The Courtship Dance (15 page)

He enjoyed reading and corresponding with learned men. It was likely that he would enjoy being married to a woman with whom he could talk about serious, important matters. Even at the time, Francesca had known that she was too light in thought and manner for the duke. He must have come to realize that himself, as well.

Of course, it was early on yet. There was nothing to say that he would marry the girl simply because he had paid attention to her a time or two. Yet, like Lady Mannering, Francesca knew how rare it was for Rochford to show any sort of particularity toward a young woman. He was the sort of man who avoided
gossip like the plague, and, moreover, knowing how highly he was rated on the marriage market, he was too much a gentleman to raise hopes in any available female’s breast.

For him to be seen with a marriageable girl, particularly spending an appreciable and concentrated time alone with her, such as taking a drive together, indicated a high degree of interest in her. Moreover, to do that after having a fairly long conversation with her at a party only a day or two earlier was bound to cause speculation and lead to rumors. Rochford knew these things as well as anyone in the
ton.
Yet he had done them anyway.

Those facts raised what in another man might have been only an expression of some degree of interest to a much higher level. If he were to dance with her a time or two at a ball, it would really set tongues to wagging.

Of course, Francesca had the advantage over Lady Mannering in knowing that the duke was looking for a wife. It did not strike her as odd that he had talked with or called upon or in some other manner spent time with the various young women he was considering. However, knowing that, she also was more aware than anyone else that any interest he showed was leading toward marriage. Moreover, she knew that by taking Lady Mary for a ride in his phaeton, he was paying more marked attention to her than to any of the others.

Francesca could not imagine any reason for Rochford’s actions other than the one Lady Mannering had
arrived at: the duke was seriously considering Lady Mary for his wife.

She should feel glad, she knew, that her efforts were already bearing fruit. This was what she had wanted: to make up for the wrong she had done him. She wanted him to find a woman to whom he could give his heart. She wanted him to find happiness.

So why, then, had this odd weight settled in her chest? Why did she find it difficult to see the street for the tears pooling in her eyes?

T
HE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON
,
Francesca was at her desk, opening her most recent invitations, when Fenton appeared in the doorway.

“His Grace, the Duke of Rochford, is here.”

Francesca jumped to her feet, knocking her knee painfully against her desk in the process. It had been almost four days since her party, and after her visit with Callie and Lady Mannering the day before, she had convinced herself that she was unlikely to see Rochford again except in the old sporadic way she had for the last few years.

Yet here he was.

Heat spread into her face, and she felt faintly embarrassed, wondering if her old servant had noticed her response.

“Please show him in,” she said, schooling her expression into one of polite welcome.

Rochford strode in a moment later, and the moment
he stepped into the room, it seemed suddenly smaller. Francesca had thought she was prepared; she had spent much time advising herself on how she should react upon seeing him, given what had happened between them last time—and given his apparent interest in Lady Mary Calderwood.

But now, faced with him in the flesh, she found it harder than she had imagined. She could not keep the memories of his kisses from flooding her mind. She felt herself flushing, and she quickly dropped her eyes.
What was he thinking? What did he feel upon seeing her?

She forced herself to look up at him again and go toward him, holding out her hand in greeting. “Rochford, what a pleasant surprise. I confess, I had not expected to see you again.”

“Indeed?” He came forward, his eyes on her face, his own gaze annoying unreadable. “And here I thought I had become such a frequent guest that my presence would occasion no more than an ‘oh, is it you again?’”

“I am sure that your presence never occasions that sort of remark,” Francesca retorted.

His hand closed around hers, and he bowed over it. She was very aware of the feel of his skin on hers—the warmth, the slightly rougher texture.
Why was it that his touch evoked a feeling in her that no one else’s ever had?
She found herself wishing that he had kissed her hand rather than simply bowing over it.

She pressed her lips together and turned away, ges
turing toward the chairs grouped together in the small, casually intimate arrangement. “Pray, sit down. Would you care for refreshment?”

He shook his head, and they spent a few minutes in the usual polite exchange, commenting on the weather and asking after one another’s health, as well as agreeing how pleasant it had been to see Callie again, and how sorry they were that she was so soon traveling to her new home.

Finally Francesca felt enough time had passed to broach the subject that was uppermost in her mind. “I am glad to hear that you have been paying court to Lady Mary.”

His brows lifted a little, and he smiled faintly. “Indeed? Is that what people are saying?”

“I understand that you took her for a drive in your phaeton.”

“Yes, I did.” He continued to look at her, the same slightly quizzical smile hovering on his lips. “It hardly seems an event worth noting.”

“My dear duke, any sign of favor from you is sure to garner attention.”

He made a small, noncommittal noise.

“You feel a preference, then, for Lady Mary?” she went on after a moment. It was not her custom to press for information, but she could not seem to stop herself.

