CHAPTER THREE
FRANCESCA WAS WALKING through the garden at Dancy Park. The sun was warm upon her back, and the air was redolent with the scent of roses. In the golden light, flowers bloomed in a riot of color: purple larkspur, white and yellow snapdragons, the huge pink and red bursts of peonies, and everywhere roses in all shades, climbing trellises and spilling over walls. A breeze ruffled the flowers, sending their heads nodding and petals floating on the air.
“Francesca.”
She turned, and there was Rochford. The sun was behind him, and she could not see his features clearly, but she knew his voice, his form, the way he walked toward her. She smiled, emotion welling up in her.
“I saw you from my study,” he went on, coming closer to her.
His face was all angles and planes; she wanted to trace her fingertips along them. In the sunlight, his dark eyes were lighter than they appeared indoors, the irises the color of warm chocolate surrounding the coal-black of the pupils. Her eyes went to his mouth, firm and well-defined. His lips, she thought, looked succulent, and at the idea, something twisted in her abdomen, hot and slow.
“Sinclair.” His name was no more than a breath upon her lips. Her chest tightened, her throat closing up as it often did when he was near. He was as familiar to her as this garden or this house, and yet whenever she was around him these days, she was as skittish and eager, as thrumming with energy, as if she had never seen him before.
He raised his hand, cupping her cheek in his palm. His hand was hard, and warmer than even the sun’s caress. His thumb smoothed its way across her cheek and brushed against her mouth. Featherlight, he traced the line of her lips, and the exquisitely sensitive flesh blazed to life beneath his touch.
Tendrils of heat twined through her body, tangling deep in her loins. A pulse sprang to life between her legs, surprising her, and she drew a quick breath.
She watched in anticipation as he lowered his head to hers, finally closing her eyes in sweet surrender as their lips joined. His hand upon her cheek was suddenly searing. He wrapped his other arm around her, pressing her into his body, his hard flesh sinking into her softness.
Francesca was aware of her heart thudding like a wild thing in her chest, and her insides seemed to be made of molten wax. His lips pressed against hers, opening her mouth. An unexpected, unknown hunger roared through her, and she squeezed her legs together against the ache that blossomed there. She trembled all over, heat surging in her, yearning for something that seemed just beyond her reach.
Her eyes flew open, and Francesca lay in the dark, staring blindly up at the tester above her bed. Her chest heaved, and her skin was damp with sweat. Her heart thundered within her, and there was a sweet, aching warmth between her legs. For a moment she was lost, unsure of where she was or what had happened.
Then she realized. She…had been dreaming.
A trifle shakily, she sat up, glancing around her as though to make certain that she was still in her bedroom at home. The dream had been so vivid, so real….
She shivered and pulled the covers up around her shoulders. The air was cool against her damp skin. She had dreamed of Rochford in his garden at Dancy Park before they came to London for her first Season. Had it been the youthful Rochford she had seen? She could not remember exactly how his face had looked.
She could remember quite clearly the sensations the dream had caused, however; they quivered in her still. She closed her eyes, drifting for a moment in the unaccustomed feelings. It was so odd, so unlike her, to have that sort of dream, drenched with heat and hunger. Again she shivered.
She felt, she thought, incomplete…aching for she knew not what, caught in a void between emptiness and wonder.
Was this, she thought, desire? Did it always leave a woman feeling this way—alone and unsure whether she wanted to smile or cry? She remembered the inchoate longing that had once kept her awake at night, thinking of Sinclair and his kisses, daydreaming about the day when she would belong to him.
She had known nothing then of what “belonging” to a man entailed. She had found that out on her wedding night as Andrew drunkenly pawed her, shoving up her nightgown and running his hands over her. Francesca remembered the humiliation of his looking at her naked body, the sudden fear that she had made a terrible mistake.
Her husband had leered down at her as he unbuttoned his breeches and shoved them down, his manhood springing from its restraint, red and pulsing. Horrified, she had closed her eyes as he pushed her legs apart and climbed between them. Then he had thrust into her, tearing her tender flesh, and she had cried out in pain. But he had been unheeding, continuing to shove himself into her again and again, until at last he collapsed on top of her, hot and damp with sweat.
