The Courtship Dance (8 page)

“I presume that you did not ask her to,” Gideon ventured.

“Indeed not. She thinks that if she finds me a wife, it will somehow make up for—for something that happened long ago.” He paused and glanced at Gideon. “Oh, devil take it! The truth is, she broke off our engagement.”

Gideon gaped at him. “Engagement? You and Lady Haughston are engaged?”

The duke sighed. “We were, long ago. She was not Lady Haughston then. It was fifteen years past, and she was only Lady Francesca, the daughter of the Earl of Selbrooke.”

“But how have I never heard this? I mean, of course I would not have known it at the time, but since I’ve been returned to my family…I cannot imagine why
Aunt Odelia or my grandmother or someone has never brought it up.”

“They never knew about it, either,” Rochford replied. “It was a secret engagement.” He sighed, and suddenly he looked older, weary. “Francesca had just turned eighteen. I’d known her practically all her life, of course. Selbrooke’s estate, Redfields, bordered on my lands at Dancy Park. But that last winter, when she was seventeen, and I saw her…” A faint smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “It was as if the scales fell from my eyes. It was Boxing Day, and we held a ball. There she was, wearing long skirts at last, with a blue ribbon in her hair that matched her eyes. I was stunned.” He glanced at his companion ruefully.

“I know the feeling,” Gideon assured him in a dry tone.

“Yes, I imagine you do, at that. So…I fell in love with her. I tried not to. I told myself she was too young. She seemed to return the feeling, but I knew that she had not even made her debut yet. She had not been to London parties, only country things. She knew few men, beyond her relatives and the locals. How was she to truly know her heart?”

Rochford was silent for a moment as he took a drink, then gazed reflectively into his glass. When he looked up again, his face was set, all emotion carefully absent from it. “Finally, I could not bring myself to wait until she had had her first Season. I feared that if I stood back, some other man would move in and sweep her off her feet.”

“So you compromised by making the engagement secret,” Gideon said.

“Exactly. I could see the stars in her eyes. I knew that she thought she loved me. But I feared that she was simply dazzled by her first romance. I could not bear to set her free, with no knowledge of my regard for her, my hopes for the two of us. But I did not want her irrevocably bound to me by a public engagement. If she changed her mind or if she realized that she did not love me as much as she had thought she did, then she would be able to break it off without being subjected to the scandal.”

“I see.” Gideon had not been raised among his peers, but he had learned enough about the society in which he now lived to know that a broken engagement was an enormous scandal that could haunt a woman, in particular, for the rest of her life. As a result, both parties rarely cried off, even if one or the other began to have doubts about the upcoming marriage.

“Unfortunately, in the end I proved to be right. She did not love me enough.”

“What happened?”

The duke shrugged. “She was deceived. She was made to believe that I was having an affair with another woman. I tried to tell her what had really happened, but she would not believe me. She refused to see me. By the end of the Season, she had become engaged to Lord Haughston. And that was the end of it.”

“Until now.”

Rochford nodded. “Until now.” He polished off the
liquor in his glass and reached out to pour another drink. “Recently she discovered that she had been lied to, that the woman in question had arranged for Francesca to find the two of us apparently
in flagrante delicto
. She realized that I had told her the truth and that she had been wrong, that she had treated me unfairly.” He raised the glass toward Gideon in a kind of salute, saying, “So she decided to make it up to me by finding me a wife.”

Gideon watched silently as the other man downed the drink. He had never seen Rochford consume liquor at quite the pace he was drinking it now. Of course, neither had he ever seen him looking quite so…off balance. The duke was one of the most self-contained men he had ever met, rare to show anger or even irritation. But tonight, clearly, he was disturbed, fury bubbling just below the surface, seemingly ready to jump out at any moment, and it was clear that he was having to hold it in with some effort.

