Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

A s dinner ended, Frances felt nauseated.

This was a pity, truly, as the fare had been top-notch. Lord Hounton, the only person she'd spoken with for the latter part of the meal, had confided that there had been something of a to-do when Lord Winchester had poached his cook from one of the royal dukes on the promise that the French chef could single handedly choose the menu for every party the earl hosted, in perpetuity.

Frances had granted, in an absentminded way, that this trade was well worth it. The food was perfection.

Sadly, however, she was too furious to enjoy it.

The nerve of the Marquess of Oackley!

Frances had never had much to do with Evan when Grace was alive, though she'd known that Diana and Emily had known him passably well. No matter how kindly her three friends had spoken of him, Frances had always been too shy, too anxious to associate with a young gentleman—and a future duke, at that!

She regretted that a bit now, as it left her wondering if all three of her friends had somehow been wrong in their estimation of the marquess' character, or if the man had just changed that much since his sister's passing.

After all, it was quite one thing to feel exasperated with one's own parents—Lord only knew that Frances could sympathize with that particular emotion. But insulting someone else's? In public?

Unsupportable. Clearly a sign of the most benighted character.

If Frances was feeling charitable, she might have allowed that grief could do strange things to a man's mind.

She was not feeling charitable.

She was, however, feeling distracted, which meant that, when her mother snagged her by the arm as the guests made their way to the drawing room for after dinner drinks and conversation, she squeaked quite loudly in alarm.

"Oh, don't be dramatic, Frances," her mother scolded as she dragged Frances into a small side room, her iron grip frankly impressive.

Frances didn't protest. She had used up all her bravery speaking back so sharply to the marquess—who had undoubtedly deserved such a response.

So she merely took a deep breath to calm her racing heart and looked at her mother patiently. "Yes, Mother?"

Somehow, her mother already looked impatient. "You're needed upstairs," Lady Reed said shortly. "Lady Mary is asking for you."

Oh. That was…

Well, it was a little strange, but in a flattering sort of way.

"Do you know what she needs?" Frances asked.

Her mother rolled her eyes, something she'd never have done if there had been anyone else to witness the uncouth gesture.

"Yes, Frances," her mother said sardonically. Frances had really had more than enough sarcasm this evening. "When our host's sister asked for you to meet her in the upstairs parlor, I interrogated her about why, when, and for how long. Then I asked about her favorite dessert, what she likes to do in her spare time, and what she dreams of at night."

This was, Frances felt, a bit much.

"I didn't mean—" she began.

Her mother spoke over her.

"For goodness' sake, Frances!" she snapped. "Can you not do this one thing? You've already proven yourself insufficient to attract a marquess—not that I'm surprised. Can you not manage even simple obedience?"

That was more than a bit much, but Frances wasn't going to repeat her previous mistake and say so. Instead, she indulged in a small frown.

Her mother seemed to consider this an adequate show of daughterly submission as she continued speaking, tone only mildly irritated instead of openly hostile.

"As I was saying, Frances, Lady Mary has requested your presence in the upstairs parlor." When Frances didn't immediately react, her mother made a shooing gesture. "That means now , Frances!"

Frances went, biting her tongue against a retort. It was frankly a miracle that she still had a tongue to speak of, given how frequently she had to do such a thing where her parents were concerned.

Even though the guests were nearly all downstairs, the upstairs hallway of Winchester Manor was well-lit and cheery. Frances asked a bustling maid for directions to the parlor and, though the servant gave her a slightly quizzical look, she pointed Frances to the appropriate door without comment.

Frances thought nothing of this response…

Right up until the moment she entered the parlor and found not Lady Mary, but Lord Hounton.

"Drat," she muttered.

The viscount looked at her in surprise. "I'm sorry?"

Frances shook her head, pasting on a slight smile. She couldn't say what had overtaken her this evening to make her so free with her words around strange gentlemen, but she wished it would release her from its grasp.

"Nothing," she said. And then, on the very small chance that she was wrong in her assumption about what was happening here, she asked, "Is Lady Mary here?"

Lord Hounton looked mildly scandalized. "Here? No, of course not, that would be dreadfully improper…" He trailed off, seeming to realize that this tete-a-tete with Frances was, likewise, dreadfully improper.

"I was told the earl wished to meet me here?" he added, his uncertainty turning the statement into a question.

"Of course," she agreed. "Do you mind me asking—who told you that?"

The viscount blinked. He evidently was not nearly so suspicious of mind as was Frances. That must be nice, she thought. Perhaps it meant that his parents weren't raving lunatics.

