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  “I believe,” Sir Thomas remarked with tight control, “that the lady does not wish for your addresses, my lord. I suggest that you cease to importune upon her further.”

  He dropped the viscount to his feet as carelessly as one might release a kerchief to float to the ground, then took Francie’s hand in a crushing grip. “Come, Miss Hampton, it is time you returned to your seat.”

  There was no mistaking the rage ripping through each word, but Francie allowed herself to be dragged from the box with a sense of relief. She had never anticipated such a scene, and the entire episode had been keenly distressful. She was not, however, prepared for the baronet’s vehemence. Clamping her upper arm with a clasp as tight as a slave-band, he yanked her behind a fluted colonnade and glared down at her with eyes of blazing fury.

  “I trust you now realize, Miss Hampton, just what happens when you encourage a calfling like Coombs,” he rasped at her through tight lips. “A mutton-headed gapeseed would have predicted the outcome of your flirtatious behavior all this past week.”

  All of Francie’s gratitude fled before this assault. Her back stiffened, and she tilted her nose defiantly. “You, sir do not have the right to pass judgment on my behavior. Furthermore, I was not flirting!”

  “I should like to know what you call brazen coquetry if not flirtation, ma’am! That pup cannot be blamed for thinking you fast, given your hoydenish manner. I take leave to warn you that if you continue in such bold ways, you shall acquire a reputation as another Caro Lamb.”

  Her mouth worked soundlessly and her breasts strained against the bodice of her dress as she angrily gulped in air. At last, in a voice of fierce resentment, Francie informed Sir Thomas that she did not have to listen to his quite uncalled-for sermonizing another instant. She wrenched her arm free and took one agitated step, only to be jerked back behind the colonnade.

  “I suggest, ma’am,” he ground out, “that you make some attempt to straighten your hair. Your feathers have already been plucked, my dear,” he added in unmistakable mockery, “and unless you wish for the world to know of your lovemaking—”

  “Oh!” she gasped, “I have not been—”

  “—you will endeavor to restore them to their former glory,” he finished tautly.

  With hands that shook Francie complied with his order while Sir Thomas continued to shield her from the eyes of passersby. Though the exchange of inflamed whispers had taken mere seconds, it had seemed endless to her, and she longed only to be away from his infuriating presence. She yearned to go directly home, yet she knew such an abrupt departure would occasion the very talk she most wished to prevent.

  The instant that her plumes were repositioned to some semblance of order, Sir Thomas turned and led her back to the box. Though not another word passed between them, Francie knew that her escort was laboring under an acute anger. She felt his leashed tension in every step he took. Shame pricked her deeply, for she knew his disapprobation was fully justified. Deep inside she felt profoundly grateful to the baronet, both for his timely rescue and for his aid in forestalling any scandalous gossip. But Francie’s galling humiliation could only find release in violent animosity toward her benefactor.

  How dare he? she thought over and over until the words hammered in her head as white-hot as molten iron on a smithy’s anvil. How dare he lecture to me? If she were a man she would she would have planted him a facer—or whatever it was men did when insulted. Her good sense was thoroughly overcome by her intense desire to show Sir Thomas that she would not permit him to dictate her behavior.

  Upon reentering their box, Francie took her seat and began chattering with false animation to Mr. Harvey on her right. Lord Coombs was nowhere to be seen and, though both Mama and Mary looked at Francie askance, no one gave voice to the unspoken question. Just as the curtain rose on the second act, his lordship slipped into his seat at Francie’s left, but she kept her shoulder turned slightly away from him, fixing her attention firmly on the stage below.

  At the second intermission, intent upon avoiding both the viscount and the baronet, Francie took Mr. Harvey’s sleeve.

  “The box is rather stuffy, you know,” she said as she waved her fan.

  It strained all her powers of dissimulation, but Francie produced at least a semblance of animation in Mr. Harvey’s company. Meeting the sneering disapproval in Sir Thomas’s sapphire gaze, she called upon all her feminine wiles and, in a dazzling performance far superior to anything on the stage below, she exhibited a marked degree of partiality for the bewildered gentleman. Uncomfortable and uncertain what to do in the face of this unexpected attention, Mr. Harvey nonetheless responded with civility to Francie’s demands.

