A Lady's Guide to Improper Behavior (8 page)

The maid curtsied. “Yes, miss.”

By the time she passed through the foyer, the butler had summoned her coach, and she swiftly climbed in. As soon as the maid was seated opposite her, they rolled into the street. For a moment Theresa closed her eyes.

Yes, she was deeply, deeply moved that a man as…compelling as Colonel Bartholomew James would take such a risk for her. But what if it went wrong? Dr. Prentiss had said quite clearly that Tolly would likely lose his left leg altogether.

She had suitors for every day of the week, and extra ones for Sunday. In the past three years she’d received nine proposals of marriage, three from the same gentleman. The death of her parents had made her a considerable heiress, which more than likely had at least something to do with the quantity of her beaux. Their deaths were also why she remained unmarried, but she didn’t care to contemplate that at the moment.

Nothing like this had ever happened before in her experience. By calling at James House today, by deciding that no man in his right mind should have been able to ignore the rules of civility, had she obligated herself to one man? “Oh, dear,” she muttered under her breath. She wasn’t prepared for any of that.

“What is it, Miss Tess?”

She shook herself. “I forgot my gloves,” she improvised.

“I’m certain Lady Gardner will send them back to you.”

“Yes. Yes, of course she will.”

As soon as they returned home, Theresa retreated to the solitude of her bedchamber. Two questions troubled her more than anything else—was she truly the reason Tolly had subjected himself to such pain, and did she truly want—could she even manage—such a complicated soul in her life? She couldn’t think of a single sentence in her
Lady’s Guide to Proper Behavior
that came even close to describing or explaining Colonel Bartholomew James. Or the way she behaved when she was around him.

She gazed at herself in her dressing table mirror. From the moment she’d first set eyes on Tolly James she’d felt electric, lightning coursing down her spine and out to the tips of her fingers. And those kisses, and the way he looked at her sometimes, heated her from the inside out. But she’d teased and flirted, and then by his actions today he’d all but declared himself. And now she was the one who needed to find her footing.

A knock sounded at her door. “Come in,” she said, hurriedly moving to the chair by the window and picking up a book so she wouldn’t be caught admiring herself in the mirror.

The door opened, and an orange cat slipped through the opening and darted onto her lap. “Hello, Caesar,” she said, scratching the big tom between the ears. “Hello, Grandmama.”

Agnes followed the cat into the room and closed the door behind her. “Caesar insisted on joining me,” she said, taking the seat Theresa had just vacated. “Though he’s a very poor escort.”

“I thought you were going for a stroll with Lord
Wilcox,” Theresa commented, setting the unread book aside to scratch Caesar with both hands.

“He’s downstairs waiting for me. I’m being coy.”

“Grandmama!”

“Oh, it’ll do him good to have a sit-down before we go. You were to join Amelia for luncheon.”

“Yes. We had a change of plans. It’s no matter; I have some work to do on the second edition of my
Guide
.”

“‘It’s no matter,’ is it? You are aware by now that servants gossip, I hope. Particularly when a female member of the household goes visiting and ends up assisting in a surgery.”

Dash it all. She hadn’t asked Sally to exercise any discretion, though, so she supposed the subsequent gossip was her own fault. “I did what I could,” she said aloud.

“I hear you were quite distressed when you learned who the doctor had come to see.”

Theresa looked sideways at her grandmother. “Do you have a question for me, or are we going to make observations all afternoon while poor Lord Wilcox wastes away downstairs?”

Agnes’s fingers wandered through hair clips and hat pins and combs spread across the dressing table. “Yes, I have a question. While I have never known you to be missish or retiring, pushing your way into a man’s bedchamber and then voluntarily getting his blood on your hands isn’t precisely your…usual cup of tea, as they say.”

Keeping her gaze on the purring cat, Theresa hid a scowl. “That still isn’t a question.”

“That was the preface, being that my question is only one word: Why?”

Why indeed?
“I think he might have risked losing his leg because I teased about wanting to dance with him.”

“You—”

“And if he did do this because of my jests,” Theresa pressed, unwilling and unable to stop now that she’d begun, “then everything that follows is my fault. I behaved improperly.”

“Nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense. Actions have consequences.” An unbidden image of her parents touched her, and she mentally brushed it away. “I can’t turn my back on him now.”

“Do you want to turn your back on him?”

“No. I think I might find him intriguing. But if he loses his leg because I was inappropriate and flirted with him, I’ll be doubly obligated to remain with him, regardless. No dancing, no long walks in the evenings, and probably no riding horses because how could he do that with one leg cut off above the knee? I don’t even know if he can have children, and you know I’ve always wanted children, and—”

“I thought it was his knee that had been injured,” her grandmother interrupted.

“That’s what I’ve been talking about.”

