“Never,” Ambrose stated with absolute certainty, cutting off even the verbalization of this unpleasant idea. “I married you, Frances, not Annabelle Sinclair or anyone else. I married you.”
“But she is very beautiful, isn't she?” Frances added sadly. “I saw you talking to her earlier, I think.”
“You saw her talking to me,” corrected the duke. “Believe me, I had no desire for her conversation, or anything else.”
“Do you promise?” Frances asked.
Ambrose was surprised by this request and the strength of feeling in his wife’s presently misty grey eyes. He had only exchanged a few words with Miss Sinclair, most of them forming repeated requests for her to leave him alone and an implied threat to write to her father if she did not. Had Frances witnessed and misconstrued this?
“Yes, I promise. I have never felt a moment’s desire for Miss Sinclair’s company or person and I never will. I only…”
…I only want you…
Ambrose stopped before he could speak the words on the tip of his tongue. He must not overstep the line he knew was still there between him and Frances. She might have allowed him to comfort her in distress, and this was progress of a kind in their journey towards intimacy. Still, it did not mean she was ready to hear or respond to such avowal of desire.
As Frances laid her head back against his chest, Ambrose exhaled quietly. No, he could not yet tell her that hers was the only beauty that now excited him, that her lips were the onlyones he hungered to kiss, and that he longed to give her physical pleasure as much as he longed for his own satisfaction in her arms…
“What do we do now?” Frances asked him after a few more minutes of closeness during which her breathing calmed once more and her voice settled back to its usual measured tones.
“We go out there and we dance every dance,” Ambrose proposed after a moment’s thought. “Let us give no more notice to that ridiculous pamphlet and its author tonight, nor to irritants like Annabelle Sinclair. We are here to enjoy ourselves, so let us do so.”
In his arms, Frances laughed and then extricated herself. Her face was a little pink and damp from her crying but as delicately lovely as ever to Ambrose’s eyes.
“May I have the next dance and the next and the next?” he asked her, making a deep formal bow and extending his hand. “And the one after that too?”
Smiling, Frances smoothed her dress and nodded before dropping a curtsey and putting her hand in his.
“I am yours, Your Grace,” she accepted.
One day, Ambrose thought with a stab of longing. Not quite yet, but one day…
“Seriously? Are you sure that’s wise, Colin?” the Duke of Westall questioned his friend, putting his glass down on the table with a loud clink after listening to his incredible suggestion.
“Perhaps not, but life is short,” the Duke of Redford returned with a grin, leaning back in his comfortable armchair in the lounge of their club. “It’s worth a try isn’t it?”
“The woman is an absolute snake! She has already used you once and you’re ready to welcome her back into your life with open arms. It sounds like madness to me.”
“Maybe I liked being used like that,” Colin laughed at him. “Maybe I’m not the clean-cut family man that you are, Ambrose. In any case, I am a big boy and can look after myself. Nor do I think Ellen is entirely so bad as you make out, and I’m certainly willing to take my chances. Her mistress however…”
Here, Colin stopped and shook his head. Ambrose leaned forward and looked earnestly at him.
“Maybe they are as bad as one another, Colin. I can’t ask you to sacrifice yourself for my benefit.”
“Sacrifice myself?” repeated Colin with a chuckle, putting his hands behind his head and adopting a posture of great insouciance. “I haven’t really thought about it in that light butbelieve me, I’m hardly going to suffer. I also feel I owe something for being taken in and giving Ellen information about you, especially as some of it turned up a scandal sheet.”
“Joking aside, Miss Sinclair is a nasty piece of work and I have no reason to think any better of her employee.”
“Oh, tosh and nonsense, Ambrose. Maybe Ellen is only intelligent, resourceful and independent in a world that does not value such qualities in young women of the working classes. I expect she works for money far more than loyalty, and perhaps not too much money at that.”
“The scandal sheet publisher paid her decently,” the Duke of Westall grumbled, having paid a visit to the said gentleman with his lawyer earlier that day. “Not for the first time either. I imagine Ellen does rather well for herself on the side.”
Once assured that Ambrose was seeking information rather than any kind of legal redress, the publisher had been all too ready to cooperate, for a price. The writer of the column too had been quite amenable to answering questions for money, confirming that a woman fitting Ellen’s description had provided the basis of the whole story, and many others in the past.
Again, Colin only laughed.
“She certainly does. Incidentally, I’m minded to send her some silk underwear with my invitation to meet. It would be very indiscreet to send more champagne, and yet I doubt she will reply unless I make it worth her while.”
“You’re not going to take any notice of my warnings at all, are you?” sighed Ambrose.
