by Shana Galen
“You have no idea who I am, do you?” She jabbed a finger at him.
His eyes narrowed in an expression that she’d seen her father make whenever her mother asked him a particularly tricky question. But Winterbourne, arrogant bachelor that he was, seemed to think he had the answer.
“Of course I know who you are.” He paused, then added, “Miss Dashing,” as if to prove his point.
“Oh, really?” She tapped her toe in aggravation. “When did we first meet?”
He gave her a weary expression and spoke as though addressing a child or an imbecile. “We met yesterday afternoon—”
“Wrong!” she stamped her foot. “We met last year at the Harcourts’ ball.”
He frowned. “Lord Harcourt?”
“Yes. And, though I didn’t think it possible for anyone to ever again humiliate me as much as you did on that occasion, I find that I am mistaken. You’ve outdone yourself today.”
A full ten seconds passed in silence. Her chest heaved, and she fought to control her anger as she watched him struggle—struggle—to place her.
Finally, he said, “Were you in Lord Harcourt’s employ at the time?”
“Employ? Employ?”
He stepped back, obviously aware he’d made a mistake and obviously, maddeningly, still not sure what that mistake had been. Francesca straightened to her full height of five feet two inches.
“I have never been employed by Lord Harcourt, nor anyone else. I am the Honourable Miss Francesca Dashing, eldest daughter of Viscount and Viscountess Brigham. And Tanglewilde”—she gestured at the vast estate sprawled behind her—“is my home. Does that refresh your memory, Lord Winterbourne, or need I go on?”
Seven
The tone of her voice suggested he’d better not ask her to go on. He didn’t need to. She was beginning to look familiar. Pocket was right. He could picture her father—a distinguished gentleman of fifty or so with brown hair, graying at the temples. But the girl—the girl didn’t look like a viscount’s daughter. Her clothes, though neat, were worn, and her hair blew wild and disheveled, her face pink from exertion. Nothing about her said staid Society miss, except perhaps the cutting look she presently bestowed upon him.
A look that was as sharp as her wits. She’d only been guessing, but when she’d asked if he was a spy, Ethan nearly balked. Now a puzzle piece snapped into place. “Roxbury,” he said.
She started and one pale hand rose to her throat. “W-what did you say?”
“You’re betrothed to Roxbury.” He’d always thought it an odd match, which was probably why he could now recall seeing the couple on one or two occasions. The girl—warm, unsophisticated, and petite—in the shadow of the icy, rigid, self-righteous earl. He surveyed the estate in the meadow below them. “Is Roxbury at Tanglewilde?”
One glance at her face answered his query.
“No.” Her hand closed protectively on the ties of her mantle, her small white fingers contrasting sharply with the black material. “He—no.” Her voice shook and sounded almost relieved.
Interesting—and telling.
“You’re no longer betrothed?”
Her eyes flicked to his. “We broke off the betrothal last March.”
Ethan almost nodded his approval. He’d never liked the earl. Didn’t know the man well, didn’t want to. He couldn’t imagine what this girl had seen in the pompous ass.
“Was it a long betrothal?” He was still trying to remember where they’d met. She’d mentioned that they’d been introduced.
“No. He and I met that night at Lord and Lady Harcourt’s ball.” She broke off and a flush rose from her throat to her cheeks.
He blinked. An image of her, gloved hand to her throat and blushing madly, flashed into his mind. He was transported back to the Harcourts’ with disorienting suddenness. How could he have failed to recognize her? That picture of her had imprinted itself on his brain.
It wasn’t a night he wanted to remember. Seeing Victoria had been the final card of a bad hand. He’d just returned from a mission in France and had only gone to the Harcourts’ because Lord Grenville would be there. Ethan had known the Foreign Secretary had been anxious to hear his findings.
No sooner had Ethan spoken with his superior than he’d been besieged by a horde of matrons and their giggling, pink-faced daughters. He had wanted nothing more than to go home, climb into bed, and sleep for a week. But Lady Harcourt had stood like a sentry on the fringe of the masses, and if he left without dancing even one set, he’d offend her. He had been at Cambridge with Harcourt, and since the baron and his wife were two of the members of the ton he actually liked, he’d surrendered.
