A Porcelain Viscountess by Hazel Linwood

Chapter 11

“Ah…” Francis said as he spun round and lifted the helmet off his head. Lady Ridlington dropped the sword instantly and clung to the dress.

“What happened?” she asked, looking up at him through the mask as she held the skirt against the bodice of the dress.

“It seems…” he paused as he looked at the way the dress was torn. At the bottom of where the padding across her torso sat around her hips, her sword had become caught in the material and ripped it. “Perhaps lesson number three should have been not to injure yourself, or your own clothes.”

“That was hardly intentional!” she said, waving one arm madly in the air. “Look away.”

“Yes, of course,” he said hurriedly turning round and placing his back to her, though he laughed all the same. “I didn’t see anything, I promise.”

“Am I amusing to you, Your Grace?”

“You are, but probably for a different reason than you think,” he said with honesty, thinking of her surprise. He was actually impressed with how quickly she was picking up the stances he was teaching her. The rip had just been so out of blue, he couldn’t help but chuckle. “You need hardly be embarrassed by such a thing.”

“Oh?” she asked, making a sound that suggested she was rearranging the dress and the padding.

“Well, in the continent, not everyone dresses the same,” he said, feeling the temptation to smirk tug at his lips. “I have seen more than a hip before.”

“You said you didn’t see anything!” she accused loudly.

“I didn’t, I promise you,” he said, trying to control his mirth. “I just could not resist that chance to jest with you, that is all.”

“There, all done. You may turn back.”

He slowly turned round, just in case she changed her mind. She had readjusted her dress so that the torn section was caught up under the padding, ensuring that she appeared demurely dressed once again.

“Now.” She paused and picked up the sword from the floor. “Where were we?” she asked, pointing the foil at him as she took up the lunge position.

This time, Francis couldn’t control the smile that took over his features as he returned his helmet to his head.

“On my count, lunge three. One, lunge…” as he walked her through the stances once more, he found his admiration for Lady Ridlington growing by the second.

At first, she had denied wanting to learn such a skill, but now was not only picking it up more ably than he’d seen many a man could do, but was also keen to carry on, even after a rip to her dress. It was either testament to her determination to master the skill, or a testament to the fear that resided in her, about her husband coming for her.

He hoped it was the former reason. The latter made him feel cold to the bone.

They parried for a long time, until she was nearly up to speed with the maneuvers before he called a halt to their practice.

“Well, I think that should be enough for one day,” he said as he pulled off the helmet. Lady Ridlington pulled off her helmet next. Her expression was different to anything he had seen before, with the eyes more alight and a softer expression on her face. “I think you enjoyed that.”

“Would it be bad if I said that I did?”

“Why would that be bad?” he asked as he beckoned her over to the racks where he placed their swords and their helmets.

“I can just imagine what my father would say now to such a thing, if he knew I had done it.”

“What would he say?”

“That it wasn’t a woman’s place to be sword fighting. It would give her confidence to argue with her husband when she should have known.”

“What?” Francis was so startled by the words that this time he was the one to drop something. Well, nearly. As the helmet slipped out of his hands, he had to swipe it from the air to catch it and managed to toss it back up into the air before catching it cleanly. “Your father said such a thing?”

“He did,” she said, avoiding his gaze as she fussed with a few of the tendrils that had fallen loose from her updo and were now trailing down her neck, pretending to be interested in them.

“No wonder such a man chose the Viscount to be your husband,” he muttered angrily as he placed the helmet into the rack with such a clatter that Lady Ridlington flinched at his side. “I am sorry. I didn’t mean to make you jump, it is just…hearing your father said such things, I cannot tell you how angry it makes me.”

“Truly?” she asked, looking up at him, giving him her full focus.

“No man should want a woman to be afraid of him,” he said with animation. “All of this –” he gestured to the racking around them “– it is for protection and sport, nothing more. I wouldn’t ever use such a thing against a woman, and the fact that your father –”

“Your Grace?” she cut him off.

“Yes?”

“You are getting quite red in the face,” she said softly.

“I am?” he asked, patting his cheek as though he could make it go away.

“I haven’t seen you as angry as this before,” she said, still looking up at him.

“I apologize for it.”

“No, do not apologize, please. It is a good thing!” she said with a smile that surprised him. “For a while when I was little, because it was the way things had always been, I thought it was the way it had to be. That I would always do as my father said, because that’s what he told me to do. I thought I was the aberration, for wanting a life that was different. It took me a while to realize I was not.”

“Believe me, you are not.” Francis could almost imagine his heart cracking in two at her words.

How could anyone grow up so frightened? Forced into that kind of subservience? It’s not the way it’s supposed to be!

“I cannot tell you how relieved I am to see you agree with me, Your Grace,” she said, turning her eyes upon the rack again. “All of this, it is a simple thing, really, but it means a lot.” She gestured toward the swords.

“I am glad,” he said, taking a step toward her, unable to stay away.

For a brief minute, he thought he might take her in his arms, then he remembered the distance between them, the legal obligation that she was another’s man’s wife, and the promise he had made never to pursue a woman so. Wouldn’t that be what he was doing? If he caved to Lady Ridlington and embraced her?

“It is my opinion that any man in this world should help a woman feel safe. Nothing else,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper.

“How strange,” she said, looking up to him. “I feel I should be able to look after myself, not rely on a man for that purpose.”

