In the few days remaining, Francesca developed a routine with Grey that ensured they’d not have any more difficult discussions. He took to riding out in the morning, while she worked diligently on the indexes and glossary. In the afternoons, while Grey focused on his manuscript, Francesca napped or tended to correspondence she’d neglected the previous week. A duchess had every bit as much correspondence as a biologist, after all.
What time they spent together was taken up with discussion of poison plants, poison fish, and poison frogs, that being the topic of Grey’s current chapter. He did not seem to be making much progress on it, though Francesca suspected she knew why.
To use Grey’s terminology, their experiment had yielded unexpected results.
In plain English, they’d surprised each other. A short, spontaneous liaison undertaken in the interests of pleasure and affection had become something altogether different. Friday arrived without Francesca having replied to Grey’s request to stay in touch by letter.
Grey had said he’d treasure a child of theirs, and yet, he still waited anxiously for word regarding funding for his expedition to India.
What was she to make of that?
“You have an avalanche of mail today,” she said as a footman put the stack on his desk. “If I can work without interruption for the rest of the afternoon, I can finish up your glossary, and you’ll have your notes arranged by subject and cross-referenced by date.”
The footman—his name really was John—bowed and withdrew, while Grey wrinkled his nose at the mail. “I almost dread reading my correspondence anymore. Do you depart tomorrow, Francesca?”
Their nights had been spent in a silent frenzy of tenderness, and then they’d fall asleep, too exhausted to do more than hold each other in the darkness.
“Monday,” she said. “I’ll part from my friends in York.”
“You’ll not spend a holiday with them?” Grey’s question was oblique, but at least he was admitting interest in her future.
“My friends appear to be making plans at variance with our original intentions. I have business in York, and it’s a lovely city.” If one enjoyed a crumbling Roman wall and a minster so old its stone roots sank into antiquity.
Though an Italian duchess had no need of more antiquity.
Rather than inquire directly of her itinerary, or bring up again the fraught notion of a child, Grey went back to his correspondence. He had the ability to soldier on, despite reluctance or difficulties. That came through in his notes and in Francesca’s observations of him.
He was a good, honorable man, and she was so frustrated with him that when he opened her door that night, she nearly tackled him.
“I take it today’s correspondence held nothing of importance?” she asked.
He closed the door and locked it. “No rejections. I will count that as progress. I finally get a glimpse of you with your hair down.”
“My hair? What has hair to do with—?”
He stalked across the room, his dressing gown flapping about his knees. “Your hair is beautiful, and I want to sketch you with it down. We’re almost out of time, Francesca. Let me have at least a likeness to recall you by.”
Not too much to ask, and yet, Francesca hadn’t counted on the fact that when she sat for him, she had nothing to do but watch him sketch her. Grey’s focus was singular as his hand moved across a blank page. The gap in his dressing gown, the lock of hair that refused to stay behind his left ear, he took no notice of either, while Francesca was forced to stare at both.
“Will you let me see the finished result?”
“Will you let me write to you?”
His question gratified her on a purely selfish level. “I’ll leave you the direction for my aunts in Sussex. They always know how to reach me.”
“Thank you.”
For another half hour Grey was silent, the only sounds his pencil scratching across the page and the fire burning down. Francesca’s shoulders were growing chilled when he finally set his pencil and paper aside.
“Shall I braid my hair now?”
“No,” he said, rising and shrugging out of his dressing gown. “You shall not. Do you know I made more progress with my infernal manuscript when you were on hand to distract me in person? This business of disappearing for naps… I’m aware that I deprive you of sleep, Francesca, but I’ve missed you these past few days.”
She would miss him forever, if he had his way. “Grey…”
His trousers went next, tossed over the back of the chair at the escritoire. To her surprise, he was fully aroused.
Simply from looking at her?
“Now,” he said, stalking to the bed, “you distract me from within my own mind. I see you on the banks of the Amazon, in the high Andes, in the blinding sunshine on the waves of the Atlantic. I hear you scolding me for inconsistent terminology, and I listen to the soft rustling as you shuffle stacks of chaos into a tidy, rational order.”
Some fever had seized him, an anger and a determination Francesca couldn’t fathom. “If I don’t braid my hair, come morning—”
“Come morning, we will be that much closer to your departure,” he said, untying the bows of her nightgown. “Come morning, I will bury myself once more in plants that yield a paralyzing toxin, twenty-foot-long alligators that can swallow a man whole, and schools of pretty fish that make a plundering army seem tame. Right now, I’d like to bury myself in you.”
All over again, she was swamped with terror at the risks he’d taken, month after month, and the risks he’d take again.
“No more jungles, Grey, please. Find places to explore that won’t try to kill you twice a day.”
His answer was an openmouthed kiss, one that sent her sprawling onto her back across the bed. He kept coming, wrapping his hands in her hair, crouching over her as if he were a wild beast let loose from the pages of his journal.
He was no longer the man of science, confident of his powers, observing and analyzing from the safe distance of intellect and reason. He was the storm in Francesca’s heart and the fire in her body. He was hope, misery, rage, and longing, and at least until Monday, he was hers.
