I found myself in a narrow hovel. Given the irregular shape and the overgrown grass and weeds, it wasn’t man-made. It was enclosed on all sides by the hornbeam, a tall wall of greenery granting me privacy, but not a reprieve from Julian. He slipped into the hovel after me, barring my exit. The branches knocked his hat free. He retrieved it but didn’t bother donning it once more. He rolled the brim between his palms, not quite meeting my eyes.
“Francine, are you avoiding me?”
“Yes.” At the very least, I’d like to be.
He raised his gaze, his brown eyes hurt. “Why?”
My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t find words. He had the gall to ask me why?
As he stepped closer, he tossed the hat onto the grass next to the opening in the hedge. He lowered his voice. “Is this about the kiss?”
Yes. No. Hell and damnation, I didn’t know! I wrung the shawl in my hands. He hadn’t kissed me, not properly, and that was part of the problem. I felt heat rise in my cheeks at the reminder of that particular humiliation.
Worse, he stood close enough to rouse the memory again. The play of his breath on my lips and the brush of his mouth over mine. I’d liked it. Perhaps too much. Clearly, he hadn’t felt the same.
“Don’t pretend like we’re friends. Not after all this time.”
I’d made that mistake and look where it had led me.
Something dark crossed his face and he stepped even closer. “Of course we’re friends.” He wrestled the shawl out of my hands and threw it somewhere in the vicinity of his hat. “Look at me.”
I didn’t want to. I wanted to pretend that I’d never decided to leave my room. In theory, confronting him had sounded like a good idea. In practice, my stomach knotted. I hated confrontation. Better to write a letter, instead.
“Francine, please.”
The pleading in his voice wormed past my reluctance. I raised my gaze from the buttons on his jacket. His eyebrows were knit together with concern. Perhaps even with pain.
The moment I met his gaze, he said, “We’ve always been friends and we always will be. Always.”
“Then why didn’t you write to me?”
I pressed my lips together. It had hurt, day after day, not to receive the letter I hoped to find. After a time, I’d stopped looking, but I’d never stopped hoping. And then he’d shown up in London without even letting me know that he’d arrived. What if we’d never crossed paths yesterday? Would he have come and gone without my knowing?
A shadow crossed over his gaze. For a moment, it felt as though he were a thousand miles away from me again. He opened his mouth. “I told you—”
“‘It’s complicated’ isn’t a good enough answer.” Discontent seethed within me, but saying that out loud made me feel just a little bit at peace.
He threw his hands in the air. “What do you want me to say? That I started a dozen letters to you? I did.”
Starting them wasn’t good enough. I batted a strand of hair away from my face. “No. I want to know why you didn’t send them.”
For a moment, he met my gaze, his expression tormented, then he turned away. He strode the length of the hovel—small though it may be—and turned to face me once more. “I wanted to. I couldn’t get the words right.”
“The words to say what?” I shook my head. It sounded like excuse after excuse. We used to be friends—the best of friends. Why had he shut me out? “You’ve never had trouble before.”
He looked down. His mouth thinned. The sunlight glinted off the brown strands of his hair. After a moment, he said softly, “Things change, Francine. Life changes.”
“It changes how?”
He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m…engaged.”
Engaged. The word rippled in the air between us. I waited for him to take it back, to tell me he was joking, but he didn’t. I couldn’t read the expression in his eyes when he looked at me again.
“Engaged.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“It’s why I couldn’t kiss you earlier.”
I raised my hand to my lips, touching them. But he had kissed me. Not properly, but more than I’d ever been kissed before. If he was so in love, why had he done that?
Marriage was a part of life. I was being pressured to accept a suitor. I didn’t know why I’d thought it would be any different for him. We were both expected to marry and start families eventually. Whether we envisioned that for ourselves or not.
“Congratulations.” My voice was weak. I felt…numb. I waited for the shock to wear off. It didn’t. “I hope you’re happy together.”
What more could I say? He was engaged. Had she stopped him from writing to me?
