Miss Francie's Folly Page 11

  “Are you threatening me, Sir Thomas” she challenged.

  “Let us say I am informing you of the consequences your actions.”

  Her lips tightened into an almost invisible line. Though she knew she deserved this dressing-down, it did not hurt the less to receive it. She thought she would surely die from the ache within her at his expression of scorn, pity, and dislike. Suddenly she could not bear such looks an instant longer. Her heart had been broken long ago, but it was breaking again. She had heard it shatter when she saw Mary in his arms, and now she felt the pang as he crushed the shards to dust beneath his censorious aversion.

  Wanting only to get away from the misery, from the heartache she did not wish to examine, Francie blindly put out a trembling hand. She turned and moved mechanically toward the door, not seeing, not hearing. Thus, it came as a surprise to feel herself held back, to feel his arms engulf her slender figure, to hear his voice in a stream above her ear. Dully, she became aware of the words within the sound and listened for a disbelieving moment before pushing his arms away.

  “I—I do not need you to tell me when to apologize to my sister,” she said, gazing steadfastly at the third mother-of-pearl button on his cream waistcoat. “Nor do I need you to involve yourself with any of my affairs.”

  He subjected her to another harsh scrutiny from those hard eyes, then moved to flick a lazy finger against her pale cheek. “I see. You now feel yourself perfectly capable of controlling your young pup. Are you as certain of Mr. Harvey?”

  “Mr. Harvey is a gentleman,” she retorted.

  “Ah,” he drawled in a voice that made her fingers curl up into her palms. “Well, my dear, I am certain you know best what you want, and if it is a reputation as a hoyden, who am I to say you nay?”

  Her eyes flashed with warning as they swept up to his. “Thank you, sir! You have made your opinion of me quite plain, and I shouldn’t dream of inflicting my hoydenish presence upon you a moment longer.”

  Again she turned to the door, her hand on the brass knob, but his palm on the wood stayed its opening.

  As she turned an infuriated face up to him, he said on a note of command, “I will have your word, Miss Hampton, that you will leave Mary out of your embittered battle with the rest of the world. You may save your arrows to sling at me, if you wish, or possibly one of your beaux has become fond of that shrew’s tongue you own, but I warn you, I will not tolerate your abuse of that child.”

  “You will not tolerate?” Francie repeated, her voice as numb as her feelings. She stared at the hand pressing against the dark wood of the door, at the frills of the fine cambric shirt gracing the wrist, and felt as if a saber had been thrust through her middle. Her unbound hair shook with an emphatic nod. “I see. I assure you, Sir Thomas, that you need not concern yourself with me again.”

  Still the hand did not move. Her eyes inched reluctantly beyond the frilled cuff, up the taupe sleeve, past the broad shoulder to his shuttered face. For what seemed to Francie like an eternal descent into hellfire, they gazed wordlessly at one another. Then the baronet straightened, his hand fell away, she threw open the door, and escaped from his burning hostility.

  Francie flew through her room in a frenzied whirl. She jerked two portmanteaux from the top of her wardrobe, pitched them open onto the floor, and began to dash wildly forward and backward. From wardrobe to vanity, from vanity to wardrobe, she grasped without seeing to fling dresses, shawls, shoes, brushes, books, ribbons—everything, in short, she could lay hands on—into the boxes. She did not shriek or cry out as her soul longed to do, but crossed her room in a tight-lipped, frantic silence.

  He wanted her gone. Very well, she would leave! This moment! She would not inflict her presence on him, on Mary, on anyone a moment longer! These thoughts bludgeoned themselves repeatedly against her head until it ached as even her heart ached. Still she scrambled in a race against her own tortuous misery, stumbling into the growing litter on her floor to sling down yet another dress, another glove.

  At the end of thirty crazed minutes of distracted snatching and hurling, blind seizing and tossing, Francie’s foot caught on the hem of a discarded pelisse, rending the cloth and sending her sprawling to the floor in one ungainly motion. As she collapsed beside the entangled jumble heaped in colorful disarray, she burst into sobs. Her body twisted with sorrow and she cried as though she had saved all the tears of a lifetime for this moment.

