Simply Unforgettable (16 page)

But as he descended from the carriage and turned to hand Frances down, he did catch himself out.

Contentment?

He had been
contented
for the past ten years?

Contented?

 

A dozen times during the past three days Frances had been on the brink of writing to Miss Amy Marshall with some excuse not to attend the assembly. There was too much schoolwork to be done—classes to prepare and papers to mark—and there were extra music lessons with individual girls to be fitted in, and practices with the junior and senior choirs and the madrigal group.

Her life as a teacher occupied most of her waking hours.

But her friends, who ought to have supported such a responsible attitude, had not cooperated on this occasion.

“You must go and enjoy yourself for Miss Marshall's sake,” Claudia had said. “You said she needed a female chaperone, and it may be too late to find another. And you must go for the Earl of Edgecombe's sake too. He sounds like a courtly gentleman even if he
is
an aristocrat.”

“And you must go and enjoy yourself for
our
sakes,” Anne had said with a sigh. “You are actually going to attend one of the assemblies at the Upper Rooms, Frances—as the invited guest of an earl and a viscount. We will want to enjoy it vicariously through you. We will want to hear every single detail the morning after.”

“And perhaps,” Susanna had added, the usual twinkle of mischief in her eyes, “Viscount Sinclair will realize that he ought not to have let you go after Christmas, Frances, and will begin a determined courtship of you. Perhaps he will sweep you off your feet and put poor Mr. Blake to rout.” But she had also rushed up to hug Frances, all teasing at an end. “Do enjoy yourself. Just
enjoy
yourself.”

Anne had come to Frances's room, though, while she was getting ready for the evening and asked her if it really was going to be painful for her to be in company with Viscount Sinclair for a whole evening.

“Perhaps,” she had said, “I ought not to have said that about your going to enjoy the evening for our sakes. How selfish of me!”

But by then it had been too late to avoid going, and Frances had assured her that going to tea at Brock Street really had cured her of any foolish infatuation she may have felt for the man after Christmas.

That had been just before Susanna and Claudia had also come to her room and just before Viscount Sinclair was due to arrive, and they had all gone downstairs with her to wait in the visitors' sitting room. And then, of course, Anne had noticed that part of the ribbon at her hem had come unstitched and Susanna had dashed upstairs for needle and thread and pins, and all had been laughing panic while Anne had stitched.

It had not occurred to any of them to move from the hallway into the sitting room or to Mr. Keeble not to open the door when the viscount had knocked on it.

It had all been rather embarrassing and rather funny. And then he had offered to go back outside to wait and the situation had seemed funnier still. And, of course, it really was rather exciting to be going to an assembly. Perhaps even to dance there.

Perhaps with him.

He had mentioned their dancing together when he had brought her home after tea that afternoon.

But she was no longer feeling so cheerful as she descended from the carriage outside the Upper Rooms. Gracious heavens, he had called her a coward. And a passionate woman.

You are fairly bursting at the seams with passion, Frances—not all of it sexual, I might add.

He had referred openly to the night they had spent together. He had reminded her that he knew her in the biblical sense.

He had accused her of hiding behind her contentment, too cowardly to reach for happiness.

It was not cowardice. It was a hard-won good sense.

If only, she thought as she stepped ahead of him through the doors into the Upper Rooms, he did not look so devastatingly handsome tonight in his black tailed evening coat and pantaloons with a silver embroidered waistcoat and white linen and expertly tied neckcloth. Or so suffocatingly male with his square-jawed, handsome face and intense hazel eyes.

And then she forgot some of her agitation at the realization that she was actually here. She was attending a ball at the Upper Assembly Rooms. At least part of her reason for deciding to come after all, she realized, was her desire to be part of such a gathering again. She had missed society. She had not been actively unhappy without it, but she
had
missed it. Fellow guests moved about the high-ceilinged entry hall and she felt an unexpected welling of excitement.

Viscount Sinclair set a hand at the small of her back in order to move her forward. But before she could feel more than a shiver of awareness at his touch, Miss Marshall came hurrying toward them—she must have been watching for them from the ballroom doorway. She looked fresh and pretty and youthful and quite exuberant.

