by Fran Baker
“He never thinks better of such remarks!” Francie snapped. “And for you to admit to laughing at Miss Dill is infamous. But nothing less than what I’ve come to expect from you.”
The tasseled boot stopped in midair. “I am surprised, Miss Hampton, that you did not see the humor in the situation. I had not thought you so dull-witted. At the instant of your rushing back to her, Miss Dill is come to you. Your mutual devotion would be affecting were it not so diverting.”
The effect of this cynical revelation was profound.
Mary dropped the pewter mug with a crash.
Miss Dill pursed her lips in severe disapprobation.
Francie stood, shaking and sputtering. “You, you, you—”
She never finished her epithet. One glance at her trembling figure was sufficient for Miss Dill, who rose, excused herself to the baronet, and hauled Francie from the room very like one of her schoolgirls caught in a misdeed. Once within the refuge of Francie’s bedchamber, she granted Francie five minutes of stormy silence while she herself removed her gloves, hat and bonnet with the economy of motion she attached to each of her actions. Finally she placed herself directly in the path of Francie’s impassioned pacing.
“Sit down, Frances. You are needlessly overwrought.”
Looking at Agnes as if she did not remember who she was, Francie at last gave herself a little shake, then dropped to the edge of her bed.
“You still love him,” Miss Dill said in the same voice she had used when Miss Julia Murphy, aged ten, was discovered eating a forbidden box of chocolates.
“I . . . yes,” Francie admitted, her head bent.
“That is why you’ve lingered in Town.”
“I . . . yes,” she repeated in a low voice.
“I thought as much.” Agnes nodded. “That is why I have come to you.”
“But there was no need. I was coming back. In fact, we must leave. We must go immediately!” Francie jumped up as if to dash for the door.
Agnes restrained her with a raised hand. “Nonsense! If you leave now, my dear, you will forever carry your . . . affection . . . for that man with you. You must stay to see him betrothed to your sister. Oh, it will be painful for you, I know, but if you see it to the end, my dear, it will help purge you of sentiments which are, after all, best forgotten.”
“I . . . you . . . of course, Agnes, you are right.” Francie sighed wistfully. “I cannot imagine why I’ve been so utterly foolish.”
“Well, I am here to stand you friend. Together we shall see this through.”
“Oh, Agnes! You are so good!” Francie flung herself into her friend’s arms. This time her tears were gentle as they fell upon Miss Dill’s bony shoulder. She tried hard to believe it was, indeed, best this way.
* * * *
For the next several days, it appeared that Francie had accepted the fate life had cast for her. She threw herself wholeheartedly into making the final arrangements for Mary’s ball, sharing all chores with Miss Dill. She and Sir Thomas were forced to be together often, but as Francie was never without Agnes beside her, she felt more than capable of meeting him with civility. It was as if there had never been a moment of feeling, caring or anger between them. And that, Francie told herself repeatedly, was precisely the way she wanted it.
Thus Francie’s manner was almost gracious when Sir Thomas was ushered into the morning room a week before the ball. He bent a stiff half-bow to Miss Dill, who received it without missing a stitch in her embroidery, then turned to face Francie, who was seated at the secretary.
“I’ve come to tell you, ma’am, that my mother has procured vouchers to Almack’s. She bade me to request your presence there Wednesday evening.”
“But how wonderful!” Francie exclaimed with a little clap of her hands. She rose from her chair and smiled at Sir Thomas with unwonted warmth as she smoothed the creases from her sprigged muslin frock. “Of course we shall go. Please return our appreciation and acceptance to Lady Spencer. Oh, Agnes, won’t it be fun? Almack’s! We shall have the most glorious time chaperoning Mary.”
Flicking his kid gloves together, Sir Thomas said with deliberation, “I regret to inform you, Miss Hampton, that my mother was able to procure only two vouchers—one for Miss Mary and one for yourself.”
“Oh.” The warmth drained from Francie’s face, and the baronet’s brows snapped together.
“It does not matter, dear,” Miss Dill said placidly. “I fear I should not quite fit into the society at Almack’s.”
