Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
“Ithought you should know, Your Grace, although I do not like to break Her Grace’s confidence,” Mrs. Betsworth finished with a sigh after relating the story of burnt letter and France’s subsequent upset. “She was very clear that she wished to be left alone.”
“Did the duchess say who sent this letter?” Ambrose asked with a frown, feeling a protective stirring in his blood. “I shall certainly warn them off any future such attacks if I find out.”
“No, your grace. Only that it was from someone who resented not being invited to the wedding.”
“A former schoolfriend or distant cousin perhaps,” he speculated aloud with a sigh. “How excitable some people get over such occasions. Well, as my wife wishes me not to know, I shall say nothing for now, but I thank you for this intelligence, Mrs. Betsworth.”
The housekeeper nodded and began to retreat.
“Very good, Your Grace. I thought you would want to know.”
“One more thing, Mrs. Betsworth. Ask anyone who deals with the mail to bring everything to the breakfast table for the next few weeks rather than leaving it in the hall. If this person sends further letters, I would like to be present when the duchess opens them. I will not have her harassed on so slight an account.”
After Mrs. Betsworth left his study, Ambrose looked into space as he pondered his next move. It troubled him to think of Frances upset and alone but she was always so clear in asserting her need for independence and fear of intimacy that it felt an intrusion even to seek her out.
Ambrose had hoped that Frances would come to him by now, but it was very possible that she did not know how, regardless of how pleasurable an experience they had shared in the library.
On the currently hesitant basis of their relationship, nor did the Duke of Westall feel able to do as his grandmother advised and clear the air over the terms of his father’s will. That would have to wait. In the meantime, he tried to convince himself that it really didn’t matter.
That night Ambrose stood in the doorway of Winnie’s bedroom as Frances read a bedtime story but very deliberately made no attempt to approach her.
Glancing across occasionally as he listened, he observed the finely drawn lines of her graceful profile and the affection in her smile as she looked at Winifred.
There was some slight air of sadness to Frances today, but that was the only apparent trace of the unpleasant affair with the letter.
Ambrose wished that they were in a position where he could simply lay a hand on her shoulder for reassurance, or even ask her what was troubling her, but they were not.
Once the child was asleep, the duke bid his wife a respectful goodnight and went to his rooms alone.
Two days later, it was the Duke of Westall who received an unexpected letter rather than his wife.
As instructed by the duke, the early post was brought to them in the breakfast room where they sat at the round table by the window, discussing the weather and whether Winnie might go out with Frances on her pony later in the afternoon.
Being in the middle of pouring himself another coffee, Ambrose let Frances glance at the tray first and look through its contents, picking out only one letter and smiling as soon as she saw the handwriting.
“I have a letter from Beatrice,” she told him. “The others are all for you, Ambrose, except for the last which feels like an invitation card and is addressed to both of us. If you wish, I will open that after I have read my sister’s message.”
“As you prefer,” he returned, adding some cream to his coffee and then reaching for his letters. “Do accept the invitation for both of us, if you wish it.”
Two looked to be from his agent and were expected estate business while one came from Edinburgh, presumably from cousins who lived there and were likely planning to visit London again soon.
A fourth letter was very light and addressed in Mr. Vennels’ familiar hand, probably only confirmation that the bank had completed transfer of Winifred’s trust.
A fifth letter was addressed to him in an unfamiliar hand, firm but a little more decorative than the average, as though the writer sought to leave a distinct impression.
The London address on the back was not known to him.
Ambrose sniffed deliberately as his nose detected some slightly exotic, but not entirely unknown, scent.
He realized that it was rising from the paper.
Puzzled but not wary, Ambrose broke the seal and unfolded the letter before almost choking on his coffee.
It was from Miss Annabelle Sinclair, writing to him at Westall Park on paper liberally sprayed with her scent.
Good Lord, this was a liberty too far! He had assumed that his marriage would end his pursuit by all young ladies, even Annabelle Sinclair.
“Is something wrong, Ambrose?” Frances asked him, seeing his reaction and glancing curiously at him.