Still, his face gave nothing away. “She is a pleasant young woman.”

Francesca reflected that Rochford could be irritating in the extreme. She would not let herself be one of
those horrid women who chased down gossip, but it was more difficult than she would have thought to turn away from the subject. Why would he not just admit whether he had developed a
tendre
for the girl?

“Yes, she is,” Francesca agreed. “Quite intelligent.”

“So it would seem.”

“Still, I presume that you are continuing to consider all the options we discussed.”

“Of course.” Again the corners of his lips twitched into a smile. “That is the reason for my visit today.”

“Really? You wish to discuss the young women in question? Or perhaps you would like to consider some other choices. These do not suit?” Francesca felt a distinct lifting of her spirits. “I am sure that I can think of a few others.”

“No. I believe these are entirely adequate,” he told her. “What I had in mind was creating another opportunity in which to woo my future wife. I have decided that I should host a ball.”

“Of course. That would be an excellent idea.”

“I want you to help me make the arrangements.”

Francesca felt a rush of pleasure. “Indeed? I am most flattered.” Reluctantly, she added, “However, it is scarcely my place to do so.”

“Who better?” he challenged. “There are none who can surpass your talents as a hostess.”

“That is most gratifying to hear, of course, but there is no reason…I mean, it would be considered odd, surely. I have no connection to you.”

“Do you not?” he asked, and for a moment his gaze, undeniably warm, rested on her face. Then he moved, and the look in his eyes was gone. “In the past my grandmother arranged such things, and in recent years, of course, Callie has acted as my hostess. But neither of them is here now. I can hardly ask my grandmother, at her age, to come rushing to London to put on a ball for me.”

“No, of course not. But I am sure that your butler would be more than capable of arranging it.”

“Cranston
is
quite capable, of course,” Rochford agreed amiably. “But he is a man accustomed to implementing plans, not making them. Nor does he have the skill that you do. The task requires a lady of taste, such as yourself.”

“You think flattery will bring me around?” Francesca asked, doing her best to look severe.

“I certainly hope so.”

She could not help but laugh. “You are shameless.”

“So I have been told.”

“You know it would not be seemly. People would gossip.”

“There is no reason for them to know.” He shrugged. “I will not ask you to receive guests with me.” His dark gaze was penetrating as he asked, “Would you be willing, then…if we hid it from the world?”

Francesca’s heart picked up its beat, and she wondered suddenly, crazily, if his words somehow meant more than the obvious.

“Perhaps,” she replied quietly. “Though it would seem to me that there must be someone else who would better serve.”

“No.” He continued to look steadily into her face. “It must be you.”

F
RANCESCA STARED AT
him, his words reverberating through her, and for a moment the very air seemed to shimmer between them. She abruptly broke their gaze, fearing suddenly that he must see how her breath had quickened, that the pulse roaring in her ears might become as audible to him.

“Very well,” she told him quietly, “if that is what you wish.”

“It is.” There was the faintest undertone of triumph in his voice as he stood up and came over to her. He reached down to her, and automatically, Francesca took his hand and rose to her feet. He smiled. “What should we do? I suppose Lilles House would be the place to start, would it not?”

“You intend a large ball?” she asked.

“I think so. Something that will give your skills adequate range.”

Francesca cast him a mischievous look. “You might regret doing that.”

He grinned. “Never—although I have no doubt you will do your utmost to put that resolve to the test.
However, you have carte blanche to do whatever you wish—and I mean that in the most respectable way, of course.”

His last words highlighted the double entendre of the phrase, a term often used to describe the relationship a man made with his mistress, and Francesca felt her cheeks grow warm. Whatever was the matter with her? she wondered. You would think she was a naive girl instead of a sophisticated woman a decade and a half removed from her come-out.

“Ah, I see I have made you blush. Pardon me.” Rochford’s voice sounded more pleased than sorry, despite his words.

Francesca glanced up at him and found his dark eyes twinkling.

“You are not sorry in the slightest, you detestable man. But I can assure you that ’tis the heat of the summer, not your words. No doubt I look like a kitchen maid.” She touched her cheek self-consciously.

“Whatever the cause, you look lovely.” For a moment his face turned serious, but then he smiled and went on lightly, “As you very well know.” He took a step back. “Come. Ring for the servants to fetch your hat. We shall go to Lilles House.”

“Now?”

“Yes, why not? No reason not to get started, is there? Bring your maid, if you are worried about propriety. You must look the place over, see the ballroom. How else are you to plan?”

“How, indeed?” He was right about that, Francesca knew. Still, there was something illicit-seeming in going to a gentleman’s house with him when there was no female relative residing there.

Maisie rode in the carriage with them. Though a widow enjoyed far more independence than a woman who had never married, Francesca knew that she could not be seen going into a bachelor’s house alone. However, when they reached the imposing white-stone Lilles House, Maisie made her way with the footman to the servants’ quarters, leaving Francesca in the foyer with the duke.