Nodding to the first pushy woman Lady Harcourt had presented to him, he had taken the arm of the woman’s wide-eyed daughter and prepared to suffer through the half-hour ordeal. He’d been so distracted by hunger and sleep, he had barely glanced at the girl he danced with and had completely forgotten her when Victoria entered the ballroom.
Victoria. Resplendent as ever, he’d thought. He’d been unable to stop himself from staring. Haughty as ever too. He’d watched with disgust as her disdainful glance deigned to touch on the other guests. She sickened him. Even his fondness for the Harcourts wouldn’t keep him in the same room with her.
So he’d walked away, his one thought to put as much distance between himself and Victoria as quickly as possible. But when he’d turned to exit, he’d inadvertently glimpsed the scene in the ballroom. Standing motionless in a swirl of dancers had been this girl, his partner. When he’d walked away, he’d never even considered her.
He had considered her in his carriage on the way home, though, and the image had flicked through his mind at various other idle moments. He cursed himself silently whenever it did. He knew he was a bastard, knew he shouldn’t have allowed Victoria to affect him like that. The girl, now standing before him wearing almost the same look she’d worn that night, hadn’t deserved to be treated so callously.
He’d toyed briefly with the idea of sending a note of apology—he could probably uncover her name from Lady Harcourt. Then he’d been called back to the Continent, and he’d thought it for the best. There weren’t enough words, enough pieces of vellum, or enough ink in the world for him to make amends for all the mistakes he’d made in his life.
And he wouldn’t begin to attempt to do so now.
“We danced at the Harcourts’ ball,” he said matter-of-factly. She nodded, probably waiting for his rote apology. “I didn’t remember you until just now. You look”—he let his eyes sweep over her, a petite woman in a dark mantle and worn blue dress, the vast expanse of Hampshire spreading behind her—“different.”
He wanted to say beautiful, but that wasn’t quite right. She wasn’t beautiful, not what he considered beautiful. But something about her, something intense and haunted in her eyes, attracted him.
“Different?” she said, those cocoa eyes flashing. “I shall add that to my journal tonight under the Compliments section, right below Good Teeth.”
Ethan winced.
“Good day, Lord Winterbourne.”
She spun away from him and marched down the hill toward the estate. He took two steps, caught her arm, and twisted her around.
“Release me!” She jerked her arm, but he tightened his hold.
“I would accompany you. I intend to have a few words with your father.”
She stopped struggling. “Concerning?” Her forehead creased, worry clouding her eyes.
“Come.” Ethan, still holding her arm in one hand, grasped Destrehan’s reins with the other and started down the hill. He pulled her along, her resistance irrelevant on the downward slope of the terrain. But her protests would have been futile in any case. As he’d said, he’d carry her kicking and screaming if he had to. He wanted to know what kind of father permitted his daughter to wander about the countryside without an escort or even a chaperone.
She continued to pull away from him, showing no signs of giving up, until they re
ached the hill’s nadir.
“My father’s not at home.” Her voice wavered. “He rode into Selborne this morning.”
He led the way through a pasture, avoiding the manure piles as best he could. The south front of the house rose before them, and as they came closer, the girl ceased her struggles.
“Let go of my arm,” she hissed at him.
Ethan skirted an ornery-looking goat and ignored her request. The matter was settled.
“Let go! I must put my hair to rights and straighten my clothes before we step inside.” She sounded almost frantic, and Ethan spared a glance at her, halting when he saw her. She looked windblown, wrinkled, and wild.
Wild and...ravishing.
He had no idea where the word had come from, he’d never thought of a woman in those terms before, but the description fit her. Fit her so well that he realized it had been on his tongue half a dozen times since he’d first seen her this morning. He’d simply been too preoccupied to notice her.
