A footman shifted near the wall. Andrew did not look away from her.
“Leave us,” he ordered.
Carter bowed at once. “Your Grace.”
The servants withdrew with practiced silence, with the doors closing softly behind them.
He set his fork and knife together upon his plate, though he had eaten no more than she had. “We agreed upon rules.”
Her gaze did not waver. “Youstated the rules, while I endure them.”
“You agreed not to question the servants.”
“I have not questioned them about the child’s origins.”
“You agreed not to press me,” he reminded her.
“I agreed because I had just been married, brought into a strange house, and shown a baby whose very existence has altered mylife. Forgive me if I had not yet fully appreciated the absurdity of my position.”
“It is not absurd to protect a child.”
“No,” she said at once. “It is not. But it is absurd to expect me to care for her in ignorance and call that protection.”
“You are not expected to care for her at all.”
The moment the words left him, he knew they were wrong. Frances’s face changed, not with some theatrical display of injury, but with a slight inward closing that made him wish he could reach across the table and take the words back by force.
“Indeed,” she said through clenched teeth. “That has been made abundantly clear.”
“I did not mean–”
“You did.”
“No,” he told her more sharply. “I meant that I did not bring you here to burden you with responsibility for a child who was never yours to carry.”
Her eyes flashed. “And yet here she is, undermyroof, inmyarms, crying when she is hungry, waking when she is lonely, staring at me with those solemn eyes as if she expects meto understand a language no one has taught me.” Her voice trembled once, then steadied. “You may decide she is not mine to carry,Andrew, but you cannot ask me to hold her and feel nothing.”
His hand tightened around the stem of his glass. She called him Andrew, not Your Grace. It should not have mattered, yet it did.
“You were warned that this marriage was for appearances,” he echoed a previous sentiment.
“Yes. Repeatedly. You have been almost admirably persistent in reminding me I am not wanted beyond my usefulness.”
His gaze snapped to hers. “That is not true.”
The words came out before caution could restrain them. Frances stilled. So did he.
The denial hung between them, too quick, too forceful, and therefore too revealing. Andrew felt heat rise beneath his collar, the discomfort of having let a truth appear without deciding whether it ought to be seen.
Frances looked at him closely. “Then whatistrue?”
He could not answer that, not fully. Perhaps not at all.
The truth was that he had not wanted a wife, but found himself watching for her step in corridors. The truth was that he had not wanted her involved with the child, but the sight of her holding the baby had taken root somewhere beneath his ribs. The truth was that he had spent the past several days retreating into work because every glimpse of Frances in the nursery threatened the entire structure of his resolve.
He could say none of it.
So, he offered the only words he had to offer. “The child is not mine.”
