Page 73 of The Courtship Dance

“What the bloody hell do you expect me to be?” he lashed out. “What was last night about? Your gratitude? Thank you, but I did not need a payment!”

Francesca’s head snapped back as though he had hit her, and her cheeks flared with color. “I did not pay you! I gave myself to you because—” She stopped, unable to expose her love to him when he was staring at her so stonily.

His eyebrows shot up. “Yes? Because?” He grimaced and swung away. “My God, what an idiot I’ve been.” He took a few steps from her, then whirled back to pierce her with his black gaze. “What did you intend? One night? Two?”

“No. I—Just not marriage.”

“An affair?” He appeared, if possible, even more thunderstruck. “Are you telling me that you thought we would skulk about, hiding our relationship from everyone? What was I to do? Marry another and all the while carry on an affair behind my wife’s back? Is that what you think of me? Is that the sort of man I seem to you?”

Tears choked Francesca. “No! No, please, Sinclair…”

“Sweet Jesu! I thought you cared for me. I thought that, after all these years, you had realized—that you wanted—” He let out an oath, followed by a bitter laugh. “How many times can a man play the fool for you?” He shook his head. “Well, this is the last, I assure you. Goodbye, my lady, I will not bother you any further.”

Francesca stood frozen in horror for a moment, then started after him. “Sinclair, wait! No!”

He whipped back around and tossed the box in his hand onto the ground in front of her. “Here. Add this to your collection.”

He strode off to the gate, flung it open and was gone. The gate crashed shut behind him, leaving the garden in a ringing silence.

Francesca could not think, could not move. She began to shake, and tears rushed from her eyes. This could not be happening! He could not have walked out of her life like this!

She dropped to her knees, suddenly too weak to remain standing. Despite the warmth of the summer afternoon, she was chilled to the bone, and an uncontrollable trembling shook her body. She reached out, picked up the small box he had dropped and opened it. A ring lay inside, simple and elegant, a large pear-shaped yellow diamond. The Lilles diamond, the wedding ring of the Duchesses of Rochford.

Her fingers curled around it, and she sagged to the ground, clutching the ring to her chest.

“MY LADY? MY LADY?” Maisie’s voice sounded close to Francesca’s ear. “What is amiss? Are you ill?”

Francesca opened her eyes and looked up to see her maid kneeling over her, peering down into her face with worried eyes. Francesca blinked. She could not have said how long she had lain there, spent and despairing.

She sat up dazedly, realizing that she still held the small jewelry box clutched tightly in her fist, and that her fist was still pressed to her heart. “I am fine, Maisie. Do not worry.”

“My lady, what happened? Bess saw you lying out here, and she screeched fit to wake the dead. She thought you’d been struck down.”

Francesca swallowed. “I have been. But not in the way you think.” She rose to her knees, and Maisie took her arm to help her up.

“Fenton thought His Grace was out here with you earlier. He never…He didn’t do this to you, did he?”

“No! No, he would never hit me. No. I did this to myself, I fear.” Francesca tried to smile at her maid, but she knew that her effort was not successful. “I believe that I will go up to my room now. Really, I am all right. Tell the others not to worry. I am merely…tired.”

“It’s not that blackguard back again, is it?” Maisie persisted as they walked to the back door.

“Perkins?” Francesca shook her head. “No. He is gone for good. I have just…mishandled something very badly. I think—” Tears welled in her eyes. “I think the duke will not be here again.”

“What?” Her maid’s eyes grew large and round. “But, my lady—”

“Please. I cannot talk about it now. I must go to my room and rest.”

They went inside and up the back stairs. In her room, Maisie helped her mistress out of her dress and wrapped her dressing gown around her. Despite its warmth, Francesca still shivered, and Maisie lit a fire in the fireplace to warm her.

Later, she brought up tea and supper on a tray. Francesca could not bring herself to eat, but she drank the hot tea gratefully. For a long time she sat staring numbly into the fire, her thoughts running on a long, futile track.

Her instinct was to run to Rochford, to throw herself at him and beg him to hear her out—to make him listen to her somehow. She would explain it all, she thought, and he would understand why she had turned him down. He would realize that she was right. They could not marry; he would know that, if he only considered it a little.

She would tell him how she felt, convince him that it was not lack of feeling that had made her refuse him—how could he think that, after what had happened between them!

But, of course, she knew she could not run to him. He would not even see her. He had been so angry, so cold. Just remembering the icy disdain with which he flung the ring at her made tears spring to her eyes.

She decided to write him a letter, and she went downstairs to her desk, creeping like a mouse to avoid the notice of any of the servants. She wasted page after page, starting one explanation after another. Nothing that she wrote was adequate; nothing could express the horror and regret she had felt at the expression on Sinclair’s face. Nothing, she thought, would make him take her back.