“You are not to ask questions regarding the child,” he ordered.
“And if questions arise naturally?”
He frowned. “They are to remain unasked.”
“How tyrannical.”
“Hownecessary.”
She almost smiled. “To whom?”
“Toher.”
That silenced Frances. She looked back at the cradle. The child slept without knowledge of secrecy, scandal, or the cold bargains adults made above her head. Her tiny face was turned toward the fire, and her lips faintly parted. She looked utterly helpless, utterly trusting. It was almost unbearable to think how many lies had already gathered around so small a life.
“You believe silence protects her,” Frances whispered.
“I know it does.”
“No,” she replied softly. “Youhopeit does.”
Andrew’s jaw tightened. The reaction told her she had struck too close to something. Frances did not know what, but she felt it there, behind his refusal, behind the hard wall of command.
“I did not bring you here to investigate,” he reminded her.
“No,” she answered. “You brought me here to be your wife in public and your inconvenience in private.”
“That is not what I said.”
“It is what you meant.”
“It is what you decided I meant.”
“Then correct me.”
He did not. Frances held his gaze, and some of her anger softened into something more complicated. He was not a simple man, whatever society thought of his smiles. There were locked doors in him, entire corridors of them. She had known guarded people before, being one herself, but Andrew’s reserve was not merely pride. It was protection, a barricade built long ago and maintained at great expense.
Still, a barricade could imprison as easily as defend.
His expression eased by the smallest degree. “We have been married for less than a day. Some errors must be allowed.”
“How alarming that you admit to any.”
“Do not grow accustomed to it.”
“Too late. I shall record the occasion.”
“In one of your novels?”
Frances stilled. The question was quiet, almost casual, but it touched a part of her she had not meant to expose. Her writing was not shameful. She told herself that often. It was work, escape, defiance, pleasure, and freedom all tangled together. Yet in the wrong mouth, the wordnovelscould become condescension, a reminder that women’s thoughts were harmless so long as they remained bound in pretty paper and hidden in drawers.
“You know I write?” she asked.
“Your sister mentioned it once.”
Frances studied him. He did not look amused. That, at least, was in his favor.
“Then you understand that I require time for it.”
