by Sara Bennett
She seemed more than content to let him.
Sebastian slipped the narrow sleeves farther down her arms, exposing her shoulders and, with exquisite slowness, the pink tips of her breasts. They were hard little peaks, and he couldn’t resist putting his tongue to them.
She arched her neck and groaned softly, clasping his head to her, her fingers mussing his dark hair. He could feel her body still enclosing him, as he began to move within her once more. There was no urgency this time, and he made it last, watching her face as she slipped from passion to ecstasy to boneless joy.
When it was over, she seemed almost too sated to open her eyes.
“Francesca,” he whispered, brushing her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “We must return. There will be talk.”
“Hmm.”
He rearranged her dress, covering her breasts, adjusting her sleeves. The acres of red rose satin surrounding them rippled and rustled as he lifted her gently from him, and placed her on the bench beside him. She watched him with sleepy eyes as he dampened his handkerchief in the water from the fountain.
The cloth was cold against her skin as he cleaned her, and she gasped. He took his time, wiping away the evidence of their lovemaking.
When he was done, he tugged her gently to her feet, rearranging her skirts, smoothing them down, until she stood before him once more in a respectable state.
“There,” he said, looking up at her with a smile as he bent to twitch out a kink at her hem. “As beautiful and proper as you were before.”
She was watching him, and there were tears in her eyes. “I didn’t know,” she whispered.
Sebastian’s brow creased as he tried to understand. “Didn’t know what?”
“That it could be so wonderful between a man and a woman.”
But there was no time to answer her. Someone was approaching, his steps quick and very close. Startled, she put her hand up to her hair, smoothing her ringlets, straightening her encircling wreath.
“Damn and blast it!” Sebastian muttered, and stood up, hastily brushing at his knees, and tugging his own clothing back into order.
“It could have been worse,” she said levelly. “They could have come by five minutes earlier.”
Sebastian grimaced, hurriedly smoothing back his hair. “I don’t know how you can joke about it.”
“It’s probably just someone out for a breath of—”
“Francesca?” William Tremaine stood silhouetted outside the gate.
She jumped as if hell had opened before her.
Sebastian thought that if her uncle hadn’t suspected she was up to something before, her guilty demeanor would soon convince him of it. Clearly it was up to him to take control.
“Mr. Tremaine,” he said, as if there were nothing at all the matter. “Miss Greentree and I were just taking a stroll. She finds the crowd inside oppressive.”
“Is that so?” There was a chill in his voice.
“Actually, we were just about to return,” Francesca said, reaching to unclip the gate and swinging it open.
He caught her arm. It must have hurt, because she gasped, but he didn’t release her. “You’re a liar,” he growled, glaring down at her. “I can read it in your voice. I can see it in your face. If you’re going to lie, at least learn to do it properly.”
“I’m not—”
“You are your mother’s daughter.”
“Uncle William!”
He had her outside the gate now, and he shook her so hard that some of her ringlets came loose and tumbled over her shoulder.
Sebastian had been momentarily too shocked to act, but now he saw red. Memories of Barbara rushed back, and with them regrets and anger and a sincere longing to make amends. He couldn’t let Francesca be bullied like his sister. He wouldn’t.
He launched himself at William and, roughly grasping the front of his neatly pressed shirt, hauled him away from her.
“Don’t touch her,” he said, and shoved the older man, hard, so that he stumbled backward and only just saved himself from falling.
Slowly Tremaine straightened, his frigid gaze fastened on Sebastian. “You’ve overstepped the mark, Thorne or Worthorne or whatever your name is,” he said, his voice full of fury. “Stay away from my niece. I don’t want you near her, or my house, again.”
“Uncle William,” Francesca began, her voice trembling, “you cannot—”
He turned on her. “I can do whatever I please,” he snarled. “I am the head of this family, and you will obey me or I will make your life a misery. Do you understand me?” And when she stared back at him, silent and stubborn: “Do you understand me!”
