Christian looked ready to explode as he paced in front of the door. The manservant looked to the butler for reassurance. Masters nodded almost imperceptibly, and the two servants left the room, gently closing the door after them.
Thomas sat down in one of the leather chairs, and crossing one foot on his knee, he pulled off a boot and then a stocking. “You look ready to burst.”
Thomas kept his voice even and conversational. He knew Christian well enough to predict that his friend was operating under very thinly controlled rage. Since his end goal was to marry Francesca, he would need to win her brother back over to his side somehow, and that was going to take every bit of diplomacy and amity he had in his arsenal.
“You have a lot of explaining to do, Harrington.” Christian paced towards the fireplace.
Thomas switched legs and slid off the other boot and stocking, but he didn’t reply to Christian’s bait.
“Why are you keeping bears in your house?”
Thomas chuckled. “Not bears, dogs.”
“Whatever they are, they’re eating a Turkish rug downstairs.” As if to punctuate the point, there was a loud crash, followed by a shriek and a yelp. Both men turned their heads to face the closed door as if they would be able to see through it, down the stairs, and to the scene of the disaster.
Thomas closed his eyes and gently shook his head. “God, I wonder what that was.”
Christian whirled around to face Thomas. “I’m not here to discuss the damn dogs, Thomas.”
Thomas stood from the chair, raising to his full height and quirked an eyebrow. “That’s fine. You brought up the topic, not me.” His bare feet felt good on the soft rug. “Whatever you’re here to discuss, it will have to be in a much quieter tone of voice.”
In a softer, mocking tone, Christian asked, “Oh, are you a little hung over this morning?” He whipped open the heavy, velvet drapes by the fireplace. When Thomas groaned at the light, Christian smiled with obvious satisfaction and shouted, “Good!”
Thomas pulled his shirt off and dropped it to the floor—valet be damned. “What do you want, Christian?”
“Was I not perfectly clear when I forbid you from seeing my family?” Christian thundered.
“I remember something about that, yes.” Thomas’s pants hit the floor next to the discarded shirt. He slid his arms into the sleeves of an emerald-green dressing gown and tied the sash around his waist.
“Then what were you doing with Francesca at the opera?”
“I attended in my own box, thank you very much. I know this must come as a complete shock to you, Morewether, but your family doesn’t own the entire opera house.” Thomas strode across the room and closed the drapes Christian had thrust open.
“So you’re telling me you just happened to come across my sister while you were there?” His old friend’s voice dripped with irony.
Thomas glanced back over his shoulder and gave a noncommittal shrug.
“Well, what did you say to her? You said or did something to hurt her and anger Dalton.”
He narrowed his gaze on Christian and realized his friend didn’t know. He was grasping at straws. “What makes you think I said or did anything to overset anyone?’
Christian paced from the mantel to the opposite wall. “I heard things. I know you were there. That’s enough for me to know you caused some problem.”
“Just exactly how old do you think I am? I’m damn near thirty. I’ve led men into battle. I’ve become a bloody earl, and I’ve taken on all those responsibilities to boot. I’m not the twenty-year-old whelp who ravaged London society with you anymore. I’ve grown up.” Even though he hadn’t acted like it lately.
“I have very little evidence that’s true, but there are a few irrefutable facts.”
“Such as?” Thomas raised his eyebrows in question.
“Firstly, you love her…”
He nodded and waved Christian on. “Please continue.”
“Secondly, we all know she has a tendre for you.”
“A tasty morsel of information, to be sure.”
“Damn it, will you stop interrupting unless you have a confession to make?”
Thomas closed his mouth and leaned against the windowsill.
“Thirdly.” Christian raised his hand, clearly showing three fingers. “I know that you and Dalton don’t get on very well, and he towed Frankie, Anna and Mother out of the opera in a state of extreme agitation.”
“Dalton and I get along just fine.” Thomas thought it was a valid contribution to the conversation.