It had taken her a moment to realize that he had fallen asleep that way, and she had needed to wriggle and squirm her way out from beneath him. Then she had pulled her nightdress back down over her naked body and turned away from him, curling up into a ball and giving way to sobs.
The next morning Andrew had apologized for causing her pain, assuring her that it was only the first time that hurt a woman. In the light of day, she had hoped that it would get better. Had not her mother hinted, in her tight-lipped way, about getting the worst out of the way on the wedding night? Francesca had not known what she meant, but clearly that must have been it. Besides, Andrew had been drunk from the wedding feast. Surely he would be more tender, more loving, when he had not been drinking. And now that she knew what was involved, it would not be so frightening or embarrassing.
She had been wrong, of course. It had not been as painful, that was true. But there had been none of the sweet eagerness, none of the glowing happiness, that she had once believed would await her in marriage. There had been only the same feeling of awkwardness and humiliation as he ran his hands over her, squeezing her breasts and shoving his fingers between her legs. She had endured the same harsh thrusting into her tender flesh, leaving her bruised and battered. And her tears had flowed the same afterwards—except that this time Andrew had been awake to hear her, and had wound up cursing and leaving her bed.
It had never improved in any real way. As time passed, it did not hurt as much—sometimes only a little and sometimes not at all. But it was always uncomfortable and humiliating. And, she found, Andrew was more often drunk than otherwise. She dreaded his coming to her bed, his breath stinking of port, his hands grabbing at her breasts and buttocks, his body invading hers in rough, jarring thrusts.
She had learned to close her eyes and turn her head away, to think of something else as she lay beneath him, and before long it would be over. Andrew would curse her for her lifelessness and call her cold as ice. The cheapest whore gave him a better ride than she did, he told her bitterly, and if she complained to him about his faithlessness, he reminded her that he would not have to turn to a mistress if she were a real woman.
Francesca wished that she could deny his words. But she suspected that he was right, that she was not like other women. She had heard other married women talk and giggle over what happened in bed or how virile their husbands were. She had heard whispers behind fans of the prowess of a certain man and murmurs praising the form of this fellow or that, speculations regarding some lord’s performance beneath the sheets. Other women, apparently, enjoyed the marital bed rather than dreading it.
She had wondered if something had died within her when Rochford broke her heart. However, she also could not help but wonder if Rochford had perhaps sensed the coldness that dwelt within her, even before they married, and that it had been her lack of passion that had driven him into Daphne’s arms. She had assumed that it was gentlemanly restraint that had kept him from trying to sneak into some corner to kiss and caress her. But what if he had not done so simply because he realized that she was as cold as a fish?
At least she would get children out of it all, she had told herself, but even there, she had been wrong. Six months into their marriage, she had gotten pregnant. Four months later, as she and Andrew had been arguing about his gambling losses, he had grabbed her arm as she stormed away from him. She had jerked herself free and stumbled backward, crashing into the railing at the top of the stairs and falling down several steps. Within hours, she had miscarried, and her doctor, frowning, had warned her that she might not be able to have children.
He had been right. She had not conceived again. Those had been the darkest days of her life, knowing that she had lost all chance at the family she had once thought she would have. She was not sure if she had ever really loved her husband; certainly, whatever love she had felt for him had died since they became man and wife. And now she knew that she would not have the joy of children, either.
It had been a relief when Andrew came less and less frequently to her bed, and, frankly, she had not even really cared that he stayed away from their home more, as well, spending his time wenching and drinking. She had not bothered to remonstrate with him over anything but his gambling, which further endangered their always precarious finances.
When he died falling from his horse in a drunken stupor, she had not been able to summon up a single tear for him. What she had felt, really, had been a blessed sense of freedom. However great a struggle it had been to keep her head above water since, at least she had been her own person for the last five years. At least she no longer had to worry that Andrew might come stumbling in and once more lay claim to her body.
Nothing, she thought, would ever bring her to put herself in that position again. She had no interest in marrying. There were men far better than Lord Haughston had been, of course, but none, she felt sure, would welcome a wife who did not want to share his bed. And she had no desire to subject herself to the duties of marriage even with a nice man. Perhaps she was freakish in her lack of passion, as Andrew had told her. But she knew that she was unlikely to change at this age. She simply was not touched by desire.
It was that fact that made the dream she had just had so startling. What was that jangling heated yearning she had felt? And what did it mean? From whence had it come?