  By the end of the evening the viscount was sulking in dejected injury while Mary sank into distressed misery. But the silent, vibrant condemnation oozing from Sir Thomas goaded Francie the most, bringing a flashing sparkle to her eyes and a flirtatious smile to her lips as she devoted herself to Mr. Harvey.

  Chapter 9

  Staring out a rain-spattered window at a dreary sky as leaden as her spirits, Francie was so lost in thought that she had not, at first, heard Mary’s softly spoken comments. Jerkily, as if pulled back to the reality of the breakfast room, she faced her sister across the table.

  “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

  “I—well, I . . .” Lines of distress etched each side of Mary’s mouth. “I remarked upon your behavior last evening.”

  The teacup traveling to Francie’s lips paused in midair. “Oh?”

  This short, sharp inquiry knocked the breath from her sister. Mary’s eyes focused on her fingers working a knot into the lace ruffling on her rose-striped round gown as she ventured timorously, “It—I—you did not behave—well, at all seemly, my dear.”

  Though she knew it was the truth, Francie was not prepared to hear it. The events of the night before had already exacerbated her beyond the limits of common sense, and she now flared into an irrational defense of her behavior.

  “And just what, may I ask, does that mean?” Francie returned her flowered china cup to its saucer with a ringing crash. “Am I to take it that you have been listening to Sir Thomas’s censorious views of my behavior?”

  “Sir Thomas?” Mary eyed the cup as if she expected to discover it now split in two. “I don’t know what his views may be, but you must know, Francie, that your actions last night were not quite the thing.”

  “I am sorry, Mary, but I do not know such a thing at all,” Francie dissented through clenched teeth. “In fact, I believe I behaved as seemly as anyone else and do not understand why you must needs lecture me on a subject which is, after all, not the least of your concern.”

  Though her color drained from her face at this rebuke, Mary straightened in her chair and thrust her round chin into the air. “But of course it is my concern, Francie. You are my sister and your actions reflect upon the whole family.”

  “Oh, I see!” Francie flung back her chair as she jumped up in a flurry of dark blue. From the coils of her loose ringlets to the plain hem of her unadorned navy gown, she was a narrow line of inflexible fury. “It is not truly my behavior that concerns you, but only the good of the family. Well, I might point out that you fret needlessly, my dear sister. Nothing I shall do could possibly reflect upon the family any ore poorly than your alliance with a notorious rake!”

  Stung out of her usual timidity, Mary rose to meet her sister’s angry taunts head-on. “If you wish to cast names upon people, Frances, I take leave to tell you that you are nothing but an outrageous flirt! I can only say that I am ashamed to call you sister.”

  Mary wheeled and ran from the breakfast room before Francie could reply to this intolerable calumny. The door shivered shut on the younger woman’s hostile retreat, followed by a splintering clatter as Francie hurled her half-full cup against the closing wood.

  Trembling from head to foot, Francie was at first unable to move. Never before had she and Mary engaged in anything more serious tha
n the silliest spat. She thought for a moment that she must still be locked in one of the horrendous nightmares that had not permitted her to rest throughout the long night, but her gaze slowly traced the stain that splayed over the wood door to run in streams to the shattered remains of the porcelain cup, and she knew it had been no dream, no nightmare from which she could wake with relief. It had been real enough, and Francie felt instant remorse that she could so lose control of her temper with Mary.

  Wrenching open the door, she mounted the stairs in twos, her long skirt hiked indecorously above her knees. She was about to climb to the upper floor, certain Mary would have sought the refuge of her bedchamber, when a muffled sound from the morning room arrested her. Turning swiftly, she entered without knocking, words of apology already spilling from her lips.