Grey had shown her any number of ways to make love—side by side, back to front, on her knees, her back to the wall, and her favorite, him on his back beneath her. For this coupling, Grey remained for once above her, his weight anchoring her to the mattress.
“I have nothing to offer you but this,” he said, joining them on one hard thrust.
The words were jarring and the sensation overwhelming. Too soon, Francesca was spiraling upward, desire besieging her from within.
“You have so much—” she managed, before Grey was kissing her again, his passion nearly savage. She went over the edge, bucking against him until she could see, hear, touch, and taste only a pleasure so intense it left her in tears.
Chapter Seven
* * *
The staff apparently knew not to disturb Mrs. Pomponio of a morning until she was stirring behind her door. In any case, Grey recalled locking Francesca’s door the previous evening. In the cool light of approaching dawn, he studied his sketch where it sat on her escritoire, a good effort, if a bit too…
Too passionate, too wishful, and too wistful.
“Grey?”
He tended the fire and climbed back under the covers. “I should have left you two hours ago.”
Francesca moved into his embrace easily, for they’d acquired the knack of sleeping together the first night. “It’s hard to get back to sleep in a cold bed, isn’t it?”
Impossible. “I suppose if one is tired enough, sleep comes eventually. Francesca, will you be all right?”
She turned to her side, so Grey was spooned around her. “I will miss you and be upset with you for some time. Rub my back, please.”
He’d learned to do this and wished he could ask her for return of the same favor. He had much to learn about asking for kindnesses and had a sinking suspicion that if he couldn’t learn those lessons from Francesca,
he’d never master them.
Her back was a wonder of feminine grace, but sturdy too. He’d studied anatomy—what biologist hadn’t?—but in the past week, he’d studied her. Her right shoulder was a fraction of an inch higher than her left, and that asymmetry was repeated in her hips. The hair at the juncture of her thighs bore a reddish tinge, and her second toe was longer than the first.
She liked chocolate—vanilla was bland by comparison—and a German fruit brandy made from cherries. She sometimes dreamed in Italian, sometimes English, and had a collection of cream cake recipes inherited from her late mother-in-law that she considered a dear treasure.
“You do that so well,” she murmured. “Your greatest talents lie in the bedroom, Grey, not the jungle. Will you be all right?”
No, he would not. In the past two weeks, his concepts of family, science, himself, and his place in the world had been upended, thanks to one forthright, passionate widow.
“One expects challenges.”
Francesca rolled over and peered at him in the gloom. Her hair was a glorious mess, and desire rose as the covers dipped low across her bosom.
“I meant what I said, Greyville. Please do not consign yourself to the most dangerous, difficult, disease-ridden corners of the earth in an effort to prove you don’t want your pony back. You’ve racketed about for ten years and made both your point and your contribution.”
He pushed her hair away from her brow and arranged himself over her. “I adore you when you lecture me.” He adored her every waking moment and in half of his dreams.
She ran a toe up the side of his calf. “Somebody needs to lecture you. I will worry about you.”
“India is civilized enough.” In places. At times.
“India is too bloody far away, and so are you.” She urged him closer by virtue of clutching his backside.
Grey retaliated by getting his mouth on her nipple, and for long, lovely moments, they teased each other into a fever of desire. He managed not to hurry the joining or the lovemaking, because he needed to hoard impressions against the coming separation.
That effort was hopeless. Memories were not objects, to be cataloged and preserved, and no memory would lessen the pain of sending Francesca on her way Monday morning.
Her breathing took on the rhythm of escalating desire, and Grey needed all of his focus to restrain his own pleasure. He dared not open his eyes to watch as passion claimed her, and he dared not close his eyes lest sensation claim him. He settled for fixing his gaze on the spill of Francesca’s hair across the sheets, gold on ivory, silk on cotton.
She shuddered beneath him, and when he was sure she could bear the sensation, he withdrew and spent on her belly.
“I wish…” she said, stroking his hair. “I wish, and wish, and wish, Greyville.”
He wished, he dreamed, he racked his brain, and second-guessed himself. “I know, my love. I know.”
He held her while she dozed off, and wishes lay in silent disarray in his mind, like so much leaf litter on the forest floor after a terrible storm. He could not leave her, he could not offer for her, he could not take her money and risk it all in India, but to India he must go.
Grey awoke to the scents of jasmine and peat—a distinctive combination—and the warmth of the sun on his shoulder. He got out of bed, dressed, and kissed a sleeping Francesca farewell.
How he hated himself for keeping the truth from her.
He’d said the mail contained no more rejections, which was true but not honest. A titled acquaintance of the comtesse had caught wind of his project and made so bold as to express an enthusiasm for his proposal and a desire to invest in it.
Funding had been very nearly promised, and all Grey could think was that he didn’t want to leave Francesca, not for all the tea in… not for all the tea, anywhere.
