Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Do not dare run away from us again!” a sweet, familiar voice cried, as a figure in a pretty yellow dress shot down the townhouse stairs and almost knocked Frances clean off her feet. “Never, ever!”
Juliet clung on like a limpet, crushing Frances with her desperate hug of relief and affection.
“I did not run,” Frances protested as she hugged her youngest sister back with equal vigor. “I traveled by coach.”
Juliet pulled back, putting on a frown. “It is not funny, Franny. We have been beside ourselves without you. Not one of us has known what to do. It has been like losing a limb, not having you here with us.” She lowered her voice.
“I very nearly scolded Father for not defending you, but I am ashamed to say that I lost my nerve.”
“That is quite all right,” Frances insisted. “I would not have wanted you to get in trouble on my behalf, especially not so close to your debut.”
“Well, that is the other thing,” Juliet exclaimed. “What on earth were you doing, leaving us so close to the most important day of my life? Father said you were staying with friends in the countryside until everyone stopped talking about you, but Father does not have any friends. Where were you?”
The letters that Frances had left for her sisters had not detailed where she was going or what she was doing; they had been simpler, filled with apologies and farewells.
She supposed she should not have been surprised that her father had altered the story, to make it more ‘palatable,’ as if her sisters were judgmental members of the ton and not family.
Juliet peeked out of the open townhouse door. “I do not know that crest. Where is that carriage from? If you were really staying with friends, why did you travel there by coach? A friend would have sent a carriage.”
“Juliet, my darling, darling, Juliet,” Frances gasped, uncertain of whether to laugh or wither. “Do you think I might settle myself in my chambers and have a bath to wash away the two days of traveling before you bombard me?”
The younger woman grinned. “Apologies, Franny. I am just so glad to see you again, and so fascinated to find out where you have been. I cannot remember the last time you did something so exciting. It is about time, for you deserve an exciting adventure!”
“Slapping a viscount is no longer considered exciting?” Frances asked with a raised eyebrow, though she too could not deny that she was glad to be with her sisters again. “Goodness, you make me sound so very dull.”
“Not dull,” Juliet countered. “Just… dependable.”
From the drawing room down the hall, Lucinda’s sleepy voice groaned, “Juliet, that is worse!”
“How is it worse? Dependable is a lovely thing. Dull is not,” Juliet argued. “And do not start giving me synonyms and etymologies; I am not interested. I know that ‘dependable’ is a nice word.”
Tired and disheartened as she was, it took a great deal of effort for Frances to smother a smirk, as she caught the tiniest glimpse of how things might have been in this house without her.
She was usually the mediator between her sisters, so it was a surprise to see that both of them appeared to be in one piece.
“Anyone who has been called ‘dependable’ would probably argue,” Lucinda replied, as she padded down the hallway to join the greeting. “Mules are dependable. Housekeepers are dependable.”
“If you are going to be like this, you can return to the drawing room and stay there,” Juliet muttered.
The three sisters could not have been more different: where Frances was rather short and somewhat plump, Juliet was of middling height and willowy figure, and unreasonably pretty; while Lucinda was the tallest of the three and of a sturdier build, with a classical beauty that any painter would have relished capturing.
Where Frances’ hair was dark brown, the color lightened as the sisters got younger: Lucinda having the loveliest, thickest chestnut locks, while Juliet had an almost autumnal hue to hers.
The eyes, however, were the same, though Lucinda’s were framed by spectacles that, unlike Frances, she insisted on wearing always.
With a pointed push of those spectacles, Lucinda put her arms around Frances.
“It is good to have you back, Franny. You have been sorely missed, for you are the only person in this household who can hold an intelligent conversation.” She pulled back, casting a glare at Juliet.
“You would think that Juliet is the only lady in the entire country who has ever debuted, and I cannot hear about it anymore.”
“Then stay in the drawing room!” Juliet repeated, pronouncing each word slowly, as she waved a hand down the hallway.
Frances put up her hands. “Now, now, if you cannot get along then I shall have to scamper off again to my friends in the countryside.”
The intended jest tapped on her heart, cracking it.
What would Dominic and Harriet be doing now? Were they dining together, wishing she was there? Had they quarreled, despite what Frances had said about it not being Dominic’s fault? Was Harriet poring over her notes and performing the tasks that Frances had left?
Is he thinking of me?
“We will be peaceable,” Lucinda promised with a frown. “You look tired, Franny. You should retire for the evening. I can have someone bring dinner up to you.”
Frances gave a weary nod. “I think I shall.” She forced a smile. “But it really is good to see you both again. I missed you.”
“Not nearly as much as we missed you,” Juliet jumped in. “Nothing works without you here. But when you are rested, you must tell us everything about your adventure!”
And that is why I shall never be allowed to leave, because nothing works here without me, Frances realized with startling clarity. She did not want to behave like her father, ushering her sisters into marriages for her own benefit, but as long as they remained unmarried, she would always be here.
