?
Perhaps he wasn’t getting regular meals, she mused. The man had looked a bit drawn. Lady Essex always said that the only way to keep a man in line was to keep the devil well fed and properly tended to.
Well, if the dusty house, what with all the Holland covers and dirty corners, let alone his ragged appearance, was any indication, he wasn’t being seen to.
Not properly, that is. Perhaps he just needed . . .
In a rush, Louisa saw the man, shaved and trimmed and properly brushed, wearing a fine wool suit and polished boots—yet she didn’t think he would look proper even then.
He was far too dark—inky black hair and swarthy looks that left him resembling a pirate of old, or some Spanish grandee. And her vision of him shifted, so he was striding down a wooded path, in a white shirt and breeches, carrying a bouquet of wildflowers and smiling, a knowing glint sparking in his eye the moment he spied her—waiting for him.
And that look, that smoldering glance, was meant just for her.
Louisa closed her eyes and chided herself.
She’d come to Town to help Lavinia find a husband and then she was returning as quickly as possible to Kempton.
Where she belonged.
And it seemed they might be going sooner than expected.
“This is blackmail,” Lord Charleton declared, slamming his fist down atop his desk. “Nothing less.”
“It is nothing of the sort,” came the firm and commanding reply from the doorway. Into the room strolled an elegantly dressed woman with a steady, quiet beauty about her. She came to a stop before Mr. Haley and Lord Charleton, but not before she spared a curious smile at the sisters.
Lord Charleton, for his part, glared at the new arrival, but rose as good manners dictated. Still, his speech was anything but welcoming. “What are you doing here?”
“I was summoned,” the lady replied, nodding in greeting to Mr. Haley.
“You and the rest of England,” he blustered.
Louisa leaned over. “Is that Lady Charleton?”
This brought a mist of tears to Lavinia’s eyes, and right then, Louisa realized her sister had been crying.
“No,” she replied. “Oh, Louisa, Lady Charleton is dead.”
“Dead?” she gasped. “I don’t understand. How can this be?” She glanced around the room, where there was no crepe, no black. No signs of mourning.
It was Mr. Haley who answered her questions, though it was more in response to Lord Charleton. “My lord, when Her Ladyship became ill, she was quite resolved to see all her unfinished obligations completed.”
Three pairs of eyes turned and stared at Louisa and her sister and they both shrank back a bit to be the subject of all this vitriol. But after a moment, Louisa remembered one of Lady Essex’s most often made admonitions.
Stand up straight, girls.
So she did, rising to her best posture and meeting the examination with a noble expression of cool nonchalance. She wanted to appear every bit the lady, and certainly no one’s obligation. After all, she and Lavinia were the daughters of Sir Ambrose Tempest—hardly paupers or beggars. This earned her an approving smile from the unknown lady.
But what that was worth was yet to be seen.
“Lady Charleton was most conscientious of her promise to Lady Tempest to see that her daughters were brought out in society,” Mr. Haley continued.
“And such an obligation ends when one is no longer around to see it completed,” Lord Charleton replied, wagging his finger at his secretary.
Mr. Haley was apparently made of sterner stuff. “Not in Lady Charleton’s estimation, my lord.”
“Nor in mine,” the lady offered, and, perhaps having a better measure of the situation, settled into a chair before the desk, though none had been offered. She looked over her shoulder and nodded for the sisters to do the same.
After a moment, Lord Charleton sat as well, frowning, but apparently more comfortable atop his throne.
Mr. Haley sighed, probably with some relief to have the tension in the air deflate, even if by only a tiny measure. “Lady Charleton,” he said, continuing his story, “true to her generous nature, asked for me to send for the young ladies when they reached a proper age—”
“Proper?” Lord Charleton blustered, eyeing the sisters. “Why, that pair is too long in the tooth to be of a proper age. How old are you, gels?”
Louisa wavered for a moment. They were too old, but it was hardly their fault. The curse on their village had only just been broken—but she doubted this was the time or the place to bring up that bit of history.
Instead, she did as Lady Essex had always instructed and held her ground. “Four and twenty, my lord.”
Beside her, Lavinia flinched.
Perhaps she should have been a little less forthcoming.
“Egads, Haley, you’ve missed the mark by four years,” Charleton said with a snort that sounded a bit victorious. “Waste of time and money to bring them out.”
Lavinia turned to her and gave her a look that said all too clearly, Now you’ve done it.
But not quite.
“Too old?” The lady turned in her chair and examined the girls, smiling encouragement at them. Her eyes sparkled a bit and they crinkled at the corners as she turned to face Lord Charleton. “Don’t be such an ogre, Charleton. You know very well indeed that I was two years older than these sweet-faced dears when I married Aveley.”
