Chapter 17
Alexander turned to Lady Halford, who sat at the head of the table with the serene composure of a woman who had hosted a hundred such evenings and would host a hundred more.
“Lady Halford, I must beg your forgiveness,” he said. “I find myself unwell this evening. A headache that will not abate. I fear we must take our leave.”
Frances turned to him. “A headache?” Concern moved across her face—seemingly genuine and immediate. “You did not mention it.”
“It came on suddenly.”
She studied him for a moment, and he kept her gaze with the calm confidence of a man who was not, in fact, suffering from anything that could be remedied by rest and a cold cloth. Then she turned to their hostess.
“Please forgive us, Lady Halford. I do hope we have not disrupted your evening. Everything has been truly wonderful.”
Lady Halford was gracious. The viscount looked disappointed.
The baron rose as Frances stood and told her it had been the most stimulating conversation he had enjoyed in months, and Alexander put his hand on the small of her back to guide her toward the door with a pressure that was perhaps firmer than strictly necessary.
In the carriage, Frances sat across from him with her hands in her lap, and her brow creased with worry.
“Shall I have Mrs. Wells prepare something when we arrive? A tisane, perhaps?”
“That will not be necessary.”
“You look pale.”
He did not look pale. He looked exactly as he always looked which was composed and controlled and entirely unreadable, and the headache that did not exist pulsed behind his eyes with all the insistence of something that was not a headache at all.
She reached across the space between them and lightly touched his hand. Briefly. Her gloved fingered against his, lasting no more than a moment.
“I hope it passes quickly,” she said.
Alexander looked at her hand, and then at her face, and the concern there was so real and so undeserved that something turned over in his chest with a slow, sick weight.
You are jealous. You are jealous of a viscount who smiled at your wife, and you have dragged her from a dinner where she was brilliant.
You damned fool!
“Duchess.”
Frances looked up from her embroidery. The needle stilled between her fingers. She had not seen him since the Halford dinner. He had handed her down, said goodnight with the clipped efficiency of a man closing a ledger, and disappeared into his study. He had not appeared at breakfast.
And now, here he was.
“How are you faring today?” she asked. She set the embroidery frame on the table beside her. “Is your headache better?”
Something moved across his face—surprise, she thought, or perhaps the particular discomfort of a man who had not expected to be asked. He stood very still for a moment.
“I am well now,” he said. “A good night’s rest was all that was required.”
He looks tired. A good night’s rest indeed.
The silence that followed was the kind that sat between two people who had too many things to say and no safe place to begin.
Frances folded her hands in her lap. The Duke remained in the doorway, which was becoming something of a habit with him—standing on thresholds as though the act of entering a room required a strategic assessment first.
“My mother is feeling stronger today,” he said. “She is ready to meet you.”
The words landed in Frances’s chest with a small, bright jolt. She had been waiting for this.
“Today?” Frances said.
“If you are willing.”
“Of course, I am willing. I have been willing since I arrived.”
Something about this seemed to catch him off guard. His jaw shifted, and he gave a brief nod. “Then, if you would come with me.”
Frances rose, smoothed the front of her morning dress, and crossed the room. The Duke stepped aside to let her through the doorway, and as she passed him, she caught the faint scent of his shaving soap.
She walked ahead of him into the hallway.
They reached the main staircase, and the Duke fell into step beside her. His stride was longer than hers, but he adjusted it without being asked, which Frances noticed and filed away in the growing catalog of small things about him that did not match the man she had decided he was.
“There is something you should know,” he said, “before we go in.”
Frances glanced at him. His profile was set in clean, severe lines, his gaze directed straight ahead.
“She believes our marriage to be one born of affection.”
Frances’s foot nearly missed the next step.
“So, we must pretend in her presence,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You might have mentioned this sooner.”
“I am mentioning it now.”
“On the stairs. Thirty seconds before we arrive.”
“I thought it best to give you the information when it was most immediately relevant.”
Frances pressed her lips together. “That is not how preparation works.”
“It is how efficiency works.”
“Efficiency.” She shook her head. “You are asking me to convince your mother—a woman I have never met—that I am desperately in love with you, and your notion of preparation is to tell me on the stairs.”