“Nonsense! Of course you’d fit in. Sir Thomas, cannot Lady Spencer request a voucher for Miss Dill?”
His perfectly molded shoulders, encased in a well-tailored bottle-green coat, shrugged. “I believe not.”
“But I am certain Lady Spencer . . .” Francie looked directly into Sir Thomas’s eyes and bristled at the harsh gleam she saw there. “You do not wish for her to go,” she accused.
“You wrong me, Miss Hampton. I most certainly wish for Miss Dill to go. But not, I admit, to Almack’s.”
“Oh! You! I cold box your ears!” Francie exclaimed with vehemence.
Miss Dill set aside her stitchery and rose. “Do not fly into a taking, Frances. We both know that Sir Thomas is being deliberately provoking.”
“Ah, but the question is, have I provoked you, Miss Dill?” queried the baronet. He leveled his quizzing glass upon her, then sighed. “But of course not. How could I forget that you have no emotions to provoke?”
Ignoring Sir Thomas’s question and Francie’s gasp, Miss Dill said, “I trust, Frances, that you will have the sense to accept Lady Spencer’s generous offer. You must think of Miss Mary, you know.”
“How thoughtful you are, Miss Dill,” said Sir Thomas. “Always thinking of others, aren’t you?”
Miss Dill stiffened at the sneer in his voice, but faced him without a twitch. “I see you are in a difficult mood today, sir. I think perhaps you will not mind if I excuse myself. Do not linger, Frances,” she ordered over her shoulder as she passed from the room.
Francie scarcely heard her, so angry was she with Sir Thomas. “How dare you?” she demanded of him. “You have no right to insult my friends.”
The sharp line of his mouth emphasized the uncompromising set of his jaw. His face, his stance, his very breath seemed taut with hostility. It came as a shock to hear his voice as smooth as silk.
“Well, my dear, does Saint George still get the prize for slaying the dragon?”
Her chest rose and fell heavily. “You, sir, are the farthest thing from a saint imaginable. If you will excuse—”
“But I won’t.” He moved more rapidly than she to block the path to the door.
Retreating a step from him, Francie said as scornfully as she could manage, “You may have the strength to keep me here, to make me listen to your abominable animadversions, but you cannot make me regard Miss Dill as anything other than a dear, good friend. She is worth dozens of you, sir!”
“So you have fully informed me, more times than I can count, my dear. Tell me, do you remain so loyal to every friend who ruins your life? Or was it her spiteful interference in what never concerned her that so endeared her to you?”
“You say these things because you know nothing of loyalty—or of fidelity!”
“I know that you allow Miss Dill to control you to an unconscionable degree. I had always thought you graced with spirit, independence, and intelligence. But Miss Dill has shown me quite out. Your life, Miss Hampton, is only what she is making of it.”
With a thrust of her arms, she attempted to push him out of her way, unwilling to listen to another word. But he caught her wrists effortlessly and dragged her against him in a crushing embrace. For a moment, she struggled, flailing her arms and thrashing her legs. Then suddenly Francie’s eyes met his, which were filled with desire, and she crumpled against him. His hand raised her chin from the folds of his cravat, and she scarcely had time to realize his intent before his lips claimed hers.
A shudder
shot through her as he kissed her with a consuming hunger that demanded her surrender. He gathered her even closer so she could feel the whole hard length of him against her skirt, and she was vaguely surprised that his body shook, that his breath came unsteadily. Then her own need overcame all else, and Francie pressed her fingers into his thick hair while matching her lips to his, her tongue feverishly seeking its counterpart.
“Oh, God, Francie,” he moaned thickly, his breath mixing with hers before he drove his lips onto hers again with a brutal, naked longing.
His hands caressed the small of her back, making Francie’s spine tingle with delirious pleasure. Her own hands moved to the nape of his neck and played with the short, rough hairs there. She might even have been so lost as to permit the hand traveling toward her breast to actually rest there had not the abrupt opening of the door startled them apart.
