Unladylike Lessons in Love

Book 1: Marleigh Sisters

by Amita Murray

Genres: Historical Fiction; Historical Romance; Regency Romance; Multicultural & Interracial Romance

Synopsis

Fast-paced and feisty Regency fiction with a dazzlingly daring heroine who breaks the mould.

‘Sizzling romance with a splash of intrigue’ Julia Quinn. author of Bridgerton

Not every Regency lady is looking for a husband…

As the daughter of an English earl and his Indian mistress, impulsive Lila Marleigh has already broken the rules of society into tiny pieces.

When a face she never thought she would see again appears and begs for help, Lila must court notoriety once more and pit her wits against the annoyingly handsome aristocrat, Ivor Tristram. But does she risk opening her heart to the one person who can break it…?

Release date: May 16, 2023

Publisher: HarperCollins

Print pages: 384

Sample

1

The 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 eyes darted toward Walsham. He looked as though he was willing to be patient until the end of time. She bit her lip but gave her guests her sparkling smile.

At this late hour the women were laughing louder, and the men were swaying dangerously close. It took several minutes to disentangle from the group. It was a good thing, Lila thought, as Herringford pawed at the air behind her, that she had given up trying to save her reputation a long time ago.

As she started to wind her way to the door again, she noticed a man she hadn’t seen in her salons before, standing nearby, speaking to no one, an amber glass of brandy held carelessly in one hand. He was over medium height and his broad shoulders and chest made him look imposing. Her practiced eye noticed the strength of his thighs and the understated but elegant clothes. He was wearing pantaloons and Hessians, but she imagined he would be more comfortable in riding clothes. The hair was dark, the face broad, the eyebrows shapely. But these were not what caught her attention. She couldn’t look away from the piercing crystal-blue eyes that were looking at her, not lasciviously like Herringford, nor with a deep blush like Henry Alston, but with strong dislike.

As she stared at him, he didn’t turn away, but instead took a deliberate sip of his drink. She was startled, wondering who he was and why he was looking at her with such loathing. She made herself turn away.

When she finally made it out of the ballroom, she shut the door behind her and sagged. A sliver of longing pierced through her, though for what she didn’t know exactly.

She opened her eyes and shook herself. This wouldn’t do. Whatever the longing was for, it could never be hers. She squared her shoulders as Walsham led the way to the front door.

“I told the person that the back door would be more suitable. But she is refusing to leave until she has seen you, Miss Marleigh.”

“Since when do you let people refuse you anything, Walsham?” Lila murmured.

But then she stepped out into the humid night air and saw the reason for Walsham’s disapproval and his reticence. The girl standing outside was dressed in rags, big with child and fuming, and she looked as though nothing—no woman, no man, no mountain—would dislodge her from Lila Marleigh’s front door.

 

2

“Why he can’t let me in for two minutes—two minutes I said and not a minute more!—why he has to stand in the way of an honest lass . . .”

Walsham cleared his throat. Whether this was at the girl’s shrill tone or her description of herself as honest, Lila didn’t know. The girl was sputtering she was so mad. She glared as Walsham sniffed.

“Does he have a cold?” Her eyes were blazing. “Can’t a girl have a word with you, Miss Lila? Are you so high in the instep now?”

“Here now—” Walsham said, but Lila held up her hand. She peered at the girl’s face.

For she was no older than a girl. Seventeen maybe, at most, at least eight years younger than Lila. Tiny, even shorter than Lila herself. She had a heart-shaped face, a cloud of frizzy dark hair, sharp kitten eyes, and a ferocious mouth that looked ready to bite anyone who got too close.

Time stopped for Lila. Darkness threatened to engulf her, darkness that she normally kept at bay.

“Maisie?” She could hardly believe it, but then as soon as she said the name, she knew she was right.

The girl lifted her chin. “I’m surprised you recognize me.”

Lila grasped the girl’s cold fingers. “Maisie, of course I recognize you. Do you think I’ve left the house even once in the last ten years and not looked for your face?”

“Didn’t look hard enough, I reckon.”

Walsham stirred again at the insolent tone, but Lila ignored him. “How far along are you?” she asked, looking down at the girl’s belly.

There was a constriction in her chest, almost like a rock was wedged there. Maisie! Maisie Quinn! Lila wasn’t lying. She did look for Maisie’s face everywhere, desperate to find her. Though maybe less and less over the years, she thought guiltily. Did she try hard enough? Yet here she was, still no more than a girl. And very pregnant.

