Annabelle
Ambrose’s eyes almost bulged from his head while he continued to stare at the incredible missive he had just read. What on earth could she mean by such a letter? It was utterly inappropriate to write to him in any case and the message itself made no sense.
He knew he might reasonably write to Miss Sinclair’s parents and enclose their daughter’s improper note but he did not wish to entangle himself any further with her than he must.
Setting his jaw, the Duke of Westall folded the letter back up and rang the bell.
“Return this letter to sender immediately,” he instructed the footman who answered the call. “There is no reply.”
In the silence that followed these terse words and the footman’s departure, a hundred disparate thoughts ran through Ambrose’s head while Frances stared at him in bewilderment. His wife’s face brought one particular question to the forefront, and he was surprised he had not thought of it before.
What if it had been Miss Sinclair who wrote to Frances too? She might have said any number of unpleasant or untrue things which could account for the upset that Mrs. Betsworth had reported.
“Do you know anyone called Annabelle Sinclair?” Ambrose asked his wife a little abruptly.
Frances shook her head, appearing mystified.
“No. Should I know this lady?” she inquired, matching his tone.
“No, I only wondered. It does not matter. Forget I asked.”
“I should very much like to know of Annabelle Sinclair, if she is going to write perfume-soaked letters to my husband that cause him such a stir,” Frances flared back at him, with more feeling than he had expected. “Is this lady a close friend of yours, Ambrose?”
“No!” he denied vehemently. “She is no friend of mine at all and never has been. Her letter was unexpected, unsolicited and inappropriate. That is why I have returned it.”
Slowly, Frances nodded her head as if beginning to believe him but not yet quite convinced. Was she jealous?!
“Then you will not be writing to her or seeing her in the foreseeable future?”
“Not if I see her coming first,” Ambrose said with a genuine shudder that perhaps made up Frances’ mind, although it might have been his next admission that did that. “She was the lady I was escaping at the Morgan ball that night when I met you.”
“Ah,” Frances said, her expression clearing as though the pieces were falling into place in her mind. “Now, I think I understand and I am glad that you explained. I can be too sensitive when I suspect someone is trying to deceive me. The truth can never hurt so much as a lie.”
Ambrose did not know quite what she had in mind with her last two statements but there was a vulnerability in her expression that made him reach out and place a hand over hers on the table.
How soft and warm her skin felt, with something indefinable seeming to flow between them instantly, just as it had done in the library…
Frances, however, gasped as though she had been scalded, her face flushing pink as she looked at him with some agitation.
“Is it too soon?” he asked withdrawing his hand. “I did not mean to alarm you, Frances.”
“I do not know,” she answered in a small voice. “It is all too much for me, Ambrose, and I wish it was otherwise.”
“I wish I knew how to comfort you when I cannot touch you,” he sighed, with a sad smile of his own.
“So do I,” replied Frances, and then, rising from her chair, she hurried from the room.
“Oh my!” yelped Lydia Carrington, finally remembering to dig a spoon into her melting glass of ice-cream after hovering it in the air for a full thirty seconds. “It was really sprayed with scent?!”
As she asked this question, she glanced warily towards the elder brother who had escorted her to meet Frances at the café in Hyde Park today.
Henry Carrington sat at a another table with his head in a newspaper, ignoring his sister and her friend entirely. When Henry did occasionally look up, his eyes were drawn more to a shapely blonde-haired woman with slanted green eyes, sitting at the table beside Frances and Lydia. This lady was also reading a newspaper and was apparently as engrossed in it as Henry.
Lydia had listened intently to Frances’ account of certain recent events at Westall Park, especially the letters from Lord Mulford and the mysterious Miss Annabelle Sinclair. Throughher friend’s responses, Frances felt her own strong reactions justified.
“Dowsed in scent, I should say. I could smell it across the breakfast table,” Frances confirmed, frowning at the memory. “Ambrose asked me if I knew the woman’s name but I’d never heard of her.”
“He didn’t try to hide the letter at all? Or claim it was from his grandmother, or a friend? Nothing like that?”
