by Fran Baker
Unable to move, Francie sat seething for fully two minutes after the door had closed. Then she burst from her chair with volcanic fury.
“How dare he! How dare he come back into my life when I’d just settled quite nicely. You must see that you cannot possibly marry him!” she added as an afterthought to her sister.
“I—I think I must marry him,” Mary said in mournful tones. “It wouldn’t be quite the thing for another one of us to jilt him, would it?”
Which effectively stopped Francie in her tracks.
Chapter 2
That evening the uproar resulting from the abrupt arrival of their eldest daughter led to the cancellation of Mrs. Hampton’s plans to attend the opera and drove Mr. Hampton to his club at an unconscionably early hour. Edward Hampton’s desertion left the battlefield solely to his wife, Beatrice, who seemed more than prepared to meet the severe accusations which fell steadily from her oldest daughter’s lips.
Whether she pleaded, badgered, or raged, Francie’s opposition to the improper betrothment of her youngest sister to Sir Thomas Spencer had not the least effect on her mother’s implacable belief that the match could not be more ideal.
“Really, child, I do not understand you,” Mrs. Hampton declared in a weary tone, fanning herself listlessly as she sat too near the fire in her boudoir. “Surely you cannot wish every member of the family to remain a spinster?”
Mentally counting to ten, Francie responded as calmly as she could after several hours of argumentation with her esteemed parent. “”Of course not, Mama. But I do not like to see Mary thrown as a sacrificial lamb to such a domineering, licentious man as Spencer.”
“Come now, Frances.” Her mother reproving tone, combined with the use of her Christian name, told Francie to prepare herself for the worst. “You are merely worried that people will look upon you as the jilt, is that not it? But I do not think you should let any considerations of your own past folly overshadow Mary’s good fortune.”
“You mean the family’s good fortune,” Francie flared disrespectfully.
“I cannot deny that your father has made certain . . . unhappy . . . decisions recently and that Sir Thomas has kindly offered to remove the consequences of those decisions from our lives,” her mother agreed. She folded her fan and pronounced her desire not to continue this discussion. “If Mary did not wish to marry Sir Thomas, it would be another matter altogether. But as she has been most willing to go ahead with this marriage, I cannot think what opposition you can possibly have.”
“Very well, Mama,” Francie relented with a frustrated sigh. Arguing with her indolent but indomitable mother had always been fruitless. Tonight it left Francie with a headache, and she gave in with ill grace. “If I cannot make you and Papa see that Mary should not marry where she does not love—”
“Many times arranged marriages are the happiest, Francie,” her mother interrupted, rising with a swish of her ruffled peignoir. “With time Mary may well grow to love her husband.”
“Better she should love a snake!”
“To listen to you, one would think you are jealous of your sister’s alliance.” Mrs. Hampton glanced shrewdly at her daughter as she drifted out of the room, her lace ruffle trailing behind her full figure like the wake behind a sailing ship.
She left Francie rooted to the floor, staring in horror at her mother’s receding form. Jealous? That was absurd, utterly and completely absurd! She did not love Sir Thomas. If she deigned to feel anything about him at all, it was quite a different emotion. Wasn’t it? Shivering, she almost felt again his finger tracing the line of her cheek, felt his breath tantalizing her lips, which had been eager for his kiss. She burned with renewed shame as she recalled the scene that afternoon.
Her mother called out drowsily to her.
“Yes, Mama?” she answered.
“How long will you be staying, dear?” She went on without waiting for a reply. “If you would like to make yourself useful, there are many, many arrangements to be made, especially now that Sir Thomas has decided he would like to hold a ball in Mary’s honor. I do not see how I can possibly manage it all.”
Francie nearly laughed aloud. It was as if everything she had been saying were no more than the merest wisp of her imagination. Not one word had made the least impression on her mother. And now her mother appeared perfectly willing to turn over the chore of planning the wedding to the groom’s former fiancée.
