Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
The following morning, Andrew waited for Frances at breakfast.
He told himself he was not waiting. A man did not sit in his own breakfast room with his coffee untouched and call it waiting merely because he had chosen, three times, not to open the letter beside his plate.
He was reading, considering, preparing for the day. Yet every sound in the corridor drew his attention, whether it was the clink of china or a footman’s step.
Andrew unfolded the newspaper, looked at the first column, and absorbed not one word. By the time the toast had cooled and the eggs beneath their silver cover had lost their steam, he set the paper aside.
“Has Her Grace been informed breakfast is served?” he asked.
Carter, stationed near the sideboard, bowed. “Yes, Your Grace.”
Andrew waited. Carter, infuriatingly perfect, said nothing more.
“And?”
“Her Grace sent word that she would not be coming down this morning.”
Andrew’s hand tightened around his cup. “Is she unwell?”
“Not to my knowledge, Your Grace.”
“Then where is she?” he demanded to know.
“In the nursery, Your Grace.”
The cup paused halfway to Andrew’s mouth.
“In the nursery.”
“Yes, Your Grace. She went up shortly after dawn, I believe.”
Shortly after dawn.
The words unsettled him more than they ought. He pictured her there in the pale morning light, her hair perhaps not perfectly pinned, her gown chosen hastily, her hands reaching for a child that was not hers and might yet wound her by the very fact of existing.
“She has eaten?” he asked, though he feared he already knew the answer.
“I cannot say, Your Grace.”
Andrew set down the cup with more care than necessary. “Have a tray sent up.”
“At once.”
“No.” He stopped himself, then corrected more evenly. “Ask first whether she would like one.”
Carter inclined his head. “Of course, Your Grace.”
Andrew dismissed him with a nod and looked back at the newspaper. It had become, he discovered, entirely impossible to read.
He imagined going to the nursery. The thought came at once, too swift to be called decision.
He could rise, cross the hall, take the east stairs, and appear at the open doorway as though he had come for some ordinary purpose.
He could ask after the child. He could ensure Nurse Ellis had all she required.
He could remind Frances that neglecting meals did not constitute sensible behavior.
There were half a dozen excuses available, yet he remained seated.
The urge did not pass. It grew worse.
By nine, he had moved to his study. By ten, he had read the same account from his steward four times and discovered, on the fifth, that he had been staring at a column of figures while thinking of Frances’s hand brushing his across the dinner table.
He swore softly and rang for coffee.
Work had steadied him through every difficult season of his life.
Work had brought the estate from debt into prosperity.
Work had given shape to grief, discipline to fear, purpose to the parts of him that might otherwise have broken into useless feeling.
Work was reliable. Ledgers did not look at him with tired green eyes and ask for trust. Tenants did not fall asleep with warm cheeks against Frances’s shoulder.
Correspondence did not leave behind the memory of a touch.
He sharpened a pen. The point snapped beneath his hand.
Andrew closed his eyes. A small sound carried faintly through the house. He could not tell whether it was the baby or imagination.
His first instinct was to stand. His second was to hate himself for the first.
The child was cared for. Nurse Ellis was competent.
Frances was there, which was precisely the problem and precisely the comfort.
There was no reason for him to go. No reason at all, except the absurd ache beneath his ribs that drew him toward the nursery as surely as if someone had fastened a cord there.
He stayed in his study.
He answered letters. Badly.
He reviewed accounts. Twice.
He summoned Carter, then dismissed him after asking a question whose answer he already knew. He walked to the window and looked out at the grey morning, where rain trembled on the bare branches and the lawns shone dull silver beneath the clouds.
At midday, a tray appeared. He had not ordered luncheon.
“Her Grace?” he asked before he could stop himself.
The footman hesitated. “I believe Her Grace remains upstairs, Your Grace.”
“In the nursery?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Andrew nodded once. “That will be all.”
The door closed. He looked at the untouched food upon the tray and understood, with a bitter twist of amusement, that he had become ridiculous.
He had wanted distance. He had demanded it, arranged it, defended it as the only honorable course.
He had told her she was not expected to care for the child, not required to involve herself, not invited into the truth.