  Enfolded into his greatcoat, her sobs suppressed by the damp capes at his shoulder, Mary stood within the comforting circle of Sir Thomas’s arms. Francie’s pleas for forgiveness died on her lips as she took in the intimacy of their embrace. Like the china cup, her heart dashed into a multitude of splinters, each piercing her with pricks of pain until her aching was magnified beyond bearing. She would have backed out without another word, but they both turned to look at her, disengaging themselves with embarrassment.

  “Forgive me,” Francie said in a midwinter voice. “I did not know you were using this room for your lovemaking.”

  With a swish of her skirt and a slam of the door, she left before they could respond. Thus, her apology was neither made nor accepted. Had Francie been grated a period of quiet reflection, it is possible she would have yet overruled her pride and returned to beg her sister’s forgiveness. But when she left the morning room, she encountered James, who stopped her to present her with a gilt-edged card.

  Glancing at it with a stormy impatience, Francie found it to be from Viscount Coombs.

  “His lordship begs a word with you, miss,” said the Friday-faced servant.

  She was tempted to deny the viscount, but she knew she had been grievously at fault with him. Not one to shirk an unpleasant responsibility, she nodded and instructed James to show his lordship into the formal sitting room. Running her fingers through her tangled curls, then tugging her lace fichu into place about her neck, Francie sought the strength to endure this unsought interview as she took a seat facing the door. The viscount entered wearing a face of abject remorse, and for one terrifying moment, Francie thought he was going to throw himself on his knees before her.

  “Please sit down, Lord Coombs.” Hoping to forestall such a scene, she gestured to the lyre-back chair opposite the settee on which she sat.

  To her great relief, after an indecisive wavering, the viscount took the indicated chair. He sat there then, brushing his hair back from his pale brow and clearing his throat for an interminable moment.

  “My dear Miss Hampton,” he finally said, “I come to request your forgiveness for my appalling behavior toward yourself last evening and to—”

  “Of course I forgive you.” Francie leaned forward and added earnestly, “It was as much my fault as yours, my lord, and I ask you to forgive me. I should never have led you to believe, to expect that I would welcome—”

  “You need not apologize for your behavior,” he interrupted with feeling. “I know full well I went beyond the pale. I should never been so lost to all sense as to—as to take advantage as I did.”

  Staring at the stains of color on his thin cheeks, Francie felt another wave of guilty regret for her actions. “What say we forget the matter, my lord?”

  His lordship’s relief was evident in the gratitude flooding his flushed face. He dug his toe into the carpet and examined the flowered pattern on the corner screen as if seeking the answer to divine truth in the colored silk. Finally he cleared his throat and managed, “Does this mean . . . could you possibly consider . . . will you marry me?”

  Francie smothered her impulse to laugh and strove to remember the proper etiquette. At last she produced in an almost calm voice, “I am honored, of course, my lord, but I can never accept your generous offer.”

  “But why not?” he queried with a hint of a sulk.

  “Well, for one thing, you are younger than I am. Though a lady does not generally like to admit such a thing, I shall confess, my lord, that I am approaching four-and-twenty.” When he opened his mouth to protest, she raised a hand to silence him. “Don’t try to hoax me, my lord, into believing that you are any older than one-and-twenty because I shan’t accept it as the truth.”

  Red-faced and with a sheepish smile, his lordship reluctantly admitted his youth. “But I do not see that it is such a vast difference of age, Miss Hampton. And I shall grow older, you know.”

  She smiled but said firmly, “But so, my lord, shall I. Further, I’m afraid I do not have, nor do I believe myself capable of ever having, the finer feeling that must exist between a man and woman who wish to wed. Let us forget all this foolishness—both mine and yours—and agree to remain friends.”

  The young man studied the buttons on his yellow kid gloves, the turndown cuffs on his black high-top boots, and the barely discernible pattern on the old rug before finally raising his puppy-brown eyes to her face. He nodded briefly, sending his blond hair straying over his brow again. “I shall be happy to remain your friend, Miss Hampton, though I devoutly wish I could be more.”

  Francie shook her head. “You have much to see of the world yet, my lord, and no doubt one day you will thank me for having had the sense to pass by all that you are offering me.”

