She stared at him. “What?”
“The child is not mine.”
The words came quickly, as though he had held them too long and now feared that, if he paused, she might stop him before he could say everything.
“She is Mary’s child, yes, but not mine. Mary Collins came to the cottage already frightened, already in danger, though I did not know how deep that danger went until too late. She was with child by a married viscount. She would not name him. She was terrified. She said if anyone knew the baby was hers, the child would not be safe. Before she died, she made me promise to protect her. To protect the child. To say nothing. To let no one know.”
“Andrew–”
“It was Ravenshaw,” he continued, the words stumbling now, one over another. “I found a letter in Mary’s belongings bearing his seal and his hand, addressed to her. He threatened her. He told her that if she spoke his name, the child would not live long enough to trouble anyone. He meant it, Frances. She had reason to be afraid.”
Frances’s hand went to the edge of the desk, gripping it for steadiness. The room seemed to tilt.
“Ravenshaw?” she whispered.
“Yes. And Lady Ravenshaw knew enough to fear discovery. She was the one who began the false rumor against me. She was the one who gave you that letter and arranged it so that you would think the worst. I confronted them. They confessed. The child is his. The scandal was theirs. All of it.”
Frances could not speak. She could only look at him, at the baby in his arms, at the exhaustion and anguish written across a face she had once believed too controlled to break.
Andrew took another step into the room.
“I should have told you more,” he confessed, and his voice changed then. It was no longer hurried, but raw. “But I couldn’t tell you Mary’s secrets before I had proof, nor another man’s name before I knew with certainty. But I should have trusted you. I should have told you why I was silent. I should have told you that I was afraid of doing harm. I should have told you that keeping you in the dark was wrong.”
Her throat tightened. He looked down briefly at the child, then back at Frances.
“I have been wrong in so many ways. I thought responsibility meant bearing everything alone. I thought silence was honorable if it protected someone. I thought distance was safer than wanting what I had no right to ask for.” His mouth tightened, as though the confession cost him more than anger ever had. “And I was wrong about all of it.”
Frances’s eyes burned. She had imagined this moment differently. She had imagined demanding answers, holding herself coldly above whatever explanation he offered, deciding from a place of perfect reason whether he deserved forgiveness. But there was nothing reasonable in the sight of him standing before her with the child held carefully against his chest, telling her the truth as though each word had been torn out of him on the road.
“I love you,” he confessed in words that lacked flourish, pride and defense.
Frances’s breath caught. Andrew’s face altered as if he had felt the blow of his own confession. Yet he did not take it back. He did not soften it into something less dangerous.
“I love you, Frances,” he repeated. “In ways I did not understand at first, and in ways I tried not to understand after I did. I love your courage, your stubbornness, your wit, even when it is aimed at me, which it so often deserves to be. I love that you see through falsehood and still have mercy. I love how you hold her.”
His gaze moved to the baby. Frances’s vision blurred.
“I love you,” he said again, “and I know that does not undo what I have done. If you cannot trust me now, I will not blame you. If you wish to end the marriage, I will see it done as quietly as law and society allow. If you would rather remain married and live apart, I will arrange that, too, without scandal touching you. I will not punish you for refusing a life I gave you too little reason to choose.”
She shook her head faintly, not in refusal, but because there were too many words within her and none would rise. Andrew came toward her then. The baby stirred in his arms, making a small, protesting sound. Frances moved instinctively, before thought had any part in it.
Gently, he placed the child in her arms. The weight of the baby settled against Frances as though no time had passed at all. A warm cheek pressed into the hollow beneath her collarbone. Small fingers flexed once against her gown.
Frances closed her eyes. There was no defending oneself against that.
“She is safe now,” Andrew whispered.
Frances opened her eyes again. He was standing close, but not touching her. He had given her the child and stepped back enough that the choice of any nearer contact would have to be hers.
“I will raise her,” he promised. “Even if I must do it alone. I promised Mary, and I won’t fail her. But I don’t want to do it alone. I want…” His voice faltered for the first time. “I want a life with you, Frances. Withher. I want breakfast quarrels and nursery arguments and your books left on every table in the house. I want you telling me when I am wrong, which I expect will be often. I want to come home and find you writing by the fire. I want all the ordinary things I once thought would destroy me if I allowed myself to need them.”
The baby sighed softly against Frances’s shoulder. Andrew looked at them both, and the tenderness in his face nearly broke her.
“But I will not keep you in a life you do not choose for yourself,” he promised. “I would never do that to you.”
Frances stared at him. Her heart was beating so hard that she could feel it beneath the sleeping child.
“You once told me,” he continued, with a faint, broken attempt at a smile, “that stories ought not end merely where gentlemen find it convenient. So I suppose…” He drew a breath. “I suppose it is yours to decide how the novel of our life ends.”