Her eyes still dilated with passion, her body still throbbing with yearning, Francie stared in blind horror at Miss Dill standing on the threshold. Sir Thomas put a hand to her sleeve, but she shook it off with a violent twist. Then, stuffing her fist to her mouth, Francie ran from the room.
Chapter 11
“You are quite certain about this, Miss Hampton?”
“Yes,” Francie answered without hesitation.
Lord Coombs did not look the least reassured, but after hesitating another moment, he signaled his tiger to jump down and take the heads of his matched bays. “Very well,” he said morosely as he climbed down, then turned to assist Francie from the perch seat of his curricle. “But it ain’t quite the thing!”
Francie did not waste energy questioning what she was doing. Since yesterday she had known without a doubt that for once Miss Dill was wrong. Sir Thomas’s marriage to Mary would not purge her own love for him. At first, running from his kiss, his touch, Francie had frantically asked herself what was wrong with her. One moment she longed to see him on the wrong end of a sword point; the other she wished only to feel him in her arms. Self-disgust consumed her.
That he could kiss her so . . . so ardently while intending to wed Mary filled he with a physical distress unlike any she had ever known. Her love for him weakened her. She thought she would be unable to endure the pain of this sickening weakness, but a hard core of rage steadied her, giving her a needed focus for her thoughts. It obviously mattered little to him who he held in his arms, and it certainly mattered nothing to her!
Or so, through a long and sleepless night, she told herself. In the end, as dawn crept in over her windowsill to become entwined with the flowers on her wallpaper, she admitted that it did matter. Seeing the miserable depths to which her love had sunk her, Francie determined anew that she would not allow Mary to wed the baronet.
Thus it was that she walked beside the disapproving Lord Coombs in a most unsavory section of London. They paused once more, an imperceptible second, before mounting the set of grimy, chipped steps leading to the unpainted front door of a sadly disreputable building. Before Lord Coombs could raise any further objections, Francie set her gloved knuckles sharply against the peeling wood. She was rewarded with an almost instant response. The door inward by an invisible hand, and she heard his lordship’s audible gulp.
With an ungentle hand upon the sleeve of his royal blue broadcloth coat, Francie dragged the viscount into the dimly lit hall. The door swung shut behind them, and they both jumped. A croaked laugh spun them about to face the shortest, most wrinkled gentleman Francie had ever beheld.
“And what, may I make so’s bold to ask, are the pair o’ye up to?” demanded the little man.
“I—we—that is to say, she—” Lord Coombs stammered.
“We are here to see Mr. Kemper. Please inform him that he has callers,” Francie instructed imperiously.
The gentleman yanked a pair of round spectacles from a pocket of his patched brown coat, wiped the lenses on his sleeve, and settled them upon his large nose. He looked them up, then down, finally bringing his pale eyes to rest on Francie’s face.
“Eh! And just who do I say is callin’” he asked, then laughed as if he had made a grand jest.
“That, sir, is none of your business,” she returned with her haughtiest air. “We will deal with Mr. Kemper only. Now, please tell him we are here.”
“Well, now mayhap I will, mayhap I won’t,” came the unperturbed response. He rubbed a gnarled hand over his pointed chin, and suddenly his pale eyes sharpened. “Follow me,” he grunted, pushing past them to climb a steep, narrow staircase.
Francie held the skirt of her green-striped walking dress high and tried not to think of the rats that must surely reside in this filth. Her nostrils flared at the foul odors attacking her nose. The wizened old man halted abruptly before a door, drew a brass circle of keys from another of his voluminous pockets, and fit one into the lock. He pressed open the door and stood back to bow them in.
“I say, Miss Ha—I say, I don’t think we should—”
“Hush!” Forcibly shoving Coombs before her, Francie crossed the threshold to the sound of dry laughter behind her.
They stood in a surprisingly clean office which was simply but adequately furnished with three colorfully filled bookcases lining one wall. Before them stood an expansive desk piled with disorderly stacks of papers. With arched brows, Francie sat down in one of the two upholstered chairs placed before the desk and wondered how to greet a moneylender.