Hardly a trace of the girl he’d been introduced to at Harcourt’s ball was visible in her now. Her hair flowed halfway down her back in rich, dark curls, and the dangling red ribbon illuminated them like a streak of fire. Her eyes, large and chocolate brown, were fringed with thick black lashes and framed by gracefully arched dark brows. Against her creamy white skin, those eyes gave her an intense, passionate look Ethan knew he would have remembered if it had been in her expression when they’d first met. A man didn’t easily forget the intensity of eyes like hers. Intensity like that could be turned to passion in the right lover’s hands.
His gaze touched briefly on her other features. She had smooth, unfreckled skin, a small straight nose, and lips the color of faded roses. He wondered if her mouth looked as full when she smiled, if her lips turned dusky pink or wine-red when she’d been thoroughly kissed.
Without a word, he released her hand.
“Thank you,” she muttered and took two steps away from him. “If you would force us to make a grand entrance, I shouldn’t look as though I’ve been rolling in the bushes.”
He almost smiled, but his lips froze when she scooped her thick mass of curls into a tail and tied it back with the dangling scarlet ribbon. Turning half to the side, she straightened her cloak and the pale blue frock she wore underneath. Her movements were clumsy and hurried, her cheeks tinted a honey color. She was obviously uncomfortable under his gaze and scrutiny.
But Ethan didn’t look away. His attraction to her surprised him. She wasn’t at all the sort of woman he typically found himself drawn to. She was barely old enough to be called a woman. He didn’t think she could be much over eighteen.
He preferred women who were closer to his own age of thirty—confident, worldly women. Women who understood that a kiss or an invitation to his bedchamber meant nothing but a few hours’ diversion. Women who met his heated glance with sultry looks of their own. Women who knew how to entice a man, lure him into their embraces, and use him as he intended to use them. Women he could easily walk away from.
Ethan glanced at the girl’s fumbling fingers. She was nothing like those women. Not yet, anyway.
But give her time. An image of Victoria flickered in his mind.
“If you’re through with your toilette...” It was as much a growl as a statement.
She paused and gave him an icy glare from beneath her thick lashes. “I don’t know why you’re in such a hurry, my lord. My father isn’t even at home.”
“I’ll wait.”
Finally, she took a deep breath. “Very well. The sooner we start, the sooner it will be over.”
“You sound as though you’re to be marched before a firing squad.” He ran his gaze over her. Her hair was still tousled and windblown, but she’d managed to contain it and straighten her clothing.
“Firing squad?” She gave him a mysterious look. “Hmm. I’ve never thought of her that way.”
“What does that mean?”
She arched a brow. “Oh, you’ll see.”
He waited, expecting more of an explanation, but she gestured toward the estate instead. At least they were finally moving again. He clucked his tongue to encourage Destrehan.
“The image of a spider is usually the first one that comes to me,” he heard her say after they’d walked a yard or so. “Something hungry and venomous. A black widow.”
He shot her a look over his shoulder, and she gave him a small enigmatic smile. The biting question on his tongue died. He noticed her mouth looked just as full, just as ripe when she smiled.
Ethan never saw the web, didn’t even realize he’d been caught, held fast in its silky, glittering strands.
“Cara! My darling, darling Francesca! Mia figlia preziosa!” A tall, slim woman with a cap of short platinum curls seized upon the girl as soon as the majordomo shut the door behind them. It clanked like the door to a prison cell.
“Mamma,” the girl choked out. The force of the woman’s embrace was such that the girl stumbled backward, and Ethan barely had time to step aside in order to avoid a collision.
“Mia figlia!” Her mother, who from her horrendous accent was obviously not Italian, pulled back, grasping her daughter’s shoulders. The woman’s voice echoed through the gray-and-white marble entrance hall, bouncing off the busts and marble statues lining the walls. “Impossible!” She bodily turned her small daughter by the shoulders. “Look at you. Dov’è stato? I have been so worried.”
“You have?” The girl blinked. “Why?”
But Ethan doubted the woman heard her daughter’s breathy reply. The lady’s dark blue eyes, sharp as fangs, sunk into him.