  When at last her wrenching tears became hiccups, Francie straightened, wiped her face with the flounce of a lemon yellow poplin dress, and tried to regain control of herself.

  What was happening to her? What had become of the cool, calm headmistress of Hampton’s Establishment for Young Ladies? She looked sadly at the disheveled hodgepodge strewn haphazardly about her and thought the picture an apt description of her mind—a muddled farrago of varied nonsense. Without wishing to, Francie recognized the reason for her disordered mental state, and tears trickled anew down her cheeks. Above all, she did not wish to admit what she could no longer deny, even to herself.

  All those years, all those miles away from her memories, it had been easy to pretend. She had nearly convinced herself, too, that she no longer cared. But the pretense was over. Her love for Sir Thomas Spencer flamed more hotly than ever before, and it was reducing her to ashes.

  She wrapped her arms around her and, hugging herself as if to squeeze out all the renewed pain, Francie began to examine her actions over the past weeks. She had, she now acknowledged, objected to Mary’s betrothment from jealousy—ugly, undeniable jealousy. She had no right to oppose the match. She would bury her feelings and accept it as she must. And she would return to Norfolk as soon as possible.

  Casting her eyes over the tumbled clutter she had created, the ghost of a smile graced her mournful lips. She could not, of course, leave as quickly as she had intended an hour ago. An abrupt departure would occasion just the sort o talk she most desired to avoid. But at the end of a week, she would be on the stage for Norfolk, and she would allow no one to talk her out of it. The baronet wished expressly for her to be gone, she thought with a sharp pang, and so, more than anything, did she!

  Chapter 10

  As will often happen in the spring, the days had gone unexpectedly from brisk to balmy. Thus the newly repaired hem of Francie’s pelisse lay over the banded portmanteaux in the hall while only a light cashmere shawl draped her shoulders. She had knotted her hair tightly at the nape of her neck, as befit a headmistress, and covered it with an unassuming cloth bonnet of the same dull brown as her sensible traveling gown. She pulled on her gloves with short, efficient snaps and bid James good-bye without revealing a hint of the sadness she was feeling.

  Indeed, as she checked within the depths of her fringed silk reticule to once again count the funds for her journey, Francie wondered if she would ever feel happy again. Certainly she had not known a moment’s peace over the past week. Though she had wanted to time and again, she had never reconciled with Mary and thus, a keen remorse had been added to her inner distress and had strengthened the stiff reserve with which she treated everyone. Coldest of all was her treatment of Sir Thomas, to whom she had scarcely spoken since he had made so clear his desire to see her gone.

  She had, moreover, another battle with her mother, who seemed to take Francie’s departure as a personal insult. This time, however, Francie had remained staunch. She must return to Norfolk and no amount of arguing could change her mind. Her leave-taking had been brief and chilled. Mama was not, it seemed, prepared to forgive her. Francie sighed and cast one last look about the hall, told herself she must be catching cold, so watery had her eyes become, and headed for the door.

  A rustle of skirt and patter of feet halted her. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Mary flying down the staircase the instant before she was captured in the young girl’s arms. The Hampton sisters exchanged a fervent embrace.

  “Oh, Francie, I am so very sorry!” cried Mary. “Do you think you can forgive me enough to s
tay?”

  Relief flood Francie, and she held on tightly for a long moment before detaching Mary with a laugh. “Don’t be a silly goose, dearest! It is I who must ask your forgiveness. You cannot think I am leaving because of you. It is simply time for me to get back to my duties. I’ve a school to run, you know. I cannot neglect it any longer.”

  “Are you certain you cannot stay?” Mary pleaded, her blue eyes sorrowful in her round face. “Not even for my ball? It’s but two weeks away.”

  “Yes, I’m certain.” Francie answered firmly. Then, as Mary showed a distressing tendency to shed tears, Francie added briskly, “You don’t need me to enjoy your ball. All the preparations are in order. All you and Mama need do is present yourselves in your prettiest gowns and enjoy the evening. And Mary—I am sorry. I never meant to lose my temper with you.”

  Impulsively, she scooped Mary back into the circle of her arms for a last hug. James’s discreet cough parted them. Together they laughed with embarrassment, then Francie gathered herself together with a show of festive anticipation for her journey and once again moved to leave.