“What?” the girl said.

“How many courses have you missed?” Lila asked patiently.

“Oh, the lord love you,” the girl said, “how is a lass to keep count of something like that? Seven, maybe?” She fidgeted with the folds of her thick skirt, looking uncertain for the first time. “Wouldn’t come to you if I had anywhere else to go.” The face was uncertain, but the voice just as stubborn. “I need help.”

“You must come in,” Lila said firmly.

Walsham cleared his throat. “The back door, miss.”

Lila lifted a hand again but didn’t look at him. “I have a full house right now,” she said apologetically to Maisie.

“I can’t come back tomorrow. I have the rat pit,” the girl answered, “and that’s a busy night for me. I can’t miss a night. Not now, I can’t. A girl’s got to eat.”

Lila didn’t bother trying to decipher the cryptic words. “You can’t leave. Not now that I’ve finally found you. But Walsham is right, the back door may be better.” She was uneasily aware not only of Walsham standing rigidly behind her, but also the many guests in the ballroom. As it was, her credit with the ton was precarious. If she lost its goodwill, she would lose her only source of livelihood. The salon might sparkle, but it took everything Lila had to hold things together.

“I’ll help you,” she said firmly

The girl was working away at her skirt again. And her chin looked even more stubborn. “You said that—back then. And it didn’t come to naught. I trusted you.”

The guilt came flooding back. Ten years ago, when Lila was fifteen, and Maisie no more than seven, Maisie’s mother, a maid in the Marleigh house, had been accused of stealing a box of jewelry. Lila had known that Annie Quinn couldn’t have done it, she knew the w

oman too well. And she had promised Maisie she would help. She tried to help, but it came to nothing, and Maisie’s mother Annie—who Lila sometimes thought was her only friend in the large, cold house—was hanged for her crime. Maisie ran away soon after. Now here she was, and Lila couldn’t imagine why Maisie should trust her now.

“Will your man not help you?” Lila asked, looking down at the belly. Though she didn’t need to ask. Of course, he wouldn’t help. That was why the girl was here.

But instead of outrage or even shame, the girl’s eyes filled with tears that she was quick to bat away. “He can’t,” she said abruptly.

“Can’t or won’t?” asked Lila cynically.

The fierce look was back. “He . . . he’s in trouble. He can’t. It’s why I need your help. He’s been accused of something he didn’t do.”

“A crime?”

Maisie’s chin quivered. “Of attacking a hoity-toity miss.”

Lila’s fist tightened on her dress. That didn’t sound good. “Did he do it? Did he attack this girl?”

Maisie quivered with rage. “He didn’t do it! He wouldn’t hurt a fly! But a girl who looks like me and a man who looks like him—what chance have we got?”

Maisie’s mother Annie had come all the way from the Caribbean with a family that wanted her to look after their children on the journey, but who then abandoned her to the mercies of London. The Marleigh family had hired her, and she worked in the house for seven long years, but then they had thrown her to the dogs in the worst possible way.

Lila could see that the girl was skinny as a stick, despite the distended belly. If she gave birth now, the baby would die and so could she. “Come in now, Maisie.”

The girl was dithering.

“I won’t bite, you know,” Lila said gently.

Some of the ferocity left the girl’s face. “It’s just you’re a grand lady. I knew you were, but I hadn’t seen you or believed it, not till I saw it with my own eyes.”

Lila held out her hand to usher the girl toward the back door. Just then the door to the ballroom opened behind her. It was down the hall, and Lila lifted her chin and decided to battle it out with whoever came out—but thankfully no one did. It was just someone looking for more drinks. Johnny, the first footman, hurtled forward to replenish the glass. Lila looked back at the girl, at Maisie Quinn, and was surprised to see a look of horror on the girl’s face.

“What is it, Maisie?”

Maisie didn’t answer. She was staring at the doorway into the ballroom. Lila turned in confusion to see what the girl was looking at. It was just a glimpse of the large room. Clusters of people inside, dressed in jewel colors, yards of Belgian lace, rivers of spangles. Her friend Mrs. Annabel Wakefield was laughing at something someone said. She could see Lord Herringford, nearly falling over now, but with yet another glass in his hands. T

he stranger who had been looking at her as if he despised her, he was there too, speaking to someone, to Henry Alston. Some others she knew. She turned back to the girl. Maybe Maisie Quinn hadn’t expected such a thing, all the people and the glitz.

