Simply Unforgettable

episode after Christmas? Or did she just distrust all men? He would wager that it was the latter.

And this was what Frances had chosen over him? It was enough to make a man turn to some serious drinking. But then this was what she must have chosen over a singing career too.

And then the door opened and Frances herself stepped into the room. She was dressed as she had been up on the

Royal Crescent

, in a fawn-colored dress with a short brown spencer over it and an unadorned brown bonnet. She also wore a tight, set expression on her face, as if she had steeled herself for a dreadful ordeal. She looked, in fact, remarkably like the prunish shrew whom he had hauled out of an overset carriage just after Christmas and dumped on a snowy road—except that her nose was not red-tipped today or her mouth spewing fire and brimstone.

He would have left her there knee deep in snow to fend for herself if he had known half the trouble she was going to cause him.

“Miss Allard?” He swept her his most elegant bow.

“Lord Sinclair.” She curtsied, her eyes as cool and indifferent as if he had been a fly on the wall.

“I have informed Viscount Sinclair,” Miss Martin said, “that he is to have you back here at precisely half past five, Frances.”

Her eyes flickered, perhaps with surprise.

“I will not be late,” she promised, and turned to leave the room without waiting to see if Lucius was ready to follow her.

A minute or two later they were seated side by side in his carriage, and it was turning onto Sutton Street before swinging around in a great arc onto Great Pulteney Street. She was clinging to the leather strap above her head, presumably so that she would not sway sideways and inadvertently brush against his arm.

He was deeply irritated.

“I have taken to devouring lady teachers when I cannot wait for my tea,” he said.

She turned an uncomprehending face toward him.

“And what,” she asked, “is that supposed to mean?”

“You cannot sit much farther away from me,” he said, “without putting a dent in the side of the carriage, and I warn you I would be somewhat displeased if that were to happen. If I should decide to attack, though, you may scream and Peters will come running to your rescue even if only to stop you from murdering his eardrums.”

She let go of the strap, though she turned her face away and looked out through the window on her side.

“Of all the places in England where you might have gone to enjoy yourself,” she said, “why did you have to choose Bath?”

“I did not,” he said. “My grandfather chose it for his health. He is a very sick man and fancies that the waters agree with him. I came to keep an eye on him. Did you think I had come deliberately to see you, Frances? To renew my addresses, perhaps? To stand beneath your bedchamber window and serenade you with lovelorn ballads? You flatter yourself.”

“You make very free with my name,” she said.

“With your—? You might at least try not to be ridiculous— ma’am,” he retorted.

He watched her profile—or what he could see of it around the brim of her bonnet—as they proceeded along the long, straight stretch of

Great Pulteney Street

, and wondered why she was angry. She surely could not seriously believe that he had come to Bath to torment her. He was not even the one who had invited her to tea this afternoon—or the one who had accepted the invitation. He was not the one who had abandoned her after Christmas either. It had been the other way around.

Like Miss Martin’s, her posture was stiff and straight as any ramrod. She continued to gaze out the window like a queen looking for subjects on whom to confer a royal wave.

“Why are you angry?” he asked her.

“Angry?” She turned to look at him again, her nostrils flared, her eyes flashing. “I am not angry. Why should I be? You are a mere courier, are you not, Lord Sinclair, sent to bring me to the Earl of Edgecombe’s house? It was kind of him to invite me and I am pleased to come.”

She sounded it!

“Despite all the women I have known,” he said, “I have never yet come close to fathoming the female mind. You were given the chance to prolong and advance our relationship three months ago, but you rejected it—quite emphatically, if memory serves me correctly. And yet now, Frances, your whole demeanor tells me that you think you have a grievance against me. Is it possible that I somehow hurt you?”

Color flamed in her cheeks and light flashed from her dark eyes—and she grabbed for the strap again as the carriage passed through the diamond-shaped Laura Place and circled the fountain in the middle of the road.

“What absurdity is this?” she cried. “How could you possibly have hurt me?”

“I do believe men and women sometimes react differently to the sort of . . . liaison in which you and I became involved,” he said. “Men are able to enjoy the moment and let it go, while women are more inclined to find their hearts engaged. It was certainly never my intention to hurt you.”

But, devil take it, he thought irritably, he had not exactly let the moment go, had he?

“And you most certainly did not,” she said with hot indignation as the carriage