Now she had gone where tenderness called her, and he sat alone in his study resenting the absence he had created.
No, actually it was not resenting. That was too small a word. He was fearing it. He feared what Frances might become to the child. He feared what the child might become to her.
Most of all, he feared the sight of them together, because it made something treacherous in him imagine a life he had sworn never to want.
That evening, Andrew went to the nursery.
He had not intended to do so. In fact, the whole day had been a long exercise in not doing so.
He had remained in his study until the lines of his ledgers blurred, answered correspondence with such cold efficiency that one poor solicitor would likely believe himself dismissed from the kingdom, and refused, with increasing difficulty, to ask Carter again whether Her Grace had come downstairs.
At last, when the lamps had been lit and the house had settled into its evening hush, Andrew found himself standing before the nursery door.
This time, he knocked. No answer came, only the low, broken sound of a baby’s cry. So, he opened the door.
The nursery was dim and warm, though the fire had sunk low in the grate.
Frances sat there with the baby in her arms. She looked exhausted.
She was not charmingly disordered in the manner poets claimed to admire, but truly worn.
Her hair had loosened from its pins, with dark strands slipping against her neck.
Her gown was creased at the sleeve where the child had gripped it.
One shoulder sagged beneath the baby’s weight, though she still held the little girl carefully, with one hand supporting her head, and the other moving in a slow, repetitive stroke along the blanket.
“Hush,” she whispered, her voice roughened with fatigue. “I know. I know. It is very unfair. Everything is unfair when one is tired.”
The baby gave a small, protesting cry.
Frances shifted her higher, with more care than ease. “Yes, I quite agree. I should complain, too.”
Andrew stepped farther inside. Frances looked up. Shock moved across her face first. Then, she straightened as if she might assemble herself by will alone.
“Andrew.”
His name from her mouth struck him, as it always did, but tonight irritation and concern were stronger.
“Have you been here all day?”
She hesitated. That was answer enough.
“Frances.”
“Yes,” she said, lifting her chin, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the baby’s fist tugging weakly at her bodice. “Most of it.”
“Most of it,” he repeated.
“She was unsettled.”
“That was not my question.”
“She needed–”
“Have you eaten?”
Frances opened her mouth. Before she could produce whatever stubborn reply she intended, her stomach answered for her…
audibly. The sound was small, undignified, and perfectly timed.
It made Frances freeze. And this was followed by color flooding her cheeks so quickly that even the low lamplight could not hide it.
Andrew stared at her for half a second, then exhaled through his nose.
“Of course.”
“It is not–” she began.
“This will not do,” he cut her off.
Her eyes narrowed despite her embarrassment. “I beg your pardon?”
“This,” he said, gesturing to her, the chair, the sleeping-gown creases at her cuffs, the child finally beginning to quiet through sheer exhaustion, “will not do.”
“The baby was crying.”
“I can hear that.”
“She would not settle for Nurse Ellis. She would not settle in the cradle. I could hardly leave her.”
“You could have sent for food.”
“I intended to.”
“When? At midnight?”
“That depends upon whether she found midnight agreeable.”
His mouth tightened. Under different circumstances, he might have admired the reply. Under these, it infuriated him, chiefly because his first impulse was still to cross the room and remove the loose hair from her cheek.
Instead, he turned toward the hallway.
“Nurse Ellis.”
His voice carried cleanly, in a sound that was not a shout, but it was still sharp enough to cut through the corridor. This was followed by hurried steps almost at once. Nurse Ellis appeared within moments.
“Your Grace?”
“Take the child.”
Frances stiffened. “Andrew–”
“Nurse Ellis,” he repeated.
The nurse moved forward at once, though her eyes flicked between them with wary concern. Frances looked down at the baby, who had grown quieter now, her little face still blotched from crying. For one brief instant, Frances held her closer.
Andrew saw it. The gesture went through him like pain.
Then, Frances surrendered the child.
“There now, little lamb,” Nurse Ellis murmured, settling the baby against her shoulder. “You have worn Her Grace quite out, haven’t you?”
“I am not worn out,” Frances said.
