Page 30 of Duke of Moonstone
“Your Grace,” he said, “I am to inform you that His Grace will not be joining you for dinner this evening. He has gone out on business.”
Frances looked at him. “Business?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“At dinner time?”
Graves’s expression remained mostly the same or changed so subtly that someone less attentive might not notice—a gentle softening around the eyes, a slight lowering of the brows, and a face that was attempting to hide sympathy but not quite succeeding.
Frances noticed it and felt sharp resentment right away, surprising her because she did not seek pity from the butler or anyone else in the house. As the Duchess of Whitestone, she had accepted this arrangement knowingly and confidently, and sherefused to appear distressed simply because her husband missed dinner.
Again.
“Thank you, Graves,” she said. “I shall dine alone.”
“Very good, Your Grace. Shall I have the meal served?”
“Please.”
In the dining room, Frances sat at one end of the table and gazed along its polished length toward the empty chair at the opposite end. She mused that the entire Pembroke family’s former dining room could probably fit into the space between them, leaving enough room for a small parlor.
This is ridiculous.
The first course arrived. Then the second. Then a third that she had not expected, and a fourth after that. Madame Beaumont had outdone herself with a thoroughness that suggested either great professional pride or a personal campaign to ensure the new duchess did not go hungry—possibly both. There was a creamy lobster soup that was so good Frances closed her eyes after the first spoonful and let herself simply enjoy something, just for a moment, without attaching any larger meaning to it.
“Graves.”
The butler stepped forward. “Your Grace?”
“Please convey my compliments to Madame Beaumont. The soup is exceptional.”
“I shall do so directly, Your Grace. She will be most gratified.”
He withdrew, and Frances was alone again.
She ate. The soup, then a fish course, then something with pheasant that was undoubtedly excellent but that she could not bring herself to taste properly because the room was too quiet, the table was too long, and the clink of her silverware against the plate was the only sound, and it echoed.
Eleanor would have something to say about this.
The thought arrived gently, without warning, and Frances set down her spoon and let it sit.
Eleanor was somewhere in Scotland now, or should have been if her journey went as planned. Frances tried to imagine her—in a carriage on a northern road or perhaps already there, standing in a village she had never seen before with a man she loved beside her. Was she happy? Was she scared? Was she gazing at an unfamiliar sky and wondering if she had made the right decision?
She made her choice because she was in love.
Frances had said that to the Duke, and she had meant it. Eleanor had chosen love. It had been reckless, impulsive, and it had upended everything, but Frances could not bring herself to condemn it because at least Eleanor had chosen it.
At least she had looked at two roads and walked down the one she wanted, rather than the one that had been selected for her by a man with a list.
I hope you are happy, Ellie. I hope he is everything you believed him to be.
She picked up her spoon again and finished the soup.
The pheasant was followed by a pudding, a delicate thing with cream and something that tasted of vanilla, and Frances ate it without tasting it because her thoughts had moved, without her permission, to a different person entirely.
Where could he have gone?
The question pushed forward before she could stop it.
