Chapter Nine

E ven though he wanted to call on Frances the next day, Seth tried to be patient while he waited for her to decide.

If she rejected his courtship, then he had only himself to blame but hoped that she would give him another chance.

Two days after Frances had claimed that she needed time, Seth received a missive from her. She agreed to be courted but was only available in the afternoon or a Sunday, Monday or Tuesday evening.

He had frowned because he could not imagine what she might be doing the other evenings but would make certain that his free hours were the same as hers. Besides, he should be at The Emerald Garter the nights she was unavailable anyway, but still wondered what would be occupying her time.

Regardless, he would not press and would take every opportunity he had to be with Frances and called that very afternoon with a bouquet of autumn flowers. They had become friends and started to heal from the loss of their family members while planting a garden and he wanted her to remember so they could begin anew.

As with most homes of a similar style, he anticipated that a drawing room or sitting room was beyond one door and a dining room behind another. Further down the dark corridor was likely a library with kitchens below or across the hall. Yet, when he had visited previously, he had followed Lady Bethany to a parlor on the first floor. Did she and Bethany not use the ground floor?

As the footman climbed the stairs, Seth decided that he would consider the question another day and followed, even though he had been asked to wait until the servant learned if Frances was at home.

“Lord Seth Claxton has come to call, Miss Hawthorn.”

“Please, send him up,” she answered.

“I do not know what I would have done if you had not been at home,” Seth said as he entered the parlor. “It would have been quite awkward for your footman to turn and find me standing there before he ordered me from your home.”

“Then perhaps you should have remained where you were told until summoned,” Frances returned and Seth could not help but smile.

Yes, Frances had changed since he had last seen her in Laswell, and while he missed the sweet girl from the cottage in the woods, he was growing to appreciate the strong woman she had apparently become.

“I thought we could take a drive in the park,” he suggested.

“Do you have an open conveyance?” she returned. “One must be conscious of a reputation regardless of spinster status.”

He did not see her as a spinster because to him, they were women who were old, wrinkled and having never been married. Frances was still young and beautiful, but because her age was eight and twenty, Society had deemed her as such. Worse, a wallflower spinster. They might as well have decided that she would grow old alone.

“I have my low phaeton,” Seth answered.

“I will only be a moment,” she said before calmly walking from the parlor.

She was so polite, as if they were mere acquaintances, which was rather aggravating and needed to change. Hopefully she would soften toward him as they drove.

If it were spring, they would be riding during the fashionable hour. As it was autumn, Seth wasn’t certain if there was a fashionable hour to ride in the park because he had never bothered to learn. However, he did hope that the fashionable time was the same year-round because he wanted to be seen with Frances by his side. No doubt his squiring a beautiful woman about would cause a stir among the gossips, and for the first time in his life, Seth didn’t care. In fact, he’d welcome their wagging tongues.

If only he would have been so brave five years ago…

He shook the thoughts away as it did no good to revisit a past that could not be changed.

“I am ready,” Frances announced as she returned to the parlor wearing a pale green pelisse and cream bonnet covering her golden curls.

They did not speak as he escorted her from the home, into the phaeton or all the way to Hyde Park.

Unless he engaged her in conversation, Frances would likely not speak to him.

“If you do not mind me asking, why are you free only three evenings a week?” Her unavailability to him had been something that Seth had been wondering about since he received her missive.

She tilted her head and offered a small smile. “I assumed you knew, given where I live.”

Live! What did her no longer residing with her family but with Lady Bethany have to do with anything?

Bloody hell! Women of similar ages did not live alone and without a male relative to protect them unless…unless they already had a protector.

His head snapped to look at her. “I do not. Perhaps you should explain.”

Frances had no idea why he thought she lived with Bethany but whatever possibility occurred to him had certainly alarmed Seth. A part of her wanted to simply tell him that it is what he assumed, but as she didn’t know what that was, she didn’t want to admit to such.

“Athena’s Salon,” Frances finally answered.

He frowned as his eyebrows drew together over his eyes. “What is that?”

“You do not know?” she asked with a laugh.

“No.”

“It was established by your cousin and Lady Bethany, except Her Grace married before it was opened. It had been her intention to live in the house with Lady Bethany.”

“That does not explain what Athena’s Salon is,” Seth reminded her.

“Four nights a week we open the doors for discussions of the sciences, politics, the arts and any other intellectual pursuits.”

“I had not realized you were interested in such.”

“That is because you only knew me in Laswell, which is a very small village compared to London. Once I ventured away from my home and Yorkshire, and came to Town, an entire world was opened to me and I found there were many things of interest.”

“This is a gathering place for women, I assume. How is it supported?”

“Subscription,” Frances answered. “It is not just women, but gentlemen as well, but only those who acknowledge that women are equally intelligent even if they were denied a formal education such as the one you received.”

“Four nights a week you spend your time in intellectual discussion,” he said as if to clarify, though Seth appeared puzzled. She shouldn’t be surprised because many gentlemen first reacted in the same manner.

“Your cousin and Lady Bethany take part in the salon and I am their employee,” Frances answered. “They are my friends and were before I was hired and the reason I moved into the house.”

Seth pulled the phaeton over then turned to look at her. “An employee!”

Why was he so appalled? There was no shame in taking a position, even if her brother was an earl. It was her father who had been the landed gentleman and it was his older brother who had been the Earl of Albany. “I am an employee, but I can assure you, there is little labor required.”

“What is your position?” he asked slowly.

“I manage the gaming tables and sometimes am a dealer in games of chance.”

For a moment, all he did was stare at her as if she were spouting nonsense or a foreign language that he did not understand. “You manage gaming tables,” he said slowly. “You are a dealer who has tables for gambling in a salon that was established for the purpose of intellectual and artistic discussions,” he repeated as if he still couldn’t grasp the concept or what she did. “This salon is owned by my cousin.”

“And Lady Bethany.”

“What games?”

“We only play Faro, Vingt-et-un, and Baccarat.”

“Not Hazard?”

She tilted her head and offered a condescending smile. “Were you not the one who told me that there was no skill to dice but simply luck? The perspective from a gambling room is the same and they would rather rely on skills with cards.”

“Your skills?” he asked.

“Yes. I am very good.”

Seth had been the one to teach Frances the different games of chance during rainy afternoons at the cottage. If not for him, she would never have been successful at the card tables during balls, so she supposed that she should thank him and maybe she would one day.

He also had no idea how good she truly was because she had never let on that she naturally counted cards and could calculate the odds of what would be the next card turned, or what another player may be holding based on the cards that could be seen. It was a secret that she kept from him because she feared that if she beat him too often, he would stop playing with her.

After she came to London, Frances learned to watch other players and realized that most had unintentional reactions to good and bad hands. Sometimes a tic in the cheek, a lifted eyebrow, and drumming of fingers on the table and several other signs, and Frances became very good at reading people.

Well, except for Seth, unless they were playing a game of chance.