“She agreed before she cared.”
The words struck deeper than Philip could have known. Andrew had seen it happening, and still he had done nothing to prevent it. She had begun to care. He had no right to be moved by it. He had no right to want it.
Philip continued. “If you let her bind herself to the child while denying her the truth, you may hurt her more cruelly than if you had pushed her away from the beginning.”
“Ididpush her away.”
“I know.” Philip’s tone was dry. “With all the success one might expect when pushing Frances Norton away from something she has decided matters.”
Despite himself, Andrew’s mouth twitched.
Philip saw it and seized upon it at once. “There. Proof of life.”
Andrew grinned. “Do not become tiresome.”
“I have been tiresome for years. Marriage has merely refined the talent.”
Andrew looked toward the garden again. Frances had bent to examine some early flower Emma had pointed out. Her profilewas softened by distance. There was nothing in the scene that ought to have felt like longing. And yet it did.
“I cannot tell her everything,” Andrew confessed.
It was not an admission he had intended to make.
Philip heard the difference. His expression changed, and now, the teasing was gone entirely. “But there must be something youcantell her.”
Andrew did not answer.
“Enough to help her trust you,” Philip added.
“She told me trust is not so easily given,” Andrew remembered.
“She is right.”
“I know she is.”
Philip regarded him for a long moment. “Then why ask for what you will not earn?”
Andrew’s jaw tightened, but there was no anger left strong enough to answer. A gust of wind moved through the garden. Frances looked up then, as though she felt herself observed. Her gaze travelled across the lawn and found him.
For one suspended moment, distance did not matter. Andrew held still. She was too far away for him to read her expression properly, yet he felt the look all the same. It could have been a question, a caution, or perhaps a memory, as unwelcome to her as it was to him, of his hand at her waist and her breath uneven between them.
Then Emma touched her arm, and Frances turned away. Andrew exhaled only after she did. Philip had gone very quiet beside him.
“What?” Andrew asked, seeing that the words burned bright on Philip’s tongue, and he was just waiting for the right moment to say them.
Philip’s brows lifted slightly. “Something has changed.”
Andrew turned sharply. “Nothing has changed.”
“No?” Philip looked toward the garden, then back at him. “You used to lie better than that.”
Andrew said nothing.
Philip rested the point of his practice sword against the flagstone and studied him with the grave patience of a man who had already drawn his conclusion.
“She matters to you,” Philip revealed.
Andrew looked once more toward the garden, where Frances walked in spring light beside her sister, unaware or pretending to be.