She supposed that the dream had grown out of the memories that had invaded her mind tonight—thoughts and emotions from fifteen years ago, when she had been in love with Rochford. It had been those girlish hopes and inexperienced feelings that had somehow entwined themselves in her dreams. Those feelings meant nothing about the barren husk of a woman that she had become.
Nothing at all.
TWO DAYS LATER, Francesca was upstairs consulting with her maid, Maisie, on the possibilities of freshening up one of her gowns, when her butler came to the door to announce that Sir Alan Sherbourne had come to call on her.
“Sir Alan?” she repeated blankly. “Do I know him, Fenton?”
“I do not believe so, my lady,” he replied gravely.
“And do you think I should receive him?”
“He seems quite unexceptionable. A gentleman who spends most of his time in the country, is my opinion.”
“I see. Well, my curiosity is piqued. Show him into the drawing room.”
When Francesca entered the drawing room a few moments later, she saw at once that her butler’s description of Sir Alan was perfectly apt. Of medium height, with a pleasant face that was neither handsome nor unattractive, the man was not particularly noticeable, but was also not lacking in any regard. His carriage, speech and demeanor were clearly those of a man raised a gentleman, but there was no arrogance about him. And though his clothes were of a good quality and cut, they were not in the most up-to-date fashion, indicating, as Fenton had remarked, that he was not a man of the city, an impression reinforced by the plainness and open quality of his manner.
“Sir Alan?” Francesca asked a trifle questioningly as she stepped into the room.
He turned from his contemplation of the portrait above the mantel, and his eyes widened expressively. “Lady Haughston. Beg pardon…I did not realize…” He stopped, a faint line of color forming on his cheeks. “Excuse me. I am not usually so inarticulate. I am afraid I was unprepared to find that Lady Haughston was someone as young and radiant as you.”
Francesca could not refrain from smiling. It was always pleasant to hear a compliment, particularly when it appeared as spontaneous and surprised as this one.
“Oh, dear,” she replied, her tone teasing. “Has someone been painting me as old and haggard?”
The color in his cheeks deepened as he stammered out, “No. Oh, no, my lady. No one said anything like that. It is simply that everything I have heard about your influence and your considerable social skills led me to envision someone much older than yourself. A matriarch…a—” He stopped short. “I am making a hash of it, clearly.”
Francesca chuckled. “Do not fret. I promise you, I am not offended. Please, sit down, sir.” She gestured toward the sofa as she took a seat on the chair that lay at a right angle to it.
“Thank you.” He accepted her invitation, sitting down and turning toward her. “I hope you will forgive my intrusion. It is presumptuous of me, I know, not being acquainted with you, but a friend told me that you might be willing to help me.”
“Really? Well, certainly, if I can.”
“It is about my daughter. Harriet. She made her debut this year.”
“I see.” His mission here was becoming clearer to Francesca. She tried to remember a girl named Harriet Sherbourne, but she could not picture her. Of course, that was probably the problem: Harriet was not making an impression in her first Season.
“I am a widower,” her visitor went on. “It’s been just Harriet and me for six years now. She is a good, sweet girl. She’s been a wonderful companion to me, and she would make any man a good wife. Why, she has more or less run my household since she was fourteen. But she, well, she just doesn’t seem to be ‘taking.’” He frowned, obviously puzzled.
“It can be difficult for a young girl when she first comes to London,” Francesca assured him.
“It’s not that I am anxious to see her married,” he went on quickly. “Quite frankly, I know I shall be quite lonely when she’s gone.” He gave her a small smile. “But I hate to see Harriet not enjoying her time here. And how can she, always sitting against the wall and not dancing?”
“Exactly right.”
“Someone told me that you were known to work wonders with young girls who had been, well, left behind in the social race, so to speak. I know you have no reason to help me, not knowing us, but I hoped that you might consider favoring me with some advice. I was told you were most generous in that regard.”
“Of course I should be happy to help you,” Francesca assured the man.
She liked her first impression of Sir Alan, and, in any case, she could scarcely turn down an opportunity that had happened along so fortuitously. She should have been combing the ranks of the new marriageable girls, looking for those who could benefit from her expertise—and were willing to open their purses, of course, to achieve results.
