Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
“Why were you so angry?” Andrew heard her ask.
He looked up from where he stood near the hearth, with one hand braced upon the mantel, and the other still closed too tightly around nothing at all.
The bedchamber was quiet behind them. The sounds of the ball had faded into a distant murmur belowstairs, softened by walls and carpets until the music seemed less like music than memory.
Only the fire spoke clearly, shifting low in the grate, throwing gold across the bedposts, the dressing screen, the pale silk of Frances’s gown.
She was standing near the door with her gloves half drawn from her hands, watching him.
Andrew did not answer at once. He had thought the silence would be safer.
Since leaving the ballroom, he had relied upon it, as he had relied upon silence in a thousand other moments when speech would have revealed more than he wished known.
He had escorted her upstairs. He had opened the door for her.
He had entered after her only because custom allowed it and because, absurdly, some part of him had not been willing to leave her yet.
Now she looked at him as though she meant to take the silence apart thread by thread.
“Andrew,” she called out. “Why?”
He straightened slowly. “Because he spoke to you improperly.”
“That is not what I asked.”
His jaw tightened.
Frances took one step farther into the room.
The firelight caught the green silk of her gown and made it seem warmer, deeper, nearly alive.
A curl had escaped near her ear during the dancing.
He noticed it with an irritation that was not directed at her.
He noticed everything about her now, and each discovery seemed to threaten his composure more than the last.
“What did you ask, then?” he inquired.
“I asked why you were so angry.”
His gaze held hers. “You are my wife.”
Something flickered in her expression. “In name.”
The correction struck more sharply than it ought.
Andrew turned from the fire. “That distinction would not have mattered to him.”
“It matters to me.”
“Yes,” he spoke too quickly. “So you have made clear.”
Her brows drew together. “Have I?”
“You wished me to remember the rules.”
“I still do.”
He gave a short, humorless breath. “Of course.”
The room seemed to grow smaller around him. Perhaps it was the heat of the fire. Perhaps it was the lateness of the hour. Perhaps it was Frances standing so near his bed, looking at him with flushed cheeks and wounded pride, as though he had been the one to overstep.
She crossed to the dressing table and laid her gloves upon it with careful precision.
“We agreed,” she reminded him, “that this marriage was not to be a true one. We agreed it was an arrangement. We agreed that, once the scandal settled and matters could be managed, we would live separately.”
“Yes.”
The word came out flat. He hated it at once.
Frances turned back to him. “Then you cannot behave as though I have committed some offense by speaking with another gentleman.”
“He was not merely speaking.”
“He did not touch me.”
Andrew’s eyes sharpened. “He wanted to.”
Her lips parted, then closed again. There it was, the thing he ought not to have said, because it sounded mad, primitive and ungentlemanly.
Yet the memory returned with unwelcome force: Langley leaning too near, his gaze lowering, his smile shaped by liberties he had not earned.
Andrew had felt it in his body before he had formed the thought in cold, clean certainty that the man must be removed from her presence.
Frances stared at him. “You cannot know that.”
“I know men.”
“And do you know me?”
The question quieted him. She was standing with one hand resting against the back of the chair, her fingers curved around the carved wood. The firelight trembled over her face. There was anger there, but something else, too, something disappointed. Andrew found he preferred her anger.
“I know enough,” he murmured.
“No,” she replied. “You know what you wish to protect, and you mistake that for knowing me.”
His control thinned another degree.
“Do not make this into philosophy, Frances.”
“Then do not make it into possession.”
The word entered the room and altered it. Andrew looked at her for a long moment. He ought to have stepped away. He ought to have bowed, wished her goodnight, and left before the argument found the place in him where good sense had already begun to fail.
Instead, he moved one step closer.
“You are my wife,” he said again, more quietly this time. “And no one touches what is mine.”
Color rose swiftly in her cheeks. For one suspended instant, he thought she might soften. Not yield, for Frances would sooner duel him with a fireplace poker than yield easily, but be moved by the rough truth of it. Then her chin lifted.
“What is yours?” she repeated.
Andrew said nothing.
Her eyes flashed. “How convenient. I am yours when another man speaks too freely, but not yours when the rules of our marriage must be honored.”
“That is not what I meant.”
“Is it not?”
“No.”
“Then what did you mean?”
He could not answer. It wasn’t because he didn’t know, but because some dangerous part of him did.
He meant that he had not been able to watch another man lean toward her without wanting to put himself between them.
He meant that the idea of Frances laughing with some careless young fool, of her bright eyes turned upon another gentleman, of another man discovering the sharpness and warmth and secret tenderness she hid beneath wit, had filled him with a jealousy so sudden and complete that he scarcely recognized himself.
He meant that the thought of separate houses had begun to feel less like a sensible conclusion and more like punishment.
He meant that he had spent the evening aware of the place where her hand had rested on his arm.
He meant that he did not want to lose her.
But that was impossible. Wanting did not make a thing wise.
Wanting did not make a man safe to trust. Wanting did not undo vows made in childhood, promises given in fear, habits formed over years of carrying burdens alone.
He had never intended to be a husband in any true sense. He had never intended to need.
“I meant that he insulted you,” he said instead.
Frances laughed softly, but there was no amusement in it. “And I thank you for your concern. But I do not belong to you merely because the world has forced us to share a name.”
He took another step. The space between them narrowed.
“No,” he said. “Not merely because of that.”
Her breath altered. He saw it, slight but unmistakable.
“Andrew.”
