“I was not aware there was a difference in this house.”
“There will be food at one of them.”
“And tyranny at both?”
“Likely.”
A faint, unwilling sound escaped her. For a moment, he wanted to believe that it was laughter. At least, it wasn’t annoyance. It eased something in him, though not enough.
When they reached the dining room, Andrew released her hand only to open the door himself. Carter, already within, turned at once. His gaze dropped for the barest instant to Frances’s disordered appearance, then lifted with admirable speed.
“Dinner,” Andrew ordered.
“Immediately, Your Grace.”
“And tea. Broth. Bread. Whatever can be brought at once.”
Frances flushed again. “I am not an invalid.”
“No,” Andrew replied. “An invalid would have had the sense to remain in bed.”
Her mouth parted in outrage. “I beg your–”
“Sit down.”
The command struck the room flat. Carter wisely vanished.
Frances did not sit. She stood beside the table, with her cheeks colored, and her eyes bright with a temper that made her look both fragile and formidable. The candlelight drew gold from the loose strands of her hair. There was a damp mark upon her sleeve where the baby had dribbled milk. The sight of it did something unreasonable to him.
Andrew drew a slow breath, then pulled out the chair nearest him.
“Please, Frances.”
The change in tone did what command had not. She looked at the chair, then at him. At last, she sat.
Andrew remained standing for a moment, with one hand resting on the back of the chair he had drawn out. His own pulse had not yet settled. He could still feel the shape of her fingers in his hand.
A servant entered with bread and butter, and another with broth. Carter directed everything without appearing to direct anything at all. Within minutes, food stood before Frances, while steam was rising fragrant and immediate into the air. She just looked at it.
Andrew waited until the doors closed again. Then he moved to stand opposite her. If he sat, he feared the discussion might become civil, and civility had failed them too often already.
Frances folded her hands in her lap. “If you intend to tell me I’ve created a problem, I already know.”
“The problem,” he said in a voice that was as low as it was dangerous, “is that you have beenlisteningto me all this time, but you have not beenhearingme.”
She went still. Andrew looked at her, at the woman he had tried to keep at a safe distance, who had spent the whole day giving herself to a child he had sworn would not become hers to carry, and felt something in him yield, not enough to break, but enough to change slightly.
“Now,” he urged, “I ask you to do both.”
Chapter Seventeen
Frances stared at him across the dining table, still breathing a little too quickly from the abrupt journey out of the nursery.
Her pride rose at once upon hearing his words. “You demand a great many things for a man who claims to want nothing from me.”
His gaze sharpened. “If you insist upon interfering, you will at least do it properly.”
“Interfering,” she echoed furiously.