“Why the devil did she take it into her head to do that?” Rochford exclaimed as he set his glass down with a thud on the small table between them. “God, and to think for a little while I was fool enough to believe—”

When he did not go on, Gideon prodded quietly, “To believe what?”

Rochford shook his head and made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing.” He paused, then went on. “She told me what she had
found out, and she apologized. And then she maneuvered it so that I agreed to escort her and Lady Althea Robart to a play. I thought…”

“That she wanted to go back to—”

“No!” Rochford replied quickly. “Good Gad, no. There’s no question of that, of course. But I thought, perhaps, she hoped we could be better friends now. Then she started throwing Lady Althea at me. Lady Althea, of all people!”

“I don’t know her.”

“You don’t want to,” the duke told him bluntly. “She is pretty enough, but too high in the instep for me. Not to mention that after ten minutes of her conversation, one is ready to go to sleep.”

“Do you still love Lady Haughston?”

Rochford glanced at him, then quickly away, saying gruffly, “Nonsense. Of course not. That is, well, of course I have some degree of feeling for the woman. We are old…not exactly friends, of course, but, in a way she is almost family.”

Gideon cocked a skeptical eyebrow at that description, but refrained from saying anything.

“I have not been nursing an unrequited love for her all these years,” the duke went on firmly. “We could never go back to what we were, what we felt. It has been fifteen years, after all. We both lost those feelings long ago. I’m not angry because I hoped the two of us might—No, it’s just Francesca’s absolute gall in deciding to take over my life. Everyone lets her manage
things. She is terribly good at it, maneuvering and arranging.”

A smile lifted the other man’s lips. “I have had experience.”

“But that she should decide to do it for
me!
” Rochford’s dark eyes snapped. “That she thinks she is better able to choose a wife than I am. That I need her help in getting a woman to marry me!” A muscle in his jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth.

Rochford poured himself a fourth drink and took a healthy slug of it. “Then she has the nerve to preach duty to me. To me! As if I were some young fool who flits about indulging my whims, with no concern for my name or family. As if I had not devoted my life to the title and the estate since I was eighteen years old. To top it off, she implies that I am getting past the age of marrying. As if I must seize some silly girl and father children as fast as I can before I am no longer capable of reproducing!”

Gideon smothered a smile. “I feel sure she did not mean to imply that.”

The duke made a disgruntled noise and sipped his drink.

“Pardon me if I am prying—you know my manners are not polished,” Gideon began. “But do you mean not to marry?”

“Of course not. I will marry. I must. Eventually.”

“You do not sound eager.”

Rochford shrugged. “I have simply not found any
one I want to marry. Everyone reminds me of my duty to have progeny, and I suppose they are right. The line must go on. And my cousin Bertram has no desire to inherit all the work and responsibility that go with being a duke. But surely there is time yet. I am not quite ready to ‘shuffle off this mortal coil.’” He swirled the brandy around in the bottom of the snifter, watching the dark liquid broodingly. “I will find a wife someday. And I will do it in my own way, without any help from Lady Haughston.”

“I must say, she did rather well for me,” Gideon pointed out mildly, watching his cousin. “I cannot imagine a mate better suited for me than Irene.” He paused, then added, “You might let her try.”

Rochford snorted. “It would serve her right if I did.”

This thought seemed to arrest him, for he stopped speaking and stared off into space for a long moment. Finally a slow smile curved his lips, and he thoughtfully took another drink.

“Maybe I should,” he murmured. “Let Lady Haughston see just how much she enjoys finding me the proper duchess.”

S
IR
A
LAN CAME
to call on Francesca the following afternoon, bringing his daughter with him. Francesca was relieved to see them. She had felt dispirited all day, fearing that she had lost Rochford’s friendship forever. She had stopped and started several tasks, unable to concentrate on anything, for her thoughts kept returning to Rochford’s anger. It seemed terribly unfair, she thought, that he had been so angry at her when all she had done was try to help him. Perhaps she had been a trifle clumsier than she normally was about such matters, but surely he could see that she had bore him no ill will in the matter.