“Him!” The girl looked terrified. “Don’t know why I thought you’d ever help me.”

Before Lila could stop her, the girl, distended belly or not, lifted her skirts and took off down the street.

Lila stifled an oath. Before she could stop herself, Lila lifted her silk skirts and took off after her. But the girl had a head start and apparently shoes that weren’t as delicate as Lila’s satin slippers, because by the time Lila was halfway down Brook Street, the girl had disappeared.

Lila stood there panting. “Well! The stupid chit. What will I do now?”

She turned around and nearly got the shock of her life because Walsham was standing right behind her, dignified as ever, chest thrust out like a true London pigeon, and she hadn’t even heard him walking, much less running, after her. “Miss Marleigh,” he said in a long-suffering voice, “perhaps we can return to the house now? It is starting to rain.”

He said this in the same way most people would announce the arrival of the Black Death.

“I won’t melt, Walsham. Could we send someone to look for the girl?”

“It is highly unlikely anyone would be able to find the person now,” Walsham said. “But perhaps if you come back to the house, miss, the person will return tomorrow.”

“Someone scared her.” Her brow creased. “She could die. She’s poor and hungry—did you see how thin she was?—and her rags.” Lila shivered, the exhaustion hitting her all at once. Where had Maisie been all these years, and what had happened to her in that time?

“Miss Lila,” Walsham said, his voice gentler, “you can’t solve the world’s problems.”

“No, I can’t,” Lila said. “I won’t try to, I promise, Walsham.”

Walsham melted enough to give her a kind smile. “If you’ll come out of the rain, I’ll fetch you a coffee. You’ll feel much restored—”

“Not all the world’s problems,” Lila ruthlessly interrupted. “All I have to do is go to the rat pit tomorrow night to find Maisie. That’s all.”

 

3

Lila ignored the horror on her butler’s face as she entered the house again.

Right this second, all she wanted was to leave it all and run away, but she hadn’t become one of London’s most successful hostesses by being a craven fool. She ignored Walsham and entered the startlingly bright ballroom. She stood for a moment staring at it all as if she had never seen it before.

When she came out seven years ago, she had the opportunity to find a husband, get married, and live a safe and steady life. She chose not to. Society was never going to accept her, not really. Her fortune was small; worse than that, she was the bastard of an earl and his Indian mistress, transported all the way across the ocean to England at the age of seven, along with two of her sisters, when their mother and father had both drowned. Sent to live with the Earl’s wife and his sickly son—whose existence none of them had known about until after the Earl died. To say that the woman embraced the three girls like the daughters she had never had would be grossly untrue. The woman had loathed them on sight.

After four years living under Sarah Marleigh’s roof in London, Lila was the first of the sisters to be sent off to school in Yorkshire. In those four years, instead of herding together like sheep, the girls had turned on each other, encouraged by the sickly Jonathan, their half brother, and their stepmother Sarah Marleigh, who thought herself the unluckiest woman in the entire world and played the girls off each other by alternately gaining their sympathy and then turning on them when they weren’t expecting it.

Now the sisters were estranged, though, Lila thought with satisfaction, each had defied society and gone her own way. Her younger sister Anya was a singer and sitar player in the Queen’s court, and Mira, the youngest of the three, was a writer of society gossip. Lila, the oldest, hosted card parties, accompanied by the best music and sumptuous dinners and wines. The gambling at Lila’s salon was nothing compared to the stakes in gambling hells, but the house allowed men to bring their mistresses and their wives (though ideally not at the same time), and allowed women to gamble, too. Her house had a reputation for honest play and she had built it from scratch.

Still, respectable it was not. The way society mamas shooed their young charges away from it, it might have been labeled with skull and crossbones.

She was so sick of it all that it was like a physical hurt some days. Not the business side of things, which she was good at. But the ogling men, the tedious conversation, the constant need to be playing her part. Her cheeks hurt from smiling.

She looked around the ballroom. The remains of the midnight supper had been cleared away by her faithful staff. As usual, judging by her happy customers’ faces, the staff had outdone themselves. Not only did her house serve slivers of salmon and scalloped oysters and apple tartlets, but she had made sure they could fry a samosa and serve colorful milky sweetmeats. The ingredients weren’t always easy to find, but she had her reputation to maintain—she was renowned for adding a hint of je ne sais quoi to everything she offered.

