The Seduction of a Duke (29 page)

“You look lovely this evening.” He smiled, melting a bit of her heart in the process.

“Do you like my hair ribbons?” she asked.

His glance flicked to her hair, then quickly lowered to her bosom. “I believe your wife waits on the other side of the room, Nicholas.”

“But I find your wife so delightful,” Nicholas replied. “She has just accepted my offer of drawing lessons.”

William winced slightly. They both shifted their gazes to Nicholas. Fran was about to deny his invitation, but William spoke first.

“I’m not sure that would be best. Lady Rosalyn insists that Francesca has much to learn before Bertie’s arrival.”

Fran sighed. “She is trying to teach me to speak with a British accent. She finds my American accent offensive.”

Both brothers smiled, but as she watched the interplay between them, she decided to trust Nicholas’s lead. William’s objective, after all, was to confine her for longer periods with his aunt, thus making the choice easy.

“Lessons of the nature you’ve indicated would make a wonderful addition to my translations.” She turned toward William and batted her fan on his shoulder. “Didn’t you suggest the same on the passage over?”

The soft tendrils drifted down the side of his face, drawing her gaze to his lips. Dear heaven, the fan was to draw his attention to her, not the other way around. His free hand captured the shaft of the fan, holding it in place, and preventing her from using it to mask the flush she felt spreading across her chest.

“Excellent, then it’s settled,” Nicholas said. “I’m sure Lady Rosalyn can spare her for an hour or so. Sketching can be quite the release.” He patted his brother on the back, before crossing the room toward his wife. “You should indulge yourself sometime.”

They stood that way, two halves of a circle connected by their hands for a moment. His eyes smoldered beneath lazy lids. He squeezed the hand held so tenderly in his own. “Be careful,” he said, then released her.

He crossed the room to escort his aunt into the dining room. Nicholas already had Emma on his left arm, but he looked back and signaled Fran to join them. By rights, William should have the honor of accompaniment, but that fact seemed to have eluded him. Fran accepted Nicholas’s right arm, but he held them back a moment instead of following behind William.

“I was serious, you know, about the secret passageways. William and I explored them as boys. They run throughout this abbey.” He wriggled a brow at her. “When used properly, you can appear in the most unexpected places.”

If Fran didn’t know better, she’d think Nicholas was intent on helping her in her seduction of his brother. Why would he do that?

Emma shuddered. “Isn’t there a ghost that’s supposed to haunt those passages? Don’t mention them to Sarah or I’ll never be able to find her.”

“A ghost?” Nicholas asked.

“That’s right,” Fran said. “William mentioned something to me about some poor monk that was hung by the gate.”

“A ghost.” Nicholas smiled. “That could prove interesting.”

 

 

AFTER DINNER, WILLIAM POURED BRANDY INTO SNIFTERS set out on the recently purchased silver tray that sat on a new Hepplewhite carved side table. Amazing the treasures that could be found in the New York trading establishments. He’d been quite successful in procuring items to fill the public rooms. One would never know the desperate straits they had faced before Franny’s rescue.

“She soon will be mine, you know,” Nicholas observed from the divan on the far side of the smoking room.

“She?” William groused, still irritated by the prospect of Nicholas teaching Franny the finer points of illustration. When he had mentioned illustrations on the passage over it had not been his intent to closet his wife with his brother, a former rake and bounder, in pursuit of art lessons. Nicholas may have settled down in his new marital state, but he suspected his Franny could tempt a man to forget his vows.

“The Canaletto. She’ll soon be mine. I saw the way your wife looks at you.” Nicholas sipped from his snifter. “I don’t know how you’ve lasted this long.”

It hadn’t been easy, William thought. He wasn’t immune to her open invitations. He had to admit a certain relief when the ladies retired to the blue salon to leave the men to cigars and brandy. Neither he nor his brother were fond of cigars, but the brandy was another matter. “You call a painting ‘she’?”

“I consider all great works of art to be of a feminine nature, and all great females to be great works of art.” Nicholas smiled. “Take your wife, for instance.”

William groaned. “Please don’t.”

“If Francesca can manipulate a piece of charcoal the way she managed that fan, her sketches will be hanging in the Royal Academy before long.”

William felt his groin tighten with the memory. He hadn’t realized anyone else had noticed.

“Did you see how she managed to frame her face with the plumes when she was speaking to Emma?” Nicholas asked. “The feathers curled about her high cheekbones, drawing attention to her lively brown eyes. I was half tempted to do a sketch on the tablecloth. I could well imagine how her face would look resting on a white feather pillow.”

“Nicholas . . .” William instilled as much warning into the name as possible. If his brother made mention of how those wispy plumes frequently rested on the exposed portion of her chest, sometimes reaching their curly tips inside her gown, most likely inside that strumpet’s corset . . . well, he’d have to call him out. Those ribbons in her hair were a clear signal to those that could read them, and his shaft apparently had that ability. He had to admit that was the most uncomfortable dinner in recent history.

“What exactly did she do when the other ladies were leaving the room?”

William felt his face pale. He busied himself fidgeting with the items on the tray, but in reality he just couldn’t bring himself to meet his brother’s face. “Whatever do you mean?”

“We stood when the ladies rose to leave. Emma and Aunt Rosalyn left the room, but Francesca stopped to speak to you. I couldn’t hear what was said, but I saw your knuckles whiten. You watched her departure for several minutes after she had left.”

He couldn’t bloody well say that Franny dragged that banner of femininity right up the front of his trousers. Good Lord, the audacity! Right in the middle of the dining room. A blast of heat roared through his veins, just as it had at the table. He hoped his brother didn’t notice, then or now as his body reenacted his initial response. He purposively dawdled at the brandy decanter waiting till he could regain control. Of course, in order to do that, he had to stop wondering what that plume would have felt like without the benefit of a cloth interference.

