Page 45 of Duke of Moonstone
She managed a reply—something about being glad, something about the house and how happy she was to be here—and it came out sounding natural enough even though it tasted like ash.
The conversation continued. Margaret asked about Lavinia and Tristan. She asked about Frances’ music, her languages, and her reading. She wanted to know everything, and she listened to the answers with the focused attention of a woman starved for company, drinking them in like water.
Nearly an hour had passed when Margaret reached for Frances’ hand again.
“You have brought such light into this house already,” she said. Her voice was quieter now, touched by fatigue, but the warmth in it had not dimmed. “I can see why Alexander chose you.”
Frances’s chest ached. She held the older woman’s hand and smiled and said nothing because anything she said would be another lie, and she had told enough of them for one afternoon.
Then Margaret turned to her son, and her expression changed.
“Now that you are settled, Alexander,” she said, “I believe it is time to bring the child home to live with us.”
The room went still. Frances’ smile froze on her face. The words moved through her mind slowly, each one landing separately, as though they were arriving by post rather than in a sentence.
The child.
What child?
She turned to look at the Duke. His face had gone completely blank.
CHAPTER 18
Whitestone has a child?
Frances stared at the Duke. Her hands remained clasped around Margaret’s, and her smile stayed on her face while deep beneath those expressions, her mind raced and made a loud noise she could not let surface. Not here. Not in front of this kind woman who believed her son had married for love.
The silence stretched between them. Frances waited for an explanation—a clarification, a reassurance, anything at all—and nothing came. The Duke’s face had gone perfectly, completely blank. The same face he wore to dinner parties and parliamentary debates and every other occasion where feeling was a liability.
He stood behind her chair like a man carved from the same stone as his house, and he said nothing.
Margaret, apparently, did not notice.
“She is such a dear little thing,” the Dowager Duchess continued, her voice soft with affection. “I do worry about her, out there in the countryside with only a governess for company. A child needs a family.”
Frances managed to arrange her expression into something that resembled calm interest rather than the controlled panic it actually was. “Indeed, she does.”
“I believe Mother needs her rest now,” the Duke said. His voice was even. Measured. As though they had been discussing table linens. “We should leave.”
Margaret turned to Frances and took both her hands, pressing them warmly. “You must come again soon, my dear. Tomorrow, if you can manage it. I have so enjoyed this.”
“As have I.” Frances squeezed the older woman’s fingers and smiled, and the smile held, and the composure held, and everything held because she was not going to fall apart in front of a woman whose only crime was loving her son and trusting his choices. “I shall come tomorrow. I promise.”
“Wonderful.” Margaret released her hands with a final pat. “And perhaps next time, you will play for me? Alexander tells me you are a gifted musician.”
Alexander tells you things, does he? How fascinating, given that he tells me nothing at all.
“I would be delighted,” Frances said.
She rose from her chair. The Duke was already at the door, holding it open with the efficiency of a man eager to be on the other side as quickly as possible. Frances crossed the room, her skirts whispering against the carpet, and stepped through the doorway without glancing at him.
The door closed behind them.
The hallway was empty. Quiet. Frances counted to three in her head because three seemed like a reasonable number and because anything less would have been reckless and anything more would have been cowardice.
She turned on him.
“What child?”