But then, Francie had known how it would be before she left Norfolk. Mary, bending like a willow to the strongest breeze; Mama, immovable in her own dilatory way; Papa, hiding in his club whenever greeted with the least unpleasantness. She had known it would be this way, known her coming would be useless. So why had she come to London? It was, Francie feared, a question she did not want to answer.
Rubbing her temples, she retired to her own room, which had been hers before her departure to Norfolk to open the Establishment for Young Ladies with her old school friend, Agnes Dill. Little had been changed, and somehow Francie found that comforting. The old bed still sagged in the middle and the floorboard at the side still creaked when stepped on. Silly, but she would miss that when she returned to her neat, impersonal room at the school. Which, of course, she must do without delay.
She reclined upon the high, narrow bed and stared at the familiar faded pattern on the flowered paper walls, one arm thrust in a graceful arc over her throbbing head. Mama was wrong, she told herself. She was not jealous. The love she had once felt for Sir Thomas had died long ago. If the other, more elemental yearnings had not yet been conquered, she must simply learn to ignore them.
Confronting the painful truth, she admitted that seeing Sir Thomas, even so briefly, had stoked anew the lingering embers of her desire for him. It grieved Francie deeply to acknowledge her heated response to his attractive masculinity, and she knew she must smother the flame before it burned out of control.
With a heavy sigh, she snuffed the candle flame, then tossed fitfully in the darkness. How could she let him destroy Mary, as he surely would with his temper and his overbearing ways? Mournfully she reminded herself that she had nothing to say to the matter and eventually fell asleep with a frown still creasing her brow.
In the morning, however, Francie’s headache had quite gone, and everything appeared in a sharper focus with the early sunlight. Even the floorboard did not make a sound when she rose from her bed. Within the hour she was seated in the morning room at the drop-down desk of an old, battered secretary, writing an explanation to Miss Dill. She would be staying on, she wrote her friend, for an indefinite period of time to help with wedding preparations. It was fortunate, was it not, that the end of the school term was nearing and she could so easily be spared for a few brief weeks?
Having folded and sealed her missive, Francie smoothed the front of her muslin round gown, straightened the long, plain sleeves, and set off in search of her family to impart to them the joyful news that she meant to remain. With the exception of her mother, who always breakfasted in bed and never earlier than noon, she found her family members around the oval table in the sunny breakfast room. Papa was sipping coffee—no doubt laced with spirits—and Mary was sinking her small, even teeth into a slice of honeyed bread. Francie poured herself a cup of tea and announced that she would be staying on in London for a bit.
“Excellent! Excellent!” puffed her father in his gruff way.
“I’m glad you think so, Papa,” Francie said, closely watching her sister.
Mary’s face had ever mirrored her emotions. Relief and gratitude now crossed the pliant features in full measure, but in addition to these feelings Francie saw—what? Apprehension? Francie wondered if Mary was afraid that she would quarrel with Sir Thomas again. She knew yesterday’s confrontation had greatly overset her younger sister. Mary had never been able to abide the least argument.
“And I swear, dearest Mary, I shall be on my best behavior for my entire stay,” Francie promised with a fond smile, reaching out her hand to co
ver her sister’s. “Not one word of reproach shall pass my lips with regard to Sir Thomas.”
* * * *
Her resolution vanished within ten minutes of the baronet’s arrival that afternoon to drive Mary through the Park. Francie greeted him pleasantly enough, though she watched him warily. Certainly, she could not fault Sir Thomas on the cut or style of his clothes. But then he had always patronized the finest tailors, and he wore the tight buff breeches and long-tailed burgundy coat with the unconcerned air of one who has purchased the best.
Hooded by half-lowered lids in a manner that caused Francie’s breath to catch in her throat, his sapphire eyes openly inspected every inch of her slim figure as he expressed his delight that she would be staying on in Mount Street. In a voice heavy with concern, he then inquired, “But you do not think Hampton’s Establishment for Young Ladies will collapse in your absence, do you?”
