“In this house, there is occasionally little distinction.”
“How convenient for you,” she scoffed.
“Frances.”
“There it is again,” she said. “My name used as punctuation. I begin to see the pattern.”
The corner of his mouth shifted as though he very nearly smiled. It did not last, but she saw it, and the sight annoyed her because it pleased her.
“You are determined to make this difficult,” he said.
“I am determined not to be arranged upon a shelf beside the porcelain.”
“No one intends to put you on a shelf.”
“I am pleased to hear it. I dislike dust.”
His eyes held hers for a moment, and Frances wondered, inconveniently, whether anyone ever spoke to him like this. Perhaps not. Perhaps dukes passed through life surrounded by nods, bows, and nervous agreement until contradiction became a novelty.
If so, she would have to be very careful. Novelty could so easily be mistaken for charm.
“You must understand,” Andrew told her more quietly now. “There are circumstances surrounding the child which cannot be discussed.”
“With me?”
“With anyone.”
“I am not anyone.”
The words left her before pride could prevent them. A silence followed. Frances felt the foolishness of having said it, not because it was untrue. She was not anyone. She was his wife, however inconveniently acquired. She had stood at an altar beside him. She had entered his house. She had taken his name. She was expected to smile before society, absorb its speculation, and become part of whatever story he had chosen to tell.
But the moment the words were spoken, she heard something else in them: a claim, a small, unwelcome claim.
Andrew looked at her with an expression she could not read. The firelight made his face all angles and restraint, but there was something beneath it. Something not unlike pain.
“No,” he admitted. “You are my wife.”
Her breath caught. It ought not to have mattered. Wife was only a word now, an arrangement made necessary by scandal, family pressure, and society’s appetite for disgrace. Yet from his mouth, in that quiet nursery, with the baby asleep beside them, it did not sound like ink upon paper.
It sounded like somethingalive.
Andrew continued before she could decide what to do with the feeling. “And as my wife, you will be treated with respect. You will have every protection my name, fortune, and position can provide. No one in this house will slight you. No one in society will do so without answering to me.”
Frances believed him.Thatwas the difficulty.
She believed him so immediately that it unsettled her. There was nothing ornamental in his promise. There was no gallantry designed to charm, no pretty flourish meant to flatter. He spoke as though her protection had already been entered into the ledgers of his conscience and would be honored whatever the cost.
“But?” she asked.
His face closed.
“But this marriage is for appearances. Nothing more.”
There it was. The words should not have hurt. Frances had entered this marriage with clear eyes. No one had promised love. No one had even hinted at tenderness. She had not married Andrew Hill because of affection, and he had certainly not married her because his heart had overpowered his judgment. Their union had been arranged beneath the hard light of scandal, propriety, and necessity.
Still, the words found a tender place. Perhaps because she had held the child. Perhaps because he had looked at her while she did so as if, for one moment, she had altered the whole shape of the room.
Frances drew herself straighter. “I understand.”