“I agree that every woman should have that confidence,” he said, nodding, “but every man out there should offer protection anyway. Any man that doesn’t, is no gentleman to my mind.”

Lady Ridlington said nothing in reply, though she looked up at him, those green eyes unblinking for a minute. He hadn’t noticed he had moved so close toward her at first. Each of them had a hand still on the racking, and with how near he had moved, their hands were mere inches apart.

“How odd,” she said, her lips barely moving with the words. His eyes darted down to those lips before looking up at her eyes again.

“What is?”

“That there are not more men that think like you,” she said, smiling sadly before she looked down, staring somewhere in the center of his chest. With the feel of her gaze gone, he longed to have it back. “I…I should go,” she said, stepping up away from her.

“What? Go now?” he asked, startled. It would be the second time she had ran from him since she had arrived in the house. The first day he hadn’t minded too much, he had got carried away, thinking of what it would be like to kiss her. Now though, it was breaking this tender moment between the two of them.

“Yes, I need to…” she gestured behind herself, as though looking for an excuse.

“Search for an excuse to run from me?” he asked.

Her gaze snapped up to his, clearly concerned at being caught out before she turned and run, letting out a kind of exasperated sigh. He let her go for a minute before this burning need to be back by her side crept into him.

I’m not letting her run again.

* * *

Phoebe realized Hayward was following her when she was barely three steps away from the sports room.

“What are you doing?” she cried, staring back behind her.

“What does it look like I’m doing? Stopping you from running away.”

“Ever considered I am running for a reason?” she asked tartly before diving to the side in the corridor. The movement made Hayward pick up the pace and she hurried away, toward the staircase, picking up her skirt to allow her to run.

“What would the reason be?” he called after her. He took the steps two at a time, even three at a time and managed to cut her off easily in the middle of the staircase. Where it turned at a ninety-degree angle, levelling off on a small landing, he leaned on the banister, blocking her path and bringing her to a halt.

“Your Grace, must you really ask me that?” she asked, feeling her heart thud harder at his words.

Surely, he noticed it!

Twice now she had been in his company and so close toward him that this could hardly be described as an acquaintance. No, not with the words he was uttering, words of promising to keep her safe, talking of her protection, and then those blue eyes of his…that kept looking back down to her lips. He could hardly not be aware he was doing it, surely?

“Hmm, I must,” he said, clearly still jesting as he put upon a pained expression.

“You are not helping me right now.”

“And you have ran away from me twice this week,” he said, gesturing to her. “I wish to know why I am prompting my guest to run away from me.”

“I am not running away from you exactly,” she said, struggling to come up with a better excuse. In truth, she didn’t want to run away from him. She liked him. She liked his jests, his easy manner, and how easily he could make her smile. What she had to run away from was whatever it was that she was feeling for him.

Things are already complicated enough as it is without me pondering on that thought any longer.

“Really?” he asked. “The last two days I am sure you have been avoiding me.”

“I have simply been giving you space in your own house.”

“By even avoiding having breakfast with me in the morning?” he asked, looking a little hurt at the idea.

“Did that upset you?” she asked.

“A little, yes,” he said. “I first thought I had done something wrong.”

“No, no, you have done nothing wrong,” she said quickly, covering her face with her hands. “Nothing wrong at all, that is the problem.”

“What is the problem?” he asked. One of his hands took hold of her wrist and pulled it down a little, just enough so that she could look up at him again. The mere touch made her heartbeat thud even harder.

“I…” She alighted on the perfect excuse. She glanced around, checking there was no one else nearby, on the staircase, on the landing above, nor in the entrance hall below, before she fixed her attention on Hayward. “I am merely thinking of propriety.”

“Propriety? Everyone here thinks you are my cousin,” he pointed out. “Family.”

“Yes, but I am not, am I?” she said. “I think it best if I do not spend so much time in your company. If it ever got out that I was here, both of our reputations can be damaged by it.”

“Hmm, I see,” he said, releasing the gentle hold he had on her wrist and leaning more onto the banister. “So that is it? That is the reason you’re avoiding me?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing else?” he asked, a small smile playing upon his features.

“What else could it be?” she asked, pretending innocence.

“Ah, I see,” he said with a small laugh, before looking down at the landing of the stairs between them.

“You see what?”

“You wish to deny what just happened?”

“Happened? Nothing happened,” she said quickly.

“What? Learning to sword fight?” he asked, jesting with her once again.

“Your Grace,” she said, placing her hands on her hips. She tried to fight the battle of her smile but found she lost when he was smiling back at her. “You are being difficult on purpose.”

“Maybe a little,” he said with a nod. “But I wish to know the true reason you are running away from me, and I have a feeling that it has more to do with the way you were looking at me just now in the sports room –”

“I wasn’t looking at you in a particular way,” she said, trying to get him to stop talking and failing miserably.

“And also more to do with our riddles about kisses the other day –”

“Your Grace!” she cried his formal address in shock as she looked around the staircase again, but there was no one there to see them together, talking in such a way.

“I am merely checking those are the things you wish to deny happened?” he said.

“You have too much mischief in you for your own good,” she said, moving to walk around him. He laughed again, though this time, he let her go. At least, she thought he did, until she heard his footsteps on the stairs. At the top, she turned and found him standing just one two steps below her.

“Before you go, there is one more thing I need to say to you,” he said, his voice pleading with her to stay another minute.

“Which is?”