He stepped back from the door as though the warmth inside had burned him.
Fool, he told himself sharply.
He had known from the beginning that Frances would be kind. He had seen enough of her character to expect it. She had defended him when silence would have served her better. She had taken the child into her arms when others hesitated. She would not be cruel to an infant merely because the circumstances surrounding her were inconvenient.
That was all this was, duty hiding behind kindness, and the dangerous imagination of a man who had spent too many years avoiding cradles and had now been foolish enough to look into one.
He turned away… and collided almost at once with Nurse Ellis.
The nurse gave a small gasp. A covered jug in her hands tipped dangerously, and Andrew caught it by instinct before it could spill. Warm milk sloshed beneath the cloth, sending up a faint sweet steam.
“Your Grace!” Nurse Ellis whispered, looking horrified. “Oh, forgive me. I did not see you there.”
“No,” Andrew answered, releasing the jug the moment he was certain she had it. “It is I who should apologize. I was in your way.”
“In my way?” She blinked, then glanced from him to the nursery door, which still stood open behind them.
Andrew’s spine tightened. Nurse Ellis’s face softened with too much understanding.
“She is settling well this evening,” she said quietly.
“I am pleased to hear it,” he replied.
The baby made another small sound from within the room, followed by Frances’ gentle murmur.
Nurse Ellis smiled. “Would Your Grace care to come in?”
“No.” The answer came too quickly.
The nurse lowered her gaze at once. “Of course, Your Grace.”
Andrew heard the sharpness of his own refusal and disliked himself for it. He forced his voice into something calmer. “I have business.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Urgentbusiness.”
“Certainly.”
The addition made him sound ridiculous. He knew it. Nurse Ellis was far too polite to suggest as much, but there was a certain kindness in her expression that was worse than mockery.
Andrew inclined his head, turned, and walked away, but not too quickly. A duke did not flee his own nursery.
Still, by the time he reached the stair, his pulse had altered. By the time he entered the study, shut the door, and stood alone among the ordered ranks of books and papers, something inside him had become disorderly beyond tolerance.
He set the letter down upon the writing table. Then, he placed both hands flat on the polished wood and bowed his head.
It was only a room, only a woman reading nonsense to a child, only a baby catching at a sleeve in the firelight.
And yet the image had followed him. For a moment, he wanted it.
The realization was so dangerous that he closed his eyes against it.
He had made promises to Mary, to himself, to the dead, unnamed child he had once watched vanish from his childhood like a candle blown out in a dark room. He had built his life around the certainty that love, once given to a child, became a blade turned inward. He would not let affection make him helpless again.
And Frances… Frances was not part of this. She had entered the arrangement by necessity. She had not asked for his secrets, his fears, his burdens, or a child who came wrapped in scandal and silence. The kinder she became, the more carefully he had to keep the boundaries where they belonged.
Respect. Protection. Distance.