If he had just allowed her to explain, she was sure that she could have made him understand—or at least kept him from becoming enraged. It was not like him to be quick to anger or disinclined to listen to reason. But Francesca was becoming aware that she apparently had that effect upon him. It was, she suspected, her frivolous nature that had grated on him. Rochford had always been serious—well, not serious, exactly, for he had a quick sense of humor and a wonderful laugh. And, of course, when he smiled, the room seemed to
light up. He was not one of those dreadfully boring sorts who was always grim.

But he was so responsible, so dedicated to his duty, so careful and well-planned in everything he did. He was well-read, even scholarly, and his interests ranged over a wide variety of subjects. He corresponded with scientists and scholars in many different fields. She knew that he must consider her far too flighty and shallow, a woman interested only in clothes and hats and gossip. It was for that reason, when they had been engaged, that Francesca had feared he would one day grow tired of her or, worse yet, come to view her as an annoyance.

Now he obviously did view her that way, since his infatuation with her was long gone. Still, she was surprised that his reaction had been so extreme. She wished that she had been smoother in her dealings with him and Althea, and she spent much of the day going over and over what she could have done differently.

When Sir Alan arrived, she met him with cordiality, glad to turn her attention to someone else. Sir Alan smiled when she greeted him, and she saw again in his eyes a certain masculine appreciation. She would have to be careful in dealing with him, she thought; she certainly did not want to encourage any romantic inclinations.

Francesca turned quickly to say hello to his daughter, then rang for tea and settled down for a chat, studying Harriet covertly as they talked.

The girl was pretty enough, with nice brown eyes, a snub nose and thick brown hair. Her skin was too
brown; she obviously was not careful about wearing a hat in the country. But at least she was not spotty or freckled. She had a frank, open face and a friendly smile—not the cool, aristocratic look that was deemed correct by society mavens. But Francesca had never found that that particular look attracted a man, anyway.

A different style for her hair would work wonders, as would a lesson in plucking her eyebrows. And her dress did not suit her at all. It was dowdy and prim—and Francesca had no difficulty in believing that Sir Alan’s mother had picked out the girl’s clothes.

“Your father tells me that you are interested in making a bit of a splash this Season,” Francesca began in a friendly tone.

Harriet grinned back at her. “Oh, I would not aim so high as a ‘splash,’ Lady Haughston. I think mere notice would be an improvement.”

Francesca smiled, liking the girl’s forthright response. Of course, she would have to school some of that out of her if Harriet hoped to be a success. “I think we can do better than that—if we put our minds to it.”

“I am willing,” Harriet replied. She cast a smile at her father as she went on. “I fear Papa has wasted his money so far. I would hate for it all to have been for naught.”

“Now, Harry,” her father protested fondly. “You needn’t worry about things like that.”

“I know you do not mind,” she responded. “But I despise waste in any form.”

“Then you are, um, willing to be guided by me in
these matters?” Francesca inquired. There was nothing worse than a recalcitrant student.

“I put myself entirely in your hands,” Miss Sherbourne assured her. “I know that I haven’t sufficient town bronze. I can tell that sometimes the things I say make people look at me askance. But I am a quick learner, and I’m willing to change in whatever way I have to—at least for the length of a Season.”

“I think that a shopping expedition is the place to start,” Francesca said, with a quick glance at Harriet’s father. He nodded agreeably, and she continued. “I also think it would be a good idea, Sir Alan, if we put on some sort of party. We could invite some of the people whom I think would be helpful in getting your daughter noticed. Now, the other day, you mentioned that you would prefer that I—”

“Oh, yes, Lady Haughston,” Sir Alan jumped in eagerly. “If you would—my mother, you see, is not in the best of health. Nor does she move about in Society that much. I think it might be too much for her. Not, of course, that she wouldn’t be willing.” The expression on his face put the lie to that last sentence.

