Francesca (19 page)

“Stable it,”
Fran replied.

“The stables are at the rear, Lord Devane,”
Mary added. It was hardly necessary, but she wished to play her role with all propriety.

The gardener came forward and led the rig around. Devane hopped down and joined the ladies. If Francesca thought she was putting him at any disadvantage by this domestic sort of meeting, she soon discovered her error. After the greetings and a mention of last night’s assembly, Devane lifted Harry onto his shoulders and took him for a ride, making a lifelong friend of Mary, who was greatly honored to see her son disporting himself on such handsome noble shoulders.

“For a bachelor, you seem very much at home with children, Lord Devane,”
she complimented him.

“I am an old hand at entertaining children. I have two nephews and a niece. Mind you, I am not much good with dolls and juvenile tea parties.”

“What age are your nephews and niece?”
Mary asked, and for the next ten minutes the conversation was between the two of them. Fran entertained Harry by helping him move his wooden horses and soldiers about. This undemanding chore left her time to think that as Lord Devane had asked to call on
her,
it was odd he chose to hold all his conversation with Mary. But she was interested to learn he was a brother to Lady Morgan. Fran had met her, and she seemed amiable.

“I’ll ask Cook to send us out some lemonade—or would you prefer ale, Lord Devane?”
Mary said later.

“Ale, if it’s no bother. Lady Camden is aware of my partiality for ale,”
he said, trying to draw Francesca into the conversation. She gave a vague smile.

“No, don’t trouble to take Harry with you. We’ll mind him.”
Harry tried to follow after his mama, but Devane lifted him up and brought him back. He sat down by Francesca and leaned against the tree trunk, his legs extending on to the blanket. Harry was held between his legs, handing Devane his toys one by one. “Your friend seems very nice,”
he said to Fran.

“She is. We were always close. I am happy to see her so comfortably settled.”
Her eyes turned to Harry, the cause of half of Mary’s joy.

She felt again that pang at not having had a child of her own. How different things would have been if she had. She would not have stayed on in London. It was the great, yawning emptiness and pain of her life that she had tried to fill up with spurious pleasure. So foolish, really.

She glanced up, and saw Devane gazing at her, sympathy gleaming in his eyes. His clean-cut jaw was limned against the tree trunk like a cameo. Black, satiny hair caught a trembling ray of sun and glinted blue and purple and amber, reminding her of a peacock’s feathers. His lips opened in a rueful smile. “You’re young, Francesca. There is no reason you shouldn’t be equally comfortably settled.”

She shook her head. “I do not think of marriage. Once was enough.”

“There are different kinds of marriages. I don’t mean to sound like a vicar, but I think you had the misfortune to make the wrong kind for the sort of lady you are. You could have had no notion what to expect in London society. On the surface all is glamour and glitter, but there is a darker underside to it. Unfortunately, you stumbled into that darker realm, through no fault of your own.”

His eyes studied her, unblinking, trying to find in this simple country girl an echo of the dashing lady with the patch on her bosom. The transformation was startling, but what startled him more was that he found both equally enticing. To his consternation, he also discovered that Lady Camden was making no efforts whatsoever to attract him. There was no coy hint for an objection in her statement against marrying.

“Unfortunately, the sort of lady I am has poor judgment where gentlemen are concerned. I was never really attracted to the local beaux. I always wanted something more, the excitement and glamour of the ton, but when I achieved it, I found it illusory.”

He felt some slur on his own behavior in this speech, again delivered in a straightforward way. “Only the young and inexperienced are taken in by the glamour. When you return, you will be wiser, and leave the rakes and rattles to the debs.”
As he spoke, he kept accepting Harry’s offerings, which now formed a pile on the blanket beside them.

Francesca picked up a horse, and Harry snatched it back. “I do not plan to return. I think I mentioned that last evening.”

Her bland manner annoyed him. Her rejection of London annoyed him. It was not his whole life, but it was an enjoyable part of it. “Six weeks is the correct length for the Season. Six weeks out of fifty-two to relax and enjoy society. I spend most of the year at the Abbey, my estate in Kent. It is close enough to London that I can run home during the Season if I feel a surfeit of high living. And close enough that I am always available at Whitehall if some emergency arises.”

