Francesca Read Online Free PDF Page B

where I might find you.”
    “Very flattering, I’m sure. You make me feel like some sort of traitor.”
    “You are too harsh on yourself. Deserter would be my choice of word.”
    “Is Lady Devane aware of your lavish spending on another lady?”A tinge of ice coated her words, as it always did when she was reminded of David.
    “No doubt she is frowning down on me from above.”
    Francesca glanced up to the platform, where new arrivals gathered. “Higher than that,”he said. “I was saying, in my rather clumsy way, that my mother is dead. But what you were really asking was whether I am married. I’m not.”
    His being a bachelor lessened her ire somewhat. The music began, and he gathered her up in his arms. In this polite room he held her politely, their bodies an inch apart. His dancing lived up to his boast. He moved lightly and with grace and still managed to keep up a patter of conversation.
    “Have you been in town long, Mrs. Wilson?”
    “Going on three years, but this is only my second Season. Last year I was in mourning for my husband. He was killed in the Peninsula.”
    Devane examined this for credibility. Odd that she didn’t wear a wedding ring, but she might have been married to an officer. Young gentlemen about to leave the country had made bad marriages before this, and their wives, wearing a thin coat of respectability, were permitted to loiter at the edge of society. If they were very pretty, as Mrs. Wilson was, they might advance a little deeper into the ton. Their aim was generally to make a second marriage that bettered their social standing. Mrs. Wilson’s having inquired whether he was a bachelor suggested this was her aim. Her being at the Pantheon, on the other hand, suggested that she was not above a less formal liaison if there was something in it for her.
    “It is odd I haven’t seen you about before this,”he said.
    “It seems we attend different parties. I have heard of you, however.”
    “Nothing bad, I hope?”
    “Mostly political things—you are a Whig, I think?”
    “Guilty as charged. Your patch tells me we have that in common?”
    She felt uncomfortable at the mention of that patch, and slid over it. “Oh, no, that is mere fashion. David—my husband’s family are Tories. My papa has no interest in politics. He is a farmer.”As Lord Devane was behaving like a gentleman, Francesca thought she ought to explain about calling herself Biddie Wilson.
    He inclined his head and looked at her again with his disarming smile. “What a boor I am, discussing politics with a lady when we are waltzing.”
    “I expect that’s a left-handed apology. I am the one who mentioned it first.”
    “I have heard of a left-handed compliment, but never a left-handed apology. You meant, of course, that I was chiding you under the guise of an apology. Guilty, as tacitly charged.”
    “That is twice you have told me what I meant. Do you read minds, Lord Devane?”
    He peered down at her and smiled ingratiatingly. “I call it interpreting ladies ’ language. It is quite a foreign tongue to some of us gents. I, having spent some time in the territory, am conversant with the language. ‘I look a quiz’means ‘I have taken considerable trouble with my toilette and wish to be complimented.’‘You’re early!’when said in a plaintive way means ‘I am late.’ ”
    “And when it is not said in a plaintive tone?”
    “Why, then it means the lady is happy to see you.”
    “They say something is always lost in translation,”she replied with a light laugh,
    “You should do that more often, Mrs. Wilson--smile, I mean. You have a lovely smile.”You look less like a lady of pleasure, he thought to himself. Yes, rather a sweet smile.
    “Here is another speech for you to translate. I am not who you think I am.”
    “Not a Mrs., or not a Wilson?”
    “Well,”she said pensively, “not both. Really not either.”The waltz ended. “I leave you with that little job of interpretation to think