She flinched, and Sebastian couldn’t stand it anymore. He wanted to grab the man and shake him. He wanted to knock him down. But he couldn’t. Even as angry as he was, he realized that to create such a scene would only make things worse for Francesca. Her reputation hung in the balance as it was, and her uncle had the power to destroy her entry into society before it had even begun.
Don’t rock the boat. Be patient. Your time will come.
“Go with your uncle. Let him return you to the ballroom,” he said quietly. “Go on, Francesca. It’s all right.”
She looked as if she might disagree, but when she met his eyes, he tried to persuade her without words that it was the right thing to do. At last, with her chin held high, she turned and began to make her way back toward the house.
Tremaine started after her, but then he hesitated and turned back to face Sebastian. “Stay away,” he said, in that savage, icy voice. “Or I’ll destroy you. I might just destroy you anyway.”
When they were gone, Sebastian stood alone by the fountain, beset with turbulent emotions. Once he had thought it amusing that Francesca was so in awe of her uncle’s temper, but no longer. Tremaine was a bully, just like Leon. Was he like Leon in other ways? Did he use physical punishment? But Sebastian dismissed the idea. William Tremaine was more subtle than that.
But it didn’t make him any less dangerous.
The next few hours were the most difficult Francesca had faced since she was in the schoolroom, and was forced to conform to her first governess’s ideas of what a young lady should be. Punishment had become a way of life—until Amy realized what was going on and sent the woman packing.
Uncle William danced with her, stiff and furious and—most terrifying of all—perfectly correct. He was a good dancer, and it should have been enjoyable, but in her current state of mind she didn’t appreciate his talents.
“Uncle, please…”
“I will speak to you when we get home,” he said, between his teeth. “There will be no hint of scandal, Francesca. Not the merest whiff. I will not have it.”
When the music finished, he bowed, and she was left to her next partner. Attempting to make polite conversation was agony, and smiling was worse, when all she wanted was to burst into tears. And find Sebastian.
I will see him again, she told herself angrily. I don’t care what Uncle William says. He does not own me. I am five and twenty, and I am in charge of my own life.
“You blush delightfully,” her companion murmured, thinking she was reacting to whatever he had said. Little did he know, thought Francesca with a rueful smile, that it was rage that was putting the color into her cheeks.
Amy, completely ignorant of what had happened in the garden, gushed with pleasure when it was finally time to say their farewells to Lady Annear.
“What a marvelous evening!” she declared in the carriage. “Francesca, you were such a hit. Lady Annear complimented me on you several times.” She smiled. “And naturally I took full credit.”
“Mama…”
“By the way, where did Mr. Th—that is, Lord Worthorne go? Lady Annear was looking for him, but he seemed to have disappeared. Did he say he was leaving early?”
Francesca glanced sideways at Uncle William, but he was staring out of the window in silence. “I think he had another engagement,” she said in an emotionless voice.
“It’s a pity Helen wasn’t invited,” Amy went on, stifling a yawn as the carriage turned into Wensted Square. “She would have loved every moment of it.”
“Helen is an embarrassment we were better off without,” William said sharply, without turning his head.
Amy ignored him. “I still can’t quite understand why we were invited. I don’t know Lady Annear, and she says she barely knows you, William. I can only think our names were put forward by some other party.”
Francesca sat, staring straight ahead, but she felt her uncle turn his gaze on her. “That must be it,” he said levelly. She was grateful when they stopped outside the door, and she was able to accompany Amy up the stairs and into the house. Soon, she thought, she’d be able to stop pretending and weep and rage as she’d wanted to ever since her uncle found them by the fountain.
One of the maids had sat up by the front door to await their return, and now she came, sleepy-eyed, to help Amy and Francesca with their outer garments. They were starting toward the staircase when William’s voice stopped them dead.
“I wish to speak to you, Francesca. In the library, if you please.”