She focused her eyes on the intricate folds of his ivory silk cravat and answered sweetly, “I trust you find your own wit pleasing, sir, for I assure you no one else does.”
She looked up to find his deep blue eyes now shimmering with ill-placed humor, then hastily lowered her gaze to the ruffled edge of her own primrose gown. She told her sputtering heart to cease being nonsensical and get back to the business of beating regularly. Instead it began beating even more rapidly at the look accompanying Sir Thomas’s placid response.
“My own wit pleases me well enough,” he said. “May I add, dear sister-to-be, that your ill humor does not become you.”
The mild tone drew an annihilating stare from Francie, and her heart-shaped lips parted, intending to inform Sir Thomas that his opinion of what became her was a matter of the veriest indifference to her. But, catching sight of Mary’s blanched features, Francie forced herself to be content with turning her lips up into a chilly smile.
Mary’s obvious relief smote Francie’s conscience. Renewing her effort to maintain a friendly appearance with Sir Thomas, she indicated a chair. “If you would take a seat, sir, whilst Mary fetches her bonnet?”
The properly gracious accents, complete with welcoming gesture, brought a low laugh from the gentleman. “A lesson in etiquette, Miss Hampton?” he teased, flashing a charming, off-center smile.
Mary fluttered between them. “I shall only be the merest moment, Sir Thomas,” she said, then continued to hang quivering in mid-step as if she were afraid to leave them alone together.
Francie’s mother, floating gracefully into the room, rescued Mary. Mrs. Hampton skimmed languorously toward them, the fringe of her drooping shawl dusting the floor behind her plump figure.
“Are you ready, Mary, dear?” she asked, scanning them all through sleepy, heavy-lidded eyes.
“Ready, Mama?” repeated the bewildered Mary.
“How silly of me, to be sure,” her mother replied, sinking like a setting sun onto the sofa cushions. “Did I not tell you we must go to Madame Fresney’s for a fitting?”
“A fitting?” Mary echoed.
“Child, child.” Beatrice sighed wearily. “For a ball gown, of course. You must have a new gown for the announcement of your betrothal.”
Sir Thomas looked up from contemplating his well-manicured nails to address Beatrice directly. “But I have called to take Miss Mary for a drive through the Park.”
“If you wish to go for a drive,” Beatrice said, yawning, “take Francie. She could use the fresh air to put some color in her cheeks. I must exert myself now on behalf of my youngest.” With that she rose and drew Mary like a leaf in a gentle breeze out the door.
“Well?” Sir Thomas inquired, raising one black brow.
“Well what?” Francie returned on a waspish note. Being abruptly alone with him disturbed her more than she would ever admit.
“Would you care to accompany me for a drive through the Park?” he asked, standing with athletic grace but remaining at a distance from her.
How could he be so casual after all they had shared in the past? she wondered with a spurt of anger. Each time she saw him she wanted to run him through with a sword. The violence of her emotions had frightened her and loosened that already too-slack rein on her temper, and she knew better than to expose herself to the dangers of remaining alone with him.
“Well?” he prodded.
“Yes,” she replied tersely. “I’ll be but a moment.”
Francie strode from the room, dismayed at having agreed when she had clearly intended to decline. But having committed herself to accompanying him, she meant to surprise Sir Thomas with her amicability. Thus, having added one plumed bonnet and one spangled shawl to her attire, she was smiling prettily as he led her outside. Nevertheless, she paused when she caught first sight of the sporty carriage.
“But where is your groom?” she asked, eyeing with disfavor the light, two-wheeled cab chaise.
Handing her up into her seat, Spencer climbed up beside her and collected the reins before answering. “Use that pretty head of yours, Miss Hampton. Where would he sit?”
She had to admit there was scarcely room for the two of them, much less a groom. All too aware of the closeness of Sir Thomas’s muscular buckskin-clad thigh, Francie felt a perverse need to give him a set-down.
“You intended to take Mary out without a groom?” A speaking look accompanied her disapproving tone.
