Page 29 of Madcap with a Marquess
And she so desperately needed a friend right now. “We actually have already had a spat.” She looked up, her smile brittle. “Three days into my marriage, and we are already quarreling. He has been avoiding me. I suppose that is not the best of signs.”
Genny worried her lower lip. “Does he—is it a marriage in name only, then? I know that is commonly done in your rank. A marriage of convenience.”
Franny shrugged and fiddled with her pruning shears. “I am honestly not sure. We are an arranged marriage. Neither of us had a choice in the matter. But I would like it to be more than a facade.” Her thoughts shot back to last night, catching Rupert with his hand wrapped around himself—saying her name. Heat bloomed in her face. “I think he might want that, too. I’m just not sure how to get him to stop avoiding me.”
Genny’s gaze flicked down to Franny’s burning cheeks. When their gazes clashed again, devilry reflected back at Franny.
“Perhaps,” Genny said, leaning forward, her eyebrows lifting meaningfully. “You shouldseducehim.”
Even amidst the gloom her thoughts had created, Franny couldn’t prevent her laugh from bursting free. “Genny, I fear for Mr. and Mrs. Doherty. No wonder Billy keeps such a close eye on you.”
Genny lifted her shoulder, matching Franny’s smile. And as they turned back to filling their baskets with herbs, Franny’s mind drifted back to the night at the inn. Rupert’s gaze on her while she wore her sheer night rail.Hungry. Perhaps there was something to Genny’s advice. And Franny knew exactly how to get Rupert’s attention.
All she had to do was misbehave.
15
Rupert
Rupertstaredblindlyatthe speech he’d written almost nothing of. He groaned and barely prevented himself from banging his head against the desktop.
A blur of sage skirts flashed by his open study door. He stilled. She wouldn’t. He shook his head, pressing his lips together until they stung. There was no way she was going to do it. He had expressly forbidden her.
The memory of their breakfast that morning came careening back.
“Would you stroll around the pond with me this afternoon, Rupert?”
He glanced down at his speech.
His polite decline. Her set jaw.
“Perhaps I’ll go by myself then. I have been longing to go for a swim anyhow.”
“You cannot go swimming,” he’d said in alarm. “A marchioness does not swim in a pond like a plebeian.”
Her shoving back from the table.
“Perhaps this one does.”
Her storming from the room.
Him calling after her.
“Franny, I forbid it!”
He dropped his head in his hands, pulling at his curls. Why hadn’t he agreed to take a walk around the bloody pond with her? Because ever since the wedding ceremony, something had felt off… He couldn’t focus. He was usually calm, collected, and in command of himself. He had objectives, aspirations, and plans of execution. But everything that had once felt so certain now wavered, the foundation of his world unsteady. It seemed his world always unraveled when Franny was around.
What he needed to do was reset himself, ground himself in the principles he was raised to abide by. A true gentleman lived by the rules he set for himself, the rules governed by society. He did not succumb to foolish indulgence. He was not impetuous. He did notswim in a pond. Rupert let the strictures of his childhood settle over him.
But there was that feeling again. Like his cravat was over-starched. He chewed on the inside of his cheek. Which didn’t make a lick of sense. His cravats werealwaysperfectly starched.
He groaned. Why couldn’t she behave for once? Then maybe he’d have a chance to get past whatever this setback was. Maybe then he’d be able to write this blasted speech. He pressed his fingers into his scalp. He really needed to stop swearing so much. Even in his mind, he was hardly conducting himself as a marquess ought.
A knock disturbed the silence of the room. Sanderson, his butler, cleared his throat, his eyes skittering around the room, looking everywhere but at Rupert.
“Sanderson, do you have a message?”
“It has come to my attention, my lord, that Her Ladyship is at the pond…”
