Chapter 25
“Well,” Lavinia said, the moment they were out on the terrace and alone, “that was something.”
Frances walked to the stone balustrade and placed both hands on it.
The night air was cool against her flushed skin.
Inside, the pianoforte had started up again—someone playing something light and quick—and through the glass, she could see Emily and Sophia bent over what appeared to be a picture book, their heads close together.
“It was a dance,” Frances said. “People dance at dinner parties. It is rather the point of them.”
“Frances.”
“It is a perfectly ordinary activity.”
“Frances Pembroke.”
“Do not use my full name as though I am twelve years old.”
Lavinia came to stand beside her at the balustrade. She was quiet for a moment. That specific, dangerous quiet that Frances had known since childhood—the quiet that meant Lavinia had seen everything, remembered everything, and was simply waiting for the confession to come on its own.
Frances stared at the garden. The moon was high. The roses along the far wall were silver in the light, and somewhere below them a fountain murmured.
“He claimed the dance,” Lavinia said. “Stepped forward and claimed it before Sappherton could finish asking.”
“I am aware. I was there.”
“You were more than there. You were flushed to your collarbone.”
Frances’s hands tightened on the stone. “It was warm in the drawing room.”
“It was not that warm.”
The silence stretched between them. Not the sharp kind. The kind that sisters made—full of things already understood, waiting only to be spoken aloud.
Frances closed her eyes. Say it. Just say it and have done with it.
“I have feelings for him,” she said. The words came out flat. Quiet. As though by stripping them of any inflection, she could also strip them of their power. “I have been trying very hard not to, and I have failed, and I wish—I wish very much that I did not.”
Lavinia said nothing. She waited.
“It does not matter,” Frances continued.
She opened her eyes and stared at the roses.
“It will not become what you are thinking. He is not... He does not...” She stopped.
Tried again. “Our marriage is an arrangement. He made that plain from the beginning. Two months, and then we go our separate ways. Love was never part of the terms.”
“Terms?” Lavinia repeated.
“Yes. Terms. We have them. They are very clear.”
“And yet he crossed a drawing room to claim a dance with you in front of every person present.”
Frances turned to her sister. “That is precisely the problem.”
Lavinia tilted her head. Waiting.
“In company, he is... You have seen him. Controlled. Correct. Impossible to read. He says what is expected and nothing more. He manages every conversation as if it were a parliamentary debate, and you could spend an entire evening beside him and leave knowing less about him than when you sat down.” Frances took a breath.
“But in private, there are these... moments. Small things. The way he watches me when he thinks I am not looking. The way he has started to sit with Emily in the evenings, telling her about pyramids and temples and things he has no real reason to know about except that he learned them for her sake.”
Her voice caught. She pressed on.
“And tonight...” Frances said. “The way he looked at me. As though I were the only person in that room, and he could not quite believe I was there.” She gripped the balustrade.
“Those moments are the problem, Lavinia. Because they make me believe there is something real beneath all that discipline and control, and if I believe that—if I let myself believe that—I will lose my heart to a man who has never once offered his in return.”
“Perhaps he does not know how to offer it.”
“That amounts to the same thing.”
“It does not. Not offering because you cannot and not offering because you choose not to—those are very different.”
“The result is the same for the person waiting.”
Lavinia was quiet for a long moment. She turned and leaned her back against the balustrade, facing the house, her arms folded across her waist. The light from the drawing room windows fell across her face.
“Do you remember what I told you before the wedding?”
Frances’s chest tightened. “You told me a great many things before the wedding. Most of them involved the proper way to address a dowager.”
“Not that part.” Lavinia looked at her. “I told you to seek love. Even when it seems impossible. Especially when it seems impossible.”
The words settled between them. Frances felt them land—felt them press against the walls she had been building, stone by careful stone, since the morning she had stood at the altar and promised herself she would not be foolish.
Seek love even when it seems impossible.
She did not answer.
But she did not dismiss it either.
They stood together on the terrace for another minute, the cool air moving between them, the music drifting through the glass. Then Lavinia reached over and squeezed her hand—once, firmly, the way she had done since Frances was small—and turned back toward the doors.
Frances followed. She paused at the threshold and glanced back at the garden, the silver roses, the murmuring fountain.
I need to guard my heart.
Sleep would not come.
Frances lay on her back in the guest room at Evermere, staring at the canopy above her which was a deep blue she could not see in the dark but knew was there because she had noticed it when Miss Ripley helped her undress.
The house was quiet. The party had ended hours earlier.
Lavinia and Tristan had gone to their rooms. Lady Montfort had been escorted to her chambers by a footman who looked as if he had drawn the short straw.
Henry had left in his carriage with a cheerful wave and a promise to visit them all in London.
And Frances was awake.
Her thoughts would not settle. They kept circling back—not to the terrace, not to Lavinia’s words, but to the dance.
The warmth of his hand at her waist. The way he had stepped forward and said, ‘I believe the duchess already has a partner,’ with such quiet certainty, as though the outcome had never been in question.
You called me Frances.
That is your name.
She pressed her palms against her eyes.
Stop. Stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about him. You told Lavinia the truth. He has never offered his heart, and you cannot afford to lose yours, and that is the end of it.