“I am surprised you do not insist that your maid accompany us through the house,” Rochford teased. “Am I so fearsome a creature?”

Francesca rolled her eyes. “Really, Sinclair, you know I could not come here without her.
You
were the one who suggested it, after all. It is as much for your sake as mine. I can imagine the look on Cranston’s face if you had walked in here with an unaccompanied woman.” She paused, glancing at him. “That is to say, with me. I suppose that you have brought women of a certain sort here before.”

The duke gave her a long, level look.

“Come, Rochford, I am not naive,” she told him. “You are a man in your thirties, after all. I realize that you must have had women.”

“Not here,” he replied simply.

Strangely, she felt warmed by his answer. Rochford
was not the sort of man who would dishonor his house, his family or his wife in any way. He would not conduct casual affairs in the home that had been his parents’, and that would someday be his wife’s and children’s. Had she married him, she would always have had his honor, she knew, and for a moment regret swelled in her throat. How different her life would have been if she had married Sinclair.

Francesca turned her head away from him, afraid that her feelings showed too readily on her face. Rochford had always been able to see what she thought.

Sternly, she reminded herself that however little Sinclair was like Andrew, he was, after all, a man. He would have given her his respect, treated her with honor, but she had no reason to think that he would have been any happier in her bed. He would have done it more discreetly, of course, but he, too, would have sought other women when he found her cold and passionless. And, really, it was nothing but a pipe dream to think that, had she married Sinclair, her basic nature would have changed, that she would have blossomed with desire.

Pushing aside her foolish, useless thoughts, Francesca looked around her. The entry hall of Lilles House was vast, stretching up two stories, with a sweeping double staircase as its centerpiece. Behind the staircase, a hallway stretched back to the conservatory and garden entrance, while to the left lay the hallway to the kitchen and servants’ area.

To the right, however, the room opened up to the gallery, a stately hallway floored in Carrara marble, and lined with large portraits of former dukes and duchesses, as well as their children and pets. Elegant wall sconces provided light in the evening, but by day the tall, paned windows along the outside wall flooded the corridor with a golden light. Long velvet curtains, the color of dried moss, hung beside the windows, looped in artful swags over round metal holdbacks.

“I’ve always loved Lilles House,” Francesca said.

He glanced over at her, and she wondered if he, too, was thinking that the house would once have been hers. The idea flustered her, and she glanced quickly away, heat rising in her cheeks.
What if he thought she regretted losing the magnificence of the house?

“I am fond of it, as well,” he replied, and to her relief she could detect nothing in his voice that indicated he found her words anything but normal. “Though it is somewhat dated, I fear. No doubt my bride will wish to change things. Put her own mark upon it.”

“Oh, no!” Francesca protested, a little surprised at how fiercely she disliked the idea. “I hope she will not. It is beautiful just as it is. I would not change a thing.”

But she had nothing to say about the matter, of course. She colored, once again aware of how her remark might be misconstrued, and she cast a glance at her companion. Fortunately, Rochford was looking in another direction and seemed not to have noticed her misstep.

He opened a set of double doors on the left. These doors, as well as a second pair farther down the hall, opened into the large ballroom, which stretched all the way to the rear of the house. Three huge chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and the floor was of the same pinkish-veined marble that lay in the gallery. Along the side wall was a row of tall windows, shaded in heavy brocade draperies of a deep maroon shade, and across the rear wall stood three sets of double French doors opening out onto a terrace.

“If you hold it in this room, it will have to be a grand ball,” she warned. “Else it would not suit. It will take time to prepare for it.”

“An end of the Season party, then. Mayhap one to announce an engagement.”

Francesca felt the now-familiar clutch of nerves in her stomach. Was he so sure, then, of his choice? It must be Lady Mary. Given what he had said, she was certain that he was not considering Caroline Wyatt any more than he was Althea Robart. Damaris seemed a better choice, and Lady de Morgan was more lovely. But it was Mary Calderwood to whom he had talked for so long, whom he had taken riding in his phaeton.

Of course, he had taken Francesca herself for a ride in his phaeton, but that was an entirely different matter.

“You will have enough time to prepare, will you not?” the duke went on.

Her heart dropped. Would she even be in London in a few more weeks? If Perkins made good on his threats,
she would be out of her house. How could she possibly still manage Rochford’s party?

She forced a smile on her face, however, and told him, “Yes, of course. One does not need to add much decoration here.”

They strolled through the grand ballroom to the sets of doors at the other end. Francesca stood, gazing out onto the terrace and the garden beyond. It was a very large yard for a house in the city, with an expansive garden.

“Would you like to extend the party into the garden?” she asked, turning toward him. “We could string up lights between the trees.”

“Like Vauxhall Gardens?” he asked.

