For a moment she was tempted to turn her steps homeward. She had lived through more emotional turmoil during the past twenty-four hours—less!—than she had experienced in the three years before this past Christmas, she was sure. But there was no point in stopping now.

A short while later she was being ushered into a far more opulent sitting room than the one she had just left. And Lady Lyle was not standing with an unwelcoming pose to receive her. Rather, she was reclining on a sofa, petting a small dog in her lap with one hand and looking somewhat amused.

“Well, Françoise,” she said by way of greeting, in the low, velvet voice that sounded so familiar, “you find yourself unable to ignore me after all, do you? Am I to feel honored, child? You are in reasonable good looks, though those clothes are shockingly provincial and your gown last evening was no better. And your hair! It is enough to make one weep.”

“I am a schoolteacher, ma’am,” Frances reminded her.

Lady Lyle shushed the lapdog, which had been yapping at the advent of a stranger into its territory.

“So it is said, Françoise,” Lady Lyle said. “How amusing that you have been in Bath all this time and as a teacher. What an excruciatingly boring life it must have been.”

“I enjoy teaching,” Frances said. “I like everything about it.”

Lady Lyle laughed again and made a dismissive gesture with one hand.

“George Ralston will be interested to know that you are back,” she said. “He will forgive you and restore you to favor, Françoise, though it was very naughty of you to disappear without a word. I have already written to him and interceded on your behalf.”

“I am going back to Bath,” Frances told her.

“Nonsense, child,” Lady Lyle said. “Oh, do sit down. It gives me a stiff neck to have to look up at you. You have no intention whatsoever of leaving. You have been doing some careful scheming and have won the favor of the Earl of Edgecombe and Viscount Sinclair, who were in Bath recently, I understand. And you have secured the interest of Lord Heath through their sponsorship. I give you full credit. It has taken you a few years but you have done it. And I must say that your voice has actually improved. That was an impressive performance last night. But your schemes will get you no farther, you know. Even apart from the fact that you are not free to accept the patronage of Baron Heath, there is the fact that you are about to lose your influential friends, Françoise. One word in the ear of a certain young lady who is about to be affianced to Sinclair and in those of her mama and papa, and your only recourse is to look elsewhere for the furtherance of your career. Oh, and by the way, child, that word was dropped into those ears last evening. Nothing too, too damning, I assure you, but it does not need to be with that young lady. She is very proper, and she has very firm control over poor Sinclair.”

Even just yesterday Frances might have cringed. But something had snapped in her this morning, and she felt as if she were alive again after a long, deathlike sleep. She had thought herself free in the new life she had built for herself, but she had not been free at all. Her past needed to be dealt with before she could call herself free.

She had not sat down.

“I am not in your debt, Lady Lyle,” she said, “though I have a feeling that you are about to claim that I am so that you can have the old hold over me. I never was in debt to you except perhaps for my board while I lived here—at your insistence after Papa died. But I paid that debt many times over. I am not bound to George Ralston either, though I am sure he would soon be assuring me that I am his slave for life if I were to stay in London long enough to hear him.”

“Slave!” Lady Lyle looked amused again. “Poor George! And after all he did for you, Françoise. You were well on your way to being famous.”

“I believe notorious would be a more appropriate word,” Frances said. “You may say whatever you wish to Miss Hunt or to Lord Sinclair and even to Lord Heath. It does not matter to me. I am going back to Bath—by choice. It is where my home is and my profession and my friends.”

“Oh, poor Françoise,” Lady Lyle said, pushing the dog to the floor and moving into an upright sitting position before patting the sofa cushion beside her. “Have you not punished yourself enough? Come and sit here and let us be done with this foolish wrangling with each other. We were always fond of each other, were we not? And I adored your papa. You still desperately want your career in singing. There is no point in denying it. It was perfectly evident last evening. Well, you can have it back, you silly child. You never needed to throw it away and then scheme to get it back by your own efforts. We will have a word with Ralston and—”

“I am leaving now,” Frances said. “I have other things to do this morning.”

