The Duke of Sinclair did not intend to want her… and that, unfortunately, did nothing at all to prevent her from wantinghim.
Chapter Thirteen
The following days passed with an order that did not belong to Frances.
Sinclair House ran beautifully.Thatwas the trouble.
It moved with the silent confidence of a place that had never required her in order to function. Fires were lit before she entered rooms. Curtains were drawn before she thought to ask. Letters appeared upon silver trays, menus were presented in neat hands, servants glided in and out with the faint rustle of black skirts and polished shoes. Even the clocks seemed to tick with ducal authority.
Frances had imagined, foolishly perhaps, that being mistress of a great house would give one some sense of command. Instead, she felt rather like an intruder who had been handed a set of keys and dared not try them in any lock.
Mrs. Carter was respectful. She addressed Frances with every proper title, deferred to her on matters of linen, menus, and flowers, and yet Frances could not escape the sense that the housekeeper knew precisely how everything ought to be done and was patiently waiting for her new duchess to discover it.
The servants bowed. The footmen obeyed. The maids curtsied and lowered their eyes.
No one was unkind. Frances felt that unkindness might have given her something to resist. Politeness merely reminded her she had arrived too suddenly and belonged too little.
Andrew did not help. She saw him at breakfast twice, at dinner once, and in the corridor several times, always briefly. He was courteous. He was attentive in all ways that could not be mistaken for intimacy. He asked after her comfort, her correspondence, Mrs. Carter’s usefulness, and whether the blue drawing room was too cold in the mornings.
He did not ask whether she was lonely. She did not ask where he went. They were exquisitely civil, and it was exhausting.
So, Frances turned her attention to the nursery.
The first morning, she came to the nursery after breakfast and found Nurse Ellis seated near the window with the child held against her shoulder.
She began to rise at once. “Your Grace.”
“Please do not disturb her,” Frances said quickly, for the baby’s face was turned against the nurse’s neck, with one tiny fist pressed beneath her chin. “I only wished to see how she does this morning.”
“She does well enough.” Nurse Ellis smiled with weary affection. “She had us awake before dawn, which I am told is a lady’s privilege if she is determined to be admired.”
Frances approached more slowly than she wished to. “Does she often wake so early?”
“At present, yes. She usually stirs sometime before six, takes a little milk, protests the indignity of being changed, and then sleeps again if she is in a charitable humor.”
“Is she often charitable?”
“Not before breakfast, Your Grace.”
Frances looked down at the baby. “Then we have something in common.”
The nurse laughed softly. It encouraged Frances more than it ought.
She drew a chair nearer, then paused. “May I sit?”
Nurse Ellis blinked, as though surprised the question had been asked. “Of course, Your Grace.”
Frances sat with her hands folded carefully in her lap. She felt oddly like a pupil again, awaiting instruction in a subject she ought, by some feminine instinct, to understand without being taught.
“What is her usual routine?” she asked.
Nurse Ellis shifted the baby slightly. “Well, if she sleeps well, she wakes near dawn. Then another feed midmorning. She likes to be walked after that, though not too briskly. If one moves too quickly, she grows offended.”
“Offended?”
“Deeply.” Nurse Ellis’s eyes warmed. “She scrunches herself up as if the world has insulted her.”
Frances looked at the baby’s sleeping face and had the most foolish urge to smile.
