Page 71 of The Courtship Dance

She lost the thread of the conversation so many times that one of her callers asked her if she was feeling unwell, and a later one gave her an icy look when she left. Then the Duke of Rochford came to call.

Fenton announced him as she was sitting in her drawing room with Lady Feringham and her daughter. Francesca’s heart leaped into her throat, and she jumped to her feet before she realized what she had done. Gravely, trying to look as if she rose for every visitor, she bowed her head to the butler, saying, “Please, show him in.”

She dared not glance at Lady Feringham or her daughter as she braced herself to see Sinclair again. She must not let anything of what had happened between the two of them show in her face. Discretion, after all, must be her watchword.

Rochford walked into the room after the butler, and Francesca saw the flicker of dismay on his face when he noticed her other visitors. He checked at the doorway before continuing into the room and bowing to her.

“Lady Haughston.”

“Rochford. How very pleasant to see you,” she greeted him, her voice carefully even. Her cheeks were a little warm, and she hoped that she was not blushing—at least not deeply enough that the others would notice.

She extended her hand to him. She wanted desperately to feel his touch, yet she knew that she must not allow any of that to be seen on her face. His fingers closed around hers, and she felt him squeeze briefly before he released her hand. She allowed herself one glance up into his eyes; it was all she could do to tear her own eyes away.

She gave a bright, general smile and gestured vaguely toward one of the chairs. “Do sit down. You know Lady Feringham and her daughter, Lady Cottwell, I believe.”

“Yes, of course.” Rochford bowed to the other women and greeted them politely while Francesca sat down and sought to gather her composure around her.

It was absurd, she told herself, that all she could think about right now was the way Rochford had looked looming above her, his skin slick with sweat, his breath ragged, his eyes black as the pit, as he plunged into her.

She slipped out her handkerchief and dabbed surreptitiously at her face. Was anyone else looking heated, or was it just her? She wondered if it would appear odd if she called for Fenton to open another of the windows.

The room was silent, and Francesca glanced around, realizing that something was amiss. From the expectant looks on the others’ faces, she knew that they were waiting for some response from her.

“I—I beg your pardon. I fear my mind, um, wandered for a bit. I was thinking that it seemed a bit warm. Shall I have a window opened?”

“Oh, no, it’s quite pleasant,” the younger visitor assured her. “I had just asked you whether you enjoyed Lady Smythe-Fulton’s rout last week. I found it such a crush, I confess.”

“Indeed. But is that not the goal of a rout?” Francesca asked with a smile, doing her best to recall anything about the party. That was not where she had watched Rochford talk to Mary Calderwood, was it? No, surely that had been the Haversley soiree. She could remember almost nothing of that evening except with whom the duke had chatted and the praise Lady Mary had heaped upon him.

She sneaked another glance at Rochford. He was watching her, and there was something in his gaze that made her skin flare with heat. She tried to give him an admonitory glare, but she feared that it did not come out looking that way at all. When were these women going to leave? Had they not been here long past the polite limit for an afternoon call?

But still Lady Feringham prattled on. She had gone on to a discussion of Lord Chesterfield’s new phaeton, which his youngest son had apparently wrecked only this morning in an absurd race with Mr. William Arbuthnot. Francesca did her best to gasp and sigh and smile in all the right places, but she could not keep her eyes from straying back time and again to the duke.

She was swept with relief when at last Lady Feringham announced that they must take their leave. She could only hope that they did not see the joy flare in her eyes as she rose to bid goodbye to them.

When they were gone, Francesca whirled back to Rochford, who came to her in two quick strides and grasped both her hands in his, bringing them up to his lips and planting a hard, brief kiss on the knuckles of each one.

“I was beginning to think that they had taken root here,” he told her between kisses.

Francesca let out a giddy little laugh. “As did I. Oh, Sinclair…”

She let out his name on a sigh, gazing up into his face, her own features glowing as if lit from within.

He let out an oath under his breath and drew her into his arms, bending to kiss her fiercely. When they at last emerged from the embrace sometime later, Francesca’s face was rosy and her eyes shining, her lips soft and almost bruised-looking.

“When you look at me like that, I forget all else,” he told her hoarsely. “We must talk.”

“Must we?” she retorted lightly, grinning in a deliberately provocative way. “I can think of a number of things I would rather do.”

“Vixen.” He raised her hand again and turned it over to press a kiss into her palm. “You know that I would, as well. But I have to tell you—”

There was the sound of a discreet cough in the hallway, and they sprang apart, Rochford swinging away to inspect the mantel as though it held some deep fascination for him. Francesca grimaced, but composed her expression and turned to face her butler.

“Yes, Fenton?”

“Mrs. Frederick Wilberforce to see you, madam.”

She would dearly have liked to instruct him to tell the woman that she was not at home, but she knew that Mrs. Wilberforce must have seen the other callers leaving, and if she was then turned away, her feelings would be hurt. Mrs. Wilberforce, having “married up,” was especially sensitive to any sort of slight.