“Well…yes, I suppose so. But less ostentatious, perhaps—and hopefully without some of the behavior that takes place there. But perhaps we could set up a few tables and chairs on the terrace.” She pointed. “There, where it is more secluded. We could have lights on the steps, and we could add decorations to the benches surrounding the fountain.”

“It sounds very pleasant,” Rochford agreed, reaching out to open one of the doors. “Let us go look at the garden more closely.”

He offered her his arm, and they strolled across the terrace and down into the garden, moving at a leisurely pace and looking all around them. Francesca pointed out where stands of candelabra could be placed, and how wide ribbons twined through the railings would
add a festive touch to the terrace and stairs. It would be a delight to plan for this party, she thought—if it were not for the knowledge, sitting in her chest like a lump of lead, that she was planning the joyous occasion for another woman.

“We would not have to use the whole garden,” she went on as they circled the fountain and moved deeper into the garden. “We could mark off the paths at certain points to restrict them.”

He shrugged. “No doubt the head gardener will disapprove, but I think ’twould be pleasanter to have it all open.”

A tall, green hedge divided the garden, with an arch cut into it, leading into the back reaches. Beyond the great hedge, roses grew by the hundreds, filling the air with their heady scent. Here the garden grew less formal, the flower beds no longer contained in neat symmetrical shapes, but sprawling in gloriously bright abandon.

“It’s beautiful,” Francesca breathed. Though she had been to several parties over the years at Lilles House, and had called on the dowager duchess and Callie many times, she had never gone deeper into the garden than the section in front of the dividing hedge.

“My mother loved the garden,” Rochford said quietly. “She clashed with my grandmother over it—the only times I ever heard her dare to disagree with the duchess. She encouraged the gardener to keep the rear garden wilder.”

“I did not know your mother well,” Francesca said. “But I am sure I would have liked her if this garden is any example.”

“She did not visit Dancy Park much after my father’s death. You were still a child when he died—twelve or thirteen, I suppose. My mother was…she was a sweet woman, a romantic one. Theirs was a love match. Her family was quite good, but not as lofty as the Lilles. My grandparents thought my father could have made a better match, and no doubt Mother felt it. She was intimidated, I am sure, when she married my father. Well, you can imagine coming into a family with in-laws like my grandmother and Great-Aunt Odelia.”

“Sweet heaven!” Francesca said, much struck by the idea. “Either one of those women is enough to strike fear into anyone’s heart. Your poor mother.”

He smiled. “I do not think she minded as much as some women would have. She was glad enough at times, I think, for Grandmother’s counsel and advice. She was not always comfortable in the role of duchess. However, as a wife she was perfect for my father. They were very much in love. She was a good, kind mother, as well, one who did not leave her children entirely to the nurse and governess.”

“Well, those are the important roles she played. Being a duchess would not count as strongly.”

He glanced at her. “That is what I thought. And my father. With Grandmother, of course, duty is paramount. The family. The name.”

Francesca shrugged. “We have to face our responsibilities, of course. But surely happiness and love are more important.”

“Do you think so? I would not have said so, from your admonitions to me about marrying.”

Francesca stopped and turned to face him. “Are you again comparing me to the dowager duchess? Really, Rochford…you can be most maddening. I did not say you should marry for your family. What is important is that you be happy.”

He studied her for a moment, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. “I am glad to hear you say it.”

Francesca felt an odd quiver run through her. She did not care to think about it, so she turned and started forward again, saying, “Why did your mother dislike Dancy Park?”

“She did not dislike it so much as she found it hard to leave Marcastle. After Father died, she retreated from the world. She rarely came to London for the Season. She had lost her enjoyment of it. Indeed, she had lost most of her joy in life. She traveled less and less, preferring to stay where she and Father had spent most of their lives together. She felt closest to him at Marcastle.”

“How sad. I mean, ’tis very sweet, as well, but it seems a sad life to live.”

“It was. I felt sorry for her. And yet…”

“And yet what?” Francesca asked when he did not continue, unconsciously tucking her hand into his arm again.

He shook his head slightly. “You will find me very selfish, I fear. I wished she had not been so wrapped up in her grief. It was almost as if both our parents had died. Callie was just a child. She soon could not even remember our father. But for her our mother was…a wraith. A pale imitation of the woman she had been. Callie cannot remember the vibrant woman who was once our mother. She grew up with a quiet, sad person, one who was always a bit removed from everyone else’s life.”

“You must have missed her, as well,” Francesca offered.

He glanced at her. “I did. There were times when I badly wished for her counsel. I was but eighteen and often overwhelmed by the title. There was my grandmother to advise me, of course.”

“The upholder of Duty and Responsibility,” Francesca murmured.

Rochford smiled faintly. “Yes. At least with Grandmother, one did not have to fear a lack of opinion. She was always certain of the correct thing to do.”