CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“DO YOU?” He leered. “And what might that be?”
“I am prepared to pay you a sum of money today—two hundred pounds, say.” Now that she had started, Francesca felt calmer. She had thought about it a great deal, and this, she had decided, was her best hope. “The money will be above and beyond the debt you claim my late husband owed you. In return, you will give me a reasonable time in which to raise the whole amount.”
“Will I? And just what is ‘a reasonable time’?”
“Six months.”
“Six months? You ask me to wait for six months to take possession of a house that is rightfully mine? My lady, I think you overestimate your powers of persuasion.” He rose to his feet.
“You cannot lose,” Francesca assured him quickly. “If I am unable to raise the money, you will keep the two hundred pounds.” Of course, she did not tell him that she had not raised the whole £200 yet. If he agreed, she would have to sell her team and carriage to reach that amount.
“And if I am able to pay you the five thousand pounds in six months, you will get two hundred more than you asked for,” she went on. “If you will but think about it, I believe you will see the advantages for you.”
“So you are saying that I should let you live in the house free for six months.” Perkins sauntered toward her.
Francesca faced him, refusing to retreat. “Hardly free. It seems to me that two hundred pounds is a very sizable rent for that period of time. And you would not have to face the trouble and expense of taking me to court. You must be aware that it will not be as easy as you said to take my home from me in court.”
“Just how do you intend to raise the money in six months if you cannot raise it now?” he asked. “What do you think you will do—sell the house? I can sell it as soon as I take possession—and get the entire price, not just the debt your husband acquired. Why should I let you do it?”
“Because what you are doing is reprehensible!” Francesca shot back. “To take my home because of some foolish bet my husband made years ago!”
“Reprehensible, am I?” His mouth curved up again in his cocky sneer. “Seems you’ve always thought poorly of me. You never liked me dirtying your house, did you? You looked down on me from the moment I walked in the door. I wasn’t good enough for your husband.”
He was close enough now that she could again smell the alcohol on his breath, but Francesca continued to stand her ground, carefully schooling her face.
“You encouraged Andrew in his follies,” she told him. “I never said that he was superior to you.”
“You didn’t have to say it. I could see it in your face. His, too. He was a Haughston, family came over with the Conqueror, but I was just some squire’s youngest son. Well, my birth was as good as any.”
“It was not your birth that I objected to. It was what you chose to do with your life.”
“I was no worse than your esteemed husband.”
“Small compliment there!”
“Yet he was good enough for you to marry, whereas I wasn’t even worth a smile.” He closed the distance between them, and there was a dark look in his eyes that made Francesca back up a step. “If I came near you, you moved away. Just like now. If I paid you a compliment, you sneered at me. If I touched you, you shoved my hand aside.”
“What did you expect?” she retorted. “I was a married woman. I was not about to dally with you or any man. My husband was your friend. Only the basest sort would have made advances to his wife.”
“The basest sort, eh?” He took another step, and Francesca backed up again. The wall was behind her. She knew that if she retreated any more, she would come up against it, so she turned to move away.
But Perkins’ arm shot forward, his hand slapping into the wall, barring her passage. “Not so fast, my lady. I have a proposition for you.”
Francesca faced him. Her heart was pounding wildly in her chest, and her stomach was suddenly icy, but she would not let him see that he frightened her. She was sure that was precisely the reaction he was hoping for.
“And what might that be?” She was pleased at how coolly her voice came out.
“You can continue to live here. No rent. No two hundred pounds. I’ll even forgive the debt…after a while.” He smiled coldly, and there was a look in his eyes that made Francesca’s stomach turn. He raised his other hand and stroked his forefinger down her cheek. “All you have to do is…be mistress of the house.”
Francesca stared at him, too stunned to speak.
“Don’t look so shocked. It’s what women like you do every day, except you like to wrap it up in fancy words and ceremonies. You sell yourselves to live like this. You did it with Haughston. You’d do it with Rochford. If you want to stay here, you will do it with me.”
