Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Andrew had read the same sentence six times and understood none of it.
The letter lay upon his desk, weighted at one corner by a brass seal and at the other by his own unmoving hand.
It concerned a tenant dispute on the northern boundary, or so he believed.
There had been mention of fencing, grazing rights, and one Mr. Harper’s unfortunate tendency to move markers by night.
Under ordinary circumstances, Andrew would have found the matter tedious but manageable. Today, it defeated him entirely.
He set the letter down.
From the open window came the faint brightness of a spring morning. The air had softened in the days since the baby’s fever, carrying the scent of damp earth, new leaves, and the first brave flowers along the southern wall.
Everything was well. The baby was well. That ought to have restored him.
Instead, Andrew had found himself unable to settle.
In the days since the physician had declared the child out of danger, the nursery had returned to its ordinary rhythm.
Mrs. Carter had announced that the little one had excellent spirit, which Andrew had chosen to interpret as a favorable medical conclusion rather than a warning.
Still, every hour or so, he found some excuse to inquire after her. Once, he had gone himself. Twice… possibly more.
He rose abruptly and crossed to the window, intending only to take in air before returning to his work. Then he saw Frances.
She was sitting upon the stone bench near the old rose arbor, with the baby resting in a small cradle that had been brought out into the garden for the occasion. Frances rocked her gently, not with any grand maternal display, but with a small, steady motion that seemed almost unconscious.
In her other hand, Frances held a pencil. A small notebook rested against her knee. She wrote in it between glances at the baby, pausing now and then to tilt her head, think, and continue.
The sunlight moved over her hair, catching brown strands and turning them almost gold at the edges. A few had come loose near her temple. Her bonnet lay discarded beside her, which was improper enough to make him smile faintly and lovely enough to make the smile fade.
Andrew watched longer than he should have. The baby shifted, and Frances at once lowered her face toward her.
“No,” Andrew heard faintly through the open window, “you need not object to every sentence. Some of them are perfectly adequate.”
The child made no answer, which Frances appeared to take as criticism.
Andrew left his study without a second thought. He told himself he was merely checking that the child did not grow chilled in the garden. It was a reasonable concern. Infants were delicate. Weather could change. Women with notebooks might become distracted.
By the time he reached the lawn, he no longer believed himself.
Frances did not hear him approach at first. She was too intent upon the page, with the pencil moving in short, impatient strokes. The gravel beneath his boots gave him away only when he was a few steps from the bench.
She looked up. For one suspended instant, surprise left her face open.
Then she recovered. “Your Grace.”
“Your Grace,” he returned.
Her brows lifted. “Have we become formal again?”
“I was following your example.”
“I was caught unprepared. Formality is useful in emergencies.”
He smirked. “This is an emergency?”
She returned an equally playful smile. “That depends upon why you are approaching so solemnly.”
Andrew glanced at the baby, who slept with the serene indifference of someone wholly unconcerned with titles, scandals, or estate management. “I came to see how she was.”
Frances looked down at the child, and her expression changed before she could stop it. The sharpness eased. Her hand settled lightly over the blanket.
“She is quite well. As you can see, she has recovered enough to be imperious in her sleep.”
“She looks peaceful,” he nodded.
“That is how she deceives us.”
Andrew stepped closer. “And you?”
Frances glanced up quickly. “Am I imperious in my sleep?”
“I would not presume to know.”
Color moved faintly into her cheeks, just enough to reward him more than it should have done.
“I am well,” she replied, returning her attention to the notebook.
Andrew looked at it. “What are you doing?”
“Oh,” she shrugged. “Merely passing the time.”
She closed the notebook slightly, not fully. The gesture was small, but it caught his attention at once. Frances was not a woman who hid without reason. She challenged, deflected, provoked and argued. Concealment in her hands was almost an invitation.
“With writing?” he asked.
“With embroidery, it would be less legible.”
He nearly smiled. “Is it for that scandal column you used to write?”
The question altered her at once. Her gaze dropped to the notebook. For a moment, only the breeze moved between them, stirring the hem of her shawl and carrying the faint scent of grass and warm stone.
“No,” she answered.
He regretted asking. “Forgive me. I did not mean–”
“It is a fair question.” She touched the edge of the page with one finger. “But no. I do not wish to write such things any longer.”
Andrew remained standing beside the bench. “Because of what happened with your sister?”
“With Emma,” Frances agreed quietly, “and with you. And with the baby. And with every person who has ever been turned into entertainment before breakfast.”
There was no self-pity in her voice. That made the confession more striking.
“At the time,” she continued, “I thought I understood harm because I knew how sharply words could be shaped. But that was vanity. Knowing a blade is sharp is not the same as understanding what it does when it cuts.”
Andrew studied her. “You regret it.”
“Yes.”
The answer was plain. It made him appreciate it more.
“I regret the pleasure I took in it most of all,” she said. “The cleverness. The little triumph of knowing a line would be repeated. It seemed harmless if one did not stay to watch where the words landed.” Her mouth tightened faintly. “I… do not want to do that anymore.”
Andrew felt, unexpectedly, a deep respect move through him, and there was no surprise in it. He already knew she possessed a conscience, though she often disguised it as irritation. But to hear her name the fault without ornament struck him.