“I am not sure exactly what it is that you can do,” her guest continued a little uncertainly.
“Nor am I,” Francesca admitted. “It would help, no doubt, if I were to meet your daughter.”
“Yes, of course. If it would be acceptable for us to call on you, I should be most happy to bring her to visit you.”
“That sounds like just the thing. Why don’t the two of you come to see me tomorrow afternoon? Lady Harriet and I can become acquainted, and I can get a better idea of the problem.”
“Excellent,” Sir Alan responded, beaming. “You are very kind, Lady Haughston.”
“In the meantime, perhaps you might tell me a bit about what you, um, would like to happen for Lady Harriet this Season.”
He looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I find that parents often have different expectations. Some hope for their daughter to make a quick match, others a highly advantageous one.”
“Oh.” His face cleared. “I have no expectations of marriage, my lady. I mean, if Harriet were to meet a suitable young man whom she wished to marry, that would be very nice, of course. But she is still young, and I have not heard her express a great interest in marrying. I wish only for her to have a pleasant Season. She never complains, but the past few years she has had to take on more responsibility than a girl her age should. She is entitled to a little fun. That is why we came here for the Season. But, truthfully…well, I believe she is bored at these parties. She would like to dance and converse. My mother has been sponsoring Harriet, but she is getting up in years. It is a burden to her to take the girl about. And I sometimes wonder if the parties she attends are really, well, entertaining to Harriet.”
Francesca nodded, the picture growing clearer for her. “Of course.”
Sir Alan seemed a kind and pleasant man, one who wanted only the best for his daughter, which was certainly a refreshing change from many of the parents who had come to her. Most of them seemed more interested in an advantageous marriage than a happy one, and few expressed, as this man had, an interest in their daughter enjoying her come-out.
Of course, kindness did not necessarily translate into a willingness to spend money to accomplish his goals. There had been far too many parents who had expected her to work wonders for their daughter without purchasing different clothes, or to purchase an adequate wardrobe on a cheeseparing budget.
“I have found that bringing a girl out properly often demands adjustments to her wardrobe, entailing further expenses,” Francesca said, probing delicately.
He nodded agreeably. “Of course, if that is what you think is best. I would leave that matter entirely in your hands. I fear that my mother was not, perhaps, the best person to choose my daughter’s frocks for the Season.”
“And doubtless you will need to host a party yourself.” At the man’s dismayed expression, she hastily added, “Or we can hold it here. I can take care of the preparations.”
“Yes.” His face cleared. “Oh, yes, that would be just the thing, if you would be so kind. Just direct the bills to me.”
“Certainly.” Francesca smiled. It was always a pleasure to work with an openhanded parent, especially one who was happy to put all the decisions and arrangements into her hands.
Sir Alan beamed back, clearly quite pleased with the arrangement. “I don’t know how to thank you, Lady Haughston. Harriet will be so pleased, I’m sure. I should not take up any more of your time. I have already imposed on you more than enough.”
He took his leave, giving her a polite bow, and Francesca went back upstairs, feeling a good bit more cheerful. Taking Harriet Sherbourne in hand would give her something to do, as well as provide her with some much-needed coin in the coming weeks. Given the quality of the last few meals her cook had prepared, she knew that Fenton must have run out of the money the duke’s man of business had sent them for Callie’s upkeep while she was living with Francesca. The butler and her cook had, of course, worked their usual economic magic with the cash, managing to apportion the money so that it lasted several weeks longer than the time Callie had been there.
The household was still solvent and would remain so for the rest of the Season, due to the gift that Callie’s grandmother, the dowager duchess, had sent. When Callie had left Francesca’s household, she had given Francesca a cameo left to her by her mother, a gift so sweet and instantly dear to Francesca that she had been unable to part with it, even for the money it would have brought. However, shortly thereafter, the duchess had sent her a lovely silver vanity set as her own thanks for taking the burden of arrangements for the wedding ceremony off the duchess’s hands. Francesca hated to give up the engraved tray and its set of small boxes, pots and perfume bottles, simply because it was so beautifully done, but yesterday she had turned it over to Maisie to take to the jeweler’s and sell.
Still, the cash the set would bring would not last forever, and after the Season ended, there would be the long stretch of fall and winter, in which there were few opportunities to make any more income. Whatever she could earn by helping Sir Alan’s daughter would be very welcome. Besides, life always seemed better when she had a project to work on. Two projects, therefore, should utterly banish the fit of the blue devils she had suffered the other evening.