Grandmama Agnes’s expression softened into a brief smile. “Then he can very likely father children.”

Theresa’s heart jolted. “You think I should marry him, then.”

“Has he asked you?”

“No, but—”

“Is Colonel Bartholomew James a weak-minded man?”

She frowned. “No. Not at all. I think he’s very likely at least as stubborn as I am.”

“Then why do you think you caused him to risk his leg?”

“Because he looked at me and said he wanted to dance with me, and then he fainted.” That hadn’t been precisely what he’d said, but it was close enough.

“I see.” Agnes gazed out the window for a moment. “Colonel James wants to dance with you.”

“It’s more than that, Grandmama, and you know that perfectly well.”

“You met him what, a week ago?”

Had it only been seven days?
“I believe so.”

“Then, my dear, I would suggest that you become acquainted with Colonel Bartholomew James. Decide whether you like him before you plan a marriage with him.”

“I—”

“Because if you like him, truly like him, while he has two legs, then I believe you’ll like him when or if he has only one. But you need to discover that now, or you’ll never know for certain.”

“But what he said was—”

“Tess, do not take all the world’s burdens and tragedies onto your shoulders. As I’ve said before, simply because someone brings up your name in regard to an event, doesn’t make what follows your fault.”

“I find it difficult to believe that he was attempting to mislead me. I’m not very trickable.”

Her grandmother stood. “No, you’re not. Per
haps he merely wasn’t thinking clearly.” She strolled over, kissed Theresa on the forehead, and collected Caesar.

Theresa sighed as Grandmama Agnes left the room and closed the door quietly behind her. As usual, her grandmother was correct; she couldn’t plan her future without deciphering her present.

And that meant that tomorrow she would have to break another of her own rules and pay a visit to Bartholomew James.

B
artholomew awoke with a start, his hands half raised to ward off an attack. The bedchamber around him, though, was silent and lit with muted light peering around the edges of the heavy window curtains.

Nine months had made quite a difference. He still fought the same injury, but this time he lay propped up by pillows in a comfortable bed. No climbing up steep, crumbling walls using only three limbs, no stealing damned ponies to follow anyone, no riding in the backs of wagons on rutted roads, no fearful questions and angry, disbelieving arguments. At least none of those so far. Not directly to his face.

He lifted up on his elbows. They’d bent his leg over a pillow, bandaging it so that it was held at
that angle. While he would have preferred it remain straight, which made hobbling easier, it was too late to do anything about that now. He’d wagered everything he possessed on this strategy, and now all he could do was await the outcome.

His door opened quietly. “Good,” Stephen said, stepping into the room. “You’re awake.”

“More or less.” Bartholomew eyed his brother. This was the moment he’d dreaded. Now he had to admit that he was as helpless as a babe in swaddling rags, and now he had to ask for help. “I—”

“Being that you’ve never been home long enough to employ a valet of your own,” his brother interrupted, “and being that I rather like my Gernsey and don’t intend to see him run off by your foul temper, I took the liberty of hiring you a man.” He gestured behind him, and a short, barrel-chested fellow with a porcupine’s backside of brown hair atop his head entered the room. “This is Lackaby.”

“Colonel James,” the stout man said. And then he drew up his spine, pushed out his chest, and saluted.

Splendid
. “I’m retired,” Tolly grunted. “Don’t salute me.”

“Apologies, Colonel. A habit, don’t you know.”

“Lackaby served in India, as well,” his brother explained. “Fourteen years ago, was it, Sergeant?”

“Yes, my lord. I was on Wellington’s personal staff, except he was Major-General Wellesley back then.”

“See if you can manage opening the curtains then, will you?”

“Yes, sir.” Turning smartly on his heel, Lackaby marched to the windows and began pulling open the
dark blue material, flooding the room with welcome sunlight.

“How long did it take you to find a former soldier who’d served in India?” Bartholomew asked his brother in a low voice.

Stephen moved closer. “All of last evening and most of the damned morning. So don’t you dare refuse having him here.”

“I can’t put on my own boots,” he muttered back, pushing against the responding sense of helplessness. “I’m not in a position to refuse.”

“Good.”

The relief on his brother’s face was unmistakable. Stephen had been genuinely concerned that he would refuse all assistance. Bartholomew lay back once more on the pile of pillows. Finding a former soldier in need of employment was easy enough these days; they were everywhere now that Bonaparte had surrendered for the second time. Hence the new flood of adventurers and those seeking their fortunes in India and elsewhere. But tracking down a former soldier who’d served in India as an aide-de-camp—that must have been a challenge.

“Thank you, Stephen,” he said aloud.

His older brother smiled, his shoulders easing. “You’re welcome.”

