Part 34 (1/2)

Oh, Edward, I am sorry!

With a creak the door opened quickly, so quickly that Francesca suspected the housekeeper who'd answered had been watching her arrival.

”Good day,” she said. ”Is Master Peac.o.c.k at home?”

”Might I ask who is calling, ma'am?” The housekeeper's expression remained properly impa.s.sive, her hand remaining on the doork.n.o.b as a precaution. She was an older woman with a round, ruddy face, her plumpness accentuated by an old-fas.h.i.+oned starched pinner-ap.r.o.n and an extravagantly ruffled cap tied beneath her chin.

Without thinking Francesca took an extra little breath. ”Miss Francesca Robin of the city of Naples, in the Kingdom of Two Sicilies,” she said, ”and I believe Master Peac.o.c.k is expecting me.”

”Oh, indeed, miss, he is, he is!” cried the woman with a joyous shriek, her hand fluttering to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as she flung the door wide for Francesca. ”Oh, Master Peac.o.c.k, it is her, saved from the French! She has come, sir, just as you wished and prayed! Your niece is come at last!”

”Has she, Mrs. Monk?” A short, heavy-set man in an old-fas.h.i.+oned wig bustled into the hallway as fast as the cane he used for his gout would let him. ”So you are my niece, young woman? You are my brother's fair Francesca? Come, come, stand here in the light so I might look at you properly!”

Promptly Francesca did as she was told, standing in the center square of the black and white marble checkerboard floor of the hallway, lifting her face to the sun was.h.i.+ng in through the fanlight over the door. As the man studied her, she in turn studied him: a stern face, softened with age, a thin-lipped mouth that would brook no nonsense. But to her shock the eyes in that stern face were exactly the same as her father's, dark and full of mischief, with wildly bristling brows that curved and swooped across his forehead and now rose with dramatic disbelief.

”You are Thomas's daughter, no doubt,” he proclaimed with wondering satisfaction. ”You have his spirit, his eyes, though thank the lord your mother gave you her beauty instead of his. Doubtless you have Thomas's willfulness, too, if you found your way to my doorstep clear from Italy.”

”You are... kind,” whispered Francesca, overwhelmed with relief and his generosity. His eyes were so much like poor Papa's, it was as if he were here with her again.

”But you are my only kin, missy,” countered her uncle, ”and I will not turn you away. Scarcely, ha! You must consider my house as your own, and you must stay as long as it pleases you. Welcome home, Miss Francesca, welcome home.”

Home, home: and Francesca burst into tears.

Edward sat sprawled in an overstuffed armchair before the fire in the most lavish and most costly suite of rooms in the Clarendon, the same rooms, claimed Peart in uncharacteristic awe, that were always requested by a certain Russian archd.u.c.h.ess whenever she came to London. But d.a.m.nation, now they were his, thought Edward gloomily, the exclusive quarters of the seventh Duke of Harborough.

He took another long pull from the bottle of claret beside him, not bothering with the gla.s.ses-two d.a.m.ned gla.s.ses, as if he'd expected company-that the footman had provided on then same silver tray. He didn't even particularly like claret, expensive or otherwise, but that was what dukes were supposed to drink, and tonight he intended to get as righteously drunk as any mortal duke could.

For what seemed like the thousandth time that evening, he looked up at the drawing of the centaur and the nymph that he'd tucked into the frame over the mantelpiece, covering the genteel still life. He held the bottle up, haphazardly toasting the nymph, then swore and drank again.

She'd been gone when he returned to the Antelope. No note, no message, nothing to prove she'd ever been there, not even his old gold anchor ring that he'd been so proud to give her at their wedding. She'd barely waited until he'd been out of sight, then as cool as you please, she'd asked for a boat to sh.o.r.e, and vanished.

The boatman was sought, and produced, and could say no more than that. No one around the steps or wharf had seen her afterward, no driver that was questioned could swear they'd taken her as a fare. He had promised rewards to a score of men who sought her, but he already knew they'd find nothing.

He'd always admired his wife's cleverness, her resourcefulness, and if she didn't wish to be found, she wouldn't be. She had disappeared into London, and she had left him.

In her way, she'd been honest with him. She'd said from the beginning that they would part if they didn't suit-her words, as if she'd been referring to a bespoke waistcoat instead of a marriage-that she wouldn't burden him or make demands upon him afterward. She'd even said good-bye after a fas.h.i.+on, there on the dock of the Antelope when he'd been so all-fired eager to be off to Whitehall. She'd told him everything, and though he'd listened, he hadn't heard a blessed word.

She'd been honest, aye. And if he were being honest now himself, he'd admit that nothing in his life hurt as much as having her decide he did not suit as a husband.

”Forgive me, Your Grace,” said Peart, gently shaking his shoulder as if he were some old sot snoring in his favorite chair at White's. ”But you've a visitor, Your Grace.”

”The h.e.l.l I do,” grumbled Edward crossly, slurring his consonants only the slightest bit. ”And I heard you knock, Peart, so don't smirk and pretend I didn't. Now send this b.l.o.o.d.y meddlesome pest on his way, go, go! Haven't I told you I'll see no one?”

”But you'll see me, Ned,” said the tall gentleman as he dropped easily into the armchair across from Edward's. ”Though d.a.m.n me if I wish to be called a 'b.l.o.o.d.y meddlesome pest.' Hardly civil, especially from my oldest friend.”

”A b.l.o.o.d.y meddlesome friend, then,” said Edward, unable to keep a delighted smile from spreading slowly across his face despite all his most melancholy intentions. ”I should have expected you'd appear, Will, like black soot on white linen.”

”Ah, Ned, you were ever the gracious host,” said William, Earl of Bonnington, taking the second tumbler of claret that Peart had so thoughtfully filled for him. ”But with all London chattering of little else but the prodigal return of the heroic new Duke of Harborough, I couldn't bear to keep away.”