“I could easily have a small soiree or a dinner here,” Francesca suggested.

The man heaved a sigh of relief. “Just the thing, I’m sure. It is a great deal to ask of you, I know, but I am certain that you would handle everything so much better. Just direct all the bills to me—as you must do with the dresses, of course.”

“I shall be happy to play hostess,” Francesca assured him honestly. She enjoyed arranging parties, and it was much more fun to do so when she was not limited by her own financial situation.

Harriet and her father rose to leave not long afterwards. As Francesca and Harriet stood making arrangements for the shopping expedition the following day, the butler appeared in the doorway to announce another visitor.

“His Grace, the Duke of Rochford, my lady,” Fenton intoned.

Francesca turned toward the door, startled to see Rochford standing in the hallway behind her butler. Her stomach tightened, and she could feel a blush rising up her throat. She hardly knew what to say or think as memories of the evening before flooded in on her. In the space of a single instant she veered from embarrassment at the thought of his kiss to pain from the angry words he had thrown at her to an answering anger of her own.

“Rochford. I—I did not expect you. I—oh, forgive me.” Belatedly, she remembered her other guests. “Pray allow me to introduce you to Sir Alan Sherbourne and his daughter, Miss Harriet Sherbourne. Sir Alan, the Duke of Rochford.”

To her surprise, Sir Alan smiled and said, “Thank you, Lady Haughston, but the duke and I have met. Good to see you again.”

“Sir Alan.” The duke nodded to the other man, ex
plaining to Francesca, “Sir Alan and I met the other day at Tattersall’s.” The horse sales were conducted every Monday, and had become a favorite congregating place for men of all ranks.

“Yes, and his Grace was kind enough to advise me against buying a certain hunter that I had my eye on.”

“I had knowledge of him, you see. Good-looking animal, but no go in him.” The duke turned toward Harriet, saying, “But until now I have not had the pleasure of meeting your daughter, Sir Alan.” He nodded. “Miss Sherbourne.”

Harriet, who was rather goggling at the duke, hastily curtsied, a blush spreading along her cheeks. “An honor, Your Grace.”

Sir Alan and Harriet then took their leave, with Sir Alan once again expressing his gratitude to Francesca. After they were gone, the duke turned back to her.

“One of your projects?” he asked her, raising an eyebrow.

“I have decided to take an interest in Miss Sherbourne, yes,” Francesca replied a little stiffly, not sure how to respond to him.

It seemed unlikely that he would have come to expound on his dislike of her actions, but neither was it reasonable that he would have abandoned his anger this quickly. Even if he had, Francesca thought, she was not inclined to ignore the way he had railed at her just the night before.

“I came to apologize,” he told her now, coming
straight to the point. “I have no excuse for how I acted last night. I can only hope that your good nature will lead you to forgive me.”

“Some would say that appealing to my better nature would fall on deaf ears,” Francesca retorted crisply, but she could not help but be disarmed by his apology.

He smiled. “Anyone who could say that obviously does not know you.”

“I did not mean to upset you, you know,” she told him. “I wanted to make up for my mistakes, not commit a new one.”

“You are not to blame for my reaction.” He shrugged. “I fear that I am a trifle sensitive on the subject of marrying. My grandmother has taken me to task for it far too many times, as has Aunt Odelia.”

“Oh, dear. I hate to hear that I am behaving like a grandmother or great-aunt.” She had no interest in staying angry with Rochford. And she certainly did not want to get into the matter of his kiss! No, better to gracefully let go of the whole matter.

“I hope that you will accept a ride through the park as an adequate peace offering,” he went on. “It is a lovely May day out.”

He had surprised her again. Francesca could not remember when she had ridden out alone with Rochford—well, yes, she could. It had been when they were engaged so long ago. But better not to think of that.

“Yes,” she told him with a smile. “That sounds delightful.”