“You still have all the bruising on your face from your boxing match,” Christian sputtered. “You hate each other.”
“That’s not so. I think he’s a fine fellow.” Now—since Dalton was well on his way to no longer being a rival.
Christian snorted in disbelief. “You’re trying to tell me you had nothing to do with Dalton dragging my family out of the opera last night?”
It seemed Christian really didn’t have any idea about anything. His entire argument was conjecture, but Thomas had a few questions of his own.
“What does the gossip mill say? Surely if there is something to know, the entire ton is talking about it.”
Christian leveled a steely glare upon him from the other side of the room. Thomas waited patiently, a slightly condescending smile on his lips. Lord be praised. How could they have been so fortunate?
“No one knows anything, do they?” Triumph sounded in his voice. He turned on his heel and headed to the steaming bath Johnson had drawn for him.
Clearly enraged by the dismissal, Christian grabbed his arm and yanked, turning Thomas back to face him. “Damn it, Thomas, do not ignore me.”
“Christian, if you don’t know anything, and the blasted ton doesn’t know anything, I’m sure as hell not telling you.” Thomas continued on his way towards the bathing chamber.
“Ah, so you admit there was something,” Christian demanded, his voice growing loud again, probably due to frustration. “Did you try to force yourself on her?”
Thomas turned to face the other man. “I won’t even dignify that with a response or the punch in the nose it deserves.” He strode through the passage into the tiled room.
“Everyone knows you were in an alcove alone with her,” Christian insisted from behind him, his anger echoing in the room. “For that alone I should kill you.”
“Hmmm.” Thomas dropped his dressing gown and stepped into the steamy tub, groaning as the hot water sluiced over his skin.
Christian stood in the doorway, frustration clear on his angry face.
“If you’re so positive something happened, and that I’m the cause of it all, why haven’t you gone and asked Dalton himself?”
“He’s not been home.”
Thomas nodded knowingly. “I see.”
Christian concentrated his most fearsome scowl on Thomas, his feet and shoulders squared, his arms crossed over his chest. Thomas knew this trick from the old duke, Christian’s father. The man had used it every time he was trying to get one of the boys to crack. He would simply stare them down, not speaking a word, and waited for the pressure to get to them, and one would eventually tell him everything. Thomas laughed and laid his head back against the copper tub. He knew Christian was still there; he could hear him huff out an exasperated breath every so often.
“Dalton caught you two together, didn’t he?”
Thomas exhaled out his nose. Somehow, he hadn’t thought Christian would guess correctly. He didn’t know why. It was the logical conclusion.
“He walked in while you were all over her. You unbelievable son of a bitch.”
Thomas remembered very clearly: her bodice pulled down, her breast exposed. His mouth had been on her. Thomas swallowed hard. He sank his head beneath the water. He could barely hear Christian’s ranting from under there.
When he came up for air the door to his suite slam open. Or shut. Either way there was slamming and Christian was gone.
Ch
apter Twenty-Two
Francesca couldn’t sleep. She also couldn’t stop crying. Both were equally distressing. She alternated between incensed fury and maudlin self-pity, with healthy doses of guilt and shame thrown in.
The only innocent party in this whole mess was Lord Dalton. How would she ever face the man again? Of course, she was assuming he would even allow such an event after last evening’s debacle. It was a true testament to his gentlemanly nature that he hadn’t denounced her in the middle of the grand mezzanine of the opera house. She certainly deserved it—that and much more.
When dawn finally arrived, the sun ridiculously cheerful and bright, Francesca greeted it from a hard, marble bench in the garden. The long day stretched before her was guaranteed to be awful.
The ride home in Dalton’s carriage had been the most agonizing of her life. Once home, she had gone directly to her room, and without speaking a single word to anyone, not even Anna, she shut and locked her bedroom door. She had wanted to be alone in her misery, to wallow pathetically in her own self-made stew.
