She gave a small laugh without amusement. “I am always trapped in some story or other. Society is generous that way. It writes women into whatever role it most enjoys punishing.”
The words settled heavily in him. He thought of the drawing room at Sinclair House and Lady Ashford’s questions. He thought of the breakfast table, of her insistence that appearances mattered because she was the one forced to answer for them. He had understood it then, but not fully. Perhaps he still did not.
“You should not have to face it alone,” he admitted.
Frances turned to him. For once, she had no quick reply.
Andrew stepped closer without deciding to. It simply happened, as though the words had pulled him toward her and the storm had made the rest of the world irrelevant. He saw her fingers tighten slightly in the lapels of his coat. She did not move away.
“I know I have made it difficult,” he murmured.
Her eyes searched his. “You have.”
The honesty should have stung. It did, but less than it ought. He preferred it from her. Frances did not soothe merely to be kind, and therefore her gentleness, when it came, mattered all the more.
“I am trying,” he told her.
“I know.”
That was all. Two words, softly spoken, and they did more to unmake him than accusation.
Andrew looked down at her. She was very close now, close enough that he could see rain caught in her lashes, the faint color in her cheeks and the softness of her mouth when she was not preparing to use it against him.
He remembered the nursery. He remembered breakfast. He remembered wanting to kiss her and turning away.
This time, he did not turn.
His hand lifted slowly, giving her time to refuse, to step back, to summon some cutting remark that would return them both to safety. She did none of those things. When his fingers touched the damp strand of hair near her cheek, her eyes lowered for the smallest moment.
Andrew brushed it back. His knuckles grazed her skin. Frances inhaled. The sound nearly finished him.
He leaned closer, but not as a man taking what had not been offered. He did it slowly, almost carefully, as though the space between them were something sacred and fragile. Frances tipped her face up by the slightest degree.
Their lips met… barely. It was a brush, no more than warmth and breath and the rain loud around them. It was so slight thathe might have called it an accident if every part of him had not gone still with wanting.
Frances did not pull away. For one impossible second, her lips softened beneath his, and Andrew felt the world narrow to that single, trembling contact. Tenderness moved through him with startling force. It wasn’t hunger alone, though that was there, too, waiting beneath the surface. This was gentler, and therefore more dangerous, a question asked without words and an answer almost given.
Then, the door burst open and laughter spilled in with the rain.
“Good Lord, this weather!” a gentleman exclaimed.
Frances stepped back at once. Andrew straightened so sharply he nearly struck his shoulder against a beam. Lord Everley and Miss Harcourt stumbled inside, soaked through and laughing, their faces flushed with the thrill of weather and impropriety narrowly avoided. They were too absorbed in shaking rain from their gloves to notice the charged silence they had interrupted, or perhaps they noticed and possessed enough self-preservation to pretend otherwise.
“Sinclair!” Everley cried. “You found the lodge too, then.”
“So it seems,” Andrew replied.
Frances had moved to the side window, one hand still clutching his coat closed at her throat. Her face was turned away, butAndrew could see the color rising along her cheek. She did not look at him.
He did not blame her. He scarcely trusted himself to look at her either.
Miss Harcourt laughed and wrung rain from one ribbon. “What an adventure. Lady Pembroke will be in fits.”
“I imagine so,” Frances agreed.
They waited there until the storm softened from downpour to steady rain. More riders passed along the path, calling to one another, and Pembroke himself appeared with assurances that the house was not far.
Andrew retrieved the horses. When Frances emerged from the lodge, she held his coat out to him.