Had he let her?
“We’re not.”
I jumped at his curt tone and met his gaze again. He took a step toward me. His expression was intense, as if he willed me to believe him. Why?
“We’re not in love. I’m not marrying her because I want to. I’m marrying her because I have to.”
He stressed the distinction. My eyebrows hooked together as I puzzled it out. “Oh. Did you get her…” in a family way? I couldn’t finish the sentence. Julian was a man. He undoubtedly had needs, like any other. But somehow, I’d never pictured him with a woman that way. Imagining it now made me a bit queasy.
“What? No! I haven’t touched her.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I haven’t even kissed her. This…it’s for convenience, nothing more.”
“Oh.” She must have a substantial dowry. The men who sniffed at my skirts were always more interested in my dowry than in me.
Silence stretched between us. I nibbled my lower lip.
“That’s why you won’t kiss me, because you’ve promised yourself to another woman.” My lips burned as I spoke the words. I didn’t like the thought of entering into a loveless marriage for myself, and I didn’t like the thought of him doing it, either.
“Essentially, yes.” He looked defeated. “We haven’t set a date for the wedding yet. I haven’t made any vows yet, but… I’m not a free man. I can’t marry you.”
I crossed my arms. “I never asked you to! All I wanted was a kiss.” Did I still want it?
No. He was engaged. I couldn’t have it. Not from him, in any case. And I trusted no other man the way I did him.
He shrugged but didn’t meet my gaze.
“If you weren’t…” I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat. “Would you have kissed me?”
“Yes.” His voice was hoarse. He looked at me with such an intense look that I almost fancied that he wanted to kiss me now.
It was probably my imagination running wild with me.
“Miss Francine!”
Pauline’s breathless voice shattered the moment between us. Julian stepped away, putting distance between us. As she blockaded the entrance to the hollow, she looked cross.
“Come out of there at once! Don’t you know how many people saw you disappear through here?”
They didn’t know that it was no more than a private nook. It might have led all the way to the Serpentine for all they knew.
I didn’t bother arguing. After so much standing, my ankle throbbed again. I glanced at Julian. “Good-bye. You’d better write this time.”
He smiled. “I hope to see you again before then.”
“Not alone, you won’t,” Pauline chided. “Miss Francine, I take my chaperone duties seriously. I can’t have you escaping my care, especially while your ankle is still on the mend.”
I turned toward my maid. I didn’t know why she was so worried. As I bent to retrieve my shawl, I told her, “It’s fine, Pauline. I’m safe with him. We’re old friends. Nothing more.”
Julian waited out of sight as Pauline and I departed. I didn’t look behind me.
We were nothing more than friends. We always would be. The thought should have soothed me, but it didn’t.
Chapter Eight
“Miss Francine,” Pauline sang. She tossed back the canopy of the four-poste
r bed. Light streamed in from the window she’d already uncovered.
I whimpered and pulled the blankets over my head. I’d tossed and turned to visions of yesterday’s fiasco. Julian’s refusal to kiss me. His confession about his impending marriage. A part of me wanted it to be a bad dream, but I wouldn’t be so lucky.
“Miss, you cannot stay abed all day.”
Oh, but how I wished I could.
I muttered something incoherent about sleep. My words were muffled by the sheets.
She pried them from my grasp and stripped them off. At the sudden loss of warmth, I shivered and curled into a ball despite the hot sunlight streaming in through the window. I groped blindly for the sheets she’d stripped away from the bed. No luck.
“Her Ladyship is awake,” Pauline chirped. She was altogether too cheerful, considering the debacle I’d confessed to her last night upon returning. She’d waited up for me, and even consoled me, marginally. “She wishes to speak with you.”
I groaned like the dead. Nothing good ever came of Mother wishing to speak to me.
Pauline’s tone turned stern. “If you don’t get out of bed, she’ll come address you here.”
