but she held out a hand. “Say nothing, Beau! I understand your cousin.” Turning back to the baronet, she said, going right up to him and with a little challenging look, “Whatever possessed you to invite us? I can see you still prefer solitude, your own company over any other, even your relations.”
Sir Hugo, who was perpetually of a sanguine complexion, turned even redder. “Penelope—but no, indeed. You are quite wrong, there. I am heartily obliged you have all come. And to ask me—when, when you must know—” he made a little helpless gesture with his hands—”I wrote of my intentions.”
Frannieʼs heart froze at those words. Ready to cry, she looked away in mortification, her face crestfallen. His intentions—she knew what that meant! Without realizing it, she drew in a deep, sighing breath.
Sebastian took her hand. “I think my cousin has it right. Long journeys and ladies do not always meet happily. Come, I shall accompany you to your room.”
“Yes, yes,” Sir Hugo said, overhearing this. He hurried to the bell pull. When a servant appeared, he was instructed to show the guests to their bedchambers. Mrs. Arundell said with peculiar determination, “I’ll not go yet, if you don’t mind, Hugo.”
“Not at all, ma’am!” Sir Hugo said with a relieved look, restored to almost his usual color. Beside his large bulk, the boys’ mama looked diminutive. But his eyes strayed again to Frannie with a most particular and worried look.
“If there’s a drink to be had,” piped up Edward, “I will linger also.”
“Of course, of course,” said Sir Hugo.
Sebastian helped Frannie to her feet. She curtseyed to the company and allowed him to lead her from the room, her throat still tight with unshed tears.
“Iʼll see you at dinner,” said Mrs. Arundell. “And you, Beau, are you also done in?”
“I will return after seeing Frannie to her room.”
Frannie, not Miss Fanshawe. It still thrilled her. The word rang in her heart and mind like a little sun shower amidst a torrent of rain.
His mama smiled. “Good man.”
Frannie accepted Sebastian’s arm as they followed the housekeeper to the quarter of the house where the bedchambers were. Sebastian purposely slowed their pace, however, so that soon there was enough distance between them and the servant for a private conversation.
“Frannie dear,” he began, sending another shot of warmth into her heart. Gently he continued, “Are you certain you haven’t met Sir Hugo before you came to us?”
“I have not,” she said, surprised at his question.
He smiled wryly. “Why did you don a veil, then? I haven’t seen you wear one in all the time you’ve been with us. Is it not to avoid recognition?”
He must have felt the hand upon his arm tighten. “No, not that at all!” she said in a little choked voice, and blinking back tears. How it pained her to know that he wanted her to marry his cousin! Why should he? He had once said himself that he would be disinherited if Sir Hugo had a son of his own, and surely he must see that Frannie, if she wed the baronet, could provide that son. Why should he so wish to be rid of her, that he would gladly endanger his own inheritance?
All these thoughts roiled in her brain and yet she could speak none of them. If she dared to express even one, they would all come rushing out. She would never be able to hide her anguish of heart, the anguish that came from wishing Sebastian would want her to be his wife, not the baronet’s.
“What makes you wear it, then?” he persisted.
Frannie swallowed her heart. She sniffed and replied, “Surely you do not expect a rational explanation for every accoutrement a woman deems indispensable.”
He smiled. “But you have never found this particular accoutrement to be indispensable before.”
She was silent. They ascended a set of stairs, for the bedchambers were on the second floor. She looked down at the carpeting.
“Tomorrow is Christmas Eve,” he said. “We shall have the ball tomorrow night. Then we shall have a happy Christmas, I trust. And on the following afternoon, I will return to town to find Mr. Fanshawe. I’ll find him, wherever he has gone, I assure you, and wrest the truth from him, come what may.” In a gentler tone he added, “Your agony and dread of what is unknown shall be removed forever.”
“No, Beau!” she cried, without realizing it. Something rippled in his eyes, a quick flash of warmth, but then was gone. She had hardly