“You honor me,” she said drily. “But I doubt I have anything to say that you’d want to hear. Excuse me.”
She threaded her way across the room to Caroline and bent her dark head down to her cousin’s fair one. With a nod, she seemed to accept some order. She moved across the room again and consulted with a servant in the doorway.
All without another look at Henry or Bart or Wadsworth. It was well done—but Henry had hoped for some small sign of friendship. Another wink, another smile. They were allies, after all.
Wadsworth snorted. “I do enjoy that woman. She is the prickliest female. Quite a guard dog for her employer.”
“If Lady Stratton has any undesirable suitors, then a guard dog is precisely what is needed.” Henry shoved himself forward in his chair, then stood. “If you’ll excuse me. Bart, I’ll see you soon?”
He wasn’t sure exactly what he ought to say to Mrs. Whittier, but he had to say something to let her know he welcomed the help Lord Wadsworth scorned.
Or seemed to. Damn, maybe Henry was tilting at windmills, ready to imagine enemies everywhere. This was London, not the Bossu Wood. No one was hiding, ready to fire at him.
“Mrs. Whittier,” he said softly as he came up behind her near the doorway of the drawing room.
She started, then turned. “Oh. Mr. Middlebrook.” Her eyes seemed unwilling to meet his, and she had plastered her tall form against the wall, as though she could shove herself through and into the corridor if only she tried hard enough.
“Call me Henry if you wish,” Henry offered. “My friends do. Well, some of them call me Hal, but I hate that.”
The bright eyes lifted to his, and her expression turned shrewd. “This is what your friends call you? And yet I heard Lord Wadsworth call you Middlebrook.”
“Exactly.” Henry wanted to sigh. “Lord Wadsworth is not the kind of man to set people at their ease. In fact, I think he prefers to do the opposite.”
She drew in a long breath. “Yes, I know that about him. I suppose I’m rather too proud for my own good. You probably don’t understand that from someone in my position.”
Henry let out a quick bark of laughter. “Too proud? Mrs. Whittier, I had my turn under his quizzing glass before you did. I’ll wager I can muster as much pride as you can.”
At last, he won a smile from her. “Frances.”
“Pardon?”
“If you like, you may call me Frances. Caroline calls me Frannie, but I cannot abide it.”
“Frances, then,” he said, shaking her hand in his left. “Since we are soldiers together.”
She caught her breath, and her cheeks darkened, the blush of a plum on the skin of a peach. She was all brights and darks, this woman. Such coloring would require much layering to capture it well in oils, but she would look well painted, with her determined features and elegant carriage. He wondered if a portrait painter could capture the snap of defiance in her eyes, though, or the wry curve of her mouth.
Her fingers moved within his, twisting, and he realized he still had hold of her hand. “Pardon me,” he muttered.
“It’s quite all right,” she said quickly. “So, we both have dreadful nicknames. Is it not odd how the people who are closest to us persist in addressing us as if we are six years old?”
“That may be the last time they saw us clearly.”
Frances looked thoughtful. “You may be right. And that might not be a bad thing. I was a much better person at the age of six than I am now.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
Her brows lifted. “You need not say things to me just because you think politeness requires it, Henry. I am sure you too are not the innocent you once were, for good or ill.”
Probably she meant the statement to be taken lightly, but Henry turned it over in his mind.
For good or ill, she said. The edges of the words tumbled roughly, snagging his thoughts. “Do you truly see good in it? The way one changes over time?”
To Frances’s credit, she did not look surprised by his odd question. She caught her lower lip in her teeth and shook back a lock of coffee-colored hair that had fallen free from its pins.
“Yes, I do. At least, I think there is always the hope and possibility for good.” She smiled, looking rueful. “I know as well as any that such hopes and possibilities are not always fulfilled. But that is what tomorrow is for, is it not? To try again? Or so I tell myself in my most ambitious moods.”
“Awfully cozy, aren’t you?” Wadsworth’s voice drawled into Henry’s ear. Henry jerked, caught unaware.
Wadsworth nodded silkily to Frances, then turned to Henry. “So, Middlebrook. Have you decided to leave Lady Stratton to better men?”
Before he could reply, Frances lifted her chin. “Lord Wadsworth, I doubt there are any better men here than Mr. Middlebrook. And as you are aware, Lady Stratton trusts my opinion implicitly.”
“I am aware,” Wadsworth said. “It is her ladyship’s only fault.” He kissed his fingertips in the direction of Lady Stratton, who was still holding forth to a rapt Hambleton and Crisp.
Frances bristled, and Henry felt the urge to jump to her defense, just as she had his. “Wadsworth, you cannot insult this lady in that way.”
Wadsworth smiled. “But I just did, did I not? It seems I can do as I like. Pity you can’t do the same.”
And with a final flick of his eyes over Henry’s arm, he strolled back to the center of the room. Back to Lady Stratton, who had heard nothing of what had just passed.
He was efficient, that Wadsworth. It took him a scant minute to abandon even the pretense of politeness; even less time to eviscerate Henry’s tentative peace.
Frances’s cheeks were vivid with color, and her chest caught with shallow breaths. She looked like she wanted to claw out Wadsworth’s throat.
Henry found her fingers again, pressed them for an instant. “You must tell Lady Stratton he speaks to you this way.”
“He’s never done so before.” She ground out each word through clenched teeth. “He’s always been civil. He’s…” She drew in a deep breath and slapped a smile on her face. It didn’t reach her eyes, and it began to fade at once. “Well. Never mind. I can handle him myself.”
“Why should you have to?”
She folded her arms, then pressed herself against the wall again. “I’m only a countess’s companion, Henry. He’s a viscount. He’s just having a bit of fun at my expense. As long as he treats Caroline well, that’s all that matters.”
Henry wanted to shake her. “That is not all that matters. If one doesn’t stop a bully, he will continue.”
She frowned. “He’s not Bonaparte, Henry. He’s only a bored aristocrat. If Caroline enjoys his attentions, it’s not my place to send him away.”
“Surely she owes you the respect of her friends.”
Frances turned her head away, as though the gilded plasterwork that framed the doorway deserved every bit of her attention. “No, it is I who owe her everything. And she gives me her own respect. She cannot be responsible for the behavior of others.”
She drew herself up straight. “Besides, it is no worry of yours. Wadsworth is not the first such man I’ve encountered, and he probably won’t be the last.”
Her smile trembled, and Henry actually reached out his hand to touch her cheek, to offer some comfort.
But his hand didn’t reach out. His right shoulder flexed, his arm dangled and seesawed numbly. From the corner of his eye, he saw Wadsworth lift his eyebrows, then turn toward Caro. He murmured something low, and a burst of laughter succeeded from the men around him.