You managed the child well, he had told her.
She had smiled as though he had given her something far finer than praise.
He looked away from the garden.
“You do not understand the risk,” Andrew dared to admit.
Philip lowered his practice sword to his side. “Then help me understand it.”
“I… cannot,” he answered through a sigh.
“Cannot or will not?”
Andrew’s eyes flashed. “Both, if you require precision.”
Philip was silent a moment. Then, with that infuriating calm that made him far more formidable than anger would have done, he continued. “I know something of marrying a woman while keeping parts of oneself locked away.”
Andrew’s expression shifted despite himself.
Philip looked toward the garden, where Emma had taken Frances’s arm. “It does not keep her safe… not for long at least.”
“This is different.”
“Yes,” Philip agreed. “Every man tells himself that. It is how we excuse our cowardice while calling it protection.”
Andrew stepped closer. “Do not call me a coward.”
“Then do not behave like one.”
The words landed cleanly. For a second, Andrew wanted to strike him and not with the wooden sword, but with the full force of the fury that had risen too quickly, because fury was easier than fear. Fury was clean. It had edges, while fear seeped everywhere.
Philip did not move. That was the trouble with old friends. They knew which blows one would not truly deliver.
Andrew turned away first, breathing hard through his nose.
The garden stretched before him. Frances and Emma had resumed walking, their skirts brushing the gravel. Frances tilted her face toward the weak sun. Wind caught at the loose ribbon ofher bonnet and sent it fluttering against her cheek. She lifted one hand to secure it.
The movement took him back with brutal ease to the nursery doorway: Frances by the fire, the baby in her arms, the child’s fist caught in her sleeve.
A mother and child.
He tightened his grip on the practice sword until his fingers ached.
Philip’s voice softened. “What happened, Sinclair?”
Andrew said nothing.
“Who is the child’s mother?”
“That is precisely the question no one must ask.”
“Someone already has.”
Andrew looked back.
“Frances,” Philip said. “Perhaps not aloud. Perhaps not today. But she is not a fool. She sees what is before her, and she sees what you refuse to show.”
Andrew’s mouth hardened. “She agreed not to press me.”
