Page 33 of His Arranged Duchess (Regency Wedding Crashers #5)

She flushed with pleasure. “I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Sometimes, I am very proud of what I’ve done, but at other times I read it through again and it all seems so…

so trite . Silly, you know? As if I’ve written a lot of rubbish.

Perhaps people will turn their noses up at my work. I don’t think I could bear that.”

“You mustn’t let fear get in the way of your artistic dreams,” Lucien said firmly. “Think of your Aunt Emily and her paintings. She is Anon , the famous artist! She didn’t earn such a reputation by shielding her work from the world and never trying anything.”

Frances sighed. “No, but Aunt Emily is remarkably talented.”

“And so are you. Your writing was excellent.”

She glanced up at him, frowning. “How do you know?”

Lucien cursed himself for his slip-up. Of course, she didn’t know that he had gone into her room and read some of her book. Not much , but he had a feeling that she would not be pleased with him reading any of it.

“I assumed,” he answered smoothly. “Your letters are always very good.”

She scowled. “Yes, but writing a good letter does not mean that one will write a good novel .”

He carefully moved a stack of books from a nearby chair and sat down, stretching out his legs before him.

“Perhaps you are right. I still believe that you are a good writer, however.”

She threw him a smile.

There was a sort of strangeness between them now, something tentative and new. For his part, Lucien did not know what to think of it.

It’s the intimacy between us. That scene in the reading room has… has changed things. She looks at me differently. I look at her differently.

He shifted in his seat, suddenly uneasy. This was all a means to an end, of course. He knew that. She knew it. She expected it. It was like a shared joke, to which they were not referring but kept throwing knowing glances and smiles at each other.

I don’t want to become my father. He loved my mother once, in his way. His love was a destructive, vile thing. It burned us all up. I must not let that happen to me. To us. Frances is mine to protect, after all. This is the best way to do it.

They ought to talk about it. That would be the sensible thing. And as the older of the two, and the man , he ought to bring up the subject with firmness and determination.

Not yet, though, Lucien thought. Let’s leave it a little while longer.

He crossed one ankle over the other.

“I have a surprise for you, but I’m not entirely sure whether you’ll like it after all,” he remarked.

She glanced at him, lifting an eyebrow. “Well, if you’re hoping to intrigue me, you’ve certainly succeeded. What is the surprise?”

“It is tickets to the opera. Tomorrow night, as a matter of fact. I was under the impression you did not often go, and I thought you might enjoy it. If you’d prefer not, then…”

“No, no, I love the opera,” Frances said eagerly, her face lighting up. “I adore music. We never went because Mama did not like it.”

Lucien frowned. “I thought your mother was an opera singer?”

Frances bit her lip, turning away. She got up abruptly, crossing to the writing desk and settling herself on a stool in front of it. She took out a notebook—the same book she kept under her pillow, Lucien noted—and began to flick through the pages.

“She was,” Frances said at last. “She was excellent, too. Mama would sing to me when I was small, but only at night when I was going to bed. She would wait until I was asleep or almost asleep, and even to this day, I still hear singing in my head when I’m falling asleep.”

She gave a soft, wistful smile, and Lucien found himself smiling in response.

“I’m not sure if I could sleep with a soprano singing directly in my ear,” he remarked.

Frances chuckled. “Not like that . She sang so softly and gently. Lullabies, mostly, some of them in Italian and French. It made me feel safe and warm. Loved, too. I knew that Mama was right there, and nothing could hurt me while she was around.” Frances heaved a sigh, shaking her head.

“But Mama never sang publicly. She gave up the stage when she married the Baron, of course, and would not sing for anyone. Ever. People used to beg her to, the ones who remembered her opera days. I think perhaps she was punishing herself, since it was her profession as an opera-singer that made the old Duke of Clapton turn so strongly against her. Of course, I think that he would have forbidden my father to marry her anyway, as she was not rich or well-bred. Even so, Mama blamed herself. She wouldn’t attend the opera either. ”

“I can understand that,” Lucien murmured. “If she loved to sing, it would be painful to watch others sing as she once had.”

Frances nodded, eyes on the pages. She turned to a blank page, picked up a pen, and began to write.

Lucien paused, narrowing his eyes. “Have you begun to write your story again? While your husband is here to keep you company?”

Frances flushed deeply. “It’s not my fault! You said something which inspired me for the next chapter, and I’d like to write it down before I forget. You don’t mind, do you?”

He got to his feet, snorting to himself. Moving over to where Frances sat, Lucien dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

“I do not. But you’ll join me in the drawing room in exactly half an hour, for a rest and some tea, do you understand?”

Frances beamed up at him, her eyes dancing. “I understand. Thank you.”

She had turned back to her work even before he reached the door. Lucien paused then, one hand on the frame, and turned back to look at her.

Sun streamed in over Frances’s form, turning her fair hair to gold and bathing her in shimmering light. She almost appeared to be in a trance, concentrating entirely on the page. The scritch-scritch of her pen filled the silence, and already ink smudges were forming on her fingers.

Lucien’s chest constricted with something he could not quite identify. He wanted to go to her and wrap his arms around her, but he could not do that. He could not .

When did my marriage of convenience become so cursedly inconvenient ? He thought in resignation. And what on earth am I going to do about it?

The answer did not immediately present itself. So, being nothing if not a practical gentleman, Lucien turned and walked off towards the drawing room, where he would soon summon a tea-tray and wait impatiently for the arrival of his wife.