“And what do you want to write?” he asked.
Frances hesitated. This time, the color in her face was unmistakable.
“Nothing of consequence.”
“Well, that seems unlikely.”
“It is very possible,” she nodded. “Many people write things of no consequence.”
“Not you,” he reminded her.
She looked at him then, and whatever reply she had prepared seemed to falter.
The baby sighed in her sleep. Frances glanced down, adjusted the blanket near the child’s cheek, and then said, almost too lightly. “A novel.”
“A novel,” he echoed.
“Yes.”
Andrew sat down at the other end of the bench, leaving a careful space between them. “What sort of novel?”
Frances looked as though she regretted the entire conversation. “A romance.”
He could not quite keep the surprise from his face.
Her chin lifted at once. “You need not look so astonished.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“You do not.”
“No,” he admitted. “Not entirely.”
Her eyes narrowed, though the effect was softened by the blush still touching her cheeks. “You must think I do not seem the type.”
“I think,” Andrew chose his words carefully, “that you have declared war on matrimony often enough that romance seems an unexpected choice of weapon.”
“It is not a weapon. It is merely a genre of choice.”
“Is it?”
“Do not become insufferable,” she pretended to pout, and it almost made him smile. “You were nearly tolerable a moment ago.”
That did make him smile. Frances looked away, but not before he saw the reluctant curve of her own mouth.
“I do not necessarily believe in romance in real life,” she admitted.
“No?”
“No.” She looked toward the garden path, where sunlight had gathered in pale patches between the budding trees. “In real life, people marry for land, fortune, duty, pressure, convenience, desperation, or because society has pushed them into a corner and called the corner respectable.”
Andrew said nothing. She glanced back at him, and something unreadable passed between them.
“But on paper,” she continued, “things may be arranged more kindly. Misunderstandings may be solved. Difficult men may learn to speak. Women may choose without being punished for wanting something. And in the end, if one writes it properly, everyone may be happy.”
“In a romance.”
“Yes.” Her gaze returned to the page. “Where things can always end well.”
Andrew felt the words with a force he did not care to examine.
He looked down at the sleeping baby, then at Frances’ hand resting protectively near the child’s cradle. “And your story?”
She drew the notebook closer but did not close it. “It is hardly formed.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Her lashes lifted. He had not meant the words to come out so quietly, nor had he meant to ask as though the answer mattered. But it did.
Frances studied him for a moment, perhaps deciding whether he was mocking her. Whatever she saw must have reassured her, for she looked down at the notebook and drew her thumb along the worn edge.
“It is about a woman,” she divulged, “who agrees to a marriage she never wanted.”
Andrew went very still.
“With a man who keeps his distance,” she continued, “and hides more than he says.”
The garden seemed to quiet around them. Frances did not look at him now. Her voice remained measured, but still fragile.
“They live under the same roof, bound by duty rather than choice. At first, they do not understand each other at all. She thinks him cold. He thinks her difficult.”
Andrew’s mouth moved faintly. “Is she?”
“Extremely.”
“Then perhaps he is not entirely wrong.”
She gave him a look, but it lacked its usual bite.
“And he?” Andrew asked.
“Is maddening.”
“Naturally,” he grinned.
“And proud. Secretive. Frequently high-handed.”
He whistled in amusement. “This man sounds unbearable.”
“He is.”
The baby stirred slightly, and Frances rocked her without thinking. The motion was gentle and practiced now. Andrew watched it, and then, he watched the way Frances’ voice softened as she continued.
“But slowly,” she said, “they begin to see each other more clearly. Not all at once, and not easily, but in small moments, when one of them is afraid, when one of them says too much, or not enough, when the other sees what lies beneath the part that is shown to the world.”
Andrew’s chest tightened. Frances’ pencil rested motionless against the page.
“The woman knows it cannot last,” she told him. “That is what makes it dangerous. If something is temporary, one ought not to grow attached to it. One ought to keep one’s heart sensibly out of reach.”
She gave a small, almost soundless laugh.
“But hearts are not especially sensible, even in novels.”
Andrew looked at her. Her profile was turned slightly away, and he could see the tender curve of her mouth before she remembered to guard it.
The baby slept between them, peaceful and warm, as though she had no idea she was the small living center around which so much fear, duty, and longing had gathered.
For a long moment, he could not speak. He wanted to ask whether she truly believed it could not last. He wanted to ask whether the woman in her story wished it to.
He wanted to tell her that the man in it, whoever he might be, was perhaps less cold than frightened, less distant than ignorant of how to come closer without ruining everything.
He said none of it.
Instead, he asked. “How does it end?”
Frances looked down at the page. The breeze lifted the corner of the notebook, revealing only a few lines before she pressed it flat again.
“I have not decided yet,” she whispered.
Andrew heard what she did not say.
Neither have I.
The baby made a soft, contented sound in her sleep. Frances lowered her gaze to the child, and for a moment her face was so gentle that Andrew could not look away.
He sat beside her in the spring light, the work in his study forgotten, the questions between them still unanswered, and understood with a quiet, dangerous certainty that some stories did not wait for their authors to choose an ending.
Some had already begun writing themselves.