Free Francesca by Joan Smith Page A

He had not asked for permission to do so, but then, he was of that class that hardly required permission. A call from Lord Devane was considered an honor.
    The hour from two to three dragged by, and Francesca was obliged to pretend satisfaction with her dull day. She leafed desultorily through fashion magazines but could not settle down to anything more demanding. At three on the dot the knocker sounded, and she leapt in her chair. “Who can that be?”
    “Probably Mr. Caine,”Mrs. Denver said. She did not recognize Lord Devane’s deep voice, but Francesca did, and assumed a bored expression, but with a telltale glitter in her eyes.
    Francesca overcame all her reluctance to leave the house, and sent off for her bonnet and pelisse as soon as Devane mentioned a drive in the park. Mrs. Denver could only stare in surprised dismay. He was hardly the sort Fran usually had her harmless little flings with. An acknowledged man-about-town—what could he want with Fran? He was not shoddy enough to be planning anything disreputable, and she was not high enough for it to have the air of a serious courting. It troubled Mrs. Denver, especially Fran’s air of excitement. That was why she had refused to drive out with Mr. Irwin! How contrary the girl was.
    “Hyde Park is in the other direction, Lord Devane,”Francesca pointed out when Devane headed his horses west on Oxford Street toward Tiburn Road.
    “I planned a spin in the country, if that meets with your approval, ma’am,”he answered blandly. “Last night I displeased you, carrying on in public. Let my reputation recover before we are seen together.”
    “Curiously enough, the gentleman’s reputation never does seem to suffer, does it?”she replied,
    “No, it doesn’t. There is certainly an inequity in there somewhere.”
    “An iniquity, I would say.”
    “You begrudge us our social latitude, do you?”he joked, but listened closely for her reply.
    “It has always struck me as very unfair.”
    “There is an easy way around the injustice for you. Ladies in your position must just be a little more careful. So long as they are married or widowed, they are allowed a fair amount of freedom. It is flaunting their affairs in the face of the world that finishes them.”
    “I was not talking about myself in particular. I merely think that if gentlemen can misbehave without censure, ladies ought to have the same privilege.”
    He turned a clever eye on her. “That would be your solution? Some people think gentlemen ought to be forced to behave more properly.”
    “No one has taught a dog to fly yet, so far as I know.”She shrugged.
    “You are remarkably lenient, ma’am. You remove the burden of guilt from us. We are doing only as Nature ordained; birds fly, fish swim, and man—alas!—”
    Francesca spoke up rapidly to prevent his finishing that questionable speech, “I was not speaking of all gentlemen, Lord Devane, but only of rakes—of which I am sure you are not one,”she added, blushing, for the conversation was taking a turn she had not anticipated and did not like.
    “And men admire beautiful women is what I was going to say,”he finished, mockingly demure.
    Francesca looked around for a new subject and made do with the weather. “What a lovely day it is.”A coven of witch-black birds hovered in the blue sky over a spreading elm, and disappeared into its leafy branches. As they proceeded beyond London, the traffic lessened and greenery stretched on both sides, smiling in the sunlight. Farms and cottages dotted the roadside. Men and horses worked peacefully in the fields. “It reminds me of White Oaks, my home in Surrey,”she mentioned. “Where is your home, Lord Devane?”
    “In Kent,”he answered briefly.
    “I think Mr. Irwin mentioned you have another estate as well?”
    “Yes, also a hunting box in the Cotswold Hills and a mansion in London. There, it is all on the line,”he said, studying her closely.
    Lord Devane was aware that there were two