* * *
Francesca had found the Sabbath observation in England a form of purgatory. Nobody undertook travel unless from most dire necessity, industry of any kind was frowned upon, and even Sir Greyville Trenton limited his activities to reading.
While Francesca packed up her belongings and worried. Grey was keeping something from her, though she wasn’t sure what. He’d had no correspondence from family that she’d seen, but then, she didn’t go through his correspondence like a snooping wife.
“Have you left already, Francesca, that you disdain to join me in the office this afternoon?” Grey stood in her bedroom doorway, and despite the late hour, he was still dressed.
Just as well.
“I am, as your powers of observation confirm, very much still here. I did not want to burden the maids with tending to my belongings, so I’ve packed my trunk and will be ready for an early departure tomorrow.”
“Damn it, Francesca, I don’t know whether to bow and wish you safe journey, or make passionate love to you for the next ten hours.”
For all but the last few months of her marriage, Pietro would never have thought to consider Francesca’s wishes in either regard. He’d come and gone as he pleased, in her life and in her bedroom. What a miserable lot a duchess endured, if Pietro’s example held true across the ducal species.
“Greyville.” She stood immediately before him. “You should do what makes you happy, but I cannot… That is…”
He closed the door and took her in his arms. “Tell me, Francesca.”
The lump in her throat had grown to the size of an Italian duchy. She shook her head and clung to him. “I’m being silly.”
He carried her to the bed—how she would miss his masculine displays of consideration—and sat with her in his lap.
“Do you know,” he said, “I have spent more time talking with you than with any other adult woman, save perhaps my mother? One doesn’t exactly talk with Mama though. One accepts orders. In all the times we’ve spoken, Francesca, I’ve never heard you refer to any friends, save your traveling companions.”
What blasted observation was he going on about now? “Olivia and Mary Alice are friends of long standing. Good friends.”
He scooted back so he was supported by the headboard. “And did these good friends, in all the years since your come out, ever visit you?”
“My acquaintance with Olivia doesn’t go back that far. Mary Alice wrote.”
“Twice a year?”
“What is your point, Grey?”
“You have made me ponder my situation, Francesca, and it seems in some ways similar to your own.”
She doubted very much he’d been married to a self-important Italian duke. “Explain yourself.”
Grey kissed her temple. “There are wildernesses, and wildernesses. Some pose a danger to the body, and some pose a danger to the spirit. I was nearly dragged overboard at one point early in my last exploration by a great, black creature similar in nature to an alligator, but twice as long.”
“The caiman. You drew pictures of them.”
“Sketches made from a great distance, I can assure you. I think your husband’s infidelity nearly dragged you overboard. You mention no friends in Italy, no in-laws with whom you still correspond. I suspect you came to England because your aunts are here and because it holds at least memories of friendship.”
Francesca had made that discovery in the past two weeks herself, but memories of friendship were not the same as the living, breathing article.
“Do you have friends, Greyville?”
“I have colleagues and, like you, close associations left over from my youth. I account Stratton and Stirling true friends, and I hope they would say the same of me. Friends tell each other what’s amiss, Francesca, and though we part tomorrow, I am your friend.”
She snuggled closer and considered his hypothesis. “Do friends typically make passionate love with each other at every opportunity?”
“Friends are kind and honest with each other. They are tolerant of one another’s foibles. They offer acceptance, commiseration, and companionship. They share joys and sorrows and often hold each other in great affection. You w
ill have to explain to me how that definition precludes shared intimacies.”
It didn’t, and worse, Francesca had hoped her marriage would have all of those qualities. In the end, it had, but only in the end.
“There’s no baby, Greyville. My courses started this afternoon.”
His hand on her back slowed. “And how does this development find you?”
Weepy, angry, bewildered. “It’s for the best.”
He gathered her close. “That’s not your heart talking. What is convenient is not always for the best. Your news leaves me feeling sad, thoughtful, disappointed—also relieved that association with me has not unduly burdened your future.”
They remained on the bed while Francesca considered his list. If she’d been carrying his child, he would have married her, and all manner of complications involving money, science, and friendship would have ensued.
She hoped there was another way. “I wish you weren’t so noble.”
“Noble, I am not. That burden at least remains my brother’s. Would you like me to sleep in my own bed tonight, Francesca?”
She sat up enough to peer at him. “What are you asking?”
“You needn’t look at me like that. I would not impose on you when you’re indisposed, but I would like to stay with you.”
Grey so rarely asked for anything for himself, and Francesca very much wanted his arms about her, more than ever.
“Please stay.” She couldn’t have asked that of any friend, nor did she think it a typical request between lovers, considering her indisposition.
Only a husband would be allowed such intimacy. Before the tears could claim Francesca again, she helped Grey out of his clothes and climbed beneath the covers with him one last time.
* * *
Saying good-bye to Francesca was hell.
Grey insisted on walking her to the coach wherein her friend Mary Alice waited. All the way, Francesca lectured him, about indexes, subheadings, and lists of sketches and figures. Was this how his family had felt when he’d maundered on about curare and caimans as his departure date had approached?
Duchesses in Disguise Page 9