Your Grace,
Forgive me for taking the liberty of writing to you without invitation. I have decided to forgive you for not inviting me to your rather unexpected wedding…
Recently, I received information that I believe might benefit us both. I therefore beg your leave to call on you at Westall Park at your earliest convenience. You will not regret it.
Yours always
Annabelle
Ambrose’s eyes almost bulged from his head while he continued to stare at the incredible missive he had just read. What on earth could she mean by such a letter? It was utterly inappropriate to write to him in any case and the message itself made no sense.
He knew he might reasonably write to Miss Sinclair’s parents and enclose their daughter’s improper note but he did not wish to entangle himself any further with her than he must.
Setting his jaw, the Duke of Westall folded the letter back up and rang the bell.
“Return this letter to sender immediately,” he instructed the footman who answered the call. “There is no reply.”
In the silence that followed these terse words and the footman’s departure, a hundred disparate thoughts ran through Ambrose’s head while Frances stared at him in bewilderment. His wife’s face brought one particular question to the forefront, and he was surprised he had not thought of it before.
What if it had been Miss Sinclair who wrote to Frances too? She might have said any number of unpleasant or untrue things which could account for the upset that Mrs. Betsworth had reported.
“Do you know anyone called Annabelle Sinclair?” Ambrose asked his wife a little abruptly.
Frances shook her head, appearing mystified.
“No. Should I know this lady?” she inquired, matching his tone.
“No, I only wondered. It does not matter. Forget I asked.”
“I should very much like to know of Annabelle Sinclair, if she is going to write perfume-soaked letters to my husband that cause him such a stir,” Frances flared back at him, with more feeling than he had expected. “Is this lady a close friend of yours, Ambrose?”
“No!” he denied vehemently. “She is no friend of mine at all and never has been. Her letter was unexpected, unsolicited and inappropriate. That is why I have returned it.”
Slowly, Frances nodded her head as if beginning to believe him but not yet quite convinced. Was she jealous?!
“Then you will not be writing to her or seeing her in the foreseeable future?”
“Not if I see her coming first,” Ambrose said with a genuine shudder that perhaps made up Frances’ mind, although it might have been his next admission that did that. “She was the lady I was escaping at the Morgan ball that night when I met you.”
“Ah,” Frances said, her expression clearing as though the pieces were falling into place in her mind. “Now, I think I understand and I am glad that you explained. I can be too sensitive when I suspect someone is trying to deceive me. The truth can never hurt so much as a lie.”
Ambrose did not know quite what she had in mind with her last two statements but there was a vulnerability in her expression that made him reach out and place a hand over hers on the table.
How soft and warm her skin felt, with something indefinable seeming to flow between them instantly, just as it had done in the library…
Frances, however, gasped as though she had been scalded, her face flushing pink as she looked at him with some agitation.
“Is it too soon?” he asked withdrawing his hand. “I did not mean to alarm you, Frances.”
“I do not know,” she answered in a small voice. “It is all too much for me, Ambrose, and I wish it was otherwise.”
“I wish I knew how to comfort you when I cannot touch you,” he sighed, with a sad smile of his own.
“So do I,” replied Frances, and then, rising from her chair, she hurried from the room.
“Oh my!” yelped Lydia Carrington, finally remembering to dig a spoon into her melting glass of ice-cream after hovering it in the air for a full thirty seconds. “It was really sprayed with scent?!”
As she asked this question, she glanced warily towards the elder brother who had escorted her to meet Frances at the café in Hyde Park today.
Henry Carrington sat at a another table with his head in a newspaper, ignoring his sister and her friend entirely.
When Henry did occasionally look up, his eyes were drawn more to a shapely blonde-haired woman with slanted green eyes, sitting at the table beside Frances and Lydia.
This lady was also reading a newspaper and was apparently as engrossed in it as Henry.
Lydia had listened intently to Frances’ account of certain recent events at Westall Park, especially the letters from Lord Mulford and the mysterious Miss Annabelle Sinclair. Through her friend’s responses, Frances felt her own strong reactions justified.
“Dowsed in scent, I should say. I could smell it across the breakfast table,” Frances confirmed, frowning at the memory. “Ambrose asked me if I knew the woman’s name but I’d never heard of her.”