How To School Your Scoundrel by Juliana Gray

lifted away.
    Luisa drew in a massive breath and stepped back. “Thank you for your trust, your lordship. Good night.”
    She was about to close the door behind her, when Somerton’s stern voice cut the air a final time.
    “Until proven otherwise, Mr. Markham.”

SEVEN

    London
    February 1890
    T he front room of Mrs. Duke’s house in Battersea smelled like a barnyard.
    “My deepest apologies,” said the duke, scratching delicately under his wig. “My neighbor to the left appears to have introduced a large and incontinent sow into the premises during the late cold spell. We are considering legal remedy.”
    “Not at all.” Luisa removed her hat and set it on the hall stand. Quincy leapt from the crook of her left arm and pattered across the worn Oriental rug to the tips of Mrs. Duke’s leather half boots. One ear cocked hopefully.
    “Oh, very well,” said Olympia. He reached for the tea tray and broke off a piece of ham sandwich. “With compliments.”
    Quincy caught the sandwich in midair and swallowed it whole.
    “You really shouldn’t. The servants in Chester Square spoil him shamelessly, to say nothing of Somerton’s boy.” Luisa eased herself carefully onto the faded velvet sofa next to the fireplace. Experience had made her cautious.
    “Consider it my revenge against the sow,” said Olympia. “Warm yourself, warm yourself. The cold is intolerable today.”
    “I don’t mind. Winters in Holstein were far worse. We used to be snowed in for days.” She reached for the teapot. “May I?”
    “Go on, go on. I’ve swallowed three cups of coffee this morning in an effort to thaw myself. Where is that damned slatternly maid?
Dingleby!
” He lifted his voice to a friendly roar.
    “Bugger yourself,” came the friendly reply, floating through the parlor door.
    “Good servants are so difficult to find these days,” said Olympia.
    Luisa bent her head over the cup and warmed her face in the fragrant steam. “Indeed. Have you made any progress this week? Is there any news from my sisters?”
    “I find,” Olympia said, selecting a ham sandwich with less-than-feminine grace, “that one usually asks questions about others when one wishes to distract from oneself.”
    “Bugger yourself.”
    “Tut-tut. Such language from a princess of Germany.”
    “I have absorbed myself into my role, as you suggested. And now I should like to know how my sisters are doing. You haven’t mentioned them in weeks.”
    Olympia chewed, swallowed, dabbed a napkin to his mouth. “As it happens, there is news. I daresay you’ll see it in the papers shortly. Our dear Emilie’s employer has discovered her true identity.”
    Luisa’s cup clattered into the saucer. She jumped to her feet. “
What?
Is she safe? Is she . . . is she . . . ?”
    “Whole and unmolested? I very much doubt it. But the man in question is an honorable chap. He’ll make her happy enough, I daresay, if she allows him to.”
    Luisa worked her mouth, which had gone rather dry. “She’s . . . she’s getting married?”
    “She may not realize it yet. But yes. If all goes well, she’ll be the Duchess of Ashland by Lady Day.” He coughed slightly into his napkin. “If not sooner.”
    She placed her hands on her hips. “
If all goes well.
What the devil do you mean by that?”
    “Dear me. All this talk of buggery and devils. Perhaps I ought not to have packed you off to Somerton’s lair after all.”
    “Uncle.” She deepened her voice to a warning growl. “Is my sister safe?”
    “She is under the strictest protection, at my own house in Park Lane, guarded assiduously by the duke himself.”
    “That’s not the same thing as safe.”
    “My dear Luisa,” he said kindly, “none of you are safe. Not one person on this good earth is safe. You might be struck by an omnibus leaving this house. A scrape on your elbow might go septic. Typhoid, consumption, war, lawsuit . . .”
    “Now you’re trying to distract
me
.”
    “What I mean