  A series of raps startled them. James, who had carried the portmanteaux to the door, was shaken from his usual poise. Recovering, he dropped the boxes to the floor with a clatter and hastened to admit the newcomer.

  “This must be my hack,” Francie was saying with a lopsided smile that twisted further still when she looked up to behold Sir Thomas. Her pulse raced. She had not thought to see him again. For one brief instant, she allowed herself the joy of seeing his handsome features one last time.

  A strange glitter shone in his azure eyes, and his black hair was more disheveled than ever, but there was nothing novel about the mocking curve upon his chiseled lips, which dropped kisses or jibes with the same careless ease. After adjusting the set of her shawl, Francie just stood there as rigid as granite.

  “Hack indeed, Miss Hampton,” he said, “I’ve come to take you to Lombard Street.”

  Francie’s eyes narrowed as she noticed the slight sway to his stance and the barely perceptive slur of his words.

  “Oh, how kind, Sir Thomas!” Mary wiped away a last tear. “Is it not kind of him, Francie, to take you to catch your coach?”

  “Yes, kind,” Francie agreed in the tone of one who actually disagrees but is too polite to say so. “But Sir Thomas need not be so kind as I’ve already summed a hack.”

  “So unsummon the hack,” he said with a shrug and a charmingly crooked grin.

  Francie’s head swung up and she looked directly at him, her emerald eyes narrowed further against the glimmer of his sapphire gaze. His grin widened, he winked, and she stared at him astounded.

  “Why, you’ve been drinking!” she accused.

  He bowed. “Preparing for this moment, m’dear.”

  “I will not ride anywhere with a man who is foxed,” she stated with resolution.

  “But I object, m’dear, to the term ‘foxed.’ I may be a little cut over the head, but foxed—no, I assure you.” He leaned back against the wall, shoved his hands into the pockets of his claret morning coat, and smiled at her.

  Francie turned away. For some reason both the smile and the glint in his eyes had become menacing. She felt the blood pounding in her temples and knew she must not be alone with him. Once alone, sense and propriety would lose all meaning. She felt weak with desire at the mere thought.

  Calling upon all her resolve, she repeated firmly, “I cannot possibly accept your kind offer, Sir Thomas.”

  “But I insist.”

  She rounded on him then, about to make a heated protest, but a sharp knock on the door prevented her. As James moved to answer it, she contented herself with saying, “There you see, my hack has arrived. Thank you for your offer, Sir Thomas. Good-bye, dear Mary.”

  The baronet moved hurriedly to stand in front of her. Thus she was forced to look over his broad shoulder to view the door, and her mouth gaped open as Agnes Dill entered the crowded hall. Sir Thomas turned to see her and swore softly.

  A bandbox in one hand and a cloth valise in the other, the spare, somewhat severe figure of Miss Dill marched toward Francie. Lines engraved beside a wide mouth that seemed never to have smiled, eyes that drooped at the corners and a nose that was hooked at the end—these composed the long face of a woman who plainly disapproved of what she saw. Dressed in a cloak and gown more practical than fashionable, with every fading strand of hair coiled immaculately in place, she looked like an Amazon striding into battle. She cast not even the smallest glance at the gentleman now standing at Francie’s shoulder and greeted her friend with a bob of her head.

  “Agnes! W-what are you doing here?” Francie managed to respond.

  “Why, I told you I would come,” Miss Dill answered. “Good day, Sir Thomas,” she added with a short nod, for all the world as if it had been just yesterday and not a disastrous evening more than three years ago since they had last met.

  Perhaps, in other circumstances, Sir Thomas would have replied in kind, would have kept up the polite façade. But now he threw back his handsome head and laughed, a jeering laugh that disquieted Francie.

  “It’s hell’s own jest, Francie, m’dear,” he declared.

  The three women all looked at him as if he were demented, while James announced the arrival, at long last, of Francie’s hackney coach. Then, as though prisoners set free, a trio of voices rose at once.

  “I’m afraid we do not see the joke, Sir Thomas” Francie said severely.