“Miss Allard,” she said, stretching out both hands, as she had done on Brock Street, clasping Frances's, and kissing her cheek, “how very prompt you are. Grandpapa and I arrived barely five minutes ago—and yes, Luce, we fairly crawled here, I swear. How lovely you look in silver, Miss Allard. Your gown perfectly complements Luce's colors.” She laughed lightly.

Oh, gracious, what an unfortunate remark! Frances moved away from his hand and smiled brightly as the girl took her arm and they moved off in the direction of the ballroom. Lord Sinclair came along behind.

“Oh, my!” Frances said when they paused in the doorway. “I have only ever seen the room in daylight. It looks very much more splendid with all the candles lit, does it not?”

There were several chandeliers overhead, each filled with lit candles. The orchestra members on the dais were tuning their instruments. A number of people stood or sat in conversational groups or promenaded about the perimeter of the dance floor.

She must notice every single detail, she thought, so that she could give a faithful account of it all to her friends tomorrow.

“This is the first assembly you have attended in a while, is it, Miss Allard?” Viscount Sinclair asked.

She had told him and his grandfather at tea the other day that she had never attended an assembly here. But she understood his meaning in a flash. And when she turned to look at him, she found the expected almost satanic gleam in his eye.

“Yes,” she said. “It is.”

“It looks as if it will be well enough attended,” he said, “though we are only in Bath and cannot therefore expect a great squeeze. An assembly can, of course, be perfectly enjoyable with very few guests. Even two are enough, provided one is a man and the other a woman so that they can dance together. Even an orchestra is not indispensable.”

“How absurd, Luce!” His sister laughed merrily.

But Viscount Sinclair kept his eyes on Frances and his eyebrows raised.

“Would you not agree with
me,
Miss Allard?” he asked.

She would not blush, she thought. She would
not
.

“But then it would not really be an assembly, would it?” she said.

“And the man and woman concerned,” he added, “might soon tire of dancing and look for some other diversion. You are quite right. I suppose we should be thankful that there is a tolerable crowd here this evening.”

Why was he doing this? Frances wondered. He had not seemed pleased to see her at any of their three meetings since his return to Bath.

Fortunately, the Earl of Edgecombe came up to them at that moment. He had remained in the ballroom with his granddaughter while she was alone, he explained after greeting Frances and bowing over her hand, but now he would remove to the card room if they would all excuse him.

“I have danced at a few informal assemblies at home,” Miss Marshall confided to Frances while Viscount Sinclair took his grandfather through into the other room, “but never at anything this grand. Caroline and Emily will be envious when I write and tell them about it tomorrow.”

There were not a great many young people present, Frances noticed. And though she had been dazzled at first glance by the finery of the guests, she could see on closer inspection that very few were dressed in quite the style one would expect to see at a
ton
ball. She was glad of it, though. She had been afraid that she would feel conspicuous in her less than fashionable gown.

“It is rather grand,” she said. “But next year, Miss Marshall, when you make your come-out, you will be delighted to find that there is something even grander than this to experience.”

“Oh, you must call me Amy, please,” the girl said. And then her expression brightened further and she raised her fan to wave to someone across the dance floor. “There is Rose Abbotsford with her mama. And that must be the brother she spoke of. He is exceedingly handsome, is he not?” She unfurled her fan as her brother came up to them again.

“Before you set your cap at all the young blades in the room, Amy,” he said, “do remember that you are to dance the opening set with me. As it is, Mama will probably have my head for allowing you to come here at all.”

And then a gentleman was bowing before Frances, and she saw that he was Mr. Blake.

“Miss Allard,” he said. “I did not dare hope to see you here this evening. But I am, of course, delighted to do so.”

He glanced at her two companions as she curtsied to him, and she introduced him to them, though he had of course seen them at the Reynolds soiree.

“It was exceedingly kind of you, my lord,” he said to Viscount Sinclair, “to invite Miss Allard here as your guest.”

“Oh,” Frances said, embarrassed, “I am here more in the nature of a chaperone than a guest, Mr. Blake.”

“No, indeed, you are not,” Amy cried, tapping Frances sharply on the arm with her fan. “The very idea!”

“Thank you, sir,” Viscount Sinclair said in such a stiff, haughty voice that Frances looked sharply at him. He held a quizzing glass almost but not quite to his eye. “But Miss Allard is the personal guest of the Earl of Edgecombe.”