Her heart grew heavy with dread. Not another scene! She was tired and emotional and the last thing she wanted was further accusations from her uncle. “Uncle William, I am sure anything you have to say can wait until morning. I am tired and—”
“It won’t wait. In the library, now.” He sounded icy. Uncle William at his very worst.
“What do you want with Francesca?” Amy asked. Even without knowing what had happened in the garden, she had finally sensed the tension between her brother and her daughter. “It can’t be urgent. I’m sure the morning will do. We are all very tired, and things may be said that are later regretted.”
“Amy, you are interfering in something you know nothing about. Go to bed and leave this matter to me.”
But his impatience had the opposite effect. Francesca could see Amy’s back stiffen, and knew she wasn’t about to be sent off like a naughty child.
“No. If you speak to Francesca, then you will have to do so with me present.”
Francesca took her mother’s hand, squeezing it in gratitude. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Uncle William looked from one to the other, his mouth twisted with distaste. “If that’s what you want,” he said, leading the way into the library. “We do not wish to be disturbed,” he called out to the servant, who was watching them, goggle-eyed. “Go to bed.”
The girl bobbed a quick curtsy and hastily retreated into the shadows.
William closed the door and then walked to the table with the brandy decanter upon it. He poured himself a hefty glass, while the silence grew. Francesca had the awful sensation that she had slipped into her own past, while the hateful governess had taken on the form of Uncle William.
“I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything more, with your mother,” he said at last. “You can’t help what’s in your blood. But I hoped my sister would have taught you better manners than to let yourself be tupped by a shady creature like Thorne. In the garden of a house in Belgravia, no less!”
“William.” Amy’s voice was trembling with outrage. “I can only think you do not know what you are saying, or else you are drunk. Francesca danced one dance with Lord Worthorne…”
“You don’t even know what’s under your very nose,” he snarled, turning to face them. “She was out in the garden with him. I was watching.”
Francesca felt the color drain from her face. He had seen them, her and Sebastian? The moment had been wonderful beyond anything she’d imagined, exciting and pleasurable, but at the same time she had never for a moment felt threatened or sleazy. Not until now. She knew she would hate her uncle forever for doing this.
He was nodding, his nose twitching as if he smelled something rotten. “The daughter of a whore. What could we expect?”
“How dare you pass judgment on me,” Francesca whispered. She was trembling inside, but her anger had replaced her fear.
“I dare because I am head of the family.”
“Not head of my family,” Francesca retorted.
“While you are under my roof you will obey my rules,” he shouted.
Amy gasped, but Francesca refused to be browbeaten. “Then I’ll leave your house tomorrow. Now! I don’t need your roof, I don’t need you. You may frighten poor Helen, but you don’t frighten me.”
He glared at her a moment more, the sinews of his neck standing out with his anger, and then suddenly he relaxed, folding his arms. For a moment Francesca thought he was going to be reasonable, but a moment later she understood that he was still upset with her. He was simply shifting his angle of attack.
“It must be lonely, being an unwanted child. I suppose you think by throwing yourself at men like Thorne you can find love.”
“William, what are you saying?” Amy wailed.
“He’s saying that my parents were glad to be rid of me,” Francesca answered for him, her face pale.
“Yes, something like that,” William agreed. “Your father certainly was. He vanished and has never been seen again, and then your mother was so careless of you—too busy with her own tupping, no doubt—that she mislaid you for over twenty years.”
Amy began to protest, but Francesca spoke over her. “You’re wrong! My mother loves me and my father…he loved me, too.”
“You don’t even know his name!” William retorted, his pale eyes challenging her.
“I do. It was Tommy!”
He stilled, something stirring in his face, but she couldn’t read him. She’d never been able to read what he was thinking. Perhaps she’d never cared enough to try.
“I suppose it was your mother who told you that?” he said dismissively. “How do you know it’s true? She could have plucked the name out of the air. The woman is a liar and always has been.”
“She had a letter from him before he died,” Francesca replied triumphantly. “In it, he spoke about me and his plans for my future.”
“Where is the letter now?”