Her spirits were further buoyed by the fact that, in her absence, Maisie had recalled some silver lace that she had salvaged from a ruined ball gown last fall, and which would, the maid was sure, be just the thing to spruce up Francesca’s dove-gray evening gown for her visit to the theater.
The two women spent the rest of the afternoon happily remaking the ball gown in question, replacing its overskirt with one of silver voile taken from another gown, and adding a row of the silver lace around the hem, neckline and short, puffed sleeves. It took only a bit of work on the seams and the addition of a sash of silver ribbon, and the dress seemed entirely new and shimmery, not at all like the same gray evening dress she had worn a year ago. Francesca thought that she would look quite acceptable—and not at all like a woman fast approaching her thirty-fourth birthday.
When Tuesday evening came, bringing with it the trip to the theater that Francesca had arranged, the duke arrived, unsurprisingly, before his appointed time. It was much more unusual that Francesca, too, was ready early. However, when Fenton informed her of Rochford’s presence downstairs, she dawdled a few minutes before going down to greet him. It would never do, after all, for a lady to appear eager, even if the man in question was a friend, not a suitor.
The butler had placed Rochford in the formal drawing room, and he was standing before the fireplace, studying the portrait of Francesca that hung over it. The painting had been done at the time of her marriage to Lord Haughston, and it had hung there so long that she never noticed it anymore, regarding it as one of the familiar pieces of furniture.
She cast a glance at it now, however, and wondered if, indeed, her skin had been that wondrously glowing and velvety, or if it was just an example of the painter’s art.
Rochford glanced over his shoulder at the sound of her footsteps, and for an instant there was something in his face that brought her up short. But then the moment passed. He smiled, and Francesca could not work out exactly what it was she had seen in that brief glimpse…. Whatever it was, it had left her heart beating a trifle faster than was customary.
“Rochford,” she greeted him, walking forward with her hand extended to shake his.
He turned around fully, and she saw that he held a bouquet of creamy white roses in his hand. She stopped again, her hand coming up to her chest in pleased surprise. “How beautiful! Thank you.”
She came forward and took them from him, her cheeks becomingly flushed with pleasure.
“I am a day early, I know, but I thought that by the time we parted this evening, it would be your birthday,” he told her.
“Oh!” The smile that flashed across her face was brilliant, her eyes glowing. “You remembered.”
“Of course.”
Francesca buried her face in the roses, inhaling their scent, but she knew that her action was as much to hide the rush of gratification on her face as to smell the intoxicating odor.
“Thank you,” she told him again, looking back up at him. She could not have said why it brought her so much pleasure to know that he had remembered her birthday—and had bothered to bring flowers to commemorate it. But she felt unaccountably lighter than she had for the past week.
“You are very welcome.” His eyes were dark and unfathomable in the dim light of the candles.
She wondered what he was thinking. Did he recall how she had looked fifteen years ago? Did he find her much changed?
Embarrassed at the direction of her thoughts, she turned away, going to the bell pull to summon the butler. Fenton, efficient as always and having seen the flowers when the duke entered, bustled in a moment later, a water-filled vase in hand. He set it on the low table in front of the sofa, and Francesca busied herself for a few moments with arranging the flowers.
“I do hope, however,” she went on lightly, watching the flowers rather than Rochford’s face, “that your memory is kind enough not to recall the number of years that I have gained as well as it remembered the date of my birth.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” he told her with mock gravity. “Though I can assure you that if I were to reveal your age, there are none who would believe it, given the way you look.”
“A very pretty lie,” Francesca retorted, the dimple flashing in her cheek as she grinned at him.
“No falsehood,” he protested. “I was just looking at your portrait and thinking how remarkably the same you look.”
She was about to toss back a rejoinder when suddenly, unbidden, the memory of her dream the night before came back to her. She stared at him, feeling as though her breath had been stolen from her, and all she could think about was the look in his eyes as he had gazed into her face and the velvet touch of his lips as they met hers.
She blushed deeply, and something in his face changed, his eyes darkening almost imperceptibly. He was about to kiss her, she thought, and her body suddenly shimmered with anticipation.