  He seemed inclined to protest this point, but was persuaded at last to cease voicing his objections. After a stretch of silence and just as Francie was about to bid him good day, Coombs suddenly inquired, “What was it you wished to speak privately to me about last night?”

  Francie paused, uncertain now whether to confide in him. Then her eyes swam with a moist memory of the intimate embrace she had so recently witnessed, and she said rather brusquely, “I am in need of a sum of money, my lord. Rather a large sum, and I thought perhaps you might help me.”

  He looked eager. “Of course! How much of the blunt d’you need, Miss Hampton?”

  “Twenty thousand pounds.”

  His mouth dropped open and worked mutely. In the end all he managed with a soundless whistle. The hope that had flared to life within Francie flickered a moment more, then died.

  “You have not got such a sum?” she asked flatly.

  “Well . . . no,” his lordship admitted. Watching the defeat cross her face, he added warmly, “I should be happy to lend you what I can. As soon as I get my next quarter’s allowance, I’ll have plenty of the ready.”

  Brightening slightly, Francie asked, “And when is that?”

  “At the end of June.”

  Her face fell again like water over a fall. “Oh. That shall be much, much too late. But thank you for your kind offer.”

  At length he departed on the assurance that she would not hesitate to call upon him if he might be of any help to her. The door had scarcely closed upon his heels when it was thrust open once again.Francie looked up to find herself the object of a searing examination by a clearly vexed baronet.

  “Still trying to leash your puppy, are you, Miss Hampton?” Sir Thomas inquired jeeringly as he kicked the door closed with the back of a tasseled Hessian. “Do you think you can keep him to heel these days?”

  He had discarded his greatcoat, and she could not help but notice his muscles rippling beneath his tight dove-gray pantaloons as he crossed the room with long, angry strides. Embarrassed that she should observe such a thing, her eyes flew back up to his face. Instantly then she wished she had looked anywhere else but into his steely gaze. His eyes raked over her with scorn as he stood before her, his hands planted on his narrow hips with little regard for the cut of his taupe morning coat. His gaze clearly bespoke his contempt for what he saw.

  Maddeningly, Francie felt herself flush under his intense probe. Then once again she vi
vidly recalled the sight of his arms wrapped about Mary, and her figure stiffened as she glared right back at him. But her gaze fell first, reaching the intricate knot of his black cravat before she requested, “You wanted something of me, sir?”

  “What I want of you, Miss Hampton, would likely find me swinging from a Tyburn collar!” Sir Thomas responded sharply. “But as I have little wish to be hanged, I shall restrict myself to informing you that you are not to ever again overset Mary. I’ve come to expect that devilish temper of yours, but she has yet to learn how to protect herself against your stinging tongue. I’ll not have you playing hell with her, sending her into such a pucker simply because you cannot find another unfortunate on whom to loosen your venom. If you cannot refrain from these distempered freaks, then I suggest you return to Norfolk with the next post.”

  During this raging assault, Francie went from flaming red to spectral white. She now stared at Sir Thomas with wide eyes in a ghostly face as varied emotions battled within her. Uppermost was her own shame over what she acknowledged to be just accusations. But a mixture of injured pride and furious resentment of his criticisms kept her from openly admitting, as she truly desired to do, that she was indeed utterly at fault and grievously sorry for the argument with Mary.

  Thus, when his hands dropped and he goaded her with an annihilating elevation of his brow, accompanied with a frozen “Well?”, she rose from her seat with wounded dignity.

  “I believe, sir, you are referring to matters that are of concern only to my sister and me,” she rapped out.

  “Need I remind you, ma’am, that Miss Mary is to become my wife?” he pointed out. “Hence, it is my obligation to protect her.”

  “Mary stands in no need of protection from me,” Francie returned, inwardly wincing even as she made this denial.

  With a withering sneer Sir Thomas continued, “Protection from your venom is precisely what she does need, Miss Hampton. You of all people should know she cannot bear such cruelty as you cast upon her this morning. If you should so overset her again, ma’am, I shall personally send you packing back to Norfolk.”