A few minutes later he was handing her up into his high perch phaeton, a fashionable vehicle with a seat so far from the ground that Francesca would have felt alarmed had any less notable a whip than Rochford been handling the horses.

He climbed up beside her and took the reins, and they set off. She could not deny an unaccustomed bubbling of excitement inside her. Though she was used to being admired by many gentlemen and was not averse to a little light flirtation, she rarely accepted any man’s invitation to ride through the park. It was her practice not to allow even so small a step toward courtship.

It was a rather heady experience to be sitting up this high, and there was a certain added fillip of danger without any need to be scared. There was no one better at handling a team than Rochford.

They did not talk much as they made their way through the city streets, for the traffic made it necessary for him to concentrate on keeping his powerful team in hand. Francesca did not mind. Frankly, it was taking her a bit of time to adjust to the feelings that were running through her.

She and Rochford had often driven through Hyde Park when they were engaged. When she had come to London for her first Season, she had missed him terribly, for she had been accustomed to seeing him almost every day in the country. They had ridden together, and strolled in the gardens at Redfields and Dancy Park, and gone on long rambles through the
countryside. When he had come to call on her at Redfields, no one had watched them too closely, and it had been easy enough to talk together and to exchange glances, perhaps even for his hand to brush against hers.

But once they were in London, all that had changed. They were surrounded by people everywhere. There were always callers in Francesca’s drawing room and crowds of people at parties, other men vying for the opportunity to dance with her or escort her to the opera. She had felt alone and frustrated, and she had looked forward to the times when the duke took her for a drive.

Of course, they had had to be circumspect about the number of times they went to the park and the length of time they stayed. Any excessive attention on Rochford’s part would have been fuel for rumors. But Francesca had felt happier on those rides than at any other time during that Season.

Memories of those long ago moments rushed in upon her now, nearly taking her breath away. It was the same time of year, with the same feel in the air, the same caress of the sun on their backs. Francesca could not help but remember how excitement had surged up in her on those drives, the breathless joy she had felt just sitting beside Rochford.

He was just as close to her now. She had only to reach out a hand and she could touch him. She remembered how much she had longed to do just that fifteen
years ago, worried that he would be disapproving of her boldness, afraid that someone else might see.

The breeze caressed her cheek and tugged at a lock of hair beneath her hat. Everything around her seemed brighter, the leaves glossier, the shade beneath the trees deeper and more inviting. The faint scent of the duke’s cologne teased at her nostrils, and she was very aware of him beside her. She thought of his kiss the night before, of the way his hard body had pressed into hers, his arms tight and strong around her. His lips sinking into hers…his mouth velvety and inviting, hot with desire.

Francesca swallowed and turned her face to look off to the side, hoping that the sudden flush in her cheeks would cool down before he glanced at her. How could she be thinking this way about that kiss—her flesh tingling, her muscles tightening, heat coiling in her stomach?

She wished that she could deny the effect his kiss had on her, but she knew that she could not. Even the other night, in her dream, she had thrilled to his kiss, her whole body melting against him, her mouth opening to his seeking tongue.

“I thought a great deal last night about what you said,” Rochford began when they had reached Hyde Park and he no longer had to focus on the reins to such a degree.

Francesca, lost in her thoughts, started. “Oh?” She hoped he did not notice how breathily her voice came out.

“Yes. When I calmed down, I realized not only that I had been appallingly rude, but also that you had been quite correct in what you said. And my grandmother, as well.”

“Really?” Francesca stared at him in some astonishment. “Do you mean—”

He nodded. “Yes. It is time that I married. Past time.”

“Oh. I see. Well…” Francesca was aware of an odd feeling in her stomach, a faintly queasy sensation reminiscent of the way she felt when she looked down from a great height.

“I decided you were right—it is time I started looking for a bride. I doubt I shall suddenly develop any interest in marrying. I should simply set myself to the task and do it.”