"Oh, no, of course not. Well, it was your father, as it happened…"

Frances was going to murder her mother. Then, she was going to also murder her father. She would be henceforth known as "poor Lady Frances, that batty spinster who killed her parents, which we can only assume they deserved."

Because they did deserve it, if they were so far gone in their matchmaking madness that they had attempted to trap her—and Lord Hounton, the poor fellow—into marriage via a scandal.

Not that the man was unsuitable. He seemed rather pleasant, actually. But Frances preferred to have greater knowledge of a man's pleasantness than a single dinner before shackling herself to him for life. She was peculiar that way.

Frances had also evidently inherited some of her parents' madness, as part of her mind coolly noted that it was very unsporting of them to do so on the first night of the party. Her father had done all that bloviating about her finding a match, but they hadn't even given her a chance to try to obey. Not that she had intended to do as much, of course, but her parents had no way of knowing that…

But that was not the matter that needed her immediate attention. No, her first priority had to be to extricate herself from this snare.

"Right," she said, clasping her hands together. "Well…goodbye."

An elegant departure it was not, but Frances didn't care. She turned back to the open door she'd just entered through, then froze as she heard voices coming up the stairs.

Ha, of course. It wasn't a trap unless someone caught her in it.

With a decisive nod, she closed the door. Lord Hounton looked alarmed at this.

"What are you—?" he asked.

But Frances' frantic scan of the room had already revealed another avenue for escape: a door that, from its positioning, could not lead back into the hallway.

"Still leaving," she confirmed, crossing quickly to the door. "Goodbye again." She paused with her hand on the doorknob. "Maybe don't tell them you saw me," she suggested.

"Tell who?—?"

But she'd opened the door and slipped through before she could hear the rest of his question. He'd figure it out, the poor man.

The room she'd crossed into was nearly pitch dark after the brightness of the parlor, the only illumination coming from the faintest glimmer of moonlight peeking through closed curtains. Frances took several hasty steps away from the door, trying to move as quietly as she could?—

She slammed into something, barely holding back her gasp of surprise.

No, not some thing , she realized in horror as the surface beneath her hands moved. Some one .

She froze.

This was…very bad.

It wasn't just that she was ensconced in a dark room with persons unknown while the rest of the party—spearheaded by her parents, who were determined to catch her out—bumbled around next door.

No, it was worse, because the person—a man; it had to be a man, from his height—was half dressed . She'd not yet put her gloves back on after dinner when her mother had sent her on this false errand, so she could feel the warmth of his skin—his bare skin —against her fingertips. The feel of it was at once satiny and hard in a way that immediately put Frances in mind of ancient statues, the kind that young ladies weren't supposed to look at too closely.

The only small mercy, she allowed, was that she could also feel the rasp of fabric against her forearms, which meant he wasn't entirely unclothed.

She hadn't the foggiest idea what she'd have done if that had been the case.

Except this mercy felt very distant indeed in the next moment, as the man's arms moved to encircle her, coming to touch her with unerring accuracy.

One hand touched her hair.

The other—she could scarcely think it even in her own mind—touched her derriere .

And then he squeezed it .

Frances gasped, which was truly troubling, because the heat of that broad, strong hand against her had arrested her lungs, had made it so that she could not seem to breathe. She struggled to make her body work again, just as she struggled to feel the offense that she should be feeling.

She was, after all, being accosted. She should be horrified. She should certainly not be hoping that he would squeeze her again, that she would feel another rush of heat through her. She should not feel an instinctive desire for more .

Trapped between these warring impulses, she remained frozen.

A heartbeat passed. Then another.

The man froze, too. And then?—

"You're not Beatrice."

It was mad, truly mad, but Frances almost laughed at that. The whole thing was just so ridiculous. Her parents had tried to manufacture a compromising position with one man only for her to put herself into an entirely real compromising position with another man entirely.

A man whose identity she didn't know.

A man who had assumed her to be someone else.

It was just too absurd.

Frances didn't know what she might have done then if the opportunity for escape hadn't presented itself. She heard the noise in the adjoining parlor shift in such a way that it was clear that the crowd her parents had assembled to see her supposed downfall was retreating.

Which meant that Frances had one opportunity to escape with them.

She shoved away from the man, his grip on her breaking easily, and stumbled back to the door she'd entered through only moments before. Reeling with everything that had just occurred and blinking against the brightness in the parlor, she hurried to join the group that was headed back for the drawing room, parlor games and conversation back on the schedule.

Her entrance was sufficiently seamless that the only person who noticed anything was Lord Hounton, who blinked at her as if to say, "Where on earth did you come from?"

Again, Frances almost laughed.

She hardly knew herself.