Charleton snorted. “Harrumph! You didn’t need to be brought out when you came to London. Had half the town mad for you before you stepped out of your carriage.”
Louisa watched as the lady’s expression flickered for a moment; something bittersweet and lost seemed to flit across her waning smile.
“Yes, be that as it may,” the lady said, having recovered from whatever bit of nostalgia that had plucked at her armor, “I am still unsure as to what my role is in all of this. Mr. Haley, why have you summoned me?”
“Oh, yes, my lady. I apologize,” the man said, as if snapped out of a trance. “Her Ladyship left each of you a letter.” He patted his jacket and then reached inside and fished out a beribboned packet that he proceeded to untie and then hand out—one for each of them.
Notably, Lord Charleton set his letter down on his desk and then, as an added measure, pushed it to one side.
The lady, most likely Lady Aveley, for she had the air of rank about her, proceeded to open hers, defying His Lordship. She glanced over her shoulder at Louisa and Lavinia and nodded for them to do the same.
Well, it wasn’t as if Lord Charleton could get any more annoyed with them, she decided, so Louisa did as she was bid and slid her fingernail beneath the wax seal.
My dear Louisa,
I am most saddened that I will not be the one to see you out into society. I had such grand plans for you and your sister. Alas, my plans have had to change. You have by now been introduced to Lady Aveley, who is as dear to me as your mother once was, and will do nicely in my stead. She found a perfectly wonderful marquess for her own daughter.
I suspect you are here at Lavinia’s behest, and that you are most reluctant to marry, given that rather old-fashioned curse that still holds Kempton in its thrall. But a curse only has power if you believe in it. Trust me, you shall not go mad if you marry—though there are days when any man, even a good one, will tempt a lady to reach for a fire poker.
Find a man who loves you as deeply as Charleton loved me. As much as your father loved your mother, despite all her faults.
I know my dearest George is probably being quite a bear and very ill-tempered about your arrival, but trust me in this, he is a man of good heart. Find a similar gentleman and you will never regret a single day of marriage.
All my fondest wishes to you,
Isobel Rowland, Lady Charleton
P.S. Do you play chess? I thought I recalled from one of your father’s letters that you are a skilled player. If Charleton continues to be horrid, set out the chessboard in the library. Just set it out, the rest will follow.
She glanced up and found Lady Aveley still reading her letter, a pensive expression settled on her brow.
When she looked at her sister, Lavinia appeared horrified by the contents of her letter, for when she finished reading it she promptly stuffed it into her reticule.
Good heavens, whatever could Lady Charleton have written her?
“My lord,” Mr. Haley was saying, “if you would but read your letter—”
“I will not,” Lord Charleton huffed, rising from his seat, the letter still unopened on his desk. He looked over at Lady Aveley. “What shenanigans has she enlisted you into?”
Lady Aveley, who didn’t look as if she’d ever shenaniganed in her life, folded her letter carefully and then glanced up. “She simply asked me to stand in her stead and sponsor the girls for their Season.”
He gave a short, curt nod. “Then do what you will. You and Haley. I will have nothing to do with any of this.” He waved his hand toward Louisa and Lavinia. “Best take them with you.”
“Take them where, Charleton?” she asked.
“To your house. Can’t have them here.”
The lady rose from her chair and faced the baron. “I have no house to take them to.”
“Whatever do you mean? You have a perfectly good house on Berkeley Square. Plenty of room.”
“I have no such thing. The house to which you refer belongs to my son, the current Lord Aveley.”
“Your son, indeed. Sounds like an ungrateful pup if he can’t manage to find a spare room for his own mother and a pair of chits. You won’t take up any room at all. Take yourself off to his place and leave me be.” With that, Charleton began to leave the room as if this was the end of it.
“I cannot and I will not,” Lady Aveley told Charleton in no uncertain terms.
The lady’s firm announcement stopped the baron at the door. Ever so slowly, he turned around.
“My son is newly married,” she continued. “I promised him when he wed I would not impose upon him and his new bride. And I will note, this is all Isobel’s doing, not mine.”
As the two glared at each other, as if waiting for the other to budge, Mr. Haley waded in, clearing his throat and saying, “I have seen to having the entire west wing of the house readied for the ladies, my lord.”
Everyone in the room turned and gaped at the poor secretary. It was one thing for Lady Aveley to poke at Charleton like a bear at the circus, but quite another for Haley—whose very livelihood depended on his employer’s goodwill.
“Without my permission?” Lord Charleton’s iron brows rose to lofty points.