Francesca tilted her head and smiled at him from under the brim of her straw bonnet. “I cannot picture you in the country, somehow.”

The eyes, lifted to her, gleamed with some negative emotion, and when he spoke, his voice was strained. “It doesn’t take that much imagination. You see me now, enjoying the country. Did you think I spent twelve months a year in dissipation?”

Before she could reply, Mary returned, accompanied by a servant bearing a tray. The drinks were passed around, and the servant took Harry back to the house for his nap. Devane turned to his hostess and engaged her in conversation, determined to show Francesca that he was not an idle fool interested in nothing but women. “That’s a fine-looking herd you have, Mrs. Travers. I was admiring them as I came here. Guernseys, I see. I have mostly Ayrshires myself.”

“Ronald’s breeding them with some Jerseys—for the higher butterfat, you know.”

“I’ve bought a few Brown Swiss, thinking to get both milk and beef, but my steward tells me I should be introducing a few Jerseys. What sort of yield do you get from yours?”

“You should talk to Ronald about that. You’ll stay to dinner, I hope?”

His eyes slid to Fran, who was gathering up Harry’s toys and refused to look at him, though she listened eagerly, half hoping he would refuse and half fearing it. “I don’t like to impose.”
He looked again at Fran. She still refused to look at him, but he noticed her hand hesitate till he gave his reply.

“Do stay. Ronald would love to talk to you,”
Mary urged Devane.

“Thank you. I should dart back to the inn and change.”
The fingers holding the wooden soldier--did they tremble?

“There’s no need to dress. Ronald welcomes any excuse to sit down in his buckskins. Mind you, he doesn’t usually sink so low when we have company.”

“Then I shan’t lead him into bad habits.”

The conversation returned to cattle, and after some time Mary, noticing Fran’s trick of retiring from the conversation, said, “I’ll just let Cook know you’ll be staying for dinner, Lord Devane.”
She shot her friend a commanding glance as she left.

“Do you mind my staying?”
Devane asked Fran.

“Of course not. Why should I?”

“My vanity led me to think you were not pleased.”

“Not pleased? Pray, what has that to do with vanity?”

“It shows
some
feeling at least. I have had the impression this past half hour that you forgot I was here.”

“Oh, I don’t know much about cattle.”

He gave a conning smile. “Nor do I, but I have a feeling I’ll know a good deal before the evening is over. I know that they got me an invitation to dinner, in any case.”

Francesca felt a turmoil in her chest at this leading speech, but she was determined to quell it. “Any knowledge you manage to pick up will not go amiss, as you
do,
I assume, raise cattle?”

“Indeed I do. I may prevaricate a little when the occasion calls for it, but I don’t lie. Would you like me to go now?”

She gave her old London shrug. “Suit yourself.”

He gave her a searching look from the corner of his eye. “I don’t think you want me to take that literally. What I want to do is kiss you.”

She pursed her lips and looked at her fingers which were twisting like snakes in her lap. “No, I don’t want that.”
She glanced up, and saw he was gazing at her lips. She could almost feel her own lips tingle under his gaze. “Perhaps you had best go.”
He smiled then in a bemused way. The curving of his lips left little dents at the corners of his mouth from trying not to laugh.

“Doing it too brown, Frankie!”
he said, and reaching forward, he placed a quick kiss at a corner of her lips. “I am enchanted by your new style, but don’t completely forget the other one.”

She recoiled as if his lips were live coals. They left behind a burning sensation. “This is not a style!”
she protested weakly.

“With a little work it could become one. The country look—yes, it has possibilities. The patch on your skirt is not so intriguing as that patch you wore at the theater, but more genuine.”

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth in chagrin. She had forgotten the patch on her skirt. She had mended it herself after she tore it climbing a fence while picking berries at White Oaks years before. It was a clumsy piece of work; mending was not her long suit. “We were feeding the chickens this morning. I didn’t bother to change.”

“Don’t feel it necessary to change for me. I, on the other hand, have promised Mrs. Travers not to lead her husband into bad habits, and must return to the inn to change for dinner. Country hours, I expect.”