“Lost. You’re wrong, admit it. I was loved. Just because my birth wasn’t as you’d have liked it doesn’t mean I wasn’t wanted.”
Amy slid an arm about her shoulders. “Of course you were, dear. William, that is enough.” Her face was wan and angry, and even her brother could see that she’d been pushed beyond her tolerance. “I am taking Francesca to bed, and in the morning we will be packing and returning to Yorkshire. I’m sorry it had to end like this between us. I had hoped for some sort of reconciliation, at least for Helen’s sake, if not for our own.”
“What about the ball?” William reminded her. “Is that to be canceled at this late date?”
Amy put a hand to her eyes. “I had forgotten about the ball. Helen will be devastated. Well”—with a deep breath—“she will just have to come and stay with us and we will hold a rustic ball of our own.”
“You are too hasty,” William said mildly.
His sister gave him a suspicious look, and he raised his eyebrows at her.
“I haven’t asked you to leave, nor did I intend to. The ball can go ahead as planned. I won’t interfere, spend what you will, as long as there is no breath of scandal. Is that understood?”
Amy turned and looked at Francesca, and she realized her mother was waiting for her to speak, to make the decision. She was very tempted to say no. She had seen a side to her uncle tonight that made her very wary of him, and he had said things that were beyond forgiveness. But there were other considerations, such as Helen and Amy, and the many guests they’d invited.
And the fact that London suddenly held an appeal for her that it had never held before. Sebastian was here. She reminded herself that while she remained, there was a chance she might see him again.
“Very well,” she said. “We will stay.”
William smiled as if they had never been anything other than friends. “Good,” he said, and poured himself another glass, ra
ising it like a toast in their honor. “To family,” he said, “and the lengths we must go to to protect our good name.”
Chapter 28
The door to Amy’s bedchamber was hardly closed when Francesca burst into apologies. But Amy held up her hand. “Stop. I don’t want to hear what happened, or what you did. I make it a practice not to interfere in my daughters’ private lives. It was something I learned after Vivianna came to London, and then Marietta ran off with that dreadful man. I cannot stop any of you following your hearts, so I simply don’t try. It is a question of retaining my sanity.”
Francesca began to laugh. She sank down on the bed and found that after a moment there were tears running down her cheeks, and she wasn’t surewhether she was still laughing, or crying, but whatever the case, she felt better for the release of emotion.
She loved him. She loved Sebastian Thorne, or the Earl of Worthorne, or whoever he was. She had done the most foolish thing the daughter of a courtesan could do—fall in love.
“Mama, you are a very wise woman,” she said at last, when she had mopped her cheeks and blown her nose.
Amy looked melancholy. “Do you know, sometimes I think I am a very stupid woman. Or at least a very blind woman when it comes to those I love best.” She seemed to be debating whether to disclose a secret. “Helen spoke to me not long ago about something that I never for a moment suspected, and it has been troubling me ever since.”
“Tell me what she said,” Francesca said quietly, kicking off her slippers and making herself comfortable against the pillows.
Amy lifted her arms and began to unpin the wisp of lace decorating her fair hair. “I probably shouldn’t, but I know you will be discreet, Francesca. You are good at keeping secrets, my dear.”
“I try.” I have plenty of my own.
“Helen told me that, years ago, after she had married Toby, she had an affair. I was living in Yorkshire at the time, and I knew nothing of it. The man loved her, or so she believes, but they decided there was no future for them and they had to part. Probably the fact that William found out had something to do with that,” she added wryly. “But that’s not the worst of it. After the man had left the scene, never to return, Helen discovered that she was with child. ‘Forbidden fruit of an adulterous union,’ was what William called it. Toby was more forgiving, but he refused to take on the child as his own. Helen went away to have the baby, and they said she was staying with friends. Later on she returned to London as if nothing had happened. The child was adopted by some acquaintance of William’s, and he refused to speak of the matter again, so she never knew what became of it. But it was a girl. She held her baby for a few moments after it was born, and she knows it was a little girl.”