Andrew extinguished one lamp. The room dimmed. He arranged himself on the sofa with considerable effort and no complaint, though his knees did not quite fit and one shoulder looked destined for misery by morning. Frances lay still, facing the room rather than the wall.
“Goodnight, Your Grace,” he said.
The title, in the darkness, felt more like restraint.
“Goodnight, Your Grace.”
Silence followed. Frances closed her eyes, then opened them. Across the room, Andrew was still. She could see the outline of him in the firelight, one arm bent beneath his head and his face turned toward the ceiling.
He looked calm. He was not. She knew that now. And she, beneath the cool sheets of a bed she would not share with him, looked calm as well.
She was not either.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Keep your reins loose through that turn,” Andrew instructed as they rode with the other guests the following morning.
Frances glanced across at him. “Is that instruction or criticism?”
“Advice.”
“How convenient,” she replied playfully. “Advice always sounds better when one is not the person receiving it.”
Andrew’s mouth curved faintly. “You ride well.”
“I know.”
“Then consider it unnecessary advice.”
“That is my favorite sort. Very easy to ignore.”
He almost laughed.
The morning had begun too brightly for the mood of the house party. Guests had gathered on the gravel sweep after breakfast in high spirits, praising the weather, the horses and one another’s habits with the sort of enthusiasm that made Andrew distrust the lot of them. Lord Pembroke had insisted the ride through the eastern woodland was one of the estate’s finest pleasures. Lady Pembroke had declared it perfectly safe, which immediately led Andrew to suspect otherwise.
Frances had appeared in a dark green riding habit that did nothing for his peace of mind. It fit her too well.
That was his first thought, and because it was both useless and dangerous, he had attempted to dismiss it. The habit was modest, expertly tailored, and entirely appropriate. None of that altered the way it emphasized the long line of her figure, the proud carriage of her shoulders, or the elegant lift of her chin when she mounted without fuss and accepted compliments as if she had been born bored by admiration.
She looked like a duchess. No,worse. She looked like herself, and Andrew had spent the first quarter hour of the ride noticing far too much.
He did not remain constantly at her side. That would have invited notice, and notice was something they had in excess already.
Instead, he kept near enough to observe without appearing to guard her. Sometimes he rode just ahead, speaking with Pembroke or another gentleman. Sometimes he dropped behind, watching the hem of her habit move against the flank of her mare or the quick tilt of her head when she answered some remark from Lady Morton with a dry politeness Andrew recognized as warning.
She managed society well. She smiled when required, answered when addressed, and made herself neither meek nor conspicuous. But Andrew could see the strain beneath it.
The sky changed before anyone noticed. A gray bank of cloud rolled in from the west, swallowing the clean morning light with surprising speed. The air cooled. Leaves along the path turned their pale undersides to the wind.
Pembroke looked upward and laughed. “A passing shower, I expect.”
Andrew looked at the sky and did not share his optimism. The first drops came fat and cold. Within minutes, the rain was no longer a shower but a sudden, sweeping downpour. Horses tossed their heads. Ladies cried out. Someone laughed with genuine delight. Someone else cursed, less elegantly. The neat formation of riders broke apart as people urged their mounts toward whatever shelter they imagined nearest.
Andrew’s gaze found Frances at once. She was ahead of him and to the right, separated by two riders and a bend in the path. Her mare sidestepped at the first sharp roll of thunder, but Francessteadied her quickly, leaning low and speaking to the animal with more calm than many of the riders possessed.
Andrew reached her in seconds. “Frances.”
She looked up, with rain already darkening the brim of her hat. He glanced past her through the sheets of rain. The main party had split, some turning back toward the house, others following Pembroke down the wider track. The woodland ahead offered little shelter, but Andrew knew the shape of old estates well enough to recognize the low roof just visible between the trees.
