“Of course they’re for Francesca,” he muttered, “although, good God, I don’t know who would be idiot enough to send roses.”
“I like roses,” Francesca said.
“Everyone sends roses,” he said dismissively. “They’re trite and old, and”—he motioned to Trevelstam’s yellow ones—“who sent this?”
“Trevelstam,” Janet answered.
Michael let out a snort and swung around to face Francesca. “You’re not going to marry him, are you?”
“Probably not, but I fail to see what—”
“He hasn’t two shillings to rub together,” he stated.
“How would you know?” Francesca asked. “You haven’t even been back a month.”
Michael shrugged. “I’ve been to my club.”
“Well, it may be true, but it is hardly his fault,” Francesca felt compelled to point out. Not that she felt any great loyalty to Lord Trevelstam, but still, she did try to be fair, and it was common knowledge that the young viscount had spent the last year trying to repair the damage his profligate father had done to the family fortunes.
“You’re not marrying him, and that’s final,” Michael announced.
She should have been annoyed by his arrogance, but the truth was, she was mostly just amused. “Very well,” she said, lips twitching. “I’ll select someone else.”
“Good,” he grunted.
“She has many to choose from,” Janet put in.
“Indeed,” Michael said caustically.
“I’m going to have to find Helen,” Janet said. “She won’t want to miss this.”
“I hardly think the flowers are going to fly out the window before she rises,” Michael said.
“Of course not,” Janet replied sweetly, giving him a motherly pat on the arm.
Francesca quickly swallowed a laugh. Michael would hate that, and Janet knew it.
“She does adore her flowers, though,” Janet said. “May I take one of the arrangements up to her?”
“Of course,” Francesca replied.
Janet reached for Trevelstam’s roses, then stopped herself. “Oh, no, I had better not,” she said, turning back around to face Michael and Francesca. “He might stop by, and we wouldn’t want him to think we’d banished his flowers to some far corner of the house.”
“Oh, right,” Francesca murmured, “of course.”
Michael just grunted.
“Nevertheless, I’d better go tell her about this,” Janet said, and she turned and hurried up the stairs.
Michael sneezed, then glared at a particularly innocuous display of gladiolas. “We’re going to have to open a window,” he grumbled.
“And freeze?”
“I’ll wear a coat,” he ground out.
Francesca smiled. She wanted to grin. “Are you jealous?” she asked coyly.
He swung around and nearly leveled her with a dumb-struck expression.
“Not over me,” she said quickly, almost blushing at the thought. “My word, not that.”
“Then what?” he asked, his voice quiet and clipped.
“Well, just—I mean—” She motioned to the flowers, a clear display of her sudden popularity. “Well, we’re both after much the same goal this season, aren’t we?”
He just stared at her blankly.
“Marriage,” she said. Good heavens, he was particularly obtuse this morning.
“Your point?”
She let out an impatient breath. “I don’t know if you had thought about it, but I’d naturally assumed you would be the one to be relentlessly pursued. I never dreamed that I would…Well…”
“Emerge as a prize to be won?”
It wasn’t the nicest way of putting it, but it wasn’t exactly inaccurate, so she just said, “Well, yes, I suppose.”
For a moment he said nothing, but he was watching her strangely, almost wryly, and then he said, his voice quiet, “A man would have to be a fool not to want to marry you.”
Francesca felt her mouth form a surprised oval. “Oh,” she said, quite at a loss for words. “That’s…that’s…quite the nicest thing you could have said to me just now.”
He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. She decided not to tell him that he’d just deposited a streak of yellow pollen into the black strands.
“Francesca,” he said, looking tired and weary and something else.
Regretful?
No, that was impossible. Michael wasn’t the sort to regret anything.
“I would never begrudge you this. You…” He cleared his throat. “You should be happy.”
“I—” It was the strangest moment, especially after their tense words the night before. She hadn’t the faintest clue how to reply, and so she just changed the subject and said, “Your turn will come.”
He looked at her quizzically.
“It already has, really,” she continued. “Last night. I was besieged with far more admirers for your hand than for my own. If women could send flowers, we’d be completely awash with them.”
He smiled, but the sentiment didn’t quite reach his eyes. He didn’t look angry, just…hollow.
And she was struck by what a strange observation that was.
“Er, last night,” he said, reaching up and tugging at his cravat. “If I said anything to upset you…”
She watched his face. It was so dear to her, and she knew every last detail of it. Four years, it seemed, did little to smudge a memory. But something was different now. He’d changed, but she wasn’t sure how.
And she wasn’t sure why.
“Everything is fine,” she assured him.
“Nonetheless,” he said gruffly, “I’m sorry.”
But for the rest of the day, Francesca wondered if he knew exactly what he was apologizing for. And she couldn’t escape the feeling that she wasn’t sure, either.
Chapter 12
…rather ridiculous writing to you, but I suppose after so many months in the East, my perspective on death and the afterlife has slid into something that would have sent Vicar MacLeish screaming for the hills. So far from England, it is almost possible to pretend that you are still alive and able to receive this note, just like the many I sent from France. But then someone calls out to me, and I am reminded that I am Kilmartin and you are in a place unreachable by the Royal Mail.
—from the Earl of Kilmartin to his deceased cousin, the previous earl, one year and two months after his departure for India, written to completion and then burned slowly over a candle
It wasn’t that he enjoyed feeling like an ass, Michael reflected as he swirled a glass of brandy at his club, but it seemed that lately, around Francesca at least, he couldn’t quite avoid acting like one.
There she had been at her mother’s birthday party, so damned happy for him, so delighted that he had uttered the word love in her presence, and he had simply snapped.
Because he knew how her mind worked, and he knew that she was already thinking madly ahead, trying to select the perfect woman for him, and the truth was…
Well, the truth was just too pathetic for words.