  “A hackney? But why, my dear?” Miss Dill inquired of Francie.

  “Do you think Sir Thomas would benefit from one of Papa’s restoratives, Francie?” Mary asked, her worried eyes flitting from the baronet to her sister and back again.

  Sir Thomas continued to laugh, holding his sides and shaking his head as if helpless to stop.

  When Miss Dill pressed her wide mouth to form another question, Francie spoke up. “I was about to set out for Norfolk, Agnes. I never meant to stay in London overlong. You know that.”

  “But, my dear, you’d been gone so very long already, I closed the school a few weeks early and came to help you with the preparations you’ve undertaken for the family celebration.” Miss Dill’s dry, crisp voice managed to convey the magnitude of her sacrifice.

  Francie felt another twinge of guilt over forcing her friend to travel so far, so selflessly. She turned that guilt into anger, turning toward the baronet and stamping her foot. “Will you kindly stop laughing?”

  “Do you think the restorative?” Mary suggested yet again.

  “Yes! No! I don’t care!”

  “What about the hackney, miss?” James queried.

  Before Francie could slay the servant with a few choice words, Miss Dill set down both her bags and neatly took control. “Send the hackney away, James. We shan’t need it now. Miss Mary, procure the restorative, if you please, and bring it to us in the sitting room.” As she spoke, she led both Francie and Sir Thomas, one hand under an elbow of each, into that aforementioned room.

  As they crossed the threshold, both her charges wrenched free and proceeded to opposite corners of the room. No longer laughing, the baronet flung himself onto a chair, cast one leg over the thin carved arm, and began to swing his boot lazily. Francie ripped her sensible bonnet from her head and dashed it to the floor. Miss Dill collected it as she passed by, laid it on a piecrust table behind her, and sat down sternly on the edge of the settee.

  Stopping to stand before the unlit fireplace, Francie abruptly swung her booted foot and delivered a most unladylike kick to the logs. What was she to do? To go had been heartrending, but to stay would be far, far worse. To continue seeing him daily, speaking with him, would be intolerable. She chanced a glance at Sir Thomas and felt a thundering of sheer annoyance at his carefree attitude.

  He was disgusting, odious! To be foxed at this time of day! Really, it was no less than what she expected of the wretch. Why couldn’t she hate him as she ought? Why did she feel this dreadful
desire to further ruffle those disordered ebony locks, to darken the glitter of those vivid blue eyes?

  Shame sank heavily through her, weighting her with yet another burden of guilt. Ignoring Miss Dill’s mildly murmured reproach, she tendered another violent assault upon the firelogs, then whirled to face the baronet.

  “I do not see, sir, what you found so vastly amusing,” she remarked.

  “Spirituous liquors will often have such an effect, I’m told,” put in Miss Dill.

  “It was not the brandy that amused me, ma’am,” Sir Thomas countered, his gaze following the movement of the golden tassel on his swaying boot.

  “No? Then I pray you will inform us just what was so monstrously funny,” Francie requested, her words filled with animosity.

  “Why, I was laughing at the arrival of Miss Dill, of course,” he replied.

  Francie gasped.

  Miss Dill stiffened, raising a hand to stop Francie from speaking out. “Never mind, dear. I’ve always known the baronet disliked me excessively. Ah—here is Miss Mary with something that should make the gentleman feel better.”

  “A large dose of manners is what he needs,” Francie muttered, stripping off her gloves and discarding them upon the mantel.

  “Papa always says this makes him feel just the thing after a hard night,” said Mary, handing a pewter mug to Sir Thomas.

  His lips curled up as he saluted Miss Dill with the mug. Then he downed the brew on a long swallow. Grimacing, he returned the empty mug to Mary and demanded, “What the devil was that vile concoction?”

  “Why, ale with lemon pressed into it and dashed with crushed red pepper. Papa says it clears his head.”

  “Lord, no wonder the man’s got nothing but space left between his ears,” Sir Thomas responded.

  “There is no call for you to insult Mr. Hampton, sir,” Miss Dill reproved, stepping in before Francie had a chance. Continuing to use her best schoolmistress voice, she went on, “When you have had some time to reflect, I’m certain you will think better of such remarks.”