“I did not say desperately.”
“What would you call it, then? Mildly? Reluctantly? Shall I aim for a tepid sort of affection?”
His mouth moved. Just the corner. Just enough for her to see it and for him to know she saw it, and something warm sparked between them.
“Convincingly will suffice,” he said.
Frances drew a breath and held it for a moment. “Why does she believe it is a love match?”
“Because I allowed her to.”
“You lied to your mother.”
“I withheld a correction. There is a difference.”
“There really is not.”
He stopped walking. Frances stopped too, one step above him, which put them almost at eye level. His blue eyes were very close and very serious, and there was something behind them—not the usual careful blankness but something rawer. Something that looked, if she had to name it, like worry.
“Her health is fragile,” he said. “It has been declining for some time. Any shock, any distress... The physician has been clear. Nothing must upset her.”
The words were plain. Direct. And underneath them, Frances heard what he was not saying, what a man like Whitestone would never say aloud.
He is frightened of losing her.
The sharpness went out of her. She looked at him standing one step below her with that careful composure that cost him more than he would ever admit, and she felt something shift in her chest.
“I understand,” she said.
“You will need to appear comfortable. Natural. She will notice if we are stiff with one another.”
“I am never stiff.”
“You were stiff at breakfast yesterday.”
“You were not at breakfast yesterday.”
“The day before, then.”
“That was not stiffness. That was dignity.”
The corner of his mouth moved again. “My mistake.”
They reached the landing. The hallway here was quieter, the light softer. Frances could hear the muffled sound of a clock ticking somewhere behind a closed door.
“One more thing…” the Duke said.
“Good heavens, is there more?”
“She may ask how we met.”
“We met at your masquerade. That part, at least, is true.”
“She may ask for details.”
“Then I shall tell her we spoke in the conservatory, and you were thoroughly enchanted by my opinions on German poetry.”
Something passed between them that was warmer than banter and steadier than argument, and Frances felt the heat rise in her neck before she could stop it.
“Shall we?” she said and turned toward the door before her face could betray her further.
The Duke reached past her and knocked. A voice from within called them to enter, and he opened the door and stood aside.
Frances stepped through.
The warmth hit her first.
Not just the temperature—though the room was warmer than the rest of the house, a fire burning steadily in the grate—but the feeling of it.
This room was lived in. There were books stacked on the side table, a shawl draped over the arm of a chair, and a vase of sweet peas on the windowsill.
A watercolor hung on the wall beside the window, and the curtains were drawn wide to let in every scrap of afternoon light.
It was the opposite of everything else in Whitestone House. It was warm and soft and imperfect and alive.
Margaret Moonwell sat by the window in a chair that had been positioned to catch the best of the light.
She was smaller than Frances had expected—slight, with silver-threaded hair drawn back from a face that must once have been beautiful and was now something better.
Dignified. Gentle. Her skin was pale, and shadows beneath her eyes spoke of years of illness borne with patience, but her gaze was bright, and when she saw Frances, her whole face lit up.
“At last,” she said, and her voice carried a warmth that Frances felt in her bones, “I meet the young woman who has captured my son’s heart.”
The blush came immediately. Frances dropped into a deep curtsy and felt every inch of the deception settle across her shoulders.
“It is the greatest honor to meet you, Your Grace,” she said.
Margaret extended her hand, and Frances took it. The older woman’s fingers were thin and cool, but her grip was surprisingly firm.
“Oh, please do call me Margaret. Come. Sit beside me.” Margaret drew her toward the chair that had been placed near her own. “Let me look at you properly.”
Frances sat quietly. She was aware, with sharp and unhelpful precision, of the Duke standing behind her. She could feel him there—not touching her, not close enough to touch, but present in his usual way, occupying more space than physics would allow.
Margaret studied her face with the gentle thoroughness of a woman who had learned to read people from a chair by a window. “You are lovelier than I imagined.”
“You are very kind, Your... Margaret.”
“I am honest. There is a difference.” Margaret smiled. “My son tells me you have been making changes to the house.”
Frances blinked. “He told you that?”