The words struck more sharply than she could have known—or perhaps she knew exactly.
Andrew set down his fork with deliberate care. “You must be tired.”
“I am perfectly well.”
“You spent the day caring for an infant. Whether or not you admit fatigue, you are likely to feel it. Eat something.”
Her eyes lifted to his then.
There was a brightness in them he did not like, although he could not see tears. Frances did not look as though she were about to weep. That might have been easier. He knew what to do with tears, or at least what distance to keep from them.
This was worse. Anger, exhaustion, and something wounded sat together in her expression with no clear division between them.
“That,” she pointed out, “is precisely the problem.”
Andrew went still. “What is?”
“I spent the day looking after a baby I am beginning to care about, and yet I still know nothing about her.”
The room seemed to grow quieter. Andrew was aware of everything at once: the faint scrape of a coal settling in the grate, the scent of wine and roasted herbs, the shine of candlelight along the rim of Frances’s glass and the way her hand lay flat beside her plate, not clenched, but held too still.
He knew this moment had been coming.
He had told himself that, if he was firm enough at the beginning, she would adapt herself to the necessary limits. Frances was clever. Frances was practical. Frances had entered this marriage knowing it was not a love match, not a confession, not an invitation into every closed chamber of his life.
But she was also compassionate.
He had underestimated the danger of that.
“You know what may be known,” he told her.
Her mouth tightened. “That is a sentence designed to end conversation without answering anything.”
“It is the only answer I can give.”
“No. It is the only answer you arewillingto give.”
Andrew looked at her across the table. “Those are not always different.”
“They are when I am expected to build a life upon them.”
He exhaled slowly. “Frances–”
“No.” She sat back slightly, though her posture remained straight. “Do not say my name in that tone.”
“What tone?”
“The one that suggests I am a horse approaching a ditch and must be soothed before I bolt.”
Despite himself, some grim amusement stirred. “Are you about to bolt?”
“I am about to become very unreasonable.”
Despite everything, he relished these moments of bantering with her, far more than he was willing to admit.
“Then I shall take warning,” he said with composure.
“Do. It may save us both time.”