Her hands fell to her sides. The sheets were too cool. The pillow was too soft. The room smelled of lavender and beeswax and something else—roses, perhaps, from the garden below the window.
She turned onto her side. Closed her eyes. Counted to twenty. Opened them.
This is ridiculous.
She was debating whether to get up and search for a book when a scream shattered the house. It was high-pitched, thin, and carried a child’s voice, trembling with fear.
Frances was out of bed before the sound had finished. She seized the shawl draped across the foot of the bed—a light muslin thing, barely more than a wrap—and pulled it around her shoulders as she crossed the room. Her feet were bare on the cold floor. She did not stop for slippers.
The corridor was dark. A single candle burned in a sconce at the far end. Frances moved toward Emily’s room—three doors down, on the left—and pushed the door open.
Emily was sitting up in bed. Her face was white. Tears streaked her cheeks, and her breath was coming in short, ragged gasps that shook her whole body.
“Emily.” Frances crossed the room in four steps and sat on the edge of the bed. She gathered the child into her arms without thinking, pulling her close, tucking that small head beneath her chin. “I am here. You are safe.”
Emily’s fingers clutched the front of Frances’ nightgown. Her body trembled. “I had a dream.”
“I know, sweetheart.” Frances smoothed her hair. Slow strokes, steady and rhythmic. “It was only a dream. It cannot hurt you.”
“They were in the carriage.” Emily’s voice broke. “Mama and Papa. And the horses... The horses would not stop—”
“Shh.” Frances held her tighter. “You are here. You are at Evermere, and I am with you, and nothing is going to happen.”
“Do not leave.”
“I will not leave. I am right here.”
Emily pressed her face against Frances’s shoulder. The trembling persisted—waves of it, each smaller than the one before. Frances rocked her gently. She hummed—not a tune exactly but a low, steady sound, like Lavinia had hummed to her when she was little, and the darkness had felt too big.
Minutes passed. Emily’s breathing slowed. The gasps became shudders, and the shudders became sighs, and the rigid grip on Frances’s nightgown loosened by degrees.
“Frances?”
“Yes?”
“Will you stay?”
“All night. I promise.”
A figure appeared in the doorway then, and she looked up.
Alexander stood at the threshold in shirtsleeves and breeches, his coat absent, his cravat gone, and his dark hair disheveled in a way that suggested he had dressed in the moments between the scream and the corridor.
His face was tight. His eyes flicked from Emily to Frances and back, and the worry was evident—visible in the set of his mouth, the tight line of his shoulders, and the way his hand gripped the doorframe as if it were the only thing keeping him upright.
“She had a nightmare,” Frances said quietly, over the top of Emily’s head.
He nodded once. His gaze remained on the child.
“Is she...”
“She is calming now.” Frances continued stroking Emily’s hair. “She will be all right.”
He remained standing there. He neither entered nor left, simply watching them—Emily nestled against Frances, Frances’s hand gently stroking the child’s dark hair.
An unreadable expression flickered across his face, but Frances paid it no mind, focusing instead on Emily’s warmth and the child’s need for her attention.
“You should sleep,” she said to him. “I will stay with her.”
He gave another nod. He gazed at Emily for a long moment then at Frances. Their eyes met across the dimly lit room—over the bed, the child between them and all the unspoken words—and Frances sensed the burden of it settle in her chest, as if something had been gently placed there by an unseen hand.
He turned and walked away. His footsteps faded down the corridor.
Frances moved to the chair beside Emily’s bed. She drew the child’s hand into her lap and held it, and Emily’s fingers curled around hers with the trusting grip of a child who believed, at last, that someone would stay.
“Tell me about the adventures you’ve read,” Frances murmured.
“There was a mouse who wore a little hat,” Emily whispered. Her eyes were closing. “A blue hat. With a gold button.”
“That’s rather charming.”
Emily’s breathing evened. Her hand went slack. Frances stayed.
The night crept on. Frances dozed—not properly or deeply but in the shallow, broken way of someone keeping watch.
She woke to check Emily’s breathing, smoothed the covers, and dozed again.
The chair was uncomfortable. Her neck ached, and her shawl had slipped from one shoulder.
The room was cold, but none of it mattered.
Gray light was the first to arrive, seeping through the gap in the curtains—thin and pale like pewter. Frances stirred, feeling her back complain and her neck protest even more. As she shifted in the chair, she gradually became aware of something that had not been present before.
Weight. Warm, across her shoulders.
She looked down.
A shawl. Heavy wool, dark green, far too large for her. It was carefully draped across her shoulders—tucked at the edges and arranged so it would not slip. It was the kind of quiet, deliberate act someone does for a sleeping person who must not be awakened.
Frances’s breath caught.
She looked up. The corridor beyond the open door was empty except for one retreating figure. Alexander was walking away. His back was straight, his stride steady, his hands clasped behind him. He did not look back and showed no sign that he had been there at all.
Frances watched him go. The dark green wool was warm against her arms. Emily slept on, her breath soft and even, one small hand still resting near where Frances’ had been.
The gray light grew brighter. The room became clear around her—the bed, the chair, the curtains, the child.
He is incapable of feeling. That is what you said. On the terrace, not eight hours ago, you told Lavinia he would never love you.