Her father moved closer, while his expression darkened with both outrage and alarm. “This is not merely about your whims.”
“My whims?” she echoed.
“Yes, your whims.” His voice grew firmer. “Your opinions, your defiance, your determination to set yourself against every sensible expectation. Marriage is not a bauble one takes up or lays aside according to mood. It is a necessity of family, position and order.”
Frances crossed her arms. “Convenient, that order should always require the sacrifice of the daughter rather than the father.”
“Frances!” her mother said sharply.
But her father had already pressed on. “You may talk as you please in this house, but the world does not indulge such speeches. A woman who makes herself conspicuous in scandal does not merely injure herself.”
He gestured toward the door, toward the rest of the house, toward everything beyond it.
“She injures her family.”
The words struck more cleanly than the others because they were aimed where she was weakest.
Frances said nothing, and her mother seized the silence at once.
“That is exactly it. You speak as though this affects only you, but what of Sophia? What of your sister?”
At that, Frances’ expression changed.
Sophia.
Sweet, quiet Sophia, who asked so little of the world and seemed always to receive too little from it in return. Sophia, who still blushed when addressed too suddenly and preferred novels to ballrooms, and who would suffer more from whispered judgments because she had no defense against them.
Her mother’s voice lowered into urgent grief. “Do you suppose people will separate one daughter from the other? They will not. They never do. If your name is stained, hers will be touched by it as well.”
“That is unfair,” Frances said quietly.
“Yes,” her father agreed. “Society often is.”
The answer stung because it was true.
Her mother pressed on, emboldened now. “And not only Sophia. All of us. This family. Your father’s name. Your sister’s future. Our standing. Everything becomes vulnerable the moment one member invites public disgrace.”
“I did not invite disgrace.”
“You invited notice,” her father snarled. “And for a woman, that is often enough.”
The words had scarcely left him when a knock sounded at the drawing room door. All three of them turned. For one suspended instant, no one spoke. Then the butler entered.
“My lord, the Duke of Sinclair is here for Miss Frances Norton,” he announced.
Her mother and father exchanged a look so swift and meaningful it might as well have been spoken aloud. Her mother’s spine straightened at once. Her agitation did not disappear, but it changed shape, smoothing itself into the sort of strained eagerness she always wore before distinguished company. Her father’s expression settled into something more formal, though the displeasure had not wholly left it.
“Show him in,” her father ordered.
The butler bowed and withdrew. Her mother turned almost frantically to the nearest table, adjusting nothing of consequence. A vase, already straight, was turned half an inch. A cushion was smoothed. Then she looked toward Frances, and though she said nothing, the message was plain enough:stand properly, speak carefully and do not make this worse.
Frances remained where she was, with every pulse in her body suddenly too quick.
The Duke of Sinclair entered a moment later. He crossed the threshold with all his usual ease, tall and impeccably composed, dressed with understated elegance that only made his presence more striking. He bowed first to her mother, then to her father, every inch the polished gentleman society expected him to be. And yet Frances saw it at once. His charm was there, yes, but wound taut over strain.
“Lady Keswick,” he greeted with a deep bow. “I declare this room has grown so elegant since my last visit that one hardly knows whether to admire the house or the lady who gives it its grace.”
Her mother gave a pleased little laugh, as though no storm had existed in this room a moment before. “Your Grace, you are too kind.”