That chased me out of bed in a hurry. Pauline helped me don a cherry-pink Sunday dress, the neckline tickling my chin. She combed my hair with care and fashioned it into a single braid. She tied off my tresses with a ribbon.
“You might as well face the dragon,” she said.
“Easy for you to say. You aren’t her daughter.” My hushed tone weakened the bite of my words. If Mother heard me liken her to a lizard, she’d snip my head off. She’d much rather be compared to snapdragons, Antirrhinum.
Reluctantly, I vacated the sanctuary of my room, shutting the door behind me. My ankle provided me with some measure of pain as I used the wall to limp down the hall. However, it wasn’t an alarming amount. Despite the exercise of the previous day, I judged the appendage to be well on the mend. I gained confidence and momentum as I reached the stairs. I descended to midway before realizing that both my mother and father lingered silently outside the dining room door.
I turned tail and hobbled up the stairs. Hopefully they hadn’t noticed me.
“Young lady.”
I winced at Papa’s booming voice. Drat.
“Come down here this instant.”
He didn’t aid my unstable descent of the stairs, but instead watched stonily from the dining room. My stomach shriveled to the size of a raisin. I doubted I could eat now even if today’s breakfast hadn’t been cleared away yet.
The moment my feet touched the carpet, he pointed down the hall. “Into my study, young lady.”
I shuffled forward with no offered support. His and Mother’s stares threatened to turn me to stone. Upon reaching his door, I gratefully slipped inside, if only to have some place to rest. Someone had opened the heavy drapes to let in the light, as opposed to lighting a candle. Papa couldn’t be happy about that. He must have been out.
Papa barred me from sitting. “You will listen to what I have to say.”
He nearly reduced me to tears then and there. My dismay must have shown on my face, because Mother brushed her hand over his sleeve to draw his attention.
“Have a care for her ankle. She may as well sit down.”
With a grunt, he stepped aside.
I staggered to the narrow uncomfortable chair in front of his desk and sat. The throb in my ankle cropped in half, though it did not abate altogether. A forbidding pair, my mother and father crossed in front of the desk to loom down at me.
Perhaps sitting hadn’t been the wisest choice.
“I opened the morning rag earlier. Imagine what I saw,” Papa said. He clipped off each word.
I examined my hands rather than look him in the eye. When consumed by anger, he posed a frightening figure. I didn’t want to inadvertently rile him further.
He slapped the newspaper in question onto the table in front of me. “Have a look, would you, dear?” His voice was falsely sweet. So sweet it stung my ears.
Swallowing heavily, I reached for the page and uncurled it. The edges were marred with dents from a severe grasp. Papa’s, no doubt. I smoothed the page to the Society pages. A caricature leered back at me.
“Oh no.” I struggled to breathe evenly. Not the Infamy Illustrator.
“I had a bit of a different reaction.”
I couldn’t peel my gaze off the page. There I was, in all my freckled glory, rendered as a short, curvy woman lifting her skirts for a suitor who puckered to kiss me. Beneath the skirts were men’s breeches and boots.
I shoved the paper—and the caricature inked upon it—out of sight. The image seared itself on my retinas.
Papa replaced it with his snarling face. I jumped. With his beard, he resembled a feral bear.
“It’s not—” what you think.
His gaze snapped with fury. “You’ve disgraced our family, regardless of whether or not it’s true.”
I lowered my face into my hands. Moisture stung my eyes. I pressed my palms into them to keep the tears at bay. “I only wanted to attend a lecture on botany,” I said in a small voice. “I didn’t think anyone would recognize me.”
“You were wrong, and you’ve gotten out of hand.”
Before now I’d never stepped out of line. I’d only done the same things that Mother did—studied plants. At his insistence, I attended events I didn’t care about, smiled at people who thought me invisible, never raised my voice, or started a scandal like my friends were wont to do. Yet nothing I ever did was good enough for Papa. Why? Because I hadn’t lured the eye of a wealthy lord? He wanted that, not me.
I couldn’t say so, not with him so angry.
