An hour later, when Francesca entered, Brigham was calmer and seated behind his massive mahogany desk. Behind him, equally massive mahogany shelves bulged with rows of books, some stacked two and three on top of one another. Unlike his wife, the viscount was taking the news of his daughter’s attack and imminent marriage quite well.
“Stop pawing the girl, Madam,” the viscount told Lady Brigham, who was now alternately embracing her child and examining her for signs of injury. Brigham put down the pipe he’d been puffing and rose from his dark brown leather chair. “How are you, Franny?”
Francesca gave her father a grateful look. She’d yet to glance in Ethan’s direction, though he was leaning on her father’s desk just a few feet away.
“I’m fine, Daddy,” Francesca managed before she was engulfed in another of her mother’s fierce embraces. “Just fine,Mamma,” she squeezed out.
Then, over her mother’s shoulder, Francesca’s gaze finally dared Ethan’s. She darted her glance quickly away, but not before Ethan saw the questions in her eyes. How much did her parents know? What had he told them? And the last: what, besides desire, did he feel for her this morning?
Ethan knew the answers to the first two, but the third still eluded him.
“Oh,mia cuore povera!” Lady Brigham finally released her daughter, falling into the leather armchair between the desk and the fireplace. She adjusted the hem of her yellow muslin dress so that it pooled about her elegantly. “My poor heart nearly burst when yourfindanzatotold us what happened.”
Francesca flicked her gaze back to him, and Ethan saw the panic in her chocolate eyes.
“He told you what happened?” she repeated carefully.
Lady Brigham put a hand to her forehead. “I need my smelling salts. I am not well.”
Brigham came around the desk. “Calm yourself, Madam. Look at your daughter.” He gestured to Francesca, now standing abandoned in the center of the room. “She is perfectly well.”
And from all appearances, she was. But Ethan knew otherwise. He’d seen the bruises marring her pale skin himself, caressed each the night before with a silent but brutal reproach for not protecting her better.
Lady Brigham turned to him. “It seems that once again we owe you our gratitude, Lord Winterbourne.” She fluttered her lashes.
“Yes.” Brigham drew the word out, turning his hostile stare on Ethan. Ethan stared back, unblinking until the viscount slid his gaze to his daughter. Francesca paled visibly and gripped the material of her pearl gray gown.
Studying her, Ethan doubted her choice of attire this morning had been as random as his. The gown, with its high neck and long sleeves, concealed the bruises on her neck and arms. In fact, the only mark that could not be masked was a small scrape on her cheek, and even that would heal in a day or so.
The scrape did nothing to mar her beauty. When he’d left her sleeping a scant two hours before, he’d marveled that even after all she’d been through the night before, she could sleep so peacefully, the innocence of her expression enchanting him even more than she had when he’d held her in his arms.
But watching her now, shifting under the weight of her father’s stare and the heavy silence in the room, Ethan could see she was far from well. Her face was pale and her eyes puffy with faint purple smudges underneath. She was obviously exhausted and should have been in bed. He had half a mind to order her to rest, would have done so if this meeting with her parents could have been put off.
Brigham was still staring at his daughter. “I, for one, cannot begin to thank his lordship.” His tone was far from grateful.
Francesca blushed. “Y-yes.” She glanced at Ethan. “He—if he had not been there—”
“There is no need to recall any of it,mia cuore,” Lady Brigham interrupted. “Yourfindanzatohas told us all.”
“All?” Francesca choked. She reached out to grasp something, ostensibly for support, but managed only to snatch at the tense air in the room. Her face paled, and she settled for gripping the material of her gown between her fingers.
Ethan pushed away from the desk and went to her, took her elbow, and seated her in a small chair near her mother and across from her father’s desk.
“I told your parents about the attack.” His touch stopped the hand wringing momentarily. “That your assailant escaped and he is most likely someone you know.”
Her fingers gripped the chair’s arm. Her gaze bore into him as if to determine what else he might have said. He returned her silent inquiry with a steady look, allowing her to read into it what she would.
“Do you have any idea who this man is, Franny?” her father asked. He was back behind his desk, all business.
Francesca tore her gaze from Ethan’s to answer. “No, Daddy. He wore a hood.”
“Mamma mia!” Lady Brigham flung out an arm and barely missed clipping Ethan with her grand gesture.
“Winterbourne said you told him there was something familiar about the man’s voice.” Brigham clamped his lips around his pipe. “He called youCesca?”
Beside Ethan, Francesca stiffened.
Brigham grunted. “How could someone you know—weknow—do such a thing?”
