Page 49 of Duke of Moonstone
“There are stories about knights,” Frances added. “And dragons. And a rather good one about a princess who rescues herself which I always thought was far more sensible than waiting about for someone else to do it.”
Nothing. Then—so slight that Frances might have thought it was her imagination—the corner of Emily’s mouth shifted. Only a little. Just enough.
There you are.
Frances rose to her feet, brushing the dust from her knees without looking at it, and turned back to Miss Bennet. The governess was watching the exchange with an expression that was carefully neutral but not unkind.
“Miss Bennet, Mrs. Wells, our housekeeper, will show you and Emily to your rooms. You must both be tired from the journey. I have asked for tea to be sent up.”
“That is most generous, Your Grace.”
“Is there anything Emily needs? Anything particular she is accustomed to?”
Miss Bennet glanced down at her charge. Emily had gone very still again, her eyes fixed on the staircase as though measuringeach step. “She likes quiet, Your Grace. She does not care for loud noises or sudden changes. And she...” A pause. “She sometimes has difficulty sleeping. If she should wake in the night, a light left burning in the hallway helps.”
Frances filed each detail away with the care of a woman who understood that these small things were not small at all. “I shall see to it.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
Frances looked at Emily once more. The child had not moved. She stood in the entrance hall with her gloved hands knotted together and her thin shoulders braced against the enormity of everything around her, and she looked exactly like what she was—a little girl who had lost everything and been brought to a place she did not know to live with people she did not trust and who was holding herself together with nothing more than silence and good posture.
I know what that feels like. I know it better than you can imagine.
“Emily,” Frances said and waited until the child’s eyes came to hers, “this is your home now. You may go wherever you like in it.”
Emily looked at her. Said nothing. But her hands loosened slightly, and her fingers uncurled from their tight knot, hanging at her sides.
It was not much. It was everything.