Rips rent the air as Papa tore the scandal rag to shreds. I flinched at the sound. I peeked through my fingers, hoping to see signs that his anger would dull, or Mother would step in and save me.
She stood stiffly to the side of the desk, watching. I’d get no help from her.
Papa shoved the shredded paper onto the unlit hearth, his movements jerky. “And…”
I cringed at the word. What else could there be?
“I made the mistake of attending White’s this morning.” He turned. His glare punctured me, pinning me to the chair. “Lord Cheswick’s nephew is bandying it about that he spotted you on Rotten Row yesterday afternoon.”
I hadn’t known I needed permission to go for a ride.
“Lord Cheswick’s nephew is a fool.” I winced as the words left my mouth.
The thunderhead dawning on Papa’s face warned me not to say another word. He raised his voice. “He saw you sneaking into the bushes with a man.”
Damn and blast, I thought, borrowing Julian’s expression. At that moment, I hadn’t been thinking. I should have waited for Pauline. Pressing my lips together, I refused to say a word.
“Is it true?” Mother asked. I never thought I’d see the day when the hawkish expression on her face matched Papa’s. I swallowed with difficulty around the lump in my throat.
“Pauline was with me.” Not the entire time, but they didn’t have to know that. I’d only been alone with Julian, my closest friend. He wouldn’t hurt me.
Papa stared at me. No words. Only a glare. He didn’t believe me.
I squared my shoulders. “You can ask her if you don’t believe me.”
Mother patted his forearm with grubby fingertips. They left the slightest smudge on his pristine white shirt. Mother had shut herself in with her plants again. Could I use that to my advantage?
Brightening, I asked, “Did you add a new specimen to your collection, Mother?” Although it may be a means of distracting Papa, my interest was genuine. She often received specimens from exotic locales. A compromise concocted by Papa to sponsor other botanists’ journeys abroad rather than venture on one herself. Papa would never allow her to leave the country, let alone venture to less civilized parts of the world.
As Mother opened her mouth to regale me on the merits of her n
ewest plant, Papa made a chopping motion with his hand. “Do not change the subject. The next time you’re on Rotten Row, you should stay in the carriage. Or in plain view of everyone else.”
I decided to apologize and hope for the best. “I’m sorry. I will next time, I promise.” In that, I was most sincere. I’d only snuck off because I hadn’t wanted to spend time with Julian at all, after the way he’d refused to tell me why he hadn’t written to me.
I had my answer now. Though I didn’t necessarily know whether it made me feel better. I didn’t want an arranged marriage for myself. Somehow, knowing that Julian had to suffer through one as well made my future seem even bleaker.
Papa harrumphed. He didn’t sound convinced.
I met his gaze. His ire had abated somewhat, but I didn’t like the thorny look in his eye. Cautiously, I asked, “Out of curiosity, what would you have done if the rumors were true?”
The black cloud of outrage obscured his features once more. “Something you would not have liked, young lady.”
Hardly a specific answer. I leaned forward in my seat. “Which is…what, exactly? Would you send me to the country?”
“I would force him to the altar.” His heavy eyebrows knitted together in a scowl.
I gave a halfhearted shrug. I hid my agitation behind a blasé mien. “If the gentleman in question met your standards, I have no doubt of that. But what if I kissed a second son or landed gentry?”
I risked earning more of Papa’s enmity, but I had to know the answer. Would I attain some measure of freedom by ruining my reputation? If so, I would do it without a second thought.
He made a low rumble in his throat that sounded suspiciously like a growl. I speedily sat back in my chair, putting what distance between us I could, as if I could separate myself from the question as well. Not that it made much difference at all.
Mother crouched before me, taking both my hands with hers. I resisted the instinct to pull away. She never touched me like this.
Her eyes glimmered with an emotion I didn’t want to consider. “Are you in love, Francine?” Although Papa stood mere inches away, she added, “If you are, I can talk to your father. Bring him around.”
How to Ruin Your Reputation in 10 Days (Ladies of Passion) Page 9
