And now Frances stood before him with her hands half lifted and her gaze very steady, asking permission to enter.
Andrew nodded once.
Nurse Ellis descended the remaining steps and approached. “She is not always so fierce, Your Grace,” she told Frances, with the faint apologetic pride of a nurse whose charge had chosen the worst possible moment for display. “Though she does have a will.”
“I am told that is not always a defect,” Frances replied.
Andrew’s mouth almost moved. The nurse smiled, then carefully placed the infant into Frances’s arms. For a moment, the crying worsened.
Andrew felt his whole body prepare to intervene. He did not know what he meant to do. Take the child back? Summon the physician? Order quiet by ducal decree, as if infants were tenants behind on rent?
Frances did not flinch. She adjusted her hold slowly, awkward for only a second before instinct, or observation, or some mysterious feminine knowledge corrected her. One hand supported the baby’s head, the other gathered the blanket more securely. The infant rooted angrily against her bodice, with its mouth open in another indignant cry.
“There now,” Frances murmured.
Her voice had changed. Andrew had heard it in argument, cool and bright as a blade. He had heard it in church, composed into solemn obedience. He had heard it in the carriage, careful and restrained, each sentence placed between them like a book set neatly upon a shelf.
He had not heard it like this.
“There now, you need not tell us everything at once. We are attentive, I assure you.”
The baby hiccuped upon a cry. Frances looked down at her with such serious consideration that Andrew found himself unable to look away.
“Yes,” she continued softly, “I quite understand. It is a very large house, and everyone has been staring. I should protest also, had I lungs half so impressive.”
Nurse Ellis gave a quiet, startled laugh and pressed her fingers to her mouth. The baby cried again, though less forcefully.
Then, Frances began to move. It was only a slight sway, a careful rhythm from one foot to the other. Her travelling gown whispered faintly against the polished floor. The scent of cold air still clung to her cloak, mingled with lavender and something like ink, faint but unmistakable, as if even her gloves had been near books.
Andrew stood transfixed. The child’s cries thinned. One small hand emerged from the linen, red and clenched, then opened blindly against Frances’ sleeve.
Frances glanced up. For a moment, her eyes met his. He should have looked away.
He did not.
She held the child as though the act required courage, and perhaps it did. Perhaps tenderness always did. The baby gave one last exhausted protest, then pressed her cheek against Frances’ bodice and quieted.
The hall seemed to alter around the silence. Andrew had grown accustomed to quiet. He preferred it. He had built his life from it. But this quiet was not the old hollow thing that came after crying stopped. This was warm, breathing quiet. This was a little body growing heavy with sleep in his wife’s arms.
His wife.
The thought arrived with unwelcome force.
Frances looked down. “Oh,” she whispered, and the single syllable held so much surprise that something in his chest tightened. “She is asleep.”
Nurse Ellis beamed with relief. “Indeed, she is, Your Grace.”
Mrs. Carter’s expression had softened almost beyond recognition. Andrew, feeling the scrutiny of every servant in the hall and hating that he had given them any expression worth observing, drew himself back into composure.
“She should be returned to the nursery,” he said to no one in particular.
Frances looked at him. The softness did not vanish, but it retreated a little behind her usual intelligence. “Should I put her into her crib?”
Despite the simplicity of the question, it struck him like a hand laid gently upon a wound.
“Yes,” he nodded. “I will show you the way.”
Mrs. Carter took half a step forward. “Your Grace, I can–”
