Chapter Ten
Andrew had intended to leave her there.
It was not cowardice, precisely. A man could hardly be called a coward merely for withdrawing from a scene in which his presence was no longer necessary. Mrs. Carter understood the house. Frances would need the linen closets explained, the morning-room keys surrendered, the names of servants repeated, the ordinary machinery of domestic command placed into her hands with all proper ceremony.
None of that required him. Indeed, he had decided it was kinder that it should not.
A new duchess did not require a husband standing at her elbow like a jailer. She did not require him watching while she learned where bells were rung and which maid attended which chamber. She certainly did not require him observing the exact moment when the grandeur of his house ceased being picturesque and became obligation.
So he inclined his head to Mrs. Carter. “I shall leave Her Grace in your capable hands.”
Frances turned slightly. She seemed to want to say something, but the sound of a baby crying prevented her from doing so. It came thinly through the great hall, sharpened by distance and stone. It pierced the ordered quiet with a small, desperate insistence.
Andrew stopped. Every servant in the line seemed to breathe differently at once. Mrs. Carter’s hands stilled before her. Carter, who had been standing near the rear of the hall, lowered his gaze. The footmen looked ahead with particular determination, as though the gilt molding opposite had become a matter of urgent study.
The cry came again. It was not loud. And that somehow made it worse.
Beside him, Frances had gone very still. He looked at her before he meant to. Her gaze had lifted toward the staircase. Her lips parted, then closed. The color had not left her face, but her whole body seemed to tighten, as though instinct had seized her before thought could interfere.
Mrs. Carter spoke softly. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace. Nurse must have–”
A rustle sounded from the passage above. Then hurried footsteps descended the staircase, light but uneven, and awoman appeared upon the landing with an infant bundled in her arms.
“Nurse Ellis,” Mrs. Carter murmured.
The nurse came down with evident distress upon her face, though she held the baby with all the competence of long habit. She was a neat woman of perhaps forty, with a round, kind face and tired eyes. The cap beneath her bonnet had slipped slightly askew, and one ribbon trailed loose against her shoulder.
“Forgive me, Your Grace,” she said, pausing several steps above the hall. “I did not know you had arrived. She woke fretful from her sleep and would not settle.”
She.
The word made itself a weight in the air. Andrew had not meant Frances to meet the child like this. In truth, he had not meant to think of how Frances would meet the child at all. He had arranged rooms, servants, explanations sufficient for a household and insufficient for a wife. He had told himself that matters would be addressed in proper order.
But babies, he had learned long ago, possessed no respect for proper order.
The infant wailed again, her tiny face red and crumpled above the folds of linen. Nurse Ellis swayed gently, patting her back with soothing murmurs.
“Hush now, little lamb. There, there,” the nurse whispered tenderly.
Andrew’s fingers closed once at his side. “Is she ill?”
The question came too sharply.
Nurse Ellis looked at once apologetic. “No, Your Grace. Only cross, I think. She has fed well enough.”
“Has she slept?”
“Some.”
“Some?”
Frances turned her eyes toward him, and he knew at once she had heard more than the question. She had heard the edge beneath it. He made himself still. The baby continued crying. A thin, furious, wounded sound, as though life itself had offended her and she meant to lodge a formal complaint with heaven.
Then Frances stepped forward. “May I hold her?”
No one moved. Andrew looked at her. He could not have been more surprised had she asked for his ledgers or his pistol. There was no simpering eagerness in her face, no elaborate softness of the sort ladies sometimes adopted around infantswhen gentlemen were present. She looked uncertain, yes, but not unwilling.
Nurse Ellis hesitated, then glanced toward Andrew. It was sensible that she should. Everything concerning the child had passed through him. Every instruction, every precaution, every careful silence. He had made himself the sole gate between that small life and the world.