Now it was morning. A new day. A day for repercussions. A fresh, shiny, beautiful day that was just perfect for ruining people’s lives.
She had precious little time left before her mother would come looking for her. She would be first to find her, Francesca was certain. Her mother, with her fiercely loyal and loving heart, might very well be the worst of what she’d have to face today. Was anything ever so terrible as a loving parent who was disappointed in her child? Christian would yell and scream and vow severe punishments. He would be fearsome and horrible, but her mother would not. She could already see the disappointment in her mother’s eyes.
Francesca wiped away yet another tear and cursed herself again.
Lord Dalton was the big unknown. He had every right to publically cry off at the theater the night before. She was still simply astounded that he had not done so at the time. She was certain that their engagement was over. He must feel so humiliated, and she would understand if he wanted to make her feel the same way.
So, like a true coward, Francesca continued to hide in the garden. Not a very adult thing to do from someone who professed, nay demanded, that she be treated as one by both her brother and her lover. Oh what a mess she’d made of everything now.
She could not hide forever. But she stayed on the bench until the sun had risen over the garden wall and the dew on the roses glistened in the morning light.
After all her internal preparations for dealing with her mother, it was Christian who she encountered first after all. He burst through the front door in typical Duke of Morewether fashion: the heavy, oak door banged open, the capes of his great coat flapped behind him, and his gaze was fierce with purpose. The man could definitely make an entrance.
Francesca stopped at the end of the long hallway. She squared her shoulders and inhaled deeply, preparing herself for the onslaught.
Christian glared at her while he peeled off his gloves, shoved them into this overturned hat, and pushed them all into the waiting hand of the butler, who caught Christian’s coat just before it hit the floor. “Into my study. Now,” he growled, and stalked off in the direction of his masculine domain.
Francesca sighed audibly but kept her posture straight and her spine stiff and tried to remember she feared him the least. Christian would be loud and lordly. He, however, would not be disappointed in her. He wouldn’t even consider disappointment as an option.
Francesca pushed the study door closed and stood in front of his imposing desk with as much dignity as she could muster. Her brother’s handsome face glowered back at her.
“Shall I ring for tea, or perhaps you’d prefer coffee?” she asked.
“This is not a bloody social call, Frankie,” Christian nearly roared. He sat in the dark-brown leather desk chair and assumed the stance of ultimate authority.
“I always wondered what this felt like for you,” she mused, “when father would call you in here to dress you down after one of your misdeeds.”
“Don’t try to change the subject. You directly disobeyed me.”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t fidget either. She simply stood in front of his desk, her hands clasped in front of her, her gaze meeting his.
“Do you deny it?”
“No, I do not, Christian. You asked me not to speak with Thomas.”
One large hand came up and smacked down on the desk, his heavy, gold signet ring banging loudly against the wood. “No, I expressly forbid it. Damn it, I told you not to see him or speak to him. I told you he wasn’t allowed to see the family anymore.”
Again, Francesca offered no defense on her own behalf.
“Well, I’ve heard everything. I already know it all,” her brother informed her.
“Forgive me for saying so, Christian, but I seriously doubt that.”
“I know that you saw him last night at the opera. That you had some sort of liaison with him in a bloody public alcove, and I know that your fiancé walked in on it.”
“All of that is true.” Francesca nodded.
“You’ve ruined everything. What do you have to say for yourself?” he demanded.
“I’m sorrier than I can say about hurting and humiliating Lord Dalton. I wanted that to be avoided more than anything.”
“What about this family, Frankie? You have ruined this family.”
Before she could respond to that, the study door clicked open and their mother strode in. “I sincerely doubt we’re all ruined, Christian. You’re a very dramatic man. You get that from your father’s side of the family.”
“Do you even have any idea of the magnitude of what she’s done, Mother?”
“No one has seen fit to tell me anything. I get to ride in carriages in prickly silence and walk around listening to sobbing from behind locked doors.” The duchess sat on a chaise and trained her gaze on Francesca. “Why don’t you start telling me now?”
