“Lord Scovell, might I beg a few minutes with Lady Frances in private? If our minds are as alike as Lady Kempleforth supposes, I believe we can reach an agreement very quickly.”
“Oh, yes, I see,” replied Lord Scovell, swallowing, seemingly still struggling with the speed at which the conversation seemed to be moving. “Well, then. You young people talk together and then we can reconvene. I shall be in the hallway if you need me.”
Looking baffled, he ambled from the room, nodded to Frances in what she supposed was intended to be a reassuring manner, and then closed the door behind him.
“What is this, Your Grace?” Frances asked the duke as soon as they were alone. “You were the last man on earth I expected to be seeking a wife.”
“But not the last man you might consider marrying?” he returned, his midnight-blue eyes inquiring just as much as his words.
As he spoke, the Duke of Westall walked across the study and stopped a few steps away from Frances. Close enough that she could smell the faint cologne he wore, but not so close that she felt any need to shrink back from him.
“No, you are far from the last man I would marry,” she conceded, thinking of Oswald Keeton with a shudder, and also of how different it had felt to dance with this man after Oswald that night at the Morgan ball. “You dance very well, Your Grace. That cannot be said of all men, you know.”
“I enjoyed our waltz very much, Lady Frances. At first it was only an escape, but you dance very well too.”
While it did not seem that these words were spoken in deliberate jest, they did make Frances laugh and hearing her laughter seemed to bring a smile to the duke’s face too.
“You cannot possibly decide to marry someone on the basis of a single waltz!” she told him, shaking her head.
“Why not?” the Duke of Westall returned with an amused shrug. “I shall do as I please. People marry for far more foolish reasons every day. Love at first sight, for instance, or status, or sheer desperation.”
“None of those things apply to you,” Frances stated very surely, and still smiling. “No more do they apply to me.”
“Exactly. So, why not marry only because I liked holding you in my arms and waltzing together, and you enjoyed it too?”
Frances had no answer to this and could not deny that she had enjoyed dancing with the duke and even being in his arms. Perhaps this was because he had been solicitous of her comfort in how he held and touched her, and apologetic for his initial impropriety in seizing hold of her. His strength had felt more like defense than threat when they were close.
The Duke of Westall could not know that she had grown up horrified at the idea of touching or being touched by a man. Thankfully, as an unmarried woman, well-protected by her family and society, very few men ever came so close to her, except when dancing. Still, such slight physical contacts often repelled her, especially when her dance partner was Oswald Keeton.
In her continued thoughtful silence, he spoke again.
“If we must each marry someone, and it seems neither of us will get any peace until we do, then let us marry each other, Lady Frances. If you need any more reason, know that my daughter needs a stepmother and that she is the sweetest child in the world.”
“Doubtless you are biased,” Frances commented with another smile, touched by the duke’s affection for the girl. “But that isindeed a very good reason to marry. I should like very much to be a stepmother, far more than I would like to be a mother, in fact.”
Now Frances’ face was serious again. She must make her main point before they went any further in this negotiation, or risk some fundamental misunderstanding.
“You like children, but you do not want any of your own?” the duke asked her, curious rather than judgmental, just as he had been when she told him at the Morgan ball that she did not wish to marry.
“I would prefer a marriage in form only,” said Frances. “Lady Kempleforth said that you too sought a marriage of convenience.”
“In form only?” the Duke of Westall queried, an interested glint in his deep blue eyes. “I wonder if we mean quite the same thing. A marriage of convenience is a broad term, I know.”
Frances took a breath and considered her next words carefully.
“I do not wish to share a bedroom,” she told him.
“The Duchess of Westall would have her own suite, adjoining that of the Duke of Westall,” the duke responded. “It contains bedroom, dressing room and private sitting room. You would have all the space you required.”
There was too much ambiguity still in this. An adjoining suite suggested that a married couple could pass easily and frequently between one another’s rooms. This was the last thing Frances wanted.
“I do not wish to share a bed,” she clarified.
“Never?” asked the Duke of Westall softly, puzzlement and interest both evident in the expression on his ruggedly handsome features.
“Never,” Frances whispered although the word seemed to catch in her throat as she met those eyes that were like two pieces of the midnight sky.
Had he moved nearer? Or had she only become more conscious of his proximity as they broached this very intimate topic? A strange tension had come from nowhere and now permitted the atmosphere of the room.
