Page 25 of Love Lessons for a Lady
~ Bartholomew Yancy, Earl of Ramsbury, in a letter to Aston Terramier
Balderbrook’s Institution for Genteel Ladies
20 August - almost noon
Snapping his violin case closed upon the settee, Aston glanced up when he heard a sharp tap on the window facing the gardens. Her blue eyes wide and worried, Chasity peered inside, reminding him of a precocious child. After hastily looking behind her shoulder, she made a frantic motion for him to open the window, and he grinned.
In a few strides, he reached the window and drew it open.
“Well, hello. To what do I owe this honor?” he quipped, leaning a shoulder against the jamb and folding his arms.
Did she intend to ask him to resign again?
He hoped not because Aston still hadn’t decided what he was going to do. The subject wasn’t far from his thoughts, yet Chasity’s request didn’t make sense. He needed more information. Assuredly he wouldn’t give his blasted grandfather the satisfaction unless it was for an extraordinary reason.
What didn’t make sense at all was Chasity getting sacked if he didn’t resign.
How could the two possibly be connected?
Aston had no doubt Mrs. Crenshaw had put Chasity up to it, and any previous compassion or empathy he’d held for the woman disintegrated. What a cowardly, despicable thing to do, and Aston believed he knew why she’d taken the particular tack she had.
Mrs. Crenshaw didn’t want to pay the balance of his wages if she terminated him without cause. As she couldn’t dismiss him for fault, she was good and stuck.
Had he suspected the headmistress had acted outside of her authority by offering him the generous contract, he never would’ve accepted. Particularly after she’d become overly friendly toward him, but blister it all, he would not let his grandfather triumph in his separation from Balderbrook’s Institution for Genteel Ladies.
Which was the primary reason he couldn’t decide about the trip to the Italian marble quarry he had invested in either. He’d dreamed of traveling to Italy, and since the expenses were paid, he ought to jump at the opportunity.
“Hurry, help me inside.”
Chasity hoisted a very shapely white stockinged leg which, in turn, flowed into a well-turned ankle over the sill and, with an unladylike grunt, hefted herself onto the ledge. She dangled there, half inside and half outside, looking quite like an impish child on a seesaw.
She scowled.
“A little help, Aston?”
Aston, is it?
Chuckling, he scooped her into his arms. “Wouldn’t the door have been far easier?”
He glanced toward the panel, startled to realize his last pupil hadn’t shut it tightly. The door stood open a couple of inches. He couldn’t see anything of the corridor and doubted anyone could see him and Chasity either. Especially if he drew her farther into the L-shaped alcove where the students practiced.
She gave him an arch look. “It would’ve been. But someone also might’ve seen me enter, and propriety dictates I leave the door wide open, which would defeat my purpose.”
“Because you want to be alone with me?” Aston waggled his eyebrows, his nose a mere inch from hers. “That sounds most intriguing,” he teased.
The silver specks in her eyes sparkled with embarrassment and awareness. Her face aflame, she demanded, “Put me down, Aston.”
He complied at once, holding her shoulders until she’d steadied herself, then he retreated a pace.
Chasity smoothed her forest green skirts with long elegant fingers. An ink smudge stained her right thumb. Her color still high, but oh so delightfully endearing, she heaved a large breath. “I’ve been trying to catch you alone for days.”
“Indeed? Why might that be?” he purred, adoring how easily he could fluster her. “I am flattered.”
“You needn’t be,” she said crisply.
Her expression vacillated between apprehension and chastisement. And if Aston didn’t miss the mark—and he was quite certain he hadn’t—feminine interest.
Chasity wasn’t here because she found him irresistibly charming or had desired a private tête-à-tête with him. He’d wager she was here at Mrs. Crenshaw’s behest again.
