I fear that my mother was not, perhaps, the best person to choose my daughter’s frocks for the Season.”
“And doubtless you will need to host a party yourself.” At the man’s dismayed expression, she hastily added, “Or we can hold it here. I can take care of the preparations.”
“Yes.” His face cleared. “Oh, yes, that would be just the thing, if you would be so kind. Just direct the bills to me.”
“Certainly.” Francesca smiled. It was always a pleasure to work with an openhanded parent, especially one who was happy to put all the decisions and arrangements into her hands.
Sir Alan beamed back, clearly quite pleased with the arrangement. “I don’t know how to thank you, Lady Haughston. Harriet will be so pleased, I’m sure. I should not take up any more of your time. I have already imposed on you more than enough.”
He took his leave, giving her a polite bow, and Francesca went back upstairs, feeling a good bit more cheerful. Taking Harriet Sherbourne in hand would give her something to do, as well as provide her with some much-needed coin in the coming weeks. Given the quality of the last few meals her cook had prepared, she knew that Fenton must have run out of the money the duke’s man of business had sent them for Callie’s upkeep while she was living with Francesca. The butler and her cook had, of course, worked their usual economic magic with the cash, managing to apportion the money so that it lasted several weeks longer than the time Callie had been there.
The household was still solvent and would remain so for the rest of the Season, due to the gift that Callie’s grandmother, the dowager duchess, had sent. When Callie had left Francesca’s household, she had given Francesca a cameo left to her by her mother, a gift so sweet and instantly dear to Francesca that she had been unable to part with it, even for the money it would have brought. However, shortly thereafter, the duchess had sent her a lovely silver vanity set as her own thanks for taking the burden of arrangements for the wedding ceremony off the duchess’s hands. Francesca hated to give up the engraved tray and its set of small boxes, pots and perfume bottles, simply because it was so beautifully done, but yesterday she had turned it over to Maisie to take to the jeweler’s and sell.
Still, the cash the set would bring would not last forever, and after the Season ended, there would be the long stretch of fall and winter, in which there were few opportunities to make any more income. Whatever she could earn by helping Sir Alan’s daughter would be very welcome. Besides, life always seemed better when she had a project to work on. Two projects, therefore, should utterly banish the fit of the blue devils she had suffered the other evening.
Her spirits were further buoyed by the fact that, in her absence, Maisie had recalled some silver lace that she had salvaged from a ruined ball gown last fall, and which would, the maid was sure, be just the thing to spruce up Francesca’s dove-gray evening gown for her visit to the theater.
The two women spent the rest of the afternoon happily remaking the ball gown in question, replacing its overskirt with one of silver voile taken from another gown, and adding a row of the silver lace around the hem, neckline and short, puffed sleeves. It took only a bit of work on the seams and the addition of a sash of silver ribbon, and the dress seemed entirely new and shimmery, not at all like the same gray evening dress she had worn a year ago. Francesca thought that she would look quite acceptable—and not at all like a woman fast approaching her thirty-fourth birthday.
When Tuesday evening came, bringing with it the trip to the theater that Francesca had arranged, the duke arrived, unsurprisingly, before his appointed time. It was much more unusual that Francesca, too, was ready early. However, when Fenton informed her of Rochford’s presence downstairs, she dawdled a few minutes before going down to greet him. It would never do, after all, for a lady to appear eager, even if the man in question was a friend, not a suitor.
The butler had placed Rochford in the formal drawing room, and he was standing before the fireplace, studying the portrait of Francesca that hung over it. The painting had been done at the time of her marriage to Lord Haughston, and it had hung there so long that she never noticed it anymore, regarding it as one of the familiar pieces of furniture.
She cast a glance at it now, however, and wondered if, indeed, her skin had been that wondrously glowing and velvety, or if it was just an example of the painter’s art.
Rochford glanced over his shoulder at the sound of her footsteps, and for an instant there was something in his face that brought her up short. But then the moment passed. He smiled, and Francesca could not work out exactly what it was she had seen in that brief glimpse…. Whatever it was, it had left her heart beating a trifle faster than was customary.
“Rochford,” she greeted him, walking forward with her hand extended to shake his.
He turned around fully, and she saw that he held a bouquet of creamy white roses in his hand. She stopped again, her hand coming up to her chest in pleased surprise. “How beautiful! Thank you.”
She came forward and took them from him, her cheeks becomingly flushed with pleasure.
“I am a day early, I know, but I thought that by the time we parted this evening, it would be your birthday,” he told her.
“Oh!” The smile that flashed across her face was brilliant, her eyes glowing. “You remembered.”
“Of course.”
Francesca buried her face in the roses, inhaling their scent, but she knew that her action was as much to hide the rush of gratification on her face as to smell the intoxicating odor.
“Thank you,” she told him again, looking back up at him. She could not have said why it brought her so much pleasure to know that he had remembered her birthday—and had bothered to bring flowers to commemorate it. But she felt unaccountably lighter than she had for the past week.
“You are very welcome.” His eyes were dark and unfathomable in the dim light of the candles.
She wondered what he was thinking. Did he recall how she had looked fifteen years ago? Did he find her much changed?
Embarrassed at the direction of her thoughts, she turned away, going to the bell pull to summon the butler. Fenton, efficient as always and having seen the flowers when the duke entered, bustled in a moment later, a water-filled vase in hand. He set it on the low table in front of the sofa, and Francesca busied herself for a few moments with arranging the flowers.
“I do hope, however,” she went on lightly, watching the flowers rather than Rochford’s face, “that your memory is kind enough not to recall the number of years that I have gained as well as it remembered the date of my birth.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” he told her with mock gravity. “Though I can assure you that if I were to reveal your age, there are none who would believe it, given the way you look.”
“A very pretty lie,” Francesca retorted, the dimple flashing in her cheek as she grinned at him.
“No falsehood,” he protested. “I was just looking at your portrait and thinking how remarkably the same you look.”
She was about to toss back a rejoinder when suddenly, unbidden, the memory of her dream the night before came back to her. She stared at him, feeling as though her breath had been stolen from her, and all she could think about was the look in his eyes as he had gazed into her face and the velvet touch of his lips as they met hers.
She blushed deeply, and something in his face changed, his eyes darkening almost