Her stomach, having already betrayed her once, thankfully remained silent.
Andrew looked at her. “We need to speak.”
She pushed herself up from the chair, and for the first time he noticed that she moved stiffly, as though her back and arms ached. “If this is another lecture about how I am not expected to care for her–”
“It is not.”
“Then it can wait. She was crying, and I–”
“No.”
The word cut across hers.
Frances stopped, looking offended and surprised. Nurse Ellis became very interested in the baby’s blanket.
Andrew crossed the remaining distance before he could think better of it. “Come.”
“I have not agreed to go anywhere.”
“I noticed.”
He took her hand. Frances inhaled sharply. So did he.
Her hand was warm and tired in his, her fingers slightly chilled at the tips, and her palm bearing the faint pressure marks of hours spent holding the child.
She did not pull away at once. She looked down at their joined hands, then up at him, while her eyes were flashing with fatigue, indignation, and something more dangerous beneath both.
“Andrew,” she warned.
“Frances,” he returned, and led her out.
She followed, though not without protest.
“This is exceedingly high-handed.”
“Yes.”
“You admit it?”
“I am too annoyed to lie.”
“That is almost refreshing,” she scoffed.
“I am pleased you find some benefit in the situation.”
“I did not say benefit. I said almost.”
He did not release her. The corridor outside was cooler than the nursery. He felt it the moment they left the room, and he knew she must have, too. Her fingers tightened reflexively in his. The contact travelled up his arm with alarming force.
He kept walking.
The lamps along the passage threw pools of amber light over the carpet. Their steps sounded softly, his longer and steadier, hers quicker as she tried to match him without appearing to be hurried.
He should have slowed. He did slow… a little.
She noticed. Of course she noticed. Frances missed nothing when she chose to look.
“You are dragging me to judgment,” she mused, sounding both tired and amused.
“No, I am taking you to dinner.”
“I was not aware there was a difference in this house.”
“There will be food at one of them.”
“And tyranny at both?”
“Likely.”
A faint, unwilling sound escaped her. For a moment, he wanted to believe that it was laughter. At least, it wasn’t annoyance. It eased something in him, though not enough.
When they reached the dining room, Andrew released her hand only to open the door himself. Carter, already within, turned at once. His gaze dropped for the barest instant to Frances’s disordered appearance, then lifted with admirable speed.
“Dinner,” Andrew ordered.
“Immediately, Your Grace.”
“And tea. Broth. Bread. Whatever can be brought at once.”
Frances flushed again. “I am not an invalid.”
“No,” Andrew replied. “An invalid would have had the sense to remain in bed.”
Her mouth parted in outrage. “I beg your–”
“Sit down.”
The command struck the room flat. Carter wisely vanished.
Frances did not sit. She stood beside the table, with her cheeks colored, and her eyes bright with a temper that made her look both fragile and formidable.
The candlelight drew gold from the loose strands of her hair.
There was a damp mark upon her sleeve where the baby had dribbled milk.
The sight of it did something unreasonable to him.
Andrew drew a slow breath, then pulled out the chair nearest him.
“Please, Frances.”
The change in tone did what command had not. She looked at the chair, then at him. At last, she sat.
Andrew remained standing for a moment, with one hand resting on the back of the chair he had drawn out. His own pulse had not yet settled. He could still feel the shape of her fingers in his hand.
A servant entered with bread and butter, and another with broth. Carter directed everything without appearing to direct anything at all. Within minutes, food stood before Frances, while steam was rising fragrant and immediate into the air. She just looked at it.
Andrew waited until the doors closed again. Then he moved to stand opposite her. If he sat, he feared the discussion might become civil, and civility had failed them too often already.
Frances folded her hands in her lap. “If you intend to tell me I’ve created a problem, I already know.”
“The problem,” he said in a voice that was as low as it was dangerous, “is that you have been listening to me all this time, but you have not been hearing me.”
She went still. Andrew looked at her, at the woman he had tried to keep at a safe distance, who had spent the whole day giving herself to a child he had sworn would not become hers to carry, and felt something in him yield, not enough to break, but enough to change slightly.
“Now,” he urged, “I ask you to do both.”