“Tell your mother what you did,” Christian demanded. “Start from the beginning!”
The duchess sighed. “Christian, calm down. You’re going to give yourself apoplexy. Make yourself useful and ring for some tea, will you? I have a feeling we’ll be here a while.”
“I am Morewether,” he yelled, as if everyone in the room doubted his pedigree. “It is my duty to keep this family respectable, and I will not let our name be humiliated in this fashion. She has been allowed to run untethered for far too long. Father was much too liberal with her.”
“Hush,” the duchess scolded her son. “Your sister is not a horse, and I’m sure she’d appreciate if you dropped that metaphor immediately.”
“Before you go defending her too vigorously, let her tell you what she’s done.” Christian gestured to Francesca, who’d remained standing in front of the desk the entire time, to proceed.
Francesca paused for a second to push a stray lock of hair out of her face and tuck it back into her simple bun. “I don’t really know where to start,” she confessed.
“Start at the beginning. Hell, start at the end,” Christian shouted, and threw himself against the back of his chair. “I don’t care. Just start.”
The duchess gave Christian a withering glance which he completely ignored. “Start with last night, dear,” her mother suggested.
“Lord Dalton saw Thomas and I kissing,” During her long wait in the garden, Francesca had thought of a million ways to tell her mother, and when the moment actually came, she just blurted it out.
“Oh. Oh!” The duchess’ hand fluttered around her heart, her face a picture of shocked surprise that wasn’t entirely convincing. Had she already guessed? “Well…”
“Do you see? She has ruined us all,” Christian yelled. “You said, ‘Let her have her fun, what harm can come from it’. This is exactly what I feared.”
“That is not true. From the minute you became Morewether you’ve been unbearable,” Francesca announced. “Father never kept an iron thumb on me.”
“Because you were a girl when F
ather died, Frankie, you weren’t even out in society yet. How can you know what he would have done?” Christian bellowed, his face turning shockingly pink.
“The only reason you assume I’m running wild is because you’ve bedded everything on two legs for the past ten years.” It was a low thing to say, but it was true, and if he was going to assail her character, then she wanted a few shots in herself. She had a brief and fleeting thought that, again, this didn’t necessarily exemplify the new-and-improved adult Francesca she was desperately trying to achieve.
“I am Morewether,” he shouted at her, and rose from his chair to stand behind the desk. He was still behind the width of the solid wood, but he felt closer. And when he leaned over the desk with his balled fists as anchors in the middle, he felt very close indeed. Francesca refused to be cowed.
“So I’ve heard,” she responded dryly. “What does that have to do with anything? You are the duke, no one is suggesting otherwise. I am merely pointing out that you are a cad and therefore you know one when you see one.”
“What I do is none of your affair. You however, are a—”
“Shouting at each other isn’t going to solve this problem,” their mother interrupted. By now she’d risen from the chaise and stood to one side of the desk. “Christian, your sister has generally behaved with sensibility and decorum—up to this point, anyway.” She glanced at Francesca, who read her mother’s face expecting the dreaded look of disappointment, but there was a different expression from her mother, one so fleeting she wasn’t even sure she’d really seen it. Was it accomplishment? “I think you’d best tell me the whole story.”
“Yes, I’d like to hear that, too.” Christian sat himself down in his chair again, more the lordly duke of the manor and less a rabid brother.
Francesca looked from her brother to her mother. “I will tell you, in private, if that’s all right with you.”
Before their mother could answer, Christian spoke up. “It is not all right with me. I’d just as soon know exactly what I have to deal with here.”
Francesca sat down. How mortifying. Nevertheless, she told them. Not everything—some things we’re just between her and Thomas—but she related how she’d encountered him that day in the solicitor’s office and that they’d kissed. She broadly hinted at other activities, but she simply couldn’t bear to discuss that in front of her brother, Morewether or not.
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