Frances did not pretend not to understand. “I told you. His Grace and I will go our separate ways.”
“And the baby?”
The question pierced more cleanly than Frances expected. She looked down. The child slept now, with her breath warm and faint against Frances’ neck.
“The baby will be safe,” Frances assured her.
“That is not what I asked.”
Frances closed her eyes briefly. When had Emma become so relentless? Or had she always been so, and Frances had only mistaken kindness for softness?
“I do not know,” she admitted.
The confession was nearly a whisper. Emma did not move. Frances opened her eyes again.
“I do not know what will happen to her. His Grace says he will protect her, and he means it. I believe that. But she cannot remain a secret forever. Someone will have to claim her, or place her, or…” She stopped, because the remaining possibilities felt too cold to speak while holding the child.
“Or love her,” Emma supplied.
Frances swallowed. “That is not always as simple as people pretend.”
“No,” Emma replied. “It is not simple at all.”
The baby sighed in her sleep. Frances felt the small movement of it through her whole body.
“I cannot wait,” Frances told her, and her voice came out steadier than she felt, “for all of this to be settled. I cannot wait for His Grace and me to go our separate ways and resume whatever lives we were meant to have before this madness began.”
Emma was silent.
Frances kept her gaze on the child. “Truly.”
The word sounded too small once spoken. It was not false, exactly, but fragile, as though it had been placed upon the floor and might crack if anyone stepped too near.
Emma did not challenge it directly. That would have been easier. Instead, she reached out and touched Frances’ arm.
“Then I hope,” Emma said softly, “when that day comes, you are very certain it is what you want.”
Frances looked at her then, ready with denial, irritation, some bright and polished piece of wit. But the baby shifted in her arms, and Frances lowered her eyes once more. She had no answer.
So, she only bent her head and pressed the lightest kiss to the child’s cap, so quickly it might have been mistaken for a mere adjustment of linen.
Emma saw it. Of course she did.
Frances pretended otherwise.
Chapter Twenty
“Your Grace, how kind of you to receive me.”
Frances inclined her head with all the calm courtesy that had been trained into her long before she had ever imagined becoming a duchess.
“Viscountess Ashford, the kindness is yours. I had not expected the pleasure of callers this afternoon.”
Lady Evelyn Ashford smiled as she took the chair opposite Frances, arranging her skirts with elegant care. She was a beautiful woman, perhaps a little past youth but far from faded, with smooth dark hair beneath a fashionable bonnet and eyes that seemed, at first glance, pleasantly warm.
“I could not remain away,” she confessed with a smile. “Not after such happy news. I had to offer my congratulations in person. A wedding is always a joyful occasion, particularly one so…unexpected.”
The pause was delicate, almost harmless.
