Page 26 of The Courtship Dance

“What did you think of her?”

“I’m not sure. I had not really looked at her with an eye to her being my duchess, you see. I did not dislike her, as I recall.”

“All right, then we shall consider her. Agreed?”

He nodded.

“The last one is Lady Caroline Wyatt.”

The duke frowned, thinking. “I do not believe I am acquainted with her.”

“This is her first year out.”

Rochford looked at her, surprise and doubt mingling in his face. “A girl fresh from the schoolroom?”

“She is a trifle young,” Francesca admitted. “But her family is actually the best of all three. Her father is only a baronet, but her mother is the youngest of the Duke of Bellingham’s daughters, and her grandmother on her father’s side was a Moreland.”

“Impressive.”

“I have been around the girl, and she does not seem to be a giddy or silly sort. I have not once heard her giggle or fly into raptures.”

“Very well. I will consider her.” He paused for a moment. “But I must say, it does seem that you have chosen rather young women for me. I am, if you will remember, thirty-eight years old.”

Francesca pulled a face at him. “Indeed, yes. You are near decrepit, I am sure.”

“Are any of them over twenty-one?”

“Lady Damaris is twenty-three, and Althea is twenty-one.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her.

“Well, it is harder to find the best prospects among women who are older,” Francesca defended herself. “If they are lovely and accomplished and all that one could want, they are often already married.”

“There are widows who are nearer my age,” he pointed out.

“Yes, but—I did not consider any widows as prospective brides for you.”

“Why not? Some widows are the most beautiful women in the ton.”

Francesca flushed. Did he mean her? If this were any other man, she would have been certain that he was flirting with her. But Rochford did not flirt—certainly not with her.

And yet…she could remember a time when he had flirted with her—in a very understated Rochford style, of course. Still, he had looked at her in a certain way as he teased her, a way that made her feel warm and excited inside—very much the way she felt right now.

She hoped she did not appear as flustered as she felt. “Surely it is important to a man that his wife not have been married before. That she be…” Francesca blushed even harder. It was beyond embarrassing to have to speak to Rochford, of all people, about such things. Finally she finished in a low voice, “That she be untouched.”

He did not respond, and she rushed on. “Besides, there is the matter of children. A younger woman, after all, has more—more time…” She limped to a halt.

“Ah, yes, the all-important heir,” he said dryly. “I had forgotten. We are choosing a broodmare, not a companion for me.”

“No! Sinclair!” Francesca turned to him, concern overcoming her embarrassment. “’Tis not like that.”

“Is it not?” His smile was wry. “At least I wrung a ‘Sinclair’ from your lips.”

She glanced away again, unable to hold his gaze. Why did she feel so disconcerted around him today? One would have thought she was a schoolgirl, the way she was acting. “It is your name,” she pointed out a little breathlessly.

“Yes, but I have not heard it on your lips in many years.”

There was a tone in his voice that made her heart flutter in her chest. She raised her eyes to his and found herself caught by their dark depths. She remembered another time when she had looked up at him, feeling as if she might drown in his eyes. She had uttered his given name then, too, had whispered “Sinclair” as if it were a prayer, and he had kissed her, pulling her hard against him and seizing her lips like a man starved. The memory of that kiss sent a stroke of heat through her, and her pulse began to pound in her throat.