Francesca finally broke free of her paralysis, and she jerked away. “You must be joking!”
“No, that I’m not.” His voice was laced with amusement as he added mockingly, “If you will but think about it, I am sure that you will see the advantages for you.”
“I would never be your mistress,” Francesca spat back, the revulsion she felt written so clearly on her face that even in his inebriated state, he could see it. “I would rather starve than sleep with you!”
“Is that right?” His face went cold and hard, all the amusement leaving it, as his hand lashed out and grabbed her arm. “Why don’t we just see about that?”
He jerked her toward him so suddenly and roughly that Francesca stumbled and fell forward, coming up heavily against his chest. He let go of her, but only to wrap his arm around her and crush her to him. His other hand clamped down on her face, turning it up toward him.
Terror rushed through her, and she stamped down as hard as she could on his instep, grateful that she had worn slippers with a bit of a heel. His arm loosened automatically as he let out a small cry of pain, and she wrenched away from him.
She ran to the fireplace and grabbed the poker, swinging around to face him, her improvised weapon brandished in the air. “Get out of here or I’ll have you thrown out!”
“Really?” he sneered, starting toward her. “You think that old fool can throw me out? I’d like to see him try.”
“Stop! If you touch me, I shall have you thrown in gaol. Do you want to run for the Continent again?”
“You won’t be talking much once I’m done with you,” he told her, and the smile that spread across his face was cold with menace. He took another step toward her. “I’m going to enjoy taking you down a peg.”
He rushed at her then, and Francesca shrieked, swinging at him with all her strength. To her surprise, she managed to land a blow on his upper arm hard enough to make a satisfying thwack. But as she pulled back to strike again, he wrapped his fist around the poker and jerked it out of her grasp, tossing it behind him, where it crashed into a small table.
She screamed again and turned to run, and he lunged after her. However, the five glasses of blue ruin he had consumed before he came to see her impaired his judgment of distance, and he hooked a foot in the leg of a chair and stumbled, falling heavily to his knees. He struggled to his feet, but stopped short at the distinctive sound of a pistol cocking.
“Do not take another step unless you want a hole through you,” came Fenton’s voice, rather less calm than normal.
Both Francesca and her attacker swung around to face the speaker. Had she been less afraid, Francesca might have laughed at the sight of her aged butler standing there, crisp as ever, not a hair out of place, holding one of Andrew’s dueling pistols. Beside him, the cook wielded an iron skillet.
As they stood there, locked in a silent tableau, there came the sound of running footsteps on the stairs. A moment later, Maisie and the parlor-maid burst into the room. Maisie carried a pair of scissors, and the parlor-maid held a broom at ready. And last, there was the pot boy running in, gripping the cook’s cleaver in both hands.
Francesca’s eyes filled with tears at the sight of her loyal servants. “Thank you, Fenton. Everyone. I think Mr. Perkins is leaving now.”
Perkins shot her a look filled with hatred. “You think you’ve won? You think I’m going to quietly fade away? You made your choice, and now you have to live with it. I withdraw my offer. You’ll have to beg me to service you now.”
“That will never happen!”
“You think not?” His face contorted with rage. “We’ll see how fine a tune you’re talking after I’ve tossed you out into the street. Humiliated in front of all your fine friends. Penniless, homeless, facing debtors’ prison…or worse.” He let out a bitter laugh. “I can see you now, trying to scrape by, living in a garret, freezing, hungry. What do you think you’ll do? Become a seam-stress, squinting your eyes out over your stitches, hands so cold you’ll get chilblains, because you can’t afford to heat your bare room? Or maybe you think you’ll turn to selling hats to the women who were once your friends.
“They won’t hire you, you know. Even for such lowly tasks. You can swallow your pride, mayhap, and go looking for work, but no one will take you. You aren’t smart enough to be a governess, and no sane wife would hire you anyway. You can’t sew well enough to do that, either. Scrub floors? Cook? Wash dishes?” He sneered. “You haven’t got any skills, my lady. The only way you could make a living is on your back.”