“Did it have something to do with her hair ribbons?”

William choked on his brandy and spun about. “What do you know about her ribbons?”

“Only that the red was an unusual color to wear with green. I thought it might have had some significance. From your reaction, I would guess that I was correct.” He laughed and shook his head. “You’re a lucky man, big brother.” Nicholas’s voice held a smugness that William wished he could forget. “I only hope that one of these days, you’ll come off that high horse and recognize your good fortune.”

“The recognition of fortune is not the difficult,” William said. “I wish I could say the same of the partaking.”

“She’ll be mine,” Nicholas said. “I have no doubt.”

THE FOLLOWING DAYS FOLLOWED A SIMILAR DISCOMFORTING pattern. Sarah kept Emma so busy that Emma often napped the same as Sarah. While Fran enjoyed her sketching sessions with Nicholas, they were often filled with long periods of silence for the purpose of drawing a vase or a statuette. On the other hand, her time with Lady Rosalyn was quite the opposite. Fran endured endless lectures with a liberal sprinkling of insults resulting from Fran’s “unfortunate background.” The one person she wished to see claimed he was too busy with matters concerning renovations to give her the time she wished. Since her experiment with the plume fan, he hadn’t even appeared at the dinner table for three days.

Accompanied by Spotted Dick, she’d begun taking buckets of fresh water for refreshment out to the workers in the courtyard in the hope of catching William’s eye. She’d see him directing someone in a corner, or even wielding a hammer himself, but he didn’t acknowledge her. The experience had made her less terrified of the strange men, but frustrated in her attempts to seduce her husband.

“I believe he’s avoiding me,” she explained to Mary. “Just when I have more desire than ever to leave this wretched place, I can’t find Bedford to encourage him to do what he must.”

Mary paused in raising and fastening Fran’s overskirt so that it would add to the height achieved by her bustle and not drag on the floor as originally designed. “Why do you call this a wretched place?”

“To be an American here is a great disadvantage. I’m lectured daily on how I am unfit to be a duchess.” She ticked off on her fingers. “I am uncivilized, uncultured, grating to the ear, not knowledgeable in the running of a household, not knowledgeable about the responsibilities of servants, and unappreciative of the opportunity to reside in England. The only thing I have to my credit is my wealth, which of course is no longer mine.”

“Sounds like you and I have been receiving the same lectures,” Mary said, her voice barely audible above the swishing of fabric.

Fran twisted her head to glance over her shoulder. “You too, Mary? Why?”

Mary swung her head from side to side as she enumerated the reasons. “I’m American. I don’t know my place. My family’s not in the trade, and I argue with them when they talk about you.”

“The servants talk about me?”

“Did you ask the chamber steward to remove a trunk instead of a footman?”

“Oh, yes,” Fran recalled. “That precipitated the lecture on which servant can satisfy which request—no matter how menial the task.”

“Because it is a menial task,” Mary noted.

Fran sighed. “I should have just done it myself; it was an empty trunk.” She tapped her foot. “Did you know that at the end of the meals, all the table scraps are mashed together into one tin and taken to the tenants for their meals? Peas, meats, sauces, and sweets—all combined in one glutinous mess to be shared in the name of charity.” She crooked her hand on her hip. “I offered that the tenants might enjoy the gift more if the portions were kept separate in several small containers. Lady Rosalyn railed that her brother distributed scraps this way and nothing would be changed.”

“What does the Duke say?”

“I haven’t been able to talk to him. Either there are other people present, or he’s off somewhere in this monstrous abbey.” She glanced out the window, yearning a bit for the life she had left behind in Newport. “I’m lonely, Mary. I never thought I would say it. I thought I’d enjoy the solitude of a grand residence, but it’s too quiet and so old and incredibly inconvenient.”

“Done,” Mary said, sitting back on her heels.

Fran turned and offered her hands to help Mary stand. “I don’t know what I’d do without you here, Mary. You will always have a place with me.”

“Thank you, Your Grace,” she said with a curtsy. The gesture reminded Fran of the time she and Mary had practiced the art of the curtsy in anticipation of the costume ball so they could change roles. She almost wished they could do that again. Anything to alter the situation as it currently stood.

“Begging your pardon, madam, but why don’t you use the private door to talk to His Grace?” Mary nodded to the connecting door between her and Bedford’s suites, then walked toward it to retrieve a book propped against bottom.

“Leave it, Mary,” Fran said. “I’ve been using the book to see if the Duke ever opens the door.” She didn’t mention her sense that someone entered her room at night. It was nothing she could prove, especially as the book remained upright every morning, but it was a feeling, an intuition. She shivered. Perhaps a ghost truly occupied the abbey after all.

“He keeps it locked. I truly believe he’s dodging my presence.” Fran sighed. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. He has said time and time again that Lady Rosalyn’s mission is to mold me into a proper English duchess so that I might impress the other proper dukes and duchesses. He would not care that the process of molding is so uncomfortable and degrading.”

“Did you know that His Grace rides every morning before breakfast?” Mary said in the manner of an observation. “One of the grooms told me.”

“Does he now?” Fran replied. “I must admit I’ve missed riding myself.” She thought of her father’s stables in Hyde Park and her rides in the Hudson Valley. Those had been simpler times, enjoyable times, with the wind in her face and the powerful grace of a horse beneath her. She could well understand William’s need for a morning ride. “Perhaps it’s time I became better acquainted with the stables.”

She twisted to see the effect of the altered skirt in the mirror. “That should do. I just didn’t want it to drag on the floor.”