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“If you’d like,” Priestley continued, “I could remove each card and note on the back which arrangement I took it from. Then you could read through them all at once.” When Francesca didn’t reply, he suggested, “Perhaps you would like to remove yourself to your desk? I would be happy to bring you the cards.”

“No, no,” she said, still feeling terribly distracted by all this. She was a widow, for heavens sake. Men weren’t supposed to bring her flowers. Were they?

“My lady?”

“I… I…” She turned to Priestley, straightening her spine as she forced her mind back to clarity. Or tried. “I will just, ah, have a look at…” She turned to the nearest bouquet, a lovely and delicate arrangement of grape hyacinths and stephanotis. “A pale comparison to your eyes,” the card read. It was signed by the Marquess of Chester.

“Oh!” Francesca gasped. Lord Chester’s wife had died two years earlier. Everyone knew he was looking for a new bride.

Barely able to contain the oddly giddy feeling rising within her, she inched down toward an arrangement of roses and picked up the card, trying very hard not to appear too eager in front of the butler. “I wonder who this is from,” she said with studied casualness.

A sonnet. From Shakespeare, if she remembered correctly. Signed by Viscount Trevelstam.

Trevelstam? They’d only been introduced but once. He was young, very handsome, and it was rumored that his father had squandered away most of the family fortune. The new viscount would have to marry someone wealthy. Or so everyone said.

“Good heavens!”

Francesca turned to see Janet behind her.

“What is this?” she asked.

“I do believe those were my exact words upon entering the room,” Francesca murmured. She handed Janet the two cards, then watched her carefully as her eyes scanned the neatly handwritten lines.

Janet had lost her only child when John had died. How would she react to Francesca being wooed by other men?

“My goodness,” Janet said, looking up. “You seem to be this season’s Incomparable.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Francesca said, blushing. Blushing? Good God, what was wrong with her? She didn’t blush. She hadn’t even blushed during her first season, when she really had been an Incomparable. “I’m far too old for that,” she mumbled.

“Apparently not,” Janet said.

“There are more in the hall,” Priestley said.

Janet turned to Francesca. “Have you looked through all the cards?”

“Not yet. But I imagine-”

“That they’re more of the same?”

Francesca nodded. “Does that bother you?”

Janet smiled sadly, but her eyes were kind and wise. “Do I wish you were still married to my son? Of course. Do I want you to spend the rest of your life married to his memory? Of course not.” She reached out and clasped one of Francesca’s hands in her own. “You are a daughter to me, Francesca. I want you to be happy.”

“I would never dishonor John’s memory,” Francesca assured her.

“Of course not. If you were the sort who would, he’d never have married you in the first place. Or,” she added with a sly look, “I would never have allowed him to.”

“I would like children,” Francesca said. Somehow she felt the need to explain it, to make sure that Janet understood that what she truly wanted was to be a mother, not necessarily a wife.

Janet nodded, turning away as she dabbed at her eyes with her fingertips. “We should read the rest of the these cards,” she said, her brisk tone signaling that she’d like to move on, “and perhaps prepare ourselves for an onslaught of afternoon calls.”

Francesca followed her as she sought out an enormous display of tulips and plucked the card free. “I rather think the callers will be women,” Francesca said, “inquiring after Michael.”

“You may be right,” Janet replied. She held the card up. “May I?”

“Of course.”

Janet scanned the words, then looked up and said, “Cheshire.”

Francesca gasped, “As in the Duke of?”

“The very one.”

Francesca actually placed her hand over her heart. “My word,” she breathed. “The Duke of Cheshire.”

“You, my dear, are clearly the catch of the season.”

“But I-”

“What the devil is this?”

It was Michael, catching a vase he’d nearly overturned and looking extremely cross and put out.

“Good morning, Michael,” Janet said cheerfully.

He nodded at her, then turned to Francesca and grumbled, “You look as if you’re about to pledge allegiance to your sovereign lord.”

“And that would be you, I imagine?” she shot back, quickly dropping her hand to her side. She hadn’t even realized it was still over her heart.

“If you’re lucky,” he muttered.

Francesca just gave him a look.

He smirked right back in return. “And are we opening a flower shop?”

“No, but clearly we could,” Janet replied. “They’re for Francesca,” she added helpfully.

“Of course they’re for Francesca,” he muttered, “although, good God, I don’t know who would be idiot enough to send roses.”

“I like roses,” Francesca said.

“Everyone sends roses,” he said dismissively. “They’re trite and old, and”-he motioned to Trevelstam’s yellow ones-“who sent this?”