Improper Ladies Read Free Page B

and have some tea. I want to hear all about your journey, and about India! How very brown you have become there, dear.”
    They were quickly settled in the elegant blue-and-silver drawing room, with a vast tray of tea, cakes, and sandwiches. Justin sat back and watched his mother pour out the tea, listening as she prattied happily about the Season just concluding and her plans for the summer ahead. When at last the final seedcake was eaten and Amelia had paused for breath, Justin said, “I suppose Harry is still at Cambridge, then.”
    Amelia’s bright smile faded, and her gaze fell away from his.
    A small chill touched Justin’s weary heart. He leaned toward her, reaching out to catch her hand and cease her sudden fussing with the tea things. “Mother? Is something wrong with Harry? Is he ill?”
    She shook her head. “No, he is not ill. It is just—oh, Justin! I am glad you are home. I simply don’t know what to do.”
    Justin released her hand and sank back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. “Mother, you must tell me, whatever it is.”
    “Harry has been sent down from Cambridge.”
    “Sent down! Well, surely there are appeals that can be made, people to speak to....”
    “It is the third time. They will not have him back.”
    Justin was appalled. Harry had been sent down from Cambridge three times? Even he himself, at the height of his mischief-making youth, had managed to stay at university.
    Harry must have done something very bad indeed.
    “When did this happen?” he asked quietly.
    “Not long before your father died. He was livid with Harry, absolutely livid!” Amelia shuddered. “I had never seen Walter so angry.”
    Justin could well imagine. His father had dealt with one wayward son, only to have another spring up in his place.
    He could only shake his head at the desperate foolishness of youth. Wisdom was so hard-won, especially in India. He hoped his brother could be spared a hard lesson like that. Perhaps his hopes were in vain; he knew how heedless a rakish youth could be.
    And now his mother was looking to him to solve all their difficulties.
    “What is Harry doing now?” he asked.
    Amelia shrugged. “Not very much of anything, I believe. I seldom see him. He is not interested in going to Almack’s with me, or to respectable balls and routs. I think ... I think he has become quite a rake. ” Her cheeks flamed as she whispered the word. “I do hear such stories about him, though I am sure they cannot be true.”
    Justin groaned to himself. He had hoped that once he got home, once he left the strangeness of India behind, his life would be peaceful. That he could marry, raise a passle of brats, and be quiet and respectable at long last.
    That was obviously not to be.
    “The Season is over now, though,” Amelia continued. “Surely things will be better once we are back in the country, at Waring Castle. There will be no bad influences for him there.”
    Justin rubbed wearily at his jaw. “He has agreed to go to Waring for the summer, then?”
    “Not exactly. But I am sure that now you are home, you can persuade him.”
    Justin was not so sure. He remembered all too well the determination of a headstrong boy set on being a rake. He also knew the terrible consequences of such heedlessness.
    “I will see what I can do, Mother,” he said.
    She nodded, seemingly satisfied. “There is one more ball before absolutely everyone leaves Town, and I think we should attend. My friend Lady Bellweather has the loveliest daughter who just made her bow this Season. I am sure you would like her. . . .”
    Her words faded away as the drawing-room door flew open and Harry rushed in. His hair, a darker brown than Justin’s own sun-touched locks, fell in an untidy tangle over his brow, and he was in need of a shave. But it was really his clothes that made Justin’s brow raise. Harry wore canary-yellow breeches below a purple—purple!—waistcoat, and a bottle-green coat.
    And were those