Improper Ladies by McCabe Amanda

Author:McCabe, Amanda
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Pour

“The only proper gifts between unmarried ladies and gentlemen are flowers, sweets, or small books.”

—A Lady’s Rules for Proper Behavior, Chapter Seven

A Lady’s Rules for Proper Behavior. She had given him a blasted book of etiquette!

Michael still could not cease thinking of it, even as he drove the phaeton out the Seminary gates and turned down the road toward London. Fortunately, Violet, on the seat beside him, was too preoccupied in studying the small silver locket Mrs. Chase had given her to notice his silence.

It was not so much that Mrs. Chase had given him the book, Michael thought. After all, she was a schoolmistress and would naturally advocate proper behavior, even of the extreme sort promulgated in that book. It was that she implied he was so greatly in need of it. What was it she had said? Oh, yes. “I believe that you in particular are most in need of it, Lord Morley.”

As if he was an ape of some sort! A bumbling monkey with no idea of how to behave in a proper home.

It was true, he grudgingly admitted, that on his first visit to the Seminary he had not been all he should have been. He had needled Mrs. Chase and her deep propriety. He had spent his entire adult life striving against just such rigid mores, such shallow emphasis on conduct. And her stiff attitude had near driven him mad.

But he was sorry for his previous behavior, his boorishness. Had he not apologized to her, tried to make up for it? It was Mrs. Chase’s home, and her guests had a duty to behave according to her—he winced to think the word—her rules. And he had mended his ways today, striving to behave within proper gentlemanly boundaries. Aside from his exuberant greeting of Violet, he had been everything that was proper. Even the Anonymous Lady who wrote A Lady’s Rules would have approved of him. He had even given Mrs. Chase a book of his poetry!

What more could the woman want of him? What could ever erase the pinch of disapproval from her pretty—too pretty—lips?

And why was he thinking of her as pretty, anyway? Her caps were an absolute fright, and her eyes were frozen. There was nothing behind that ice blue façade—nothing but manners.

“Michael, why on earth are you driving so fast?” Violet cried, her voice edged with alarm.

Only then did Michael realize the great speed he had urged his horses to. They practically barreled along the road, dashing past the other now-gawking travelers into Town. The wheels clacked and whirred as if he was in a race.

He immediately drew back on the reins, slowing to a more moderate pace. “Sorry, Vi,” he said, and threw his sister an apologetic smile.

She stared at him with wide, wary eyes. “Whatever were you thinking of? You looked a million miles away.”

He sought quickly for a believable answer—anything but the truth. He could hardly tell her that he was thinking her teacher was a priss. “I was wondering which waistcoat I should wear to Lady Clarke’s rout on Friday.

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