“The implication.”
“The implication?” She gave a small, incredulous laugh. “Andrew, that letter claims the child is yours.”
“No,” he retorted, his voice sharpening. “Itencouragesyou to believe the child is mine. That is not the same thing.”
“But is she?”
“No.”
The answer left him with absolute certainty. It was the one truth he could give without betraying anyone. For a moment, Frances seemed to sway on the strength of it. Her lips parted slightly. He foolishly thought that it might be enough. Then, she looked at the letter still in his hand.
“Then whose child is she?”
Silence entered the study.
Outside the windows, London moved on in dull afternoon grey. A carriage passed in the street. The fire gave a low crack in the grate. Somewhere in the house, a servant’s footfall crossed the hall and faded.
Andrew placed the letter upon the writing table with great care.
“I cannot tell you.”
Frances stared at him.
The words had been wrong. He knew it the instant they were spoken. They were necessary and honorable, but wrong for her, wrong for this moment and wrong for the woman standing before him with betrayal already gathering behind her eyes.
“You cannot,” she echoed.
“No.”
“Or youwillnot?”
He drew in a slow breath. “The truth is not mine to give.”
Her face changed then. Some light in her expression went out, and the loss of it struck him harder than tears would have done.
“Mary is dead,” she said quietly.
His jaw tightened. “That does not give me leave to speak her story.”
“She has left a child in your care, a scandal at your door, and a wife who knows nothing.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” Her voice rose at last. “Do you truly? Because you stand there and tell me only what you will not say, as though secrecy is some noble virtue and I am unreasonable for wanting the truth.”
He felt as if someone had stuck a knife to his heart and was now twisting it.
“I am not trying to wound you.”
“And yet you manage it with remarkable consistency.”
He came around the desk. “Frances–”
“No.” She stepped back, and the movement stopped him more effectively than a hand against his chest. “No more of that. No more half answers. No more solemn declarations that I must trust you while you trust me with nothing.”
“That is not fair.”
“Is it not?” Her eyes flashed, though he saw the brightness in them now and hated himself for causing it. “I entered this marriage because scandal left little room for refusal. I accepted your arrangements, your silences, your rules, your insistence that everything must be managed. I defended you when I scarcely knew what I was defending. I cared for that child while knowing there was a history beneath her cradle that no one would speak aloud. And now, when I ask for the truth, you tell me it is not mine to have.”
