“If there is anything you would like-anything to do with the household or the house-I take it you know you have only to ask?”
His dry comment had her lips twitching. She inclined her head; silken black tendrils fleetingly caressed his cheek. “If I should discover anything I need, I’ll remember you said so.”
She glanced at him from under her lashes, a habit she had-one he’d learned. He caught her gaze, trapped it, held it. After a long moment, he slowly arched a brow.
Francesca wrenched her gaze from his and looked ahead. “If I discover a need… but at present, I have everything I… Who is this?”
Breathless, glad to have a distraction from her lie, she gestured to the black carriage drawn up in the forecourt.
“I wondered how long it would be.”
Gyles’s tone had her glancing his way, this time with open puzzlement.
“The coach belongs to our nearest neighbors, the Gilmartins. I’m surprised Lady Gilmartin was prevailed upon to wait the full week.”
“They weren’t at the wedding?”
Gyles shook his head. Taking her hand, he led her up the steps. “They were visiting in Scotland, thank God.” He glanced her way. “Prepare to be exclaimed over.”
She threw him a puzzled frown, but let him open the door and hand her over the threshold-
“Ah! There they are! Well, my goodness!” A large, amply bosomed matron fluttering a pink-fringed shawl descended on Francesca. “Well, my lord.” The woman threw an arch glance at Gyles. “You are a dark horse. And here all the local ladies were certain you had an aversion to matrimony! Ha-ha!” The lady beamed at Francesca, then swooped, and brushed cheeks. “Wallace was trying to say you were indisposed, but we saw you plain as day by the bluff.”
Francesca exchanged a glance with the stony-faced Wallace, then took the lady’s hand in hers. “Lady Gilmartin, I take it?”
“Ah-ha!” Her ladyship twinkled at Gyles. “I see my reputation goes before me. Indeed, my dear, we live just past the village.”
Grasping her ladyship’s elbow, Francesca steered her toward the drawing room. Irving hurried to open the door.
Lady Gilmartin prattled on. “You must come and take tea, of course, but we thought to drop by this afternoon and welcome you to our little circle. Eldred?”
Reaching the center of the drawing room, Francesca released her ladyship and turned to see an anemic gentleman entering by Gyles’s side. Next to Gyles, he looked wilted and withered. He bowed and smiled weakly; Francesca smiled back. Drawing in a bracing breath, she waved Lady Gilmartin to the chaise. “Please be seated. Wallace-we’ll have tea.”
Subsiding into an armchair, Francesca watched as Lady Gilmartin sorted her shawls.
“Now, where were we?” Her ladyship looked up. “Oh, yes-Clarissa? Clarissa? Where have you got to, gel?”
A pale, pudgy girl wearing an unladylike scowl flounced into the room, bobbed a curtsy to Francesca, then plopped down beside her mother on the chaise.
“This is my darling.” Lady Gilmartin patted her daughter’s knee. “Just a fraction too young to compete with you, my dear”-her ladyship indicated Gyles with her head-“but we have high hopes. Clarissa will be going up for the Season next year.”
Francesca made the right noises and avoided her husband’s eye. A second later, her gaze fixed on the slight gentleman belatedly strolling into the room. She blinked, and missed all Lady Gilmartin was saying. Her ladyship swiveled. “Ah, Lancelot. Come and make your bow.”
Dark-haired, interestingly pale, quite startlingly handsome albeit in a studied way, the youth-for he was no more than that-swept the room with a disdainful glance. A glance that stopped, dead, on Francesca.
“Oh. I say!” The dark eyes, until then hooded by languid lids, opened wide. With considerably greater speed, Lancelot came around the chaise to bow with romantic abandon before Francesca. “I say!” he said again as he straightened.
“Lancelot will be coming up to town with us for the Season.” Lady Gilmartin beamed. “I think I can say without fear of contradiction that we will cause quite a stir. Quite a stir!”
Francesca managed a polite smile, grateful that Wallace appeared with the tea tray, followed by Irving with the cake platter. While she poured and their guests sipped and devoured, she did her best to steer the conversation into more conventional straits.
Gyles kept his distance, talking quietly with Lord Gilmartin by the windows. When Francesca at last caught his eye, a very clear message in hers, he arched one brow fleetingly, then, with a resigned air, ushered Lord Gilmartin closer to his family.
The result was not felicitous. The instant she realized Gyles was near, Clarissa simpered. Then she giggled in a manner Francesca could only consider ill-bred and cast coy glances at Gyles.
Before Francesca could think how to rearrange the room and reseparate her husband and Clarissa, Lancelot stepped in front of her, blocking her view. Startled, she looked up.
“You’re most awfully beautiful, you know.”