Mr. Blake bowed, and looking at him, Frances was not sure he had understood that he had just been dealt a frosty setdown. She felt indignant on his behalf. Did Viscount Sinclair feel that he had been imposed upon by having a mere physician presented to him? Good heavens,
she
was a schoolteacher.

“Is it now too much to hope,” Mr. Blake asked her, “that you are free to dance the second set with me, Miss Allard? I had already spoken for the opening set with Miss Jones before I saw you.”

“Miss Allard is to dance the second set with me,” Viscount Sinclair said.

Frances had a brief moment in which to decide whether she would brawl openly with him or let the matter go. She glanced at him and saw that one of his eyebrows was cocked. Perhaps, she thought during that one moment, he would be quite happy if she took the first course. There was an open challenge in that eyebrow.

“Yes.” She smiled into his eyes. “Lord Sinclair most particularly asked for it while escorting me here in the carriage.”

“Ah,” Mr. Blake said. “The third set, then, perhaps, Miss Allard?”

“I shall look forward to it,” she told him.

The first set was being announced, she realized then, by the Master of Ceremonies, and the orchestra sat poised to play. All annoyance, all embarrassment, fled as she turned her attention to the dance floor. She was excited even though she did not expect to dance much herself. She would at least be dancing the second and third sets, and that was more than she had expected.

But she was not to miss the opening set of vigorous country dances after all. Mr. Blake had gone to claim his partner and Viscount Sinclair had led his sister onto the floor and Frances had found a vacant seat. But Mr. Gillray, Mr. Huckerby's brother-in-law, to whom she had been introduced after the Christmas concert at school, came and asked her if she would dance with him, and so she had all the pleasure of participating in the ball right from the first moment.

And a very definite pleasure it was too. She found herself smiling and then laughing through some of the more intricate turns and twirls, the steps fresh in her memory as she was always the one who partnered Mr. Huckerby when he taught the girls. Amy Marshall, farther down the line, was openly enjoying herself too. Viscount Sinclair watched her with an indulgent smile on his face though he once caught Frances's eye and held it for a long moment.

And she was to dance the next set with him. She did not know whether to be glad or sorry. He was easily the most handsome and distinguished gentleman present, and just the thought of dancing with him again made her want to swoon. But the farther she stayed away from him, the better for her peace of mind, she knew. Her precious peace.

Her
contentment
.

But, heaven help her, that old magic was weaving its web about her again with every passing moment.

She did want to dance with him again—she desperately wanted it.

Just one more time.

13

Mr. Algernon Abbotsford was presented to Amy after the first
set was over, and he very properly asked Lucius's permission to lead her out into the second set. Having granted that permission, Lucius was free to turn his attention to his own partner, who was conversing with a lady he did not know.

Truth to tell, his attention had not been far from her ever since their arrival. And if he had ever deceived himself into thinking that he had not been looking forward to this evening with almost as much eagerness as Amy and that he had not taken pains with his appearance because he was to see Frances Allard again, then he was finally being forced into facing the rather lowering truth.

Damnation!

And if
she
truly believed that she was a woman made for placid contentment, then she was even more given to self-deceit than he. A woman less designed to dwindle into old age as a spinster schoolteacher he could not imagine. Her cheeks, her eyes, her whole demeanor, glowed with a passionate enjoyment of the occasion even though this was a mere Bath assembly.

He knew, as no one else did, how easily and totally her love of dancing could be converted to sexual passion.

Not that he intended to effect quite that conversion tonight!

“Ma'am?” he said now, bowing before her. “This is my dance, I believe?”

Her eyes swept up to meet his, and he knew she remembered that they were the exact words he had used in that cold, dingy Assembly Room at the inn before they waltzed and then made love.

He was not really sure why he felt compelled tonight to remind her of that occasion. Sheer devilry, perhaps? Or perhaps he felt the need to confront her, to force her out into the open, to . . . Well, he did not know what it was he was up to. He rarely thought about the motives for what he did and said. He had always been a man of impulse and action.

“I believe it is, my lord,” she said, setting her hand in his. “Thank you.”

“It is not, alas, a waltz,” he told her as he led her onto the floor. “There are to be none tonight. I have inquired.”

“I have heard,” she said, “that the waltz is not often danced in Bath.”

“It is a damnable crime of omission,” he said. “But if it
were
to be danced here, Frances, we would dance it together.”

