Happy?! Edmund Harcourt, Lord Scovell, Frances’ once beloved father was nothing but a liar, a hypocrite and a deceiver. Meanwhile, her sweet, innocent mother believed him the perfect gentleman and best of husbands. It made Frances quite ill to hear them talking like this.
“Have you decided on your dress, Frances?” Lord Scovell asked. “That is the big question after all, I believe.”
“Not yet,” she returned shortly. “I’d like to discuss it with Mrs. Merton and see what she thinks will suit.
“Oh, I have many ideas for a duchess-to-be with such a perfect figure as yours, Lady Frances,” exclaimed Mrs. Merton delightedly, bustling back into the room with several more bolts and samples in her arms. “Why don’t we go into my parlor and talk there while your family are choosing their own dresses?We shall find something that takes the Duke of Westall’s breath away at the altar.”
“I think the duke is already quite smitten,” remarked Frances’ father but was ignored, his daughter walking quickly away after the dressmaker.
“I shall come too,” Lydia declared. “I am quite happy for Beatrice to choose the bridesmaid dresses since she has been waiting for so long."
“The pale blue overlaid with silver is very becoming,” observed Lydia, holding up these two samples again at Frances’ shoulder. “The white and gold was…”
“Too much,” suggested Mrs. Merton. “Yes, I thought so when I saw them laid against Lady Frances’ complexion. We need something both rich and subtle.”
“What do you think, Frances?” Lydia prodded her friend, seeming to finally realize that the bride-to-be herself had not spoken in some time.
“What? Oh, yes, I like these ones too,” Frances said, blindly indicating the blue and silver samples.
In fact, Frances’ mind had been elsewhere for some time. It had been on Ambrose Clarke, Duke of Westall. More specifically ithad been on the strange effect his proximity had produced in her blood on both occasions that they met.
How was it possible for someone to both stir your senses and make you feel safe? The two were surely opposites. Yet it was possible, because that was what Frances felt when she stood close to the Duke of Westall. It occurred to her that the most dangerous kind of security could be one that made you long for your senses to be so stirred.
“Yes, they set off your eyes beautifully, Lady Frances,” Mrs. Merton gushed in approval. “I can imagine a dress in these colors with a bouquet of white roses, forget-me-nots and orange blossom, although there may be other considerations for floristry.”
“I like the sound of that too, Frances,” chimed in Lydia, folding a scrap of white silk into a flower shape and holding it beside the samples. “We could carry the same color bouquets but smaller and with carnations instead of roses.”
Frances only nodded and smiled agreeably. She was happy to indulge her mother, sister and friend in outfitting this wedding but it did not touch her heart and she could not feel strongly.
“Beatrice and your mother want to know if you’ve chosen a color yet,” broke in Lord Scovell’s voice from the doorway. “Your sister says that she cannot think more about the bridesmaid dresses until the bridal gown shade is set.”
Her smile fading, Frances held up the blue and silver fabrics for her father rather than answering him.
“That will look very well indeed, if you want my opinion,” he offered, venturing a smile.
“I do not want your opinion,” Frances said quietly, this softly spoken but unmistakeable rebuff startling both Lydia and Mrs. Merton.
Her father himself did not look surprised, although he winced as he always did under the assault of her small barbs. Frances believed that he feigned his hurt as he presumably feigned everything else.
“Gentleman are always somewhat superfluous to requirements at a bridal consultation,” said Mrs. Merton quickly, her tone professionally cheerful and soothing as she went to Lord Scovell’s side and escorted him from the room. “Perhaps you might better look at some of the handkerchief silks for your suit pocket, something to complement your daughter’s dress, I think.”
“Why do you hate your father so much?” Lydia whispered once they were alone, her voice rather shocked. “I know there has been some falling out between you but he only commented on the color of your dress. Could you not have answered nicely?”
“You do not know my father,” Frances returned. “He is not as nice as he seems, but I do not wish to talk of him.”
Lydia shook her head in confusion and Frances sighed to herself, knowing that her reactions must seem irrational to her friend, especially when Frances was normally so sensible and good-tempered with the rest of her family, friends and acquaintance.
Well, at least after she became Duchess of Westall, she need rarely see her father again, Frances supposed. While Scovell Hall and Westall Park were each less than two hours from London, they were in opposite directions from one another. That was definitely one advantage of this marriage.
“Then, let us talk of the wedding night instead,” suggested Lydia conspiratorially. “Are you looking forward to it or not? From what I have seen and heard of the Duke of Westall, he is both handsome and kind. While I prefer horses to husbands for myself, yours seems like an excellent choice.”
The subject of the wedding night was only marginally more palatable to Frances than the subject of her father. Yet Lydia spoke with such unthinking friendliness and interest that she did not want to scotch her friend’s conversation unkindly.
“I am barely thinking of it at all,” Frances told Lydia, to the latter’s puzzlement. “This is very much an arranged marriage rather than a love match, you know. You are right that the duke is a kind man, or I would not have agreed to the match. Still, it may be that we see very little of one another at Westall Park.”
“But surely you will spend the wedding night together?” Lydia pressed in disbelief. “Even in arranged marriages, I would havethought both husbands and wives would expect that, wouldn’t they? Have you really not thought about married life at all?”
“I am looking forward to being independent and to running my own home,” Frances replied. “I believe I shall have more peace and freedom as a married woman at Westall Park than an unmarried woman at Scovell Hall. Nor shall I ever be required to dance again with another unwanted suitor.”
