Page 29 of The Courtship Dance

FRANCESCA WAS AT her desk in the morning room the next day, planning the decorations for her soiree, when her butler stepped into the room. He carried a small silver tray, and on it rested a white calling card.

“There is a…person to see you, my lady,” he began, and Francesca knew immediately from his carefully blank face and the choice of his words that the visitor was not someone of whom the butler approved. “Mr. Galen Perkins.”

“Perkins!” Whatever was he doing here? “Tell him I am not receiving.”

“What? You would treat an old friend like that?” Perkins stepped into view behind the butler.

Francesca rose to her feet, her back straight. “I do not believe that we were ever friends, Mr. Perkins.”

Fenton cast a look of dislike at the man and turned back to Francesca, his tone frosty as he asked, “Shall I escort Mr. Perkins to the door, my lady?”

Perkins flashed a wicked grin of amusement. “I should like to see you try.”

“No, it’s all right, Fenton.” Francesca had little doubt that Perkins would not go willingly, and she feared he might hurt the old man. “I will talk to Mr. Perkins.”

“Very well.” Fenton executed a little bow, adding, “I shall be right outside, if you need me.”

The butler stepped around Perkins and ostentatiously took up a position in the hallway opposite the door.

Perkins sauntered into the room, remarking, “What a faithful knight you have, dear lady. No doubt he protects you from all dangers.”

“Why are you here, Mr. Perkins?” Francesca asked crisply. “What do you hope to accomplish by forcing your way in to see me?”

“Why, surely it is appropriate to offer my respects to the widow of my old friend,” Perkins commented, the amused smirk lingering on his face.

“You offered your condolences the other night at the theater,” Francesca reminded him. “So I scarcely think a visit is necessary.”

He came around the side of the desk. He was closer than Francesca would have liked, but she refused to back up, for she knew that he would take the gesture as fear. He ran his pale eyes insolently down her.

“A man can hardly be blamed for wanting to renew his acquaintance with so lovely as woman as yourself,” he told her.

Francesca’s fingers curled into her palm. She would have liked very much to slap him, so insolent and insinuating was his tone.

“It must get very lonely,” he went on, “being a widow. Living alone as you do.”

“I would never be lonely enough to seek your company,” she assured him.

He shrugged. “Very well, then. Let us get down to business.”

“Business?” Francesca looked at him in surprise. “What business? I have no business with you.”

“I am afraid that I must differ.” He smiled in the same annoyingly amused way, the lines of dissipation crinkling around his eyes.

Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a piece of paper, which he unfolded. “Andrew and I played cards a short while before I had to leave for the Continent—”

“You mean before you killed a man.”

He shrugged, his flat gaze showing no remorse. “A man must defend his honor.”

“If he has any.”

“Your husband lost heavily,” Perkins continued, ignoring her remark. “As he so often did, I’m afraid. He ran out of funds, and he’d already thrown in his cuff links and stickpin. I could hardly take a voucher from him, as he so rarely paid them. So, on the final hand, he threw in his house. Sad to say, but not unexpectedly, he lost.”

Francesca stared at him blankly. Her stomach felt as if it had dropped to the floor, and for a moment she could not move, could not speak. Finally she said, her voice rasping a little, “What do you mean? What house? Haughston Hall? It is entailed.”

“I am aware of that,” he replied, watching her. “I’m not a fool, whatever the company I kept. That is why I told him that it must be this house that he wagered.”

Her insides turned to ice, but she struggled to keep her face from dissolving into fear. “You are lying.”