Mr. Haley straightened, following Lady Aveley’s example. “With, my lord.”
“With?” the baron blustered. “When the devil did I agree to such an overreaching obligation?”
“In late November,” Mr. Haley said. “I mentioned to you that I had discovered an outstanding debt of Lady Charleton’s—”
Louisa watched the baron’s eyes narrow as he plucked at his memories for a hint of this fateful conversation. When his expression furrowed, she guessed he recalled the exchange and was not overly pleased.
“You might have been a bit more forthcoming—”
“I attempted to be,” Mr. Haley replied, with a firm recollection to back up his claim. “But you were quite explicit in your instructions. You told me to handle whatever it was as I saw fit. As Her Ladyship desired. So I have.”
Checkmate.
Not that Lord Charleton was one to concede easily. “Then you can continue to do so, Mr. Haley. Handle it, that is. Just leave me be.” Then he turned and stormed out into the foyer, and moments later the front door banged shut.
Mr. Haley turned to Lady Aveley, mouth pursed in a worried line. Now that Lord Charleton had washed his hands of the matter, the poor secretary looked a bit adrift. “Your Ladyship, I do hope—”
“Never fear, Mr. Haley, Lady Charleton’s letter was quite eloquent. I can hardly turn down Isobel’s last request any more than I could have done when she was alive.”
“Where would you suggest we begin, my lady?” he asked.
The pair of them turned toward Louisa and Lavinia and examined the girls with critical gazes.
“Shopping,” Lady Aveley declared. “We shall start tomorrow, first thing.”
“Most excellent,” Mr. Haley agreed. “Indeed, that was the second item on Her Ladyship’s list.”
Louisa had to wonder, as they were hustled up the stairs toward their rooms, what else was on their wily godmother’s list?
Pierson tried returning to bed but found himself unable to get back to the dreamless void that had become his refuge.
Certainly he preferred the darkness to the infernal sunshine that was even now peeking through his curtains, a persistent nudge that there was an entire world beyond.
A world he was determined to ignore.
But today it seemed impossible to escape, so after an hour or so of tossing and turning, he rose again, and pulled the bell for Tiploft.
“My lord?” Tiploft asked quietly as he tentatively entered the room. “Are you unwell?”
“I’m unsure,” he replied. “I had the most alarming nightmare.”
“Indeed,” Tiploft replied, moving inside and getting to the business of setting everything to rights.
Tiploft wasn’t much for elaboration or great shows of emotion.
In other words, he was the perfect butler.
“Indeed. There was a cat and miss in my house.” Pierson paused and looked up from where he stood before his closet. “At least I believe it was a cat.” He had no doubts the other creature had been a miss. Her enticing mahogany locks and the notion of what they’d look like unbound had been what had kept him awake.
Tiploft paused in the middle of retrieving a shirt from the floor. “So you do remember, my lord. I had rather hoped—”
Yes, his butler would hope as much. “—that in my usual state I wouldn’t have any recollection—”
“One can hope, my lord.”
Pierson glanced again over his shoulder. Was that Tiploft’s idea of a joke? “Yes, well. She was fetching, wasn’t she? I didn’t dream that much, did I?”
“Quite fetching,” the older man agreed.
A bit too readily.
“Oh, don’t get any ideas, Tiploft,” Pierson told him. “If you think letting pretty little minxes into my house is going to bring me ’round—like my mother and sisters are always chiding me to do—I won’t have it.”
“Of course, my lord. It was hardly the conspiracy that you suspect; rather her cat was frightened and ran into the house. Miss Tempest merely followed it.”
“Yes, of course. The cat. How could I have forgotten that creature? Ugliest thing I have ever seen. Are you certain it was a cat?”
“No, my lord.”
Pierson nodded. “Wherever did she come from?”
“The cat, my lord?”
He glanced over at his butler again. Perhaps it was Tiploft who was going mad. Making not one, but two jests in a single day.
This was what happened when one arose too early. One discovered one’s butler wasn’t quite himself before four in the afternoon.
“The chit, Tiploft,” he replied. “The fetching one. Miss—”
“Tempest, my lord. Miss Tempest.”
Well, the name fit. She’d arrived like a whirlwind. Her and her demmed cat of doubtful origins. La tormenta, as the Spanish said.
“Yes, yes, Miss Tempest. Where the devil did she come from?” He tried asking this with an air of nonchalance. For he didn’t care in the least where the gel came from, just so long as she didn’t come back.
“Her mother, I would surmise.”
A third jest? Pierson needed to check on the brandy supplies. And here he’d always thought it was that high-handed French fellow his sister had insisted he hire to cook for him who was siphoning off a good portion of his liquor cabinet.