With daylight in the room the fog in his head began to clear. The ache in his leg sharpened as well, but he set his jaw and ignored it. Prentiss had left him a generous supply of laudanum, but he disliked the fuzzy thickness that clogged his mind when he took it. Aside from that, muzzling the pain seemed wrong.

After a few minutes Stephen left him in Lackaby’s care, and while he lost what little dignity and privacy he had remaining, he couldn’t have done it on his own. When Lackaby approached him with a shaving razor, though, Tolly’s chest tightened. “No.”

The valet stopped. “You need a shave, Colonel. And if I may say so, your beak is a bit more in proportion than is the duke’s. Difficult to make that turn, it is, when the snout juts out further than Gibraltar, but I mastered it. So don’t worry; I’ll give you a nice, close shave.”

The abrupt image of daggers and ribbon-thin garrotes glinting red in firelight struck him with almost palpable force. “No,” he repeated more forcefully, sitting up and dragging himself to the edge of the bed. Christ. His foot felt half-numb as it was. All he needed was to rattle the damned thing off.

“But Colonel, the—”

“Don’t you fu—”

“Good morning, Tolly.”

At the sweet feminine drawl emanating from the open doorway, Bartholomew stopped the black curse he’d been about to utter. “Tess,” he said, a sudden sharp elation replacing the bleak fear of a moment ago.

Strolling into the room, she smiled at Lackaby and held out her hands to the servant, palms up. With a puzzled glance between her and Tolly, the valet handed her the razor and shaving cup. “I’ll get a cloth then, shall I?” he commented.

“Please do.” As soon as the valet left the room, Tess approached the bed. “You looked as though you were going to punch that man,” she said.

Tolly settled himself on the pillows again and made an effort not to grimace. “He’s my valet. Stephen hired him this morning.”

“You didn’t have a valet?”

“I had an aide-de-camp in India.” And he declined to say where Freddie was now. At least the lad had company. “I generally borrowed Stephen’s valet when I was in Town.”

She nodded. “So you don’t trust this fellow with a sharp blade to your throat.”

He watched her expression, waiting for a hint of ridicule or pity. He saw neither. “I prefer to know someone for more than an hour before I give him the opportunity to kill me.”

“You’ve known
me
for more than an hour.”

“You want to give me a shave?” Bartholomew asked, attempting to sound dubious but not certain he’d managed it. He liked her touch. When he’d opened his eyes to her stroking his hair, the peace he’d felt had nearly convinced him that he’d died—with her the angel to escort him to St. Peter. Or elsewhere. In her company, the destination hadn’t concerned him overly much.

“I’ll give it a go, shall I? Sit up a bit.” Setting the shaving bits and bobs on the nightstand, she shifted pillows behind him until he was close to upright and they were eye to eye.

“That doesn’t inspire much confidence,” he said belatedly. “You’ve never done this before, I take it.”

“When would I have? Just tell me the basics. I’m fairly clever at figuring things out.”

Surprisingly, even knowing that Tess Weller more than likely represented a larger risk to his health than
did Lackaby, he felt less trepidation at the prospect of her shaving him. It was odd, actually, considering that in the past he’d fared better with strangers than with friends. Tess seemed to be in a different category altogether, though—one of her own making.

“Shave downward, in short strokes, and don’t lop off my head.” He leaned his head back, half closing his eyes as she began brushing shaving soap over his cheeks and down his throat.

Her fingers hesitated. “Good God,” she whispered, touching fingertips to the base of his throat. “What happened here?”

Damnation. For a moment he’d actually forgotten about those scars. “One of the Thuggee attempted to strangle me. I got loose; hence the gunshot.”

“Are you wounded anywhere else?”

Nowhere that showed
. “A few holes and slices,” he said aloud. “It’s all healed.” Bartholomew cleared his throat. “I didn’t expect to see you after yesterday,” he offered, trying to find something else about which to converse.

“Why? Because I’ve seen some of your insides? Or because you said you wanted your leg re-broken because you wished to dance with me?”

Tolly sat bolt upright, ignoring the resulting stab of pain in his knee.
“What?”
Oh, good God. He hadn’t actually said that aloud, had he?

She nodded, as if hearing his silent question. “A lady doesn’t forget when a man says something like that to her.” Calmly she set the cup aside and experimentally opened the razor.

“I—if—you know I might well have been delirious from pain and blood loss.”

“So you didn’t mean it?” The blade paused.

A very uneasy wrench of panic touched his gut again. Swiftly he reached out to block her hand. “That’s enough,” he muttered, scowling. “I’ll see to it.” A damned day or two of beard wouldn’t hurt anything. It wasn’t as if he was attempting to impress anyone.

Immediately her expression dropped into concern. “I apologize, Tolly. I was only bamming you. You were nearly strangled, and here I am, saying those silly things while holding a sharp blade.”