“We usually dine at six, but Mary will put it off till seven, to impress you.”

“We’ll compromise. I shall come at six-thirty.”

“I’ll tell her. And you were going to tell me how you recovered my necklace, Lord Devane.”

“Don’t you think you might drop the ‘Lord’?”

She nodded. “What I am most curious to hear is who David gave it to.”

“It was Marguerita Sullivan. Her friends, I believe, call her Rita. Mr. Irwin kept harping on that name, now that I think of it.”

“The name Rita appeared on some billets-doux David left behind. We thought she might have the diamonds.”
Devane scowled at such callousness. “Rita Sullivan. I don’t know her, even by sight or reputation. I suppose she is very beautiful?”

“Quite attractive-looking.”
But she paled into insignificance beside Francesca. Lord Camden was a fool. “A blonde,”
he added.

“How did you recover the necklace?”

He gave a brief account of the incident, not wishing to dwell on his familiarity with the muslin company.

“How did Maundley take it? He must have been upset to learn his son’s true character. I hope he keeps it from Lady Maundley.”

“Maundley was very upset. I think he didn’t want to believe it, but knew in his heart it was true. He must have had some idea, I should think. You are generous to worry about him after the way he treated you.”

“I never knew the Maundleys very well. They judged me by the reputation I made for myself after David’s death. It was foolish of me, but that’s all over now. So far as I am concerned, Frankie is buried.”
She spoke with some trace of bitterness at her own folly.

Devane cocked his head and grinned. “Let us not bury her too deep; I was rather fond of her. There is a little Frankie in most ladies. The trick is not to let her get the bit between her teeth and run out of control.
”

He rose and offered his hand to help Fran rise. She accompanied him to the house for his curricle. She asked the gardener to bring it around and waited with Devane till it arrived.

His last words before he hopped into his rig surprised her. “Are we friends, Francesca?”
he asked in a serious way.

“Yes, why not? You have done me a great service. I cannot imagine why you put yourself to so much bother.”

“I did it to expiate for the great disservice I did you earlier. I hope I have paid my debt. Don’t put David’s wrongs in my dish, too.”

Then he hopped up, gave the reins a jiggle, and was off, leaving her alone to ponder his words. It was true she had put him in tandem with David in her thoughts, yet there were striking differences in their behavior. Devane had mistaken her for a lady of pleasure when he accosted her at the Pantheon. It was not entirely his fault; as she sadly admitted, she had looked and perhaps behaved like one. His consorting with lightskirts was not admirable, but at least he had the excuse of being a bachelor.

Perhaps he would be untrue to his wife, but she felt in her bones he would never do anything as despicable as David had—giving away a family heirloom and letting his wife take the blame for it. His eagerness to repay the wrong he had done her proved he had an active conscience. David was a hypocrite. He had been at pains to hide his doings from his parents, done it so successfully that till the day the truth was forced down Maundley’s throat—and hers—they could none of them believe what he truly was.

Devane laid no claim to being a saint and allowed a streak of wickedness in others. He was “rather fond”
of Frankie. The whole world knew him to be a dashing bachelor. If dashing bachelors did not suit some, they could be left alone. She found him very hard to leave alone. What plagued her was whether a dashing bachelor could make a faithful husband.

Devane had laughed at her mended skirt, so obviously Francesca could not appear for dinner in anything too countrified. Yet she was determined she would reveal no trace of the infamous Frankie Devlin. She chose her modestly cut blue crepe, stylish enough but not the highest kick of fashion. The shade, the pale ash-blue of delphiniums in decline, was attractive with her ivory complexion and raven hair. She brushed back her tousle of curls and bound them in a blue velvet ribbon. Some desire for distinction left her fiddling, dissatisfied with the ribbon. She chose a longer length, and tied it over her left ear, allowing the two ends to fall nearly to her shoulder. She had never seen any lady wear a ribbon in just that way.

It would set another style in London—if any lady from London were to see her, that is. She smiled at her own incorrigible affinity for attention, and would not let herself attach a pearl brooch to the ribbon. “There is a little Frankie in most ladies. The trick is not to let her have her head.”