“Very amusing, Tiploft. And after her mother, where do you suppose she might have ventured from?”
“I believe she went next door, my lord. To your uncle’s residence.”
“Charleton’s?” Pierson managed. Now he was going to check the brandy supply. And the whisky. “No, no. You must have it wrong,” he insisted, going to the window and parting the curtains. His gaze swept up from his uncle’s neatly kept gardens to an upper window of Charleton’s house, and to his astonishment, he spied a young lady framed there—and as if by some unknown magic, she turned at that moment and looked over in his direction.
“If you say so, my lord,” Tiploft was saying. “Is that all?”
Dropping the curtain, Pierson turned around and faced his butler. Now he wasn’t so sure of anything. What the devil was his uncle doing with some doe-eyed chit?
Tiploft looked at him with a blank expression, but the viscount wasn’t fooled. The man was being deliberately vague, and Pierson knew why. His cagey old servant hoped his master would drop everything and go over to call on Lord Charleton—if only to see what the devil was going on.
And perhaps even run into that fetching little bit of muslin. What with her wide eyes and tumbled mahogany hair.
Oh, hell. He should never have used the word fetching. Not in front of Tiploft. He’d gotten the man’s hopes up.
“My lord?” the butler prompted. “Is there anything else?”
“Breakfast, if you can muster it. And ask that fellow—”
“Monsieur Begnoche,” Tiploft supplied, his nose pinching at the mention of the cook. He hadn’t approved of the man since he had been foisted upon them by the viscount’s sister, Lady Gamston.
A French cook is the only proper way to see a kitchen managed, Margaret claimed as she’d deposited the fellow in their foyer, after old Mrs. Withers had quit in a huff.
“Yes, yes, Begnoche. Is it possible for that man to cook my eggs so they aren’t burnt? That might be the French way of doing things, but I prefer mine done with an English turn.”
“I shall pass those instructions along, my lord.” Tiploft turned to leave, but paused at the door and Pierson had the sense that the man had more to say.
And the viscount was just as certain he didn’t want to hear it, so he rushed to add, “And Tiploft—”
“Yes, my lord?”
“No more misses. And definitely no more cats. Or beasts. Or whatever that devil’s spawn might be.”
Tiploft nodded. “As you wish, my lord.”
As he’d suspected, that wasn’t at all what Tiploft had hoped to hear.
For the viscount’s eggs arrived burnt and runny.
“Shopping! And in London,” Lavinia declared as she fell backward onto the narrow bed. “I will not be able to sleep a wink tonight. New gloves, new gowns, new bonnets, new—”
Louisa stopped listening for she had paused at the window and realized that this room of theirs afforded her a perfect view of the house next door. Turning her back to the window, she set Hannibal’s basket down and opened it up. The cat stalked out, all haughty disdain, as if he hadn’t caused a terrible ruckus earlier, nor was he the least bit ruffled at finding himself in yet another strange room.
He leaped up onto the window ledge and looked at the house and garden across the wall and then glanced over his shoulder at Louisa, as if to say, Isn’t that where he lives?
“Yes, unfortunately,” she muttered without thinking.
“Unfortunately?” Lavinia repeated, having stopped somewhere between new shifts and new stockings. “Louisa, whatever has come over you? Did you not hear Lady Aveley? We are going shopping.”
That should have cheered any young lady immensely, but without thinking Louisa’s gaze drifted toward the window. Yes, she would be quite pleased with the notion of going shopping if she hadn’t become convinced that all the men of London were quite dreadful.
Starting with him.
Nor had Lady Charleton’s words of encouragement helped matters . . . A curse only has power if you believe in it.
Unfortunately, Louisa did believe.
But it wasn’t the Kempton variety of blights that had her at sixes and sevens, but a nagging disquiet that she shared more with her mother than brown hair and blue eyes. And such a knowledge was of little concern when one lived in Kempton and there was no hope of testing that belief.
Safe and sound in her little village, she would never be faced with a man who might have the countenance or charm to tempt her, to stir within her any evidence that she might carry the same wanton, disastrous inclinations.
At least she hadn’t any indication until she’d encountered him.
Him. That pirate in his silken robe. He’d stood there like some Ottoman sultan, trying to decide whether to have her tossed in his harem or fed to the wolves.
How was it a man could look at a lady with such disdain and still leave her so . . . so . . . Oh, bother, she didn’t know what she was.
But she did, and Louisa hugged her arms to her chest to stop the tremulous hammering inside.
Good gracious heavens, if one ill-mannered beast of a fellow could prompt her heart to patter at such an alarming rate, what would one who was properly done up—say, a rake of the first order—do to her?