“Yes,” she agreed, and turned her head to look into his eyes.

Something fleeting and wordless passed between them at that moment. Desire, yearning, knowledge—he was not sure which. Perhaps all three. Certainly there was full carnal awareness there.

They were a severe annoyance to each other, he and Frances Allard. They were as much inclined to quarrel as to be civil with each other. But there was a spark of something, which had been ignited during the day preceding their waltz three months ago and fanned to full flame during and after their waltz. That spark had still not quite been extinguished even three months later.

And, by Jove, he would no longer pretend to himself that he regretted having seen her again, that he ought to have avoided her, that he wished her to the devil. He was not good at this game of self-deception, even if she was.

He was deuced happy to be with her once more.

This was to be another country dance, but it was slower and more stately than the first. He escorted her to the long line of ladies and took his place opposite her in the line of gentlemen. She looked startlingly foreign in comparison with the other ladies, he thought—dark and vivid and lovely. A rose among thorns. No—unfair. More like a rare orchid among roses.

And roses suddenly seemed bland.

He could not remember the last time he had danced two sets in a row at any ball. Even one set was often more than he could stomach. Whoever had decreed that dancing was to be a favored mode of enjoyment for an evening ought to have been deported to the colonies as a mortal threat to the sanity of the male of the species, he had always thought. If he wanted to get close to a woman—and he frequently did—there were far more direct ways of going about it than cavorting with her about a ballroom floor in company with a large gathering of other persons similarly inclined.

But waltzing with Frances Allard after Christmas had been a sexual experience in itself. More than that, it had been exciting and exhilarating. And now he was to dance with her again, and everything in his being was focused upon her, tall and very slender in her silver muslin, her sleek, dark hair gleaming in the light of the candles overhead, her eyes glowing with the anticipation of pleasure.

Tomorrow or the next day or the next he was going to have to get back to London and turn his mind to duty, he supposed—perish the thought. But first there was tonight, and by God he was going to enjoy every passing moment for what it was worth.

The music began, the gentlemen bowed, and the ladies curtsied. The lines advanced toward each other, each gentleman clasped his partner's right hand just above the level of their heads, and turned once about with her before the lines returned to their places.

The orchestra played on, and the dancers tramped out the stately measures of the set, their dancing shoes beating out a rhythmic tattoo on the polished floor. They moved about each other, Lucius and Frances, sometimes face-to-face, sometimes back-to-back. They clasped hands, advanced down the room and back with the lines, wove in and out about other couples, came together again, twirled down between the lines from the head of the set to its foot when their turn came, their arms linked, their hands joined between them.

They did it all without exchanging another word with each other, though there were frequent opportunities for snatches of conversation. Yet he scarcely removed his eyes from hers the whole time, and he held her gaze with the power of his will. His senses were raw with his awareness of her—the sheen of silver ribbon and dark hair as they caught the light, the whisper of muslin as she moved, the slender warmth of her hand in his, the familiar fragrance of her that must come from soap rather than a heavier perfume, he believed.

But one thing more than any other became blazingly clear to him as they danced. She might have rejected him three months ago, but it was not because of indifference, by Jove. He supposed he had known it even at the time, but he was certain of it now.

Frances Allard was nothing short of a coward.

And if there was one thing he was determined to accomplish before the school door closed behind her tonight, it was to force her out of her complacency, to force her to understand that she had lost more than she had gained by choosing the old comfortable security over him. To force her to admit her mistake.

He totally forgot that he had already admitted to himself that it had not been a mistake at all.

The air between them fairly crackled.

By the time the set came to an end the sheen of perspiration on her face and bosom made her lovelier yet—and even more desirable. So did the slight heaving of her bosom, caused by her exertions. Her lips were parted, her eyes shining.

“Thank you,” she said as he held out his right arm to take her hand on his sleeve. “That was very pleasant.”

“That word again.” He speared her with a hard glance. “Sometimes I could shake you, Frances.”

“I
beg
your pardon?” She looked back at him in some surprise.

“I hope,” he said, “you never praise your choirs or your musicians by telling them their performances were pleasant. It would be enough to make them renounce music forever. If I had my way, I would have the word banished from the English language.”

“I wonder you danced with me at all, Lord Sinclair,” she said. “You appear not to like me a great deal.”

“Sometimes,” he said, “it seems that liking has little to do with what is between us, Frances.”