“Shut up!” Francesca cried, trembling with fury. “Just stop it. Get out of my house and never come here again. Do you understand me?”
“Oh, aye, I understand you well enough,” he replied. “Now you understand me. If you aren’t out of this house by tomorrow evening, I am taking it from you. And none of your…defenders—” he cast a contemptuous look at the servants clustered in the doorway “—will be able to stop me.”
With that, he turned and strode off. The cluster of people in the doorway moved back quickly to let him pass, Fenton carefully staying beyond the other man’s reach and keeping the pistol trained steadily on him.
Francesca sank into a chair, her legs suddenly too weak to stand. The servants trailed after Perkins, except for Maisie, who scurried over to Francesca and knelt beside her chair, gazing worriedly into her face.
“Are you all right, ma’am?”
Francesca nodded. She was still trembling, and her thoughts were scattered. She wanted to burst into tears, and only the sense of decorum ingrained in her since childhood kept her functioning.
“Yes, of course,” she managed to say, though she had to swallow back the tears before she could continue. “I—I think that I shall go up to my room.”
She rose to her feet, hoping they would support her as far as her bedchamber, and Maisie popped up with her. “Shall I help you?”
Francesca shook her head and summoned up a faint smile. “No. I am fine. I just…need some time alone to think.”
She walked out of the room, Maisie trailing uncertainly behind her. The other servants were clustered in the entryway, speaking in hushed urgency, but they broke off immediately when she emerged from the drawing room. Fenton stepped forward, and the others remained behind him, all gazing at Francesca with mingled anxiety and sympathy.
“My lady, if there is any way in which I can be of service to you…” Fenton began in his measured tones, his face tight with concern.
“Thank you, Fenton. If you would inform Sir Alan when he arrives that I am indisposed…”
“Of course, my lady.” Fenton bowed gravely.
Francesca nodded and started upstairs. She climbed on shaky legs, hand on the banister to help pull herself up. Emotions were boiling and bubbling in her chest, threatening to burst out of her in shrieks or tears—she was not sure which, perhaps both. She could feel all the servants’ concerned gazes on her back as she climbed, and it was all she could do to hold back her tears.
She barely made it to her room and closed the door before she burst into sobs. She collapsed on the floor, laying her head on her arms on the seat of a chair, and cried. Fury and fear and shame swirled within her, tangling and warring and blending into a cataclysmic outpouring.
What was she to do? How would she live? Perkins’ words battered at her, ripping through the barricades she had constructed over the past few weeks. She knew that her brother would take her in; she would not have to live on the streets as Perkins had pictured. But she burned with the humiliation, the utter defeat, of spending the rest of her life as a dependent relative.
She would have no home of her own, nothing that belonged to her, other than the clothes on her back. She would be living always on another’s kindness, hovering at the edges of Dominic and Constance’s life—observing their children, their marriage, their happiness. She would have to give up the life she had struggled so hard to keep since Andrew’s death. All her cleverness, all her scrambling to find enough money to keep herself and her little family of servants afloat, would now be for naught.
Not only would she be displaced, but Fenton and the others would be turned out, as well. She could hardly expect her brother to absorb the cost of several more servants, even if any of them wished to uproot their lives and remove to the country to live. She had failed them, and she knew that mixed in with their concern for her was a very real fear for themselves. Cook would have little problem, of course, but what about Fenton? He was growing rather old now to find a new position.
Almost worse than anything else, though, was the knowledge that everyone in the ton would know of her plight. She would be an object of pity to some and a subject of scorn to others. Whatever any of them felt for her, there would be a certain condescension laced through it. Everyone would know that she had failed. Everyone would know what sort of husband Haughston had been, how little he had cared for her, how foolishly he had thrown away both their lives. No matter how little love she held for Andrew, it shamed her unbearably to have others know what a pitiful wreck her marriage had been. Even if she were to survive a battle in court with Perkins, her life would have been splashed all over the gossip circuit for everyone to pick over.