“We are affianced, remember,” he commented without so much as a glance in her direction.
“That is no excuse for exposing Mary to malicious talk!”
“It is fortunate, then, is it not,” Sir Thomas pointed out, “that I am driving you instead?”
Francie sputtered with indignation, but recalled her intent to remain outwardly friendly and thus refrained from making a heated rejoinder. Spencer expertly guided his horse, a large, powerful bay, through the noisy, crowded streets, and Francie fell to silently remonstrating with herself. Ignoring the colorful animation of London traffic, she scolded herself for losing her temper—again!—with her all-too-provoking escort. If she were going to extract Mary from this unsuitable betrothment—and she most assuredly desired to—then she must guard her tongue with the baronet, no matter how great the provocation.
Following upon this resolution, she waited patiently as Spencer pulled onto the less crowded path of the Park and slowed. The fashionable hour had not yet begun and few riders or carriages moved to distract their attention. Francie smiled at Sir Thomas and remarked quite warmly, “That was well done. You have the lightest hands of anyone I know.”
“Such praise, Miss Hampton, nearly unmans me,” he answered in a mocking tone.
I meant to be civil,” she retorted before she could stop herself. “But it’s obviously a grace you have yet to acquire.”
“You must excuse me, my dear, on the grounds that I have not been led to expect civility from you.”
Francie sat rigidly erect, fighting to control her temper. His soft, teasing laughter brought her flashing eyes around to meet his. Woven into the cynical amusement of his dark gaze was an intensity of emotion that robbed Francie of words as she stared, unable to decipher the message she saw. The fire died out of her green eyes, and she lowered her lashes to hide her secrets.
“Like dog and cat,” she sighed. “That’s how we are together.”
After an imperceptible pause, Sir Thomas said gently, “There was a time, Francie—”
“Over and done with,” she hastily put in.
“Over and done with,” he agreed in a low tone.
Deep red curls swept over her cheek as Francie turned away. Why must he bring up the past? The past had been so safely encased in a numb, not-to-be-touched part of her. Releasing it now only pierced her more sharply than before. She could not bear it if he actually became a member of her family. To see him often would be unendurable!
The cab chaise slowed further still, then stopped moving altogether. Still Francie did not look up, keeping her head averted to avoid the hurt awaiting her when she gazed into his mocking eyes. A finger li
ghtly flicked her cheek. Startled, she turned to meet his scrutiny. The harsh cynicism had vanished; the severe lines had all smoothed from his squared jaw. A dark glimmer reflected like sunlight on rippling water within his sapphire eyes and streaks of blue highlighted his dark hair as he tilted his head to study her.
“There were times when we did not always argue,” he murmured. His hand cupped her chin, his thumb gently stroking the curve of her cheek. “You remember them, Francie, I know you do.”
Each breath dragged through her like a hot coal, burning and tearing her throat. However much her treacherous body longed to be enfolded within the remembered muscular contours of his, Francie feverishly denied such desires. Painful memories of their last, devastating argument quickly smothered the flame his touch ignited.
Pulling her head from his light grasp, she said coldly, “Of course we didn’t always argue. But I’m certain Caroline—or was it Carlotta?—remembers such times far better than I.”
His hand dropped to his side, the mockery returned to his eyes, and Sir Thomas matched her tone as he responded, “I couldn’t say. It’s been some time since Caroline.”
“Oh, I’m certain you haven’t lacked for companionship,” Francie retorted. “Just how many successors has she had in the last three years?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t kept count,” Sir Thomas answered evenly.
Watching the flexing muscles of his jaw, Francie knew he was very angry indeed, and she realized with a guilty start that she had prompted another quarrel. But, said a tiny voice within her, far better to argue with Sir Thomas than to yield to his overwhelming attraction.
She tilted her head and asked tartly, “Once you have married Mary, do you intend to continue your charming habit of parading your light-skirts before all of London?”
“That is none of your concern,” he replied, tight-lipped.