His name sounded like a warning. He ignored it.
“You speak of rules,” he said. “You remind me of them whenever they are most convenient to you.”
“They were your rules as much as mine.”
“Yes.”
“Then remember them.”
“I remember them perfectly.”
“Then you will remember that I am free to speak with whom I please.”
His hand flexed at his side. “Are you?”
Her eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?”
The words had been a mistake. He knew it at once. Yet jealousy was a crude thing, and once awakened, it did not readily submit to refinement.
Frances came toward him now, with anger overcoming caution. “Do not take that tone with me.”
He moved closer again. “I simply asked a question.”
“And I shall answer it plainly. Yes. If this is a marriage in name only, if we are to live separately as we agreed, then I shall speak to other gentlemen exactly as I wish.”
A silence followed. It was not quiet, not to him.
The fire cracked. Somewhere in the corridor, a floorboard settled. Frances’s breathing came a little too quickly, and Andrew could hear his own pulse with humiliating force.
Other gentlemen exactly as I wish.
The words moved through him like flame along a fuse.
He knew what he ought to do. He ought to retreat. He ought to regain the polished calm he wore so well. He ought to remind her that she was free, that he had never intended to claim anything more from this marriage than propriety required.
Instead, his voice lower. “No.”
Frances stared at him. “No?”
“No.”
“You don’t get to forbid me.”
“I know.”
“And yet you just tried.”
“I know.”
The admission did not appease her. If anything, it seemed to make her more unsettled.
He was close enough now to see the pulse beating at the base of her throat, close enough to catch the faint scent of rosewater in her hair, beneath the warmer notes of candle smoke and silk and woman.
Her anger had colored her beautifully. That was a wicked, inconvenient thought, and it did nothing to restore his sanity.
She did not step back. That was what undid him. Frances stood her ground as she always did, proud and defiant, as though daring him to discover the limit of his own restraint.
“I am not one of your estates,” she said softly. “I am not a matter to be managed.”
“No.”
“I am not a child to be protected from every foolish man who approaches.”
“No.”
“I am not yours in that way.”
Andrew’s gaze dropped to her mouth. He should not have done it. Her lips parted, and the small movement struck him harder than any challenge she had spoken.
“Andrew,” she whispered.
The warning had changed. He heard it. He understood it. He ignored it all the same.
With one step, the remaining space vanished.
He took her face in his hands and kissed her.
It was not the kiss he had imagined in his more disciplined moments, when he had tortured himself with thoughts of gentleness.
There was nothing gentle in the first instant of it.
He kissed her with all the restraint he had been denying, all the jealousy he despised, all the longing he had refused to name.
Her mouth was warm beneath his, startled and soft, and for one terrible second, she went utterly still.
Then she answered him. The world altered.
Her hands came to his coat, not to push him away, but to hold on.
Her fingers curled into the fabric, and the slight desperate pull of them drove the last of his reason from the room.
He angled his mouth over hers and drew her nearer, with one hand sliding to her back, and the other into the loose silk of her hair.
She made a faint sound, which was small, breathless and almost angry, and it moved through him with such force that he nearly forgot where they were, who they were, all the rules that had once seemed sufficient to save them.
Frances rose toward him. She kissed him as she argued, with feeling and fire, as though surrender itself must be made into defiance.
Her hands pressed against his chest. His arm tightened at her waist. The green silk slipped beneath his palm.
He could feel the rapid beat of her heart, or perhaps it was his own.
He wanted…
No.
The thought struck him like cold water. Or perhaps it struck her first.
Frances tore herself back. The separation was small in distance and violent in effect.
She stumbled one half step away, lifting a hand to her mouth.
Her eyes were wide, darkened with shock, her breathing uneven.
The firelight caught the disorder of her hair, the flush across her cheeks, the tremor in her fingers.
Andrew stood frozen. He had done this. He had crossed the line he had drawn himself. Worse, she had crossed it with him, and the knowledge was both intoxicating and unbearable.
“Frances,” he whispered.
She shook her head once, sharply. “No.”
The word struck him harder than accusation.
“I should not have–”
“No,” she repeated, though her voice was not steady. “Don’t. Don’t make it worse by apologizing as though I was not there.”
He fell silent. She drew a breath, then another, as if assembling herself piece by piece. That composure of hers returned slowly, imperfectly, and he hated himself for having shaken it.
“I shall go to the library,” she said. “I will spend the night there.”
The words cut through what remained of the heat between them.
“No.”
Her eyes flew to his. “Andrew–”
“No,” he echoed, feeling more controlled now, though control felt like something dragged over broken glass. “You will not sleep in the library.”
“I cannot remain here.”
“You can. I cannot.”
She stared at him. He turned away at once, because if he looked at her much longer, he did not trust himself to say anything wise. He crossed to the chair, took up his coat where he had thrown it earlier, and pulled it on with more force than the garment deserved.
“Andrew.”
Her voice stopped him at the door. He did not turn. For one moment, all he could hear was the fire, the distant hush of the house, and the memory of her breath against his mouth.
“I will not have you made uncomfortable in your own chamber,” he told her.
“It is yours as much as mine.”
“No.” His hand closed around the door handle. “Not tonight.”
He opened the door. Cooler air met him from the corridor, but it did nothing to steady the tumult in his chest. He stepped out before she could answer, before he could weaken, before he could turn back and discover whether the shock in her eyes had been fear, regret, or something far more dangerous.
Then Andrew shut the door behind him and marched toward the library.