He wasn’t able to take his eyes off her.
“I am certain you do.”
She took another bite of toast, looking far too satisfied.
After a moment, she added. “And I expect you not to leave me standing alone.”
Her comment caught him slightly off guard, but he regained composure quickly.
“I do not make a habit of abandoning women in drawing rooms.”
“No, you make a habit of vanishing into silence while remaining physically present. It is more difficult to explain.”
“My word,” he feigned shock, “I had no idea I possessed such variety.”
“You possess multitudes, Your Grace,” she eyes him playfully, while finding faults. “Most of them aggravating.”
He gave her a dry look. “And you give orders easily.”
Frances calmly stirred her tea.
“I beg your pardon?” she asked.
“You heard me.”
“I cannot imagine so. It sounded almost like a complaint.”
“It was an observation.”
“Then you may observe more quietly.” Her mouth curved as she lifted the cup to her lips, entirely pleased with herself.
Andrew should have returned to his newspaper. He meant to. The invitation, the house party, the practical matter of appearing united before society… these were all concerns that required thought. There would be guests who watched too closely, ladies who asked delicate questions with sharpened smiles, and men who pretended indifference while measuring every glance between him and Frances.
He should have been considering all of it.
Instead, he watched her lips. It was not intentional, at least, not at first.
She had a small smear of marmalade at the corner of her lower lip. She did not notice it. She was too absorbed in buttering another piece of toast with the serene confidence of a woman who had just won three exchanges and intended to pretend she had not been keeping score.
The sunlight touched her face and warmed the curve of her cheek. It also caught on the faint color that remained there after their banter. She said something to the footman about more tea, but Andrew barely heard it. His attention had narrowed to the shape of her lips as they moved, the softness of them, the quick intelligence that made every word she spoke seem alive before it had fully left her mouth.
He ought to have looked away. Yet, he did not.
The memory came without permission: the nursery, dim and hushed, Frances standing close enough that her hands rested against his chest. He remembered her breath catching and that impossible moment when he had nearly leaned in and she had not stepped back. He wondered what she would have done if the baby had not stirred.
The thought struck him with such force that his fingers tightened around the handle of his cup.
Kiss her.
The words formed in his mind with dangerous simplicity. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to know whether the sharpness of her words would soften beneath his mouth, whether she would startle, then yield, whether her hand would rise to his shoulder, his jaw, the place over his heart where she had steadied him once already.
He wanted it enough that the wanting itself seemed to move through him like heat.
Frances looked up then. For one suspended second, their eyes met. Andrew knew immediately that he had been staring too long. Her expression changed, not greatly, but enough. A flicker of awareness passed through her face. Her lips parted slightly, as if she meant to speak and had forgotten the words. The marmalade still glistened at the corner of her mouth.
He could have reached across the table and brushed it away. He imagined doing it: his thumb against her lip and her breath catching again. He imagined that startled, bright, unguarded look he had seen too rarely and wanted too much.
Then another memory rose, colder and older… a cradle in a dim room, a child’s weak cry, his mother’s pale hand lying lifelessly in his own and the silence after. At ten years old, he had been standing outside a closed nursery door and made himself a promise with all the fierce certainty of a child who had seen too much.