Her skin crawled at the thought. She felt almost physically ill at the idea of Perkins living in her house—walking through her rooms, owning her beloved little sitting room or sleeping here in her bedchamber.
Desperately, she tried to think of some way to save herself, but her brain skittered about wildly, unable to focus on anything.
Downstairs she heard the sound of a man’s voice, and she knew that Sir Alan must have arrived. He was a good, kind man, and he was a little entranced, even dazzled, by her. If she gave him any encouragement, he would fall in love with her. She could marry him and escape the bleak life before her. She was sure that most women would offer him that encouragement.
But she could not. She could not bring herself to marry a man she did not love simply to make the rest of her life secure.
But what other path was open to her? She had been trying to find a way to escape this mess for over two weeks, and still she had discovered no way out.
She jumped to her feet and began to pace the room, wiping at the tears that streaked her face. Her nerves vibrated wildly, and she could not keep still. In fits and starts, tears continued to come, and now and then she could not hold back a little hiccuping sob.
In her despair, she could think of nothing. Only one thought penetrated the fog; only one word sent any ease through her: Sinclair.
She turned and grabbed up the light evening cloak that Maisie had laid out for her. Flinging it around her shoulders, she went out her door and lightly down the stairs. Peering carefully around the corner of the staircase, she was relieved to see that the servants had apparently retreated to the kitchen to discuss the evening’s events.
On tiptoe, she slipped down the last few steps and out the front door, closing it softly behind her. Pulling up the hood of her cloak to hide her face, she hurried off down the street.
A FOOTMAN IN ELEGANT blue-and-white livery opened the door. He frowned at the sight of a woman on his doorstep.
“Go on, get away from here! What do you think you’re doing?” he told her bluntly, starting to close the door.
“No!” Francesca cried, holding out a hand to stop him.
She knew that the fellow must take her for a prostitute or some other low creature, and she understood why. No respectable woman would show up on a gentleman’s doorstep like this, certainly not unaccompanied. But she could not let him keep her out.
“Fetch Cranston,” she told him, and the combination of her cultured voice and the use of the butler’s name must have given the man pause, for he hesitated.
“Wait here,” he said finally, closing the door, and a few minutes later the door opened to reveal Rochford’s starched, efficient butler.
Cranston peered out the door at her, his expression full of disdain until she reached up and pushed back her hood far enough that he could see her face. His eyes widened. “My lady!”
“Please, I must see him,” she said in a low voice.
“Of course, of course, please come in. I am so sorry.”
Francesca pulled her hood forward again, not eager to let any of the other servants glimpse her face, and Cranston led her quickly down the hall to Rochford’s study. The room was empty, but the butler ushered her inside and took her cloak.
“I will inform His Grace immediately that you are here,” he assured her, no trace of the curiosity he must feel registering on his carefully blank face.
“Thank you, Cranston.”
He left, closing the door behind him. Francesca turned away. The frantic despair that had sent her flying to Rochford was ebbing now, giving way to doubt. What would he think of her, coming to him this way?
There was the sound of hurrying footsteps in the hall outside, and the duke rushed in, frowning. His eyes went to her, taking in at once her tear-streaked face and tense posture.
“Francesca! My God. What happened?” He swung the door shut behind him and came to her, hands outstretched. “Are you ill? Is it Dom? Selbrooke?”
She shook her head. “No, no, it is none of that.”
He took her hands in his, and they felt so warm and strong that tears sprang into her eyes and she let out a single shuddering sob. “I’m sorry! I should not have come here, but I didn’t know what to do!”
“Of course you should come to me,” he told her, leading her over to the small sofa and pulling her down onto it with him. “Where else should you go? Just tell me what is wrong.”
“And you will take care of it for me?” she asked, trying to smile, but she could feel it wobble.
“I will strive my utmost to do so,” he assured her.
Suddenly she was crying. She tried to hold it back; she would have said that she had no tears left to cry. But the kindness in his smile, the concern in his eyes, pierced her, and the tears came flooding out.
“Oh, Sinclair, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—I’m so scared—”
“Francesca, dearest…” He pulled her over and into his lap, cradling her in his arms.