All her guests seemed to be speaking at once, sounding like a swarm of bees. “You must tell me what you put in your champagne punch, Miss Marleigh,” someone was saying. “Miss Marleigh, I heard you’re planning to have theatricals at your salons?” someone else asked. And of course, people were asking if she would run the Brighton race. Annabel Wakefield, one of her few female friends, who always had a kind word to say to her, walked by and asked if she needed anything. She quickly shook her head and Annabel wandered off, talking to some man who was ogling her. Annabel was forty if she was a day, but she was soothing and pretty and men tended to like her.

Next it was Henry Alston. He went beetroot red as he handed her a glass of champagne. Sweet boy. She was parched. She took a gulp. She couldn’t help placing her hand on the boy’s arm. “What would I do without you, Mr. Alston?”

She regretted the impulse as she saw the ardent look in his eyes. She watched him walk away when a friend called to him. She couldn’t bring herself to rebuff him, but his attentions were hard to bear, and the older men laughed at him.

The room was hot. She was dizzy from the heat. And she felt dizzier when the stranger suddenly appeared at her elbow, the man she had seen before, with the piercing eyes. He was staring at her, with that same dislike. “Ivor Tristram, at your service, ma’am. Could I have a word?”

He was looking at her as though he was weighing her up, not so much as horseflesh, but as you might appraise an opponent. She shot him a penetrating look before unfolding her fan. “I’d love to,” she said, taking his arm—rigid as a log of wood—and letting him lead her to the door out of the room.

She drew him into an antechamber off the hall. The ballroom was decorated in Indian blue and sunset silk, but this room was lighter, airier, decorated in morning colors, simply furnished and rarely used except when someone needed to discuss business. She sank down on one of the chairs, grateful for the break in playing hostess, and drained after the abrupt meeting with Maisie Quinn. How on earth would she ever find her again?

She tried to focus on the man. He was powerful, as if he boxed for exercise, but also understated. Not that he needed flamboyant clothes. Those eyes would be enough to catch anyone’s attention. What did he say his name was? He stood there, his eyes trying to drill a hole in her face. “Would you prefer somewhere less secluded?” he asked.

She couldn’t help laughing. “I can’t remember when someone was last worried about my reputation.”

He was studying her face with those eyes of his. “You don’t care about your reputation?” He leaned back against a table and crossed his arms. It was an easy pose and it suited him. She was probably staring at him, but she was so tired she didn’t know what she was doing. His eyes were glittering beads, their expression inscrutable.

“No, I don’t.”

“I don’t believe you,” the man said.

She raised her brows. “Think about it, Mr. Tristram.” Ah, yes, that was his name. “Women mind their reputation if they want to marry. I don’t want to marry.”

“Not even if someone rich and titled offered for you?”

She didn’t answer, wondering where this was going.

He didn’t enlighten her. “Do you like your work?”

Now that was a difficult one to answer. “Sometimes.” With anyone else, she would have laughed and said she loved it. But it was hard to lie to this man’s direct eyes. “When you’re good with people, worki

ng with them is a sensible way to earn a living. But I often think there is nothing more exhausting than people.”

He was studying her face as though he was trying to unpack her words, or as if he didn’t believe anything she was saying. He picked up a cast-iron ship from the mantel and touched the sharp ridges. He seemed to be trying to assess what to say to her. “You know, Miss Marleigh, I can’t help thinking that with you it’s hard to know what is true and what not.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“The Brighton race, amateur theatricals, there are always rumors about you.”

“I made a joke about the Brighton race . . . As for the theatricals, so what?”

“It would attract a lot of attention. I suppose that’s what you’re after.”

“I am not especially looking for attention.”

“Men are attracted to you like moths,” he said, those eyes watching her again.

She bristled. “I know how to do my job.”

“To attract hapless men into your web?”

A laugh escaped her. “I’m not a spider, Mr. Tristram. I would have said my job—as a hostess—is to be amiable.” She was surprised at the things he was saying. Where was it all coming from?

“You do it rather well.” Her brows knitted. But before she could speak, he spoke again. “I will keep it brief. You know my father, Benjamin Tristram.”

“Your father?” She was surprised. Benjamin Tristram was a lush, a man who paraded a string of mistresses in front of his wife. A weak-chinned man who had to be escorted to his carriage in the middle of the night by a footman. It was hard to reconcile that man with this. She noticed again the strong set of his shoulders, the severely cut coat, the hard face. Something twisted in her heart. ...