She didn’t want to know. She had to stand firm in her conviction not to allow herself to fall prey to love’s dangerous folly.
Meanwhile, Lavinia was nattering on about tomorrow’s promised adventure. “ . . . we’ll finally be able to get proper gowns,” she was saying. “Fashionable, but respectable.”
That word stopped Louisa. Respectable.
Even Hannibal’s ears twitched at the word.
Oh, not this again! Lavinia avowed that if they behaved in a respectable fashion, models of propriety, no one would notice . . . well, notice . . . the broken antiquities. And crockery. Or vases.
Louisa sighed. Her sister went so far as to keep a list of respectable things. Proper outings. The right social events. Improving books.
Louisa knew only too well that her sister wouldn’t find Hannibal’s near destruction of the man’s house or her own tumble into antiquities all that respectable.
Then again, Hannibal would never make it on to Lavinia’s list.
Nor, Louisa suspected, would the man next door. Not a man who’d come bolting out of his bed stark . . . Oh, dear, she couldn’t say the word.
Not without her imagination getting the better of her.
Naked.
Louisa closed her eyes. Yes, she was quite certain meeting one’s neighbor in his altogether did not fit on Lavinia’s list of respectable things.
No, Lord Charleton’s neighbor was certainly not respectable. Or proper.
Respectable. Proper. Louisa glanced up. That was it. “Lavinia, I don’t think any of this is a good idea. We should go home at once.”
“Go home?” Her sister sat up and gaped at her. “Before we’ve gone shopping?” In Lavinia’s estimation, anything that involved new gowns couldn’t be anything but decidedly proper.
“How can it be respectable to stay here when Lady Charleton has gone to her reward? Shouldn’t we be mourning her? It is hardly proper to come to London and make merry when our godmother has . . . has . . . gone to her reward.”
Since Lavinia strived with all her being to appear the epitome of proper, Louisa thought this argument would be foolproof.
But she didn’t know her sister as well as she thought.
Or at least how far Lavinia would stretch her own rigid standards to have a Season. “Didn’t you hear Mr. Haley?” she countered. “We are not to be blamed for not knowing about Lady Charleton’s death. The baron refused to have notices published because he was so bereft with grief. The poor, dear man.”
The same poor, dear man, Louisa would point out, who wanted them out of his house.
“However could you think of refusing Lady Charleton’s dying wish that we have our Season. Her dying wish, Louisa.”
As if that made a difference.
“How can we think of ourselves,” Louisa asked her, “when we should be wearing black?”
“She’s been gone for over a year. And you heard Mr. Haley, even Lord Charleton refused to wear black for her—he couldn’t face her loss. If he loved her so much how respectful would we be if we scorned her bequest?” Then, as if she sensed her impending victory, Lavinia hammered her arguments home. “I daresay even Lady Essex would approve of us staying. Especially if it meant we might be of some assistance to Lord Charleton.”
Louisa glanced up, recalling Lady Charleton’s words.
If Charleton continues to be horrid, set out the chessboard in the library. Just set it out, the rest will follow.
Which left her wondering what Lady Charleton had written Lavinia. But before she formed the words to ask, her gaze strayed out the window to the other house, and in a blink, one of the curtains fell back into place. As if he’d been looking over here and thinking of her.
Any thought of Lavinia’s letter was forgotten as Louisa quickly turned her back to the window.
Oh, goodness gracious, what a preposterous notion, she chided herself. If that man was looking out his window, he was most likely surveying his yard to consider which corner might be best to bury her or Hannibal in.
Which was precisely why the situation over the garden wall was none of her business. The last thing she wanted to do was tumble into another encounter with him.
Or any man.
Meanwhile, Lavinia had risen from the bed and come closer, her gaze narrowed as she studied both her sister and her cat—who at the moment appeared all innocence, sitting on the sill, calmly cleaning his face with one of his striped paws. “Louisa, whatever has gotten into you? Did something happen when you went to fetch Hannibal?” Her sister paused. “What did he do?”
All that was missing from that statement was the word now. As in, “What did he do now?”
“Whatever do you mean?” Louisa asked, looking anywhere but at her sister. And not at the window. Definitely not at the window.
Lavinia’s gaze narrowed. “When Hannibal went into that house, what did he do? Ruin a carpet? A sofa? Oh, heavens no! Not something expensive?”
Louisa flinched, knowing the only thing to be done was to tell her twin sister everything.
Yet once she confessed the entirety of it—there were no half truths with Lavinia, she’d ferret them all out one way or another—Louisa knew exactly what her sister would advise. Insist upon. Demand.
And it was the last thing Louisa wanted to do.