As Coombs sat reluctantly down beside her, a rustling cough brought Francie’s head around in time to see the old man discarding the pieced coat of dirty brown, revealing an astonishing long-tailed fuchsia coat trimmed with gold braid.
“Lord! Did Weston make that coat?” his lordship asked, pulling out his quizzing glass to examine the cut more closely. “That’s a damned fine job of tailoring!”
“This isn’t the time to discuss coats,” Francie hissed in exasperation. “Where is Mr. Kemper?” she inquired in a louder voice. “I’ve told you, we will deal with no one else.”
The intricate web of wrinkles was etched more deeply into the small, keen face as the old man choked dryly in what Francie finally realized was laughter. He did not answer, but came across the room to take the high-backed leather chair behind the desk. Finally Francie understood.
“You? You are Mr. Kemper?” she said, half in disbelief, half in anger at his deception.
“At your service, ma’am, sir,” he acknowledged with a little nod to each. His voice had become more refined. “One can’t be too careful, you understand, in these parts of town.” He shuffled papers together, moved them around to rest at his elbow, and then split his lips in an inquisitive smile. “And just how may I be of service?”
His pale eyes glinted behind the spectacles as they moved from his lordship to Francie.
Inhaling courage with a deep breath, she stated flatly, “I should like to borrow twenty thousand pounds.”
For a long moment, while Francie’s blood deafened her ears and her palms became uncomfortably damp, Kemper fiddled with his papers. At length he placed his palms upon the rearranged stack and disconcerted her with a direct stare. “Twenty thousand. Naturally, for so large a sum, I shall require substantial collateral.”
She had come prepared for such a request. With a tight lift of her lips, she extracted a bundled document from her reticule. Handing it to Mr. Kemper, she said evenly. “That is the deed to my school in Norfolk. There are no debts or mortgages standing against it.”
With what seemed to Francie the slowest of motions, he undid the thin strip of yellow ribbon and perused the deed. Then, carefully, neatly, he refolded the sheets and retied the ribbon. Shaking his head, he said, “This wouldn’t be worth a gold-drop to me, miss.”
Daunted, but not yet ready to give up, Francie presented Mr. Kemper with what she hoped was a captivating smile. “But, sir, I am certain you see that I do not wish to lose my school and will therefore not fail to repay you.”
Like fine parchment suddenly embedded in steel, his voice hardened.
“I don’t believe it pays to deal with angelics. It doesn’t pay at all.”
“Angelics?” she repeated.
“Unmarried chits,” Lord Coombs explained in an unnecessary stage whisper.
Kemper removed his spectacles, withdrew a linen handkerchief from his pocket, and meticulously cleaned them. Resettling them upon his nose, he inspected Francie from the top of her chip bonnet tied with a broad sash of deep green to the tip of her shoe showing beneath the triple flounce of her hem. She had the uncomfortable feeling that he knew to a cent precisely what each item she wore had cost and more over, precisely which dressmaker had made them. Wishing she had worn her best dress, she nonetheless smiled bravely and crossed her kid-gloved fingers.
Suddenly the little man pushed back his chair and stood up. “Without a husband to make good your payment, miss—just in case, you should find yourself unable to pay, you understand—and with nothing more than that useless school for collateral, well, I’m afraid I haven’t got your twenty thousand pounds.”
Without waiting for a response, he moved to the door, flipping a round gold watch on the end of its fob as he did so. They were clearly dismissed and, though Francie longed to stay and make an impassioned plea, Lord Coombs was already on his feet, his hand at her elbow. Gritting her teeth, she rose and did not speak again until they were underway in his lordship’s fine curricle.
“That—that odious little man!” she burst out, unable to contain her disappointment any longer.
“Well, I’m deuced glad he didn’t lend it to you. A cent-per-cent’s the surest road to ruin. Once they’ve got their teeth sunk into you, there’s no getting free.” Glancing at Francie seated mournfully beside him, Coombs added in quite a different tone, “I daresay I could raise the wind quick enough. I should be honored to do it for you, Miss Hampton.”
“You are very, very kind. But there is no need for you to bother yourself further on my behalf, my lord.”
