And Frances, standing in the low golden nursery light with aching arms and an unsettled heart, understood that despite every doubt, despite every unanswered question, despite not knowing whether this little girl was her husband’s child or not,she was beginning to care far more than she had meant to, and far more than was safe.
Chapter Fifteen
Andrew was already seated when Frances entered the dining room.
He had arrived early, though he could not have said why. Habit, perhaps. A man who managed estates, accounts, tenants, servants, lawyers, and the thousand quiet obligations attached to a title learned to arrive before he was required. Promptness was not virtue so much as defense against disorder.
Yet the moment Frances appeared in the doorway, he knew promptness had had very little to do with it. He had been waiting forher.
That knowledge irritated him.
She paused only long enough for the footman to draw back her chair. Candlelight caught in the brown gloss of her hair, which had been pinned simply at the back of her head, with a few softer strands resting near her temples. She wore pale green silkthat made her eyes appear darker and more guarded. She looked every inch the Duchess of Sinclair. And yet he saw at once that something in her had withdrawn.
She thanked the footman quietly and sat.
Andrew watched as she unfolded her napkin. Her movements were composed, perhaps too composed. The sort of composure one chose because anything less might reveal too much.
“Good evening,” he said.
“Good evening, Your Grace.”
Your Grace.
He disliked the title from her mouth more each time she used it.
The soup was served, then fish, then a dish of roasted fowl with herbs, buttered carrots, and potatoes cut so precisely they might have been measured by an architect. Carter directed the service with his usual silent authority. The footmen moved gracefully. The silver gleamed. The candles burned without a flicker.
It was, in every visible respect, a successful dinner.
It was also intolerable.
Frances had barely looked at him since entering the room. She answered when addressed by servants, but otherwise her attention remained on her plate. Only, she was not eating. She wasarrangingthe food. She cut a piece of fowl into smaller and smaller portions until it became a collection of pale fragments beneath her knife.
Andrew tried to ignore it. He took a bite, and chewed. He tasted nothing.
Across from him, Frances lifted her fork, held it a moment, then set it down again.
He felt his patience fray.
“You have hardly eaten.”
Her knife paused.
“I am not hungry,” she replied, without looking at him.
He glanced toward Carter. The butler, being a man of rare instincts, moved at once toward the sideboard and appeared suddenly occupied with the decanter. The footmen developed an intense interest in invisibility.
Andrew returned his gaze to Frances. “Nurse Ellis tells me you spent most of the day in the nursery.”
Her fingers tightened around the handle of her knife. “Does Nurse Ellis report my movements to you?”
“No.”
“Then how did the subject arise?”
“I asked how the child was.”
At that, she looked up, though not fully. Her gaze stopped somewhere near his cravat. “How paternal of you.”
