“I heard.”
“Then you understand.”
“I understand that you were told to rest,” he reminded her.
“And I did… until she cried.”
His mouth tightened, though not quite in anger. A pause settled between them, made stranger by the darkness and the hush of the sleeping house. Neither seemed entirely dressed for argument, though both had arrived at it anyway.
At last Andrew exhaled. “Very well. I will have a servant posted nearby during the night so that you need not come yourself.”
Frances nodded. “Yes, well… that is a sensible arrangement.”
His eyes narrowed slightly, as though he heard the false obedience beneath it. He probably did.
She would still go. If the baby cried and Frances heard it, she would go. A servant might be posted in every doorway of Sinclair House, and still she knew her own feet would find the nursery before her mind had finished objecting. Andrew seemed to know it, too, but he said nothing.
“Good night, Andrew,” she said softly; then, she turned to leave.
“Frances.”
His voice stopped her. She looked back. He was standing very still in the low lamplight, with one hand braced against the wall near him as though he had intended to move and then thought better of it. The loosened cravat left his throat bare enough that she could see the movement of his Adam’s apple.
“You… managed the child well.”
The words were simple, almost plain. Yet, they surprised her more than praise ought to have done.
Frances blinked once. “I only did what was needed.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “You did.”
There was nothing extravagant in his tone, and there was no warmth he would admit to. Still, the approval, quiet and reluctant as it was, touched her in some foolish, unprotected place.
She smiled before she could stop herself, revealing a small, tired smile in the middle of the night.
“Good night,” she said again.
Then, she walked back to her chamber, feeling his gaze follow her until the turn of the corridor took her from sight. Once inside, Frances shut the door and leaned against it for a moment.
It was nothing, she told herself.Just a few words in a corridor.
It was nothing but a tired man offering a practical acknowledgment, a husband who still disapproved of her actions, even if he had conceded their result. It was truly nothing at all.
She returned to bed, slipped beneath the cool sheets, and stared into the darkness, but Andrew’s voice remained with her.
You managed the child well.
Frances closed her eyes.
She tried to set the moment aside as one might set a candle safely away from the bed curtains.
Instead, it burned on.
Chapter Eighteen
Afew days later, Philip came to Sinclair House and struck Andrew in the shoulder with a wooden practice sword… hard.
Andrew stepped back as they sparred, more startled than hurt. “That was unnecessary, old boy.”
