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And the servants will repeat what you have said to Mrs. Jerkins, Frances thought, and then I shall have a rebellion on my hands. She pictured Otis firing a
cannon toward her sister-in-law, and grinned to herself.
“Well, I only wished to know why my poor brother felt it—”
“Bea, have some macaroni,” Hawk said firmly. “Perhaps also some artichoke bottoms.”
Frances nearly choked on her wine. She sent her husband a warning look, and he smiled at her, an intimate, very mischievous smile that made her feel suddenly quite overheated. She blinked, wondering what the devil was wrong with her. And for that matter, what was he up to now?
The marquess said, “Belvis tells me that you saved Flying Davie’s life, Frances. He is quite upset that the horse sickened from something he ate.”
“He must have escaped the eye of his trainer and gotten a weed of some sort,” said Edmund.
“Mushrooms,” said Beatrice.
“Well, I fancy Belvis will watch him like a hawk now,” Frances said.
“Two birds at Desborough?” Hawk asked.
“You and that ridiculous nickname of yours,” Beatrice said with faint distaste, arching a perfect brow.
“Frances quite likes it,” Hawk said blandly.
“How very odd of you,” Beatrice said, staring at her sister-in-law as if she were a newly imported queer thing from an exotic land.
Enough, thought Frances. She smiled at her guests, nodded to James, and let him assist her to rise. “Beatrice, shall we leave the gentlemen to their port and conversation?”
“I didn’t expect a sister-in-law,” Beatrice said, once they were comfortably seated in the drawing room.
“I didn’t either,” said Frances.
“Philip has always been so very free, so opposed to matrimony.”
“He still is—free, that is.”
Beatrice started at that, but quickly forged onward. “I was most surprised to read of my brother’s marriage to an unknown ... person from Scotland. I told Edmund that my father was behind it. The meddling old fool!”
So, Frances thought, even Beatrice knew nothing of the infamous oath. She wondered why Hawk hadn’t told his sister the circumstances when he was in London. “Actually,” Frances said, “I saw your brother bathing in Loch Lomond and quite decided that I wanted him.”
“You saw him naked?”
“He wasn’t bathing in his cravat.”
Beatrice harrumphed.
Frances studied her sister-in-law for a long moment. “I should appreciate it, Beatrice, if you would refrain from directing the servants.”
“I would say that someone needs to give them orders! Why, the dust, the filth ... !”
“Beatrice, you are my guest and my sister-in-law, but you are not the mistress of Desborough Hall.”
“So,” Beatrice said, her eyes glittering, “that is why my poor benighted brother married you.”
Frances stared at her, at sea. “I beg your pardon?”
“You saw him unclothed and seduced him and got yourself with child.”
Frances laughed, she couldn’t help herself. “I never realized before that a female could get herself with child.”