“Ah,” Lady Lyle said, “you sound just like your papa. He was stubborn too and so very proud. But handsome and charming and quite, quite irresistible.”

Frances turned to leave.

“Ralston will not be pleased, Françoise,” Lady Lyle said. “Neither am I. And I do know where to find you now. I daresay it will be no trouble at all to discover the name and direction of the school at which you teach and the identity of the head of the board of governors or the headmistress or whoever it is who employs you. Bath is not a large place, and I daresay there are not many girls’ schools there.”

For a moment Frances felt as if icy fingers had reached out to grasp her. But she was no longer the girl she had been three years ago to cringe beneath every threat.

“Miss Martin’s school is on Daniel Street,” she said curtly without turning. “Good day to you, ma’am.”

She held her poise until she was back out on the street, but then her shoulders sagged. It was all very well to have hurled defiance in the teeth of both the Countess of Fontbridge and Lady Lyle this morning, but the euphoria of doing so had given her a false sense of security. In reality her world was threatening to come crashing down about her ears. The Countess of Fontbridge now knew where she lived and worked. So did Lady Lyle. Both ladies, she knew, were very capable of spite. If either one of them chose to make life difficult for her there, she would have to leave. Not that she had kept any secrets from Claudia. But it was imperative that the teachers at a respectable girls’ school be above reproach. She would not be able to stay if any breath of scandal concerning her got to the ears of the parents of her pupils—or to those of Claudia’s unknown benefactor.

And it was all Viscount Sinclair’s fault! Without his interference she would not have come to London and all this would not have happened.

No, that was unfair.

She did think about calling at Marshall House, but to what purpose? It would be most improper to go there and ask to speak to Viscount Sinclair.

It would be better to write to him. He had been a nuisance and a bother to her for some time, but he did deserve, perhaps, to be given a full, truthful explanation for her refusal to marry him.

Besides, she was dreadfully in love with him. She needed to make him understand.

She would not write to him from here in London, though, she decided as she walked home. As like as not he would rush impulsively over to Portman Street again and try to persuade her into doing what he would know deep down was not possible.

Anyway, it had been very evident last evening that his betrothal to Miss Hunt was imminent.

She would wait until she was back in Bath and then write to him.

A last good-bye.

She smiled wanly at the thought.

That left only her great-aunts to consider.

It had not been just cynicism that had led her into making Lady Fontbridge the promise to go away without another word to Charles and to stay away forever. It had also been fear—not so much for herself as for her great-aunts. She could not bear to think of them being hurt—they had often told her that she was like a daughter to each of them, that she was the person they loved most of all in the world besides each other.

The countess might yet decide to be spiteful.

Her great-aunts were both up, she discovered when she arrived home. They were sitting out in the little summer house in the back garden, enjoying the fine weather.

Frances made a decision as she went to join them there.

A little less than three hours later she was on her way back to Bath. It was already afternoon. It would certainly have been wiser to wait until morning, as her aunts had tried to convince her, but once the decision had been made she had been almost desperate to be back in Bath, back to the sane, busy routine of school life, back with her friends.

It was almost certain that she would have to stop somewhere on the road for the night, but she was not penniless. She could afford one night at an inn.

It was not just a desperation to be in Bath that drove her to such an abrupt departure, though. It was also a desperation to leave London, to leave him before he could come with more excuses to speak with her—and she very much feared that he would come despite his protestations to the contrary last evening.

She could not bear to see him again.

She wanted her heart to have a chance to begin mending.

Her great-aunts had been disappointed, of course. What about Baron Heath? they asked her. What about her singing career? What about Lord Sinclair? He was surely in love with their dear Frances. They had both come to that conclusion last evening.

But finally they had accepted her decision and assured her they felt well blessed that she had come all the way to London just to see them and had stayed for almost a whole week.