“You were teasing,” he repeated, studying her gray-green eyes. Considering that she’d been much on his mind yesterday before she’d actually appeared, he might very well have said something that idiotic.

“Yes, I was teasing. Shall we proceed?”

At this point, however compelling he found her presence, he would rather have shaved himself. The current shake of his hands, however, made that a poor idea—especially since he clearly
was
attempting to impress someone. And whatever his reasons, he didn’t want her to see him as lacking courage and character. “Do your worst.”

“I will do my best, but thank you for lowering your expectations.”

An unexpected grin touched his mouth as she leaned forward. “Get a cloth first.”

“Stop talking. And no smiling.”

Lackaby returned a moment later. He handed over the cloth without protest and went to find a clean nightshirt. At least the valet wasn’t prissy about his duties. Bartholomew had never precisely been conventional, and he’d become less so over the past months. “Very well.”

He kept his gaze on her as she leaned in again. Steel slid flatly down his cheek toward his jaw. Her lips pursed, her elegant brows knitted in concentration, she wiped off the razor and then repeated the motion. She clearly had little skill, but he would have been more surprised to find otherwise.

For a long moment the only sound in the room was the quiet whoosh and scrape along his cheeks. Tolly began to relax by inches, forgetting the blade as he gazed at her. When he’d returned to London, intimate female companionship had been the last thing on his mind. That wasn’t so any longer.

With every stroke she made layers of his darkness fall away. His blood heated, and if not for the sharp blade he would have seriously contemplated pulling her into his arms until she regained her senses and pushed him away. Something broke loose in his chest as her face twisted to match his.

“Do this,” she said, elongating her upper lip.

“I don’t think I can equal that, but I’ll certainly try.”

She pinched his nose, apparently determined to wrench it out of her way. “Now who’s teasing?” she muttered. “And don’t answer that.”

From across the room the valet made a sound that might have been either amusement or allergies. Other than noting Lackaby’s location, Tolly ignored him.

He had other things to consider. If he hadn’t said anything about wanting to dance with Theresa, had such a thing been in her thoughts? Her comments, teasing or not, had come from somewhere. Aside from that, one of the most celebrated beauties of the Season wasn’t supposed to be spending her morning shaving an invalid.

Before she could come in against his throat, he lifted his hand to block her approach again. “Since we both know that I didn’t say anything about dancing with you, what are you doing here?” he asked.

“I operated on your leg,” she returned.

“You assisted.”

“You were unconscious half the time, so you wouldn’t possibly know what I did. You’re my patient now, and I intend to oversee your recovery.”

“And you have nothing better to do?”

She pushed his hand away. “Apparently not.”

Before this mess he’d been something of a gambler, a devil-may-care, even a rake. For a few minutes he was going to have to remember who he used to be, and let the chit and the razor have access to his neck. Resolutely he lowered his hand, clenching his fingers into the bedsheets. Then he lifted his chin and closed his eyes. In for a penny, in for a pound, as they said.

After yesterday, Tolly clearly had an excuse to be a bit unsteady. If Theresa had given into fainting and hysterics then, she could have claimed the same thing now. She hadn’t done so, however, and at this moment she needed to have very, very steady hands.

Still, she hesitated. The hard-muscled man sitting in the bed beside her clearly had some difficulties with allowing himself to be vulnerable. And she did not want to injure him further. Especially in view of the uneven scars banding his throat—despite what he’d said, she wasn’t entirely convince that someone had attempted to choke him to death rather than slice off his head.

The valet by the wardrobe caught her eye. “Shall I?” he mouthed.

She shook her head. Tolly was trusting her. And that trumped the rule about the impropriety of physical contact. With a deep breath she rotated her wrist to loosen the tense muscles there.

“The soap’s beginning to dry,” Tolly said abruptly. “My face itches.”

“I told you not to talk. Now hold still.”

“I have been.”

Putting her fingers on his warm cheek to steady her aim, she held her breath and scraped the blade down from his chin along his throat. His eyes closed; she didn’t know whether that meant he was accepting his fate or preparing for the worst.

If she hadn’t been so worried that she would injure him, Theresa was fairly certain she would have enjoyed such intimate contact with him immensely. It was so different from dancing with a man. She shifted her grip so that her finger brushed his skin, following along behind the blade. Smooth, damp, and warm. Heat hummed through her. After this, she would never be able to smell a man’s shaving soap without becoming…excited. Aroused, even, though she would never admit such a scandalous thing aloud.

She’d wanted to call on him today to determine whether her actions had caused him to act, and therefore rendered her responsible for his current…situation. Instead she found herself sinking deeper into his life, into him. Every time they met she did something even less proper, and she enjoyed it more. Surreptitiously she stroked his skin again. Trouble, trouble, trouble.