He would never admit it, but her father had clearly come to that conclusion too: that nothing in the household worked if she was not there. And that could only mean one thing. Spinsterhood.
“Goodnight, you two,” she choked out, as she hurried straight up the stairs and into the familiar surroundings of her bedchamber.
Rushing to the window, she drew back the drapes and looked out at the early evening scene: carriages trundling by, people walking in a hurry, a few servants walking dogs in the small, oval park opposite, the lamplighters whistling as they began to make their rounds.
A sight she had once enjoyed. Now, she wished it were all green lawns and wild woodland, a place where hooting owls and shrieking foxes were the only sounds likely to disturb her peace.
Puffy-faced and bleary-eyed, Frances shambled into the breakfast room, feeling as if she had lost a brawl.
She had bathed and slept the night before, but her dreams had been overrun by visions of a wild and windswept man on horseback, charging across endless lawns to try and reach her, but she had always, somehow, been too far away.
“Ah, there you are,” came a less than welcome voice. “I heard you had returned.”
She rubbed her dry eyes and squinted at her father, half-hidden behind the open pages of the morning newspaper. “You did not think to knock and welcome me home?”
“What?” Her father folded down a corner of the paper to look at her. “Why would I do a thing like that? I knew you were at home, and that is all that mattered.”
Shaking her head, Frances sat down in her usual seat and helped herself to strong tea and slightly scorched toast. As she took her first sip of the warming tea, she stared at her father.
He had retreated behind his paper again, yet she continued to stare, willing him to meet her gaze and apologize, silently urging him to show one speck of gratitude.
“I trust you did not insult the duke?” he asked, a short while later.
She did not dignify that with a response. Instead, she took an aggressive bite of her toast, much to the wide-eyed astonishment of the footman who had the poor fortune of watching the household eat their breakfast.
Her father lowered his paper again. “Frances? Did you hear me?”
“Oh, I thought it was rhetorical,” she replied crisply.
“He must have been furious about the inconvenience you caused,” her father pressed. “I do hope you left on decent terms, for he might know people who can ruin Juliet’s chances of success.”
Frances took another aggressive bite of her toast while she held her father’s eye.
“You caused the inconvenience, Father. I would have been perfectly happy to stay with the duke and his household for the rest of the Season. His daughter wanted me to, but your letter had already arrived, and the duke is reasonable enough that he did not want to leave you without assistance.”
Her father’s eyes flashed with annoyance, but she did not falter.
The days of being afraid to put a toe out of line were gone, for that letter had proven that she was invaluable.
It was not that she could simply do as she pleased now, but she also did not have to tolerate things she would have accepted before.
“Well, that is… very decent of him,” her father mumbled. “I hope this girl you were tutoring will not be competition for Juliet, though.”
“She is debuting at the same time. What do you think?” Frances replied.
Her father set down his newspaper and sat a little straighter in his chair, his expression haughty. “Frances, I do not think I like this new attitude of yours. Clearly, the countryside does not agree with you.” He paused, his frown deepening. “The sooner you return to normality, the better.”
“I am more concerned that the city does not agree with me,” she said, as she washed her toast down with a gulp of tea, channeling some of Harriet’s worst etiquette crimes. “Did you miss me at all?”
Her father scoffed and reached for his newspaper again. “I wrote in my letter that we needed you.”
“I did not ask if you needed me, I asked if you missed me,” she pressed. “Not my ability to hold this household together, not what I can add to this household through marriage, but me. Just me. Did you miss me?”
“You are being ridiculous, Frances,” he said behind his quavering shield.
“My sisters can say it,” she remarked. “Why do you find it impossible?”
He sighed quietly, as if he wished the conversation would go away. “Because once you start missing things, people, everything unravels,” he said, a moment later. “You can never be satisfied if you miss what is not there. You cannot… endure.”
His response knocked the air out of her, as she sat back in shock. Of all the things she had expected him to say, it had not been that. It was the closest to sentimental she had ever seen him, despite him being hidden behind his newspaper.
“Do you miss Mama?” she asked, emboldened.
“That is enough, Frances,” he said, a slight catch in his voice. “I am… grateful that you have returned to us, and now I should like to enjoy the rest of my breakfast in peace.”
Her next bite of toast lacked the same violence, chewing thoughtfully, trying to imagine her father’s expression behind his newspaper.
He had not given her the answer she might have hoped to hear, but, from him, it was practically a confession, a confirmation that, in his own way, he missed her mother.
Perhaps, he had even loved her, and the years of distance and disregard had merely been his way of surviving the loss of her.
As she sipped her tea, she imagined herself in the breakfast room at Alderwick, Dominic sitting across from her with that intense gaze of his. She thought of him smiling as she gently chided Harriet for some misstep or other.
I miss him already.
Unlike her father, she was not ashamed to admit it, even if it meant that her whole life began to unravel. Even if it meant that she would never be satisfied, so far away from Dominic, missing the daydream of what her life could have been if he had just asked her to stay.