“And—mamma mia—can this be—? Is this gallant gentiluomo Lord Winterbourne?” She released her daughter and gave a deep curtsy. “An honor, your lordship.” She spread her dun-colored skirts, fluttering her eyelashes at him.
Over her mother’s bowed form, the girl struggled to refrain from rolling her eyes.
“Lord Winterbourne,” she continued, when her mother had risen. “Lady Brigham. My mother.” The last was said with a sigh. The woman offered her hand to Ethan.
He shook off his daze, took her hand, and kissed the woman’s gloved knuckles. “A pleasure to renew your acquaintance, Lady Brigham.”
“Non, Signore. The pleasure is all mine.”
Ethan stepped back, and Lady Brigham appeared to study him. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. She pressed one finger to her lip with slow, exaggerated taps then held it there and narrowed her eyes. “And what, pray tell, is your business in Hampshire, my lord?”
Ethan was only too familiar with the woman’s tone of voice. It oozed matrimonial insinuation. Lady Brigham raised her eyebrows and looked sidelong at her daughter. Miss Dashing appeared to have shrunk six inches.
“I’m visiting my brother at Grayson Park.”
“Ah, the earl.” Lady Brigham drew in a breath, her white gauzy fichu swelling like a sail. “I see.” The finger tapped at her lips again as she exhaled. “But surely Francesca did not wander as far as the Park?” The unasked question hovered in the air, and he was thankful the girl snatched at it.
“No, Mamma. Lord Winterbourne was riding, and we met purely by chance. He offered to escort me home.” She spoke quickly, obviously hoping to move the conversation along.
Lady Brigham’s eyes widened. Ethan swore he saw them glitter.
“I see.”
Damn. This was why he avoided Society. Spend ten minutes with an unmarried miss, and you were suddenly betrothed. “Is Lord Brigham at home? I’d like to speak with him.”
The woman inhaled sharply, her eyes almost popping from their sockets. “Oh! I see!”
Ethan frowned. Beside him, the girl closed her eyes, looking mortified. The devil take him if he hadn’t inadvertently confirmed her mother’s matrimonial hopes.
He had no patience for this. “If the viscount is not at home,” Ethan plowed on, “I’ll wait in the library—”
“You will do no such thing!” Lady Brigh
am clapped her hands three times in rapid suggestion. “You must join us in the drawing room.” She gestured to the dark, formidable doors at the end of the entrance hall.
“Thank you, Lady Brigham, but—”
“Call me Signora, per favore.”
Ethan took a deep breath. “Signora. When do you expect—”
She turned and walked away, shoes clicking loudly on the floor as she passed the numerous Roman statues adorning the niches in the echoing hall.
Ethan didn’t move for a long moment. Had the woman actually cut him off and walked away from him? Him? A marquess. Who the devil did she think—?
“I must warn you I am determined to at least offer you some refreshment.” Lady Brigham held up a hand, stopping in front of a bust of some Caesar or other. “There is no use arguing, I’m afraid.” She gave him a sly smile. “It’s the very least I can do for a gentiluomo who’s asked to see Francesca’s father.” She opened the door to the drawing room and glided inside.
Ethan ground his teeth, then watched as the girl plodded after her mother.
His every instinct told him entering that room would be a mistake. He’d be trapped, alone with the crazed, Italian-squawking woman. He looked back along the entryway toward the door.
The majordomo stepped behind him, cutting off his exit. “My lord.” The man indicated the drawing room with a graceful gesture.
Damn. Outmaneuvered, Ethan took a step forward. He could almost feel the invisible silk strands tighten around him.
Eight
Francesca watched Winterbourne warily survey the drawing room from the doorway as she took her usual seat in the high-backed settle with dark green cushions. To her right, her mother reclined on a damask chaise longue in the center of the room. Winterbourne obviously wasn’t prepared to admit defeat, though with Norton, Tanglewilde’s majordomo, hovering behind him and her mother lying in wait before him, he would have to concede the entrance hall, at least.