“Have you seen him?” Francesca smoothed the folds of her teal ballgown and eyed the dance floor warily.
“Who?” Chastity asked.
“Phillip,” Francesca answered tightly.
Chastity’s head swiveled around. “Not a romantic, dark head in sight. Are you expecting him?”
Butterflies rammed Francesca’s stomach. She didn’t know what to expect from Phillip anymore. Something about him had changed. She wasn’t sure when it had changed or how it had changed, but nothing was the same as it had been before.
It was as if he’d decided propriety could be damned.
In the past several weeks he’d found every opportunity to touch her. He often caressed her cheek with the back of his hand—in public.
Sometimes when no one was looking, he took her mouth with his lips. Sometimes even her tongue.
Once, on a stroll through Hyde Park when they’d taken a turn on the path earlier than their companions, he’d nuzzled her neck until an unfamiliar cry had burst from her lips and her knees had nearly buckled beneath her. Embarrassingly, she’d clutched his shoulders to remain standing because God forbid she should actually swoon and have him declare her social experiment complete.
Not that her social experiment was going very well. Viscount Montcreif was trying as hard as ever to win her hand, but finding anything swoonworthy about him was proving near impossible. She was beginning to doubt she’d ever get the benefit of swooning. Not with Phillip paying court at her elbow all night long before whisking her away.
What was most puzzling was his reaction to their kisses. Most of the time, he chuckled when she was forced to cling to him. Sometimes, however, he growled low against her skin. And sometimes his eyes burned into her, sending a warm sensation to the pit of her stomach, where it then trailed a delicious path to her toes.
It was impossible to fall in love with someone else when she was constantly looking over her shoulder, waiting for Phillip to pull her into an abandoned corridor or darkened corner. She could barely concentrate on simple conversation with other men, much less graceful dance steps and witty repartee, as she anticipated her next encounter with Phillip.
Phillip entered the ballroom down the sweeping staircase and her body sang.
Drat. She was swooning! She was swooning over Phillip, her own betrothed, the very man who felt marriage was a duty. This was the worst luck.
“Oh, there he is,” Chastity said with an incline of her head. “On the stairs.”
“Thank you,” she said breathlessly. Thank you, Phillip, for rendering me absolutely worthless for the rest of the night.
“Are you ready?” Chastity asked.
“For what?” She craned her neck as Phillip maneuvered his way through the crowded ballroom away from her. No doubt he’d find a way to circle around the room and surprise her from behind.
“Your wedding,” Chastity said. “The nuptials are approaching even if the announce is not, if I’m not mistaken. Shall I have to ensure your attendance?”
Francesca groaned. She didn’t have time to wait for Phillip to surprise her. She needed to speak with him now. Both their parents insisted on making a formal announcement before the week was out.
“I have to go,” she muttered, stalking through the ballroom toward Phillip, who stood with his mother. The countess laughed and placed a gentle hand on his arm. Her breath always caught in her throat when she witnessed these intimate moments with his mother.
“Francesca.” The always-elegant Countess of March held out her arms for an embrace, which Francesca eagerly accepted. “Thank you very much for the gift. The ribbons were lovely.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Phillip helped me select the colors.” And in doing so, he’d pulled her hands behind her back, wound the ribbons around her wrist and pressed against her. She’d been bound to him, if only for a few moments, as he teased a groan from her while suckling her earlobe. It was irritating.
He inclined his dark head as she acknowledged him, his mouth twisted in a perpetual knowing smile.
“Pardon me, but might I have a word, Phillip?” she asked.
“Of course, my love,” he said.
She fought her protest as his endearment touched her like a caress. He’d taken up the habit again, but always in front of his mother, when she couldn’t retort.
He tucked her arm into the crook of his—which was becoming a habit—and walked her around the ballroom.
“Somewhere private,” she whispered.
He raised an eyebrow. “With pleasure,” he said, deftly maneuvering them down a hallway into a broom closet with a lamp that had been near burned to the quick so he seemed a shadow in the dark.
“How do you find these places?”
“Necessity.” He’d barely closed the door behind them when his lips seared her neck.
She sighed, as always, and clung to the lapels of his coat. “Wait,” she said weakly. “We need to talk.”
The rough texture of his tongue lapped along her collarbone and she was thankful for the wall at her back that kept her upright.
“Talk, my dear,” he murmured. His warm, heavy hands spanned her waist and slipped to grasp her bottom and pull her against him.
She moaned, uncertain of how she was supposed to think much less talk.
“God, Franny,” he breathed into her neck. “This wedding can’t come soon enough.”
With every last bit of willpower in her possession, she managed a weak but effective push against his chest. “That is what we need to discuss.”
He pulled away but left his hands on her waist, massaging her hipbone with his thumb, willing her heavy eyelids closed.
She snapped them open. “We’re to be married. Our engagement announced soon.”
“I know.” He was grinning. She could hear it in his voice.
“But we had an arrangement.”
The circular motion of his thumbs stilled. “And?”
“And…I don’t know if it’s been fulfilled.”
He pulled away entirely and folded his arms. His mouth twitched. “What do you mean?” His voice was dangerously low. He was angry. She hadn’t even known he had a temper.
“You’ve danced. You’ve attended balls. You’ve flirted,” he said. “Has a single person made you swoon? Has anyone made you feel the way I have? What more do you want, Franny?”
“I want to fall in love.”
His voice softened. “Not everyone gets to fall in love.”
“That’s the saddest thing you’ve ever said.”
“Most people don’t even get what we have.”
“What do we have?” she asked, falling hopelessly under his seductive spell again.
He cupped her cheeks between his hands. “We have friendship. We have history. We have this.” He captured her lips, feathering her mouth open with gentle strokes as she sighed against him.
Warmth flooded her as his kiss deepened and his tongue delved into her mouth. She tentatively stroked back with her tongue. Phillip groaned and jerked against her, pressing her harder into the wall.
His hands moved from her cheeks down her neck to her shoulders. He exerted a deliberate, forceful pressure to push away from her slowly. “Do you remember the last time we were in a broom closet?”
She reared back, blinking away tears that stung at her eyes. “Of course.”
“Do you remember what I said?”
“You said you would never let anyone hurt me.” The words echoed in her mind all the time. She’d never had someone want to protect her before. Never had a white knight.
“I should have meant from myself, too.”
“Ah, how dutiful of you,” she said.
He gripped her arms hard, “Duty?” he spat.
She sought to pull away but then his fingers softened and turned seeking as they ran up her shoulders and tangled in her hair.
“Duty,” he whispered, like it was a revelation. “Speaking of duty, I’ve never asked you properly, have I?”
“What?” she asked, her mind still hazy from his kisses and his touch.
His thumbs stroked her hair. “I’ve never asked you to marry me.”
“No,” she said carefully. “I suppose you haven’t.”
“Dearest Franny, you are my oldest friend. My most trusted confidante. The person I know most in this life. The one who knows me best as well. Will you grant me the honor of becoming my wife?”
She blinked. “You’re actually proposing?”
“Please, Franny.” He reached for her hands, drew them to his lips and kissed them one by one.
“But we’re already engaged,” she protested.
“Yes. My father proposed to your father. It was very romantic, I’m sure. But now I am proposing to you.”
“Do I have a choice?”
His grip tightened. “Of course. You know I would never….” He shook his head. “My choice is you. What’s your choice?”
“You,” she answered quickly, surprised by how her heart leapt at the commitment. He’d been the best, hadn’t he? Phillip had let her have her balls and her flirting, and he’d never once displayed any dark jealousy, any lack of trust—not like her father. He was good to her.
“That’s a relief.” He smiled, kissing her fingers again. “Shake on it?” he added mischievously.
Before she could answer, he pressed his lips to hers and sent her heart racing.
Hours later, when they had both returned to the ball and they had informed his mother it was time and the engagement had been announced to much fanfare and good wishes and she’d distractedly danced with gentlemen she could no longer remember, she had to brush aside her discomfort that his proposal had said nothing of love.
* * *
Weddings, Phillip decided as he fought the urge to fidget in front of the altar, were designed as torturous affairs to test a man for the discipline and fortitude required of a lifetime of marriage. He was doubtful as to whether Francesca would even appear despite her acceptance of his impromptu proposal.
He wasn’t even sure what had compelled him to ask for her hand, but for a moment, in the darkness, only the two of them had existed. He had wanted her to choose him. Actually choose him as if he were a man, and not an alternative to living under her father’s roof.
Since that proposal, she had been everything he expected. She had danced with him at balls - two dances, as was appropriate. She had smiled as others congratulated him. She had spoken to strangers of how lucky she was.
She had been, in short, dutiful. Which was scaring the hell out of him.
When she finally appeared in the doors of the church, a distant figure in white, he nearly choked in relief. She remained covered by a damnable veil for the entire ceremony and only revealed her face for a chaste kiss, which barely began to curb his appetite for her.
There had only been one moment with her father at the presentation of the bride and groom, but it had passed without incident and he felt her shudder of relief that that chapter of her life was now closed.
She remained stoically quiet for the remaining celebration, managing perfunctory nods when he repeatedly asked if she were all right. He was relieved when he was finally able to escort her back to his townhouse, where he waited in the study as she did whatever brides did in the bath on their wedding night.
He wondered how much time she would need to prepare herself. Wondered whether his mother had prepared her in her mother’s absence. He went to his room where he paced in his night robe, glaring at the flimsy wooden door that separated their chambers.
What if he opened it, and she wasn’t there?
Worst yet - what if she was - lying there - dutifully. He almost choked on the word.
With a deep breath, he pushed open the door and slipped into her room.
She was pacing. Furiously pacing the length of her bed in a simple white nightshift. She whirled and faced him. “What was taking so deuced long?”
He laughed as relief swept through him. Yes, this was his Franny. He poured a finger of port into two glasses that his valet, bless him, had thought to leave on her nightstand.
She didn’t wait for him to hand it to her. She clutched it with both palms and downed it before setting the glass down on the dresser with a clink.
“Hello,” she said awkwardly.
“Hello, wife,” he said, oddly pleased at the endearment.
She scooted back on the bed and settled her back against the headboard, causing her white nightshift to rise up and reveal a shapely calf. Her red hair spilled over her shoulders and pooled on the mattress against the green coverlet he’d selected last week to match her eyes.
He reacted immediately to her, throbbing with need but uncertain of how to proceed. With other women it had been easy, but this was Franny. This was no time for practiced lines or rehearsed caresses.
She lifted her arms to him and his heart thudded in his chest at the trusting gesture. He gently sat on the bed and engulfed her in a hug that would have been innocent if not for the tips of her breasts burning his skin where they pressed into his side.
She sighed. “This has been an awfully long day.”
“Agreed,” he murmured against her shoulder.
She pulled back. “What now?”
“Now,” he said hesitantly, “I’m assuming you know?”
She shrugged. “I think I do.”
“Now is…” He hesitated to describe it. “Sex. Now we have sex. You may ask as many questions as you like,” he offered, reaching out a hand to lift her heavy hair off her shoulders so it spilled down her back.
“It’s riotous,” she complained of her hair.
He shook his head slowly. “It’s bewitching.”
“Nonsense.”
“Then why can I only think of kissing you when I see it?” he teased, palming the back of her head easily with his hand.
“I’m beginning to think it’s all you think of.”
“Only with you,” he promised. He gently tugged her head towards him and took her lips. She shifted and rose up on her knees to reach his mouth. He slipped his other arm around her back and pulled her against him, gratified when she innocently straddled his lap, pushing her nightshift up to her waist.
She swept her tongue into his mouth, a trick she’d easily mimicked in the past weeks. He wondered what else she could learn with practice. His hands moved to the ribbons of her shift. His shaking fingers surprised him as he tried to pull the ribbons loose. She cried out, unknowingly pressing her body against his and making him twitch to attention.
He pulled away, breathing heavily, so grateful to be her first. Slightly saddened that she wasn’t his first. Uncertain of what to make of his emotions.