Unladylike Lessons in Love

DedicationTo my tiny peepsThanks for teaching me all about loveIt turns out I can belong somewhere after all, and it’s with you ContentsCoverTitle PageDedicationChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30Chapter 31Chapter 32Chapter 33Chapter 34Chapter 35Chapter 36Chapter 37EpilogueAcknowledgmentsAbout the AuthorPraiseAlso by Amita MurrayCopyrightAbout the Publisher 1The banquet room shone. The staff had done an outstanding job, even though Lila Marleigh was hardly a stern mistress. The chandeliers sparkled, the sunset curtains gleamed, and the peacock-blue mirrors, hand-painted in Rajasthan, reflected Lila’s customers faithfully—more faithfully than some of them wanted at this hour of the night.Lila’s salon was a fashionable destination for men and women who wanted to spend an evening gambling and listening to music in an elegant town house in the heart of Mayfair in the city of London, but who didn’t go to the more notorious gambling hells. At two in the morning, the salon was packed and that, along with the hundreds of candles that studded the room, was making it hard to breathe. Lila fanned herself with her pretty cockade fan, painted with a trellis of roses, desperate tonight for the salon to end so she could make her way up to bed, collapse on the cool sheets, and not wake up again until noon at the earliest.She stifled a sigh. Her customers looked as if they could keep going for hours. The piquet table and faro were the busiest, but her customers came to her salon because they liked that it had a hint of something different, a magical something that only she could bring, and so the Indian rummy and Shatranj tables had takers too. No, no one looked in a hurry to call it a night.As she sat at one of the piquet tables, Walsham entered the banquet room. He looked so severe—even more than usual—that Lila’s heart sank. He walked over to her, his back rigid, dodging the card tables and the huddles of standing people. When he reached her, he bent and said in a hushed voice, “A person at the door, Miss Marleigh.” He may as well have said a cockroach, Miss Marleigh.Lila blinked but nothing else showed on her face. Her mind was racing. Who on earth had turned up at her house at two in the morning that would make Walsham look so constipated? He normally showed customers straight into the salon. He didn’t keep them waiting at the door.Smile firmly in place, she leaned forward and tapped the Dowager Countess of Ellingham’s hand with her fan. “You must allow me to refill your glass, Lady Ellingham.”The Dowager Countess might not have allowed this kind of familiarity from anyone else, but most things could be forgiven an eccentric, and Lila Marleigh had spent nearly five years learning to be one. The dowager harrumphed, keeping her eyes on her cards.“I will find you some punch, my own special brew.”This was one of her eccentricities. Lila blended her own iced champagne punch (some of her guests called it The Lila) and she liked to play with what she put in it. Tonight, it was apple cider with a hint of ginger, a touch of sugar, and the secret ingredient, the tiniest pinch of cardamom from the Indies. The dowager inclined her head.Lila sprang to her feet as if she weren’t completely exhausted and her butler Walsham wasn’t making her anxious. Her dark curls were coiled high on the top of her head and then left to fall down her back. She pushed away unruly strands that were clinging damply to her forehead. Her net silver overdress sparkled, and she shook out the folds of the midnight-blue silk dress that hugged her figure and, followed by the stiffening Walsham, turned to make her way out of the heaving room.But this was easier said than done. The room was packed, and everyone wanted a piece of Lila Marleigh—some wanted as many pieces as they could get.Donald Barrymore, Viscount of Herringford, was the first to stop her, with a hand squeezing her upper arm, which she batted playfully away with her fan. His face was purple. The waistband of his trousers was bursting and his cravat more wilted than the hothouse lilies that one of her admirers had sent her, fresh from his estate, just this morning. Herringford had that tottering look that said he should have stopped drinking about three drinks ago—Lila could calculate these things down to the mouthful. She sighed inwardly.“Lord Herringford, what a hot summer we’re having,” she said in her usual vibrant voice. She checked herself. The cheery tone was grating on her nerves tonight.The man didn’t notice the complete lack of originality in the remark. “I heard you’re backing Kenneth Laudsley to win the race to Brighton, m’dear,” he said, leaning closer, licking his lips at the deep V of her neckline. “You know his racers don’t hold a candle to the ones I’m putting up for m’nephew?” He squinted at her cleavage as if he was thinking about diving into it.Her smile widened. She placed her fan under his chin and lifted his face so he was forced to make eye contact. “You’re quite right, Lord Herringford. At this rate, I’ll be forced to run the race myself.”She was turning away. She meant it as a joke—after all, it would be the scandal of the summer if a woman raced a curricle to Brighton—but, to her surprise, it created an excited hum.“I’d lay a monkey to see that,” said Henry Alston. She turned to look at him. He was pink-faced too, but in a young and overeager way. He was slim, only nineteen, and his chestnut locks were flying in all directions. He blushed. In his own way, he was just as painfully eager as Lord Herringford, but it was hard to be anything but kind to him, he was just a boy.Lila’s