He knew how to be heard without demanding to be. That, too, was irritating.
Francesca forced herself to concentrate on the conversation. She spoke again of her mills, of the way certain overseers could be replaced without chaos, and of the importance of educating foremen so that discipline did not rely upon cruelty. She found herself dealing with questions from men who wanted figures and evidence; she provided both. It was the first time in months that she had felt herself to be fully engaged in the work she meant to do, and she refused to let Major Manners steal that from her by merely existing in the same room.
Yet for her, his presence altered the air like a change in weather. She kept expecting him to intervene, to contradict, to assert some masculine authority over her words. He did noneof it. He listened. When she made a point, he did not smile as though indulging her; he looked at her as though he were taking her seriously.
It was, in its own way, more unsettling than a disdainful dismissal.
At last, during a pause as one gentleman poured tea and another searched for a paper he wished to quote, the Major’s gaze returned to her. This time it did not glance away at once. He seemed to be waiting for her to speak.
She determined not to reward him with acknowledgement, and yet she found herself speaking to him.
“Are you misplaced?” she asked, her tone carefully neutral.
His brows lifted faintly. “Am I?”
“This is not the sort of gathering I would expect you to attend,” she replied.
“I suspect you have no idea what ‘sort of gatherings’ I attend,” he said, and there was a trace of dry amusement in it.
Francesca narrowed her eyes. “Then what are you doing?”
He held her gaze. “My duty.”
It was, she reluctantly admitted, an honest answer. “You came to watch me,” she said, because it was better to make the accusation plainly than to pretend she did not feel it.
A flicker of some emotion passed through his expression—not guilt, but consideration. “I do not deny it.”
Francesca felt heat rise into her cheeks, and she was angry with herself for it. “If you meant to escort me, you have done so poorly. I arrived without you.”
“You arrived with your maid,” he observed quietly as his gaze flicked towards Nelly’s vigilant posture, “which suggests you are not entirely reckless.”
“I am careful,” Francesca said.
He looked steadily at her. “Careful women still come to harm.”
Again, of their own accord, her fingers grasped her gloves. “You speak as if harm is inevitable.”
He did not answer at once, and that pause was more revealing than any speech. When he did speak, his voice was lower. “I speak as a man who has seen how quickly harm can occur in ordinary circumstances.”
Francesca swallowed. There were moments, she thought, when a soldier’s gravity was not mere arrogance but a knowledge earned at cost. She disliked being moved by it.
“Thus you follow me into Bloomsbury,” she said, striving for coolness, “and you sit in corners like a spy.”
“If I were spying, Miss Vale, you would not have noticed me.”
The retort was so quietly confident that it would have been comical, had it not made her pulse quicken.
Mr. Tidd called the company to order again then, and the discussion resumed. Francesca spoke less after that, not because she had nothing to say, but because she could feel Manners’ attention when she did, and it made her too aware of herself. She hated that awareness. She had not come to Bloomsbury to be made self-conscious by a gentleman whose existence offended her principles.
And yet, when the gathering ended and people began to disperse, she found herself glancing towards him again.
He spoke with one of the gentlemen by the fireplace, his posture relaxed but his gaze alert. He accepted a cup of tea as if it were nothing remarkable, and yet there was something in him that suggested he could, at a moment’s notice, turn that cup into a weapon if required. Francesca wondered what it would feel like to be protected by such competence, and disliked herself for wondering at all.
Nelly touched her arm lightly. “Miss Francesca, shall we go?”
“Yes,” Francesca said at once, too quickly, and rose from her chair.
As she moved towards the door, Manners stepped into her path with such smoothness that it might almost have been accidental, except that nothing about him was ever truly accidental.
