Her heart fluttered as if one of the dragonflies flitting across the lake were trapped inside her chest.
“Why do you do that?” he asked. “Should a laugh not be seen and heard? Joy itself, for that matter?”
Frances touched the back of her hand to her cheeks, their heat warming her cool skin. “It is a habit, I suppose.”
“Who taught it to you?”
“Myself,” she said quietly. “Those books I asked Harriet to read. I read them when I was much younger than her, to learn how to be a lady.”
He dusted a crumb of something from his trousers and his gaze returned to the still waters of the small lake. “I may not have taught Harriet much about that, but I am glad she does not hide her laughter. And you are teaching her well, better than Iexpected, but do not instruct her to make herself so small that she disappears.” He cleared his throat. “Please.”
There was no rebuke in his words, just a simple request.
Does this mean he might allow me to stay beyond four weeks? A companion, perhaps, for Harriet? A chaperone?
She shook off the thought, for that was surely asking too much. The rest of the month would suffice. Then, if there was still no place for her in London, she would ask him to provide her with a recommendation so she might teach more young women like Harriet how to be ladies.Withoutdiminishing the character that made them all so special, so unique.
“I have no desire for her to make herself small,” she said. “I will heed your request… and perhaps draw a line through some of the rules and demands from those dusty old books that no longer serve their purpose.”
He nodded slowly and glanced back at her. “Thank you.” He paused. “And thank you for warning my daughter about theton’sjudgment. I think she will listen to you, in a way she would not listen to me.”
“Let us both hope she does not decide to disregard the advice,” Frances said with a shy smile.
It was clear to her that he, too, must have missed some lessons in etiquette and conduct, for no duke that she knew of would havelooked at an unmarried woman so directly, so intensely. Not to mention the fleeting embrace that she could still feel if she just thought of it for a moment, and how he had leaned in, as if he had wanted to kiss her.
Her breath caught as he suddenly leaned in again, his hand on the blanket just an inch away from her knee, while his other hand reached for her. She stared at him, her heart about to leap from her chest, her mind faltering completely as he slowly wound his fingertips through the lock of hair that framed her face.
What is he doing? My goodness… There are servants watching!
“A cherry blossom,” he said in that low, rumbling voice of his, as he held out his hand to her. There, in the center of his callused palm, sat a somewhat dented, pale pink petal. “It must have come from the gardens.”
She swallowed thickly, her fingertips shaking slightly as she plucked the petal from his hand. “Yes, I noticed that they are… just blooming,” she managed to rasp. “Very… um… beautiful.”
Had it been in her hair all this time? Why had no one said anything? Why had he not told her about its presence instead of… plucking it from her hair himself, with no warning? Did he not understand that her nerves were not sturdy enough for something like that?
“I am sorry that society has been so unkind to you, Lady Frances,” he said. “I truly believe that Lord Sherbourne deservedit. It is a pity that he will not be punished. Any gentleman who puts his hand upon a lady, who frightens a lady, who has ill-intent toward a lady, ought to have some honor beaten into him.”
Lady Frances…The formality had returned, as had the distance, as he moved back to his position on the picnic blankets.
“I tried to,” she said, with forced lightness in her voice.
A quiet chuckle rumbled in his chest. “Yes, I daresay you did.” His eyes narrowed. “Do teach my daughter how to defend herself, but do it discreetly, and do not let her know that I have given my permission.”
“Your Grace, I am afraid I do not know much in that regard, only instinct,” Frances replied urgently.
She was no tutor of strength or violence. Surely, Dominic was the one who had greater knowledge of that, if he was wrangling livestock regularly.
“Then, teach her to trust her instincts,” he replied.
“Is that not your role?” she blurted out before she could remember her manners.
He looked at her once more, a sadness in his eyes. “She will heed it more if it comes from you, for she does not trust me as a daughter should.” His throat bobbed. “And I do not blame her.”
“What do you mean?”
She had not witnessed anything between Harriet and Dominic that she had not seen a hundred times in her own household, with her father and Juliet and, to a lesser extent, Lucinda. The push and pull between a father and his daughters. The quarrels, the squabbles, the perceived injustices.
“You asked me to trust you,” he replied vaguely, “and that is what I am endeavoring to do.”
