Page 104 of Seduced By a Scoundrel

Epilogue

Marchioness Blackburn’s School for Young Ladies was the premiere finishing school in Mayfair.

Even when it did not officially exist.

There was an extensive waiting list. Those who could afford tuition paid exorbitantly, in order to sponsor those who could not.

As Sybil was no longer a spinster, and was a marchioness to boot, fading into the background had become a little more difficult. She would always be a Spinster, always a member of the Society—but her work looked different now. It had to. She had an annoying number of social calls and invitations to dodge. Or use to her students’ benefit.

Emmeline and Matilda stayed on with Priya. Clara, once a Spinster and now living at the seaside with her captain of a husband, had begun training chaperones.

Not the usual kind, naturally.

These chaperones knew the rules of Polite Society, of course. Clara had always been good at that sort of thing. But they also knew how to spot unsavory suitors. And slip laudanum in their tea.

Kitty continued to run her bookshop with her sister, who kept late hours when Kitty could not. Devil continued to send a veritable army to protect them both, but he had learned to be subtle about it. It was generally bad for business when one stopped in for a naughty book and was met with hulking military men of a dubious nature. And if there was one thing Kitty would not tolerate, it was something interfering with her bookshop business.

Peony split her time between Spinster House and the school.

Sybil was quite certain that, given a few years, the Spinster Society could take over London. England.

For now, she had two new students currently in the back garden with her three original students, Sophie, Jane, and Margaret. More applied every day, some with their parents’ approval, many without.

The Marchioness Blackburn had become very good at hosting tea parties.

If those tea parties usually involved target practice with knives, stabbing with hatpins, or tips on how to spot a fortune hunter from a mile away, that was nobody’s business.

And anyway, Peony’s brutal obstacle courses had more in common with the social obstacle courses of Mayfair than most people realized. The back garden was for something in between tea and target practice.

An old carriage waited under the shade of an oak tree. The paint was peeling and one of the windows was cracked, but it was otherwise sound. The door was open, steps leading up. It looked like any other carriage. In fact, one of their new students nodded at it. “My governess used to make me practice climbing into a carriage without flashing my ankles. Is that what we are doing today?”

Jane smiled. “Not exactly.” Her cheeks were no longer red with nerves but now freckled with the sun. Her mother did not approve. Jane had discovered that she did not mind half as much as she had feared.

One of the footmen emerged from the shadows.

“I hope at least one of you noticed him there,” Sybil said. The girls paused to stare at him, then at her.

Peony, who had sauntered in from behind a hedge, sighed. “No one even saw me back there, so I am not hopeful.”

“Who wants to go first?” Sybil asked.

No one volunteered, though Sophie, who had been through this course before, smirked.

“No one?” Sybil nodded to Lady Mary. She was very slight, with a delicate posture and a twenty-thousand-pound inheritance. She would need to know this. Posthaste. “Lady Mary.”

Mary hesitated, then marched forward with admirable determination. She knew only enough to know that something was afoot. That was good. Sybil taught her girls not only to be aware of their surroundings, but to know that everything could change without warning.

For instance, the footman was exceedingly dashing.

Ridiculously dashing. Distractingly so.

Being distracted was the first mistake.

Mary put her gloved fingers on his arm with a polite nod and peeked into the carriage.

Good.

But not quite good enough.