Page 19 of The Courtship Dance

She turned and picked up the candelabra, then slipped into the drawing room, motioning for him to follow her. She set the candelabra down on the nearest table and closed the door behind her.

“Very well.” She faced him, squaring her shoulders. “I will tell you, since you are so insistent.”

“Please do.” Rochford watched her grimly, his entire body taut as wire.

“I did it to help you,” Francesca began a trifle nervously. “I looked around and found several women whom I thought would be…qualified to be your duchess. I wasn’t trying to push any particular one upon you. But I thought that if you were around them, you might come to realize that you had an affinity for one or the other.”

“You still have not explained why you felt compelled to do this.”

“Because of what I did to you!” Francesca exclaimed, feeling tears rising and battling them back down. She took a deep breath and went on more calmly. “Because I believed Daphne instead of you. Because I did not trust you. I broke our engagement. I wanted to make up for the mistake I made fifteen years ago.”

Rochford looked at her for a long moment. His face was set and his voice deadly quiet as he said, “You broke our engagement, and when you found out you were wrong, this was your response? To find me a wife to replace the one I lost?”

“No. Of course not,” she protested. “You make it sound quite horrid.”

“How else is it supposed to sound?”

“I was not offering her as a replacement for me. That is absurd. I just thought—I know that you have not married all these years. And I feared that I—Well, that what I did to you must have influenced you against marriage. That I made you feel that women were not to be trusted, that we would all fail you. I felt responsible.”

“Not marrying was my choice, Francesca.”

“I cannot help but feel that if it had not been for me and what I did, you would have married long ago,” she insisted. “I was concerned about you. And I thought that this is a skill I apparently have, bringing couples together. I did not mean to upset you, truly. I was trying to help. I mean, obviously you must marry.”

He grimaced. “Now you sound like my grandmother.” He swung away, pacing a few steps, then whirled back to face her. “Do you think that I am so incapable of wooing a woman that you must do it for me? So lacking in charm? Do you think that I will frighten off any prospective bride if I am left to my own devices?”

Francesca’s eyes widened. “I—I—”

He stalked back to her, anger fairly crackling off him. “Am I so clumsy? Tell me, you are the one who would know. Was my courtship that dreadful?”

He stopped, looming over her, and she stared up at him, stunned. His anger was overwhelming. He seemed so huge, so close, his eyes lit with an inner fire.

“Was my kiss that unappealing?” he went on, his voice so low she could barely hear it. “Was my touch that repulsive to you?”

Then, astonishing her even more, he grabbed her by the arms and pulled her to him, his mouth coming down to seize hers in a hard, thorough kiss.

Francesca felt rooted to the spot, every thought in her head flying off into the atmosphere. She was aware of nothing except the fierce grip of his fingers upon her upper arms and the hot, hard pressure of his lips upon hers. A flame shot to life inside her, and she trembled, astonished as much by her own reaction as by what Rochford had done.

He moved his mouth against hers insistently, opening her to him, and his tongue swept inside. Heat washed through her, and her skin prickled. She felt strangely giddy and weak, as if she might tumble to the ground if his hands were not clutching her arms, holding her up.

Just as suddenly as he had kissed her, he pulled back. His eyes were wide, the light in them fierce. He let out an oath and pulled his hands away from her. Then he turned and strode out the door.

For a long moment Francesca stood where she was, staring after him. Her heart thundered in her chest, and her breath came hard and quick in her throat. She felt dazed, bombarded by a hundred different emotions.

His words had twisted her heart, and tears welled in her eyes. She had wounded him unknowingly. She wanted to run after him, to cry and beg him to stay and hear her out. Hurting him had been the furthest thing from her mind. Somehow she must make him believe that. She must make him see that she had meant nothing unkind by what she had done.

How could it have turned into such a disaster? She had thought he might be a bit annoyed at her machinations, but it had never occurred to her that he would be so furious. Now, however, she feared that she might have lost Rochford entirely, that she might no longer even have him as a friend. The thought of that made her cold all through.

And why had he kissed her? His kiss could hardly be considered an expression of feeling—or, at least, not an expression of any good sort of feeling. His mouth had been hard and brutal, seizing her lips, not asking or seducing. There had been more anger than passion in the way he had grabbed her and pressed his mouth to hers. It had almost been as if he were punishing her.

But what she had felt had been anything but punishment.

Francesca raised her fingertips to her lips, laying them gently against the tingling, sensitive flesh. She could still feel his lips on hers, the taste of his mouth. And deep in her abdomen there was a molten heat. Everything inside her was now jangling and alive in a way she had never felt before…or at least not in years and years.

She wanted to fling herself on her bed and indulge in a good cry. She wanted to curl up and float in the memory of that kiss all over again. Indeed, she was not sure what she wanted at all.

Shaken and confused, Francesca turned and, picking up the candelabra, made her way up to bed.

THE DUKE OF ROCHFORD strode through the front door of White’s, looking neither left nor right. He wasn’t sure why he was there. He certainly had no desire for company right now, but neither had he been able to face the prospect of going back to the huge empty Lilles House.