“There is
nothing
between us,” she told him.

“Even animosity is
something,
” he said. “But there is more than just that.”

He directed her toward where Amy was standing with the Abbotsfords, looking even more animated than she had when they arrived, if that were possible.

“You will join Amy and my grandfather and me for tea in the tearoom after the next set,” he told Frances. He had suddenly remembered that she was to dance next with Blake, the physician, who clearly had designs on her, though he must be proceeding at the devil of a snail's pace if he had not contrived some way of inviting her to attend the assembly with him this evening. The man was not going to bear her off for tea as he had done at the Reynolds soiree, though.

“Is that a request, Lord Sinclair?” she asked. “Or a command?”

“I will go down on bended knee if you wish,” he said. “But I warn you that my doing so will occasion considerable gossip.”

She laughed.

His heart never failed to beat faster when she did so. Laughter transformed her even when she was already flushed and glowing. She must surely have been created for laughter. It made her real—whatever the devil he meant by that.

“I will come quietly, then,” she promised.

Her swain came for her soon after and led her away, his half-bald head shining in the light of the candles. The Master of Ceremonies brought an earnest, bespectacled young man to introduce to Amy, and the youth bore her off to dance the quadrille.

Lucius slipped into the card room before the Master of Ceremonies could take it into his head to present
him
with another partner too. His grandfather, he could see, was absorbed in play.

He felt out of sorts and irritable again—rather familiar feelings these days and not likely to go away during the coming weeks and months, he supposed. He tried to remember what life had been like before he went down to Barclay Court just before Christmas. Surely he was not normally surly and irritable but the most placid and genial of souls.

Surely he was not normally inclined to being besotted with lady schoolteachers either.

Why the devil could his grandfather not live forever?

Or why could he not have had a dozen brothers—all older than himself?

The quadrille seemed to go on forever. He was ready for tea.

Tea,
for God's sake!

 

Mr. Blake was a tolerably accomplished dancer. He was also an amiable partner and complimented Frances on both her appearance and her dancing skills. He expressed again his pleasure at seeing her at the assembly.

“If I had known you were able to attend such events, Miss Allard,” he said, “I would have invited you myself, since I have come with my sister and brother-in-law. Perhaps you would care to join us at the theater one evening?”

“That would be very agreeable, sir.” She smiled. “If I can be excused from my evening duties at the school as I have been this evening, that is. It is kind of you to think of me.”

“It is certainly no hard task to
think
of you, Miss Allard,” he assured her, bending his head a little closer to hers. “Indeed, I find myself doing so rather frequently these days.”

She was glad the figures of the dance separated them at that moment. All sorts of emotions were still churning around inside her after the last set, and she felt quite inadequate to the task of dealing with an ardor she was not yet ready to entertain. She concentrated instead upon enjoying the quadrille that they danced together. She tried briefly to recapture the pleasure she had felt in Mr. Blake's interest just a week ago but just could not seem to do it. Viscount Sinclair was right, she realized suddenly—the words
pleasant
and
pleasure
really were rather bland.

She noticed the viscount's absence from the ballroom far more than she noticed Mr. Blake's presence—not a promising sign at all. The whole atmosphere of the ball had suddenly fallen flat.

Why could one's heart not be commanded as easily as one's head? she wondered. Why could one not choose which man to love—though
love
was not quite the appropriate word for the emotions that churned about inside her head and her body. But whatever the right word
was,
one ought to be able to choose which man would stir one's blood and quicken one's heartbeat and fill one's world with the power of his presence.

She was going to have to try harder after this evening was over, she decided—after she had seen Viscount Sinclair for the last time.

She so
wished
to form an attachment to Mr. Blake. His interest in her really ought to be a blessing in her life.

“I am sorry,” she said when the set ended and he asked her if she would do him the honor of taking refreshments with him and his relatives, “but I have already agreed to join the Earl of Edgecombe's party for tea. He really did invite me here tonight because he felt Miss Marshall needed an older lady as a chaperone—or companion, if you like.”

“Oh, but not very much older, Miss Allard,” he said gallantly, bowing over her hand. “I understand perfectly, though, and honor you for putting a perceived obligation before what might be your personal inclination. I shall do myself the honor of calling upon you at Miss Martin's school one day soon, then, if I may.”