The endearment, the comfort of his embrace, somehow broke her heart, and she sobbed, burying her face in his chest, her hand digging into his lapels. She cried, unable to speak or even think coherently.
He stroked her back and head, his hands knocking loose some of the curls that Maisie had so carefully arranged. He murmured soft, soothing sounds as his hands moved gently over her. Francesca’s sobs gradually began to wind down. Her breathing slowed, and the tears stopped. She leaned against his chest, comforted by his strong arms around her, the steady thump of his heart beneath her ear.
The movement of his hands was incredibly comforting. She felt, at least for the moment, safe and secure, warmed by his heat. She could believe that nothing bad could ever happen to her here.
Yet, she realized, at the same time his touch stirred something inside her. She closed her eyes, amazed that she could feel such a thing, especially at a time as this. Something brushed against her hair, and she realized, wonderingly, that he must have kissed her.
His hand drifted down her arm. She could feel the brush of his breath against her neck, and then his lips pressed lightly against her skin. Francesca drew a shaky breath, her body flaming to life. Her nipples prickled, hardening and pressing against her dress.
She bent her head down, exposing her neck further to him, and she felt him stiffen, his skin suddenly searing. He pressed his mouth upon the back of her neck, velvety soft upon her skin. His breath rasped harshly in his throat, tickling her flesh, raising goose bumps along her arms, and she shivered.
She wanted to melt into him, to open herself to him. She had never felt this way before—so vulnerable, yet at the same time reveling in that vulnerability. A pulsing heat began low in her abdomen, and she was aware of an ache deep inside her. She yearned, she realized, for him to lay claim to her, to sink deep inside her. The depth of her desire was so new and different that it startled her into stillness.
He tensed. “Oh, God, I’m sorry, Francesca. You came to me for help, and I’ve—”
Rochford gently lifted her and set her from him. She felt bereft and wished that he would take her back into his arms. But she was at least fully enough in possession of her senses to realize that she could not ask that.
He handed her a snowy white handkerchief, and she took it, not looking at him, and stood up, walking away as she dried the tears from her face. Rochford let out a small sigh and rose, too, watching her.
She turned back and found him studying her. A blush started up her throat. “I am sorry.”
“Stop saying that.” His voice was harsh, and he seemed to realize it. He closed his eyes and visibly relaxed. “Francesca…tell me what is troubling you. You said that you were scared. Who has frightened you? What happened?”
She drew a breath, gathering courage. Suddenly the thought that had seized her back home in the midst of her despair no longer seemed so feasible. “I—I came to ask you for a loan.”
He stared at her, dumbstruck.
She hurried on. “I know it is terribly improper, and I had sworn that I would not ask you, but I can think of no other way, and I cannot bear to think of that man in my house. I must do something!”
“Man! What man? Are you telling me that a man broke in to your home?”
“No, no. He did not break in. It is Perkins.”
“Galen Perkins?” Rochford’s dark eyes were suddenly a little frightening. “Perkins is in your house?”
He started toward the door, and Francesca hurried to grab his hand. “No! No, he isn’t there now. I am telling this all wrong. Please, come back and sit down. Let me begin at the beginning.”
“All right.” He allowed her to lead him back to the small sofa and sat down with her. Her hand was still in his, and he curled his fingers around hers. “Tell me.”
“Lord Haughston—”
“It starts that far back?”
“Yes, it does. Andrew was…imprudent.”
He let out a short, harsh laugh that held no humor. “Lord Haughston was a fool.”
Francesca started to protest, then shrugged. “Yes, he was. You were right about him.” She turned her face away from him, unable to look into his eyes as she went on. “I was an idiot to marry him. You tried to tell me, and I would not listen. I’m sorry.”
She looked at him then and was surprised to see the pain that flashed in his eyes. “It is I who am sorry. I knew it was useless to tell you, with you in the throes of new love, but I had to try. I made a mess of it.”
“I was certain that you warned me against him only because you were…bitter.”
Rochford had come back from his estate after her engagement was announced and had told her in a cold, hard voice that she was making a mistake to marry such a fool as Andrew Haughston. She remembered the pain that had sprung up in her afresh when she saw him, and she knew that it was that pain, more than any love for Andrew, that had made her storm out of the room, refusing to listen to him.
“I was bitter,” he admitted with a grimace. “But it did not mean I was not telling you the truth. I handled it poorly. I would have been better served writing you a letter instead of appearing on your doorstep. I could have presented my case more clearly. I fear that I have never been very clearheaded around you. I should have proved to you what sort of man Haughston was—stayed there until you listened to me and believed. But I let my deuced pride rule me.”
Francesca smiled and squeezed his hand. “Oh, Sinclair. Pray do not blame yourself. It was my fault and no one else’s that I married the man. I should have been more careful. Should not have rushed into marriage. It was just—I wanted to love him. I wanted to believe that he was the perfect man for me. I was hurt and lonely, and angry at you.”
She looked into his eyes. “You called Andrew a fool, but I was ten times that, hastening to marry because I wanted to prove to you that my heart was not broken.”
He went still, his fingers tightening on hers. Realizing how much she had just revealed, Francesca jumped to her feet and walked away.
“But that is not the point of my story. What is pertinent is that Lord Haughston left me almost nothing when he died. Indeed, he left me with a number of debts to pay. Since he died, I have been barely scraping by.”
“I know,” he told her quietly.
Francesca stared. “You know?” Heat rushed into her cheeks. “Is it common knowledge? Does everyone in the ton know?”
“No, no,” he hastened to assure her, rising and crossing to her. “It is only I. I had my suspicions how he might have left you, knowing the way he was. I…made a few discreet inquiries.”
Her embarrassment deepened. All these years, the man from whom she had most wanted to hide her financial problems had known about them. “You must have thought me a terrible fool.”
“No, of course not.”
She sighed. “I suppose it should not matter. You have always known the worst of me.”
A faint smile touched his face and was gone. “True. As you have seen the worst of me.”
His remark brought a smile to her face. “Have I? Then your worst must be a trifling thing.”
“As is yours.”
Her heart warmed within her, and she had to swallow hard to suppress her emotion. She turned away, clearing her throat and saying, “Well, I learned to economize—you would be most surprised to see me shop.” Looking away from him as she was, she did not see the pain and regret that colored his features. “I have managed to get by. But now Perkins—”
“What the devil does Perkins have to do with anything?”
“He won my house from Andrew in a card game!” Francesca whirled back around, rage rising up in her all anew. “That…bastard threw away my home on a hand of cards!”
A red light flared in Rochford’s eyes, and he let out a string of curses. Francesca was not certain whether they were directed at Perkins or her late husband. She knew only that they made her feel strangely better.
“Perkins told me that if I repaid the money Andrew owed him, he would tear up the paper Andrew signed giving him ownership of the house. I have sold what I can, but it is completely beyond my means. But if—”
She swallowed, not daring to look him in the face. What she was asking was completely improper. A woman could not take such a large amount of money from a man without compromising her virtue, and she feared that he would think terribly of her for doing so. For a moment, she thought she could not go on.
Then, in a rush, she said, “If you would but loan it to me, I could give him the money. I would pay it back, I promise. I will sell the house and that will give me enough money to—”
“You will not sell your house,” Rochford told her flatly.
“It is either that or lease it during the Season, but it would take me years to repay the loan then, and, truly, if I sold it, I could repay you and purchase a smaller house.”
“You are not leasing it. You are not selling it. And there will be no loan.”
Francesca turned to stare at him, her stomach clenching in despair.
The duke’s face was so stony, his eyes so flat and cold, that any words she might have spoken died. “I’ll be damned if I’ll let that bloody ivory-turner have your house. Cranston will call the carriage and send you home.” He started toward the door.
“Rochford! What are you doing?” Anxiously, Francesca started after him.
He turned and said shortly, “I am going to see Perkins.”