Mistress of Scandal (Greentree Sisters 3)

She’d have to find some other way to persuade Mr. Thorne that she was exactly what she seemed, a respectable spinster who enjoyed walking and painting, and spent her spare time doing good works for those in need. And she was not the slightest bit interested in playing a part in any man’s life, especially his. She had long ago resigned herself to spinsterhood.

I want you and I mean to have you.

She shivered again at the memory of his words, with that delicious mixture of fear and excitement.

“’Ave you caught a chill, Miss Francesca?” Lil was using a soft cloth to wash her back and shoulders. “You shouldn’t’ve been out in that weather. The moor’s no place for a lady.”

Francesca leaned forward to allow Lil better access to her back, enjoying being pampered. “You know I’ve been wandering the moors since I was a baby, Lil. They don’t frighten me.”

“Well maybe they should do,” Lil retorted, unstoppable as ever.

Francesca smiled into her folded arms. Lil was Lil and they all loved her dearly. It was sad that she hadn’t married the balloon aeronaut she’d met at Vauxhall Gardens, but for some reason Lil had broken off with him and returned north to Greentree Manor. She’d married Jacob Coachman a year later, and they’d been happy until Jacob was killed in an accident ten months ago. It was tragic, and Lil still wore her widow’s weeds, but secretly Francesca wondered whether she ever regretted making the safer choice. Not that she’d ever ask; Lil kept her personal feelings very much to herself, and wouldn’t appreciate any unsolicited prying.

“That man you was out there with…” Again Lil’s voice broke into her musing.

“Mr. Thorne?” Francesca’s voice was muffled by her arms. Even saying his name gave her a sense of stepping outside her boundaries.

Lil paused in her ministrations. “That’s him. He’s no gentleman, miss. I’ve seen his like before.”

“Lil, you don’t even know him!”

“I don’t need

to know him. I seen the way he looked at you.”

“Mr. Thorne spent all night in the mire, remember? He was too weak to walk without assistance. What harm could he possibly do to me?”

“Men are men,” Lil said, as if that was an end to the argument. “Now lean back and I’ll wash your hair, Miss Francesca. Tsk, such a wild mess it is! I don’t know how we’re ever going to get a comb through it.”

Francesca leaned back. “He said he was here on business.”

“Who did?”

“Mr. Thorne. But what sort of business would bring him here? We have no mills or mines, we live in a part of the county where there are few villages and fewer people.”

“Could be he’s a robber. Or a smuggler. Or he’s on the run from the authorities.”

Francesca smiled. “Dear me, Lil, you have a vivid imagination,” she said, pretending she hadn’t thought of those very things herself.

“I’ve been packing your trunk for the journey to London,” Lil went on, changing the subject again. “It’s just as you wanted it. Though why you want to take all those tatty old dresses with you when you’ll be in London where you can buy the latest fashions, I don’t know.”

“I like myself the way I am,” Francesca said stubbornly.

Lil’s hands gentled. “A new dress don’t mean you’d be any different, miss.”

But Francesca didn’t believe that. She’d seen how easy it was to be drawn into the fashionable world. Look at Vivianna and Marietta, and how they had changed! London changed people. Tempted them. And before you knew it, you were being led down paths you’d sworn never to tread. Like Aphrodite. And it was all the more dangerous when you were secretly aware of that little hidden part of you that wanted nothing more than to be let loose. To run completely and utterly wild.

Restraint, that was the thing. Self-restraint. Francesca had made it her mantra. The only place she allowed herself to be herself was here, on the moors. Anywhere else she kept a tight rein on her emotions.

“Are you looking forward to seeing London again, Lil?”

“Whyever not, miss?” Lil shot back. “Is there some reason I shouldn’t?”

Clearly the subject was a touchy one. “Never mind.”

Lil’s voice gentled. “Come on now, let’s get you out of there, Miss Francesca, and you can have a nap before dinner.”

Francesca sighed. “Really, Lil, you make me sound like a child just out of the schoolroom.”