At the door, she arched a brow. “I’ve taught you some new words with which you’re becoming quite proficient, but perhaps you’re right and it’s time for another lesson.”
With a sultry glance, she left him.
Gyles stared at the door, his mind formulating visions of such a lesson, then he frowned, shifted, grabbed the next letter, plonked it before him, and forced himself to read.
Chapter 20
Charles, Ester, and Franni did not stay late. After seeing their guests to the door, Gyles and Francesca retreated to the library. As usual, Wallace had left the fire blazing. Francesca sank into an armchair with a contented sigh.
“That went well, I thought.”
Gyles glanced at her but made no reply. He looked at his desk, then back at her, then crossed to the chaise. Sitting, he stretched out his legs. “Charles seemed very grateful. Was there some reason for that?”
He’d noticed the shared glances, the satisfied looks.
“Franni’s been pestering them to visit here.”
“I see.” Gyles watched Francesca. Staring at the flames, she idly twirled one black curl. He let a moment pass, then asked, “Tell me about Franni.”
Francesca looked at him. “Franni?”
“She’s…” Gyles struggled to find a word that conveyed the reality. “Odd.”
The way Franni’s eyes had gleamed when he’d spoken to her, the way her fingers had fluttered when he’d taken her hand, the way she’d pressed too close as he’d escorted her and Ester to the table-all these were indelibly imprinted on his mind. Throughout, she’d watched him like a hawk, but a cagey hawk-whenever one of the others had glanced her way, she’d been staring at something else.
He’d felt hunted, and felt ridiculous for it. Franni was precisely the cipher he’d first thought her, only more disturbed. Weak and ineffectual, she was a nonentity-certainly no threat. Nevertheless, he’d clung to Francesca’s side as much as possible.
But Franni had caught him when they were leaving. The intensity of her regard, the light in her pale blue eyes, had sent a shiver down his spine. Luckily, Ester had noticed and rescued him, giving him a small, helpless smile. As if asking for understanding, forgiveness.
Gyles frowned. “Franni’s not normal. What’s wrong with her?”
Francesca sighed; she looked into the flames. “I don’t know-I’ve never known. She’s been like that, a bit better, a bit worse, since I met her. I’ve always thought of her as childish, and while that fits in some ways, she’s quite forward in others.”
She glanced at Gyles. “Neither Charles nor Ester ever said, but I gather her condition has something to do with her mother’s death. She died when Franni was very young. I heard from the servants that she-Franni’s mother-threw herself from the tower. It’s been boarded up ever since. I wondered if Franni had witnessed it, and if it had turned her mind in some way.”
Gyles looked into the heart of the fire, staring at the leaping flames. He knew what effect witnessing a parent’s violent death could have on a child. He could imagine all sorts of reactions, could still feel the roil of remembered emotion about his own heart. Yet in all that he couldn’t see what emotional reaction could explain all he’d sensed in Franni.
He glanced at Francesca and found her watching him. “Enough of our guests.” He sat up. A muted crackle reminded him; he reached into his coat pocket. “I forgot to give this back to you.”
He held out her annotated copy of the family tree.
She took it. “Did you find what you wanted?”
“Yes.” He’d spent the hour before dinner making his own copy. “You and your helpers are to be commended-you’ve done an excellent job.”
Francesca hesitated, then lifted her eyes to Gyles’s face. “I’ve been meaning to ask, apropos of this.” She lifted the paper. “The reason we did it was to get an idea of the extent of the family. I wondered… would you be agreeable to us hosting a party? Just for the family, a few close friends and connections. Maybe some dancing, but more an evening to mingle and chat, to get to know each other better.”
He held her gaze. “The year’s almost done.”
“It would be an informal affair. I thought perhaps late next week?”
Gyles read her wish in her eyes and saw no reason to deny her. He suspected she’d get few acceptances, given the season, given the family, but if, as his countess, she wished to play the matriarch… ”Thursday?”
She smiled her wonderful, heart-stopping smile. “Thursday. Your mother and Henni will help with the invitations.”
He drank in her smile, then let his gaze drift down, over her slenderness to the slight bulge below her waist. It was barely visible, even when she was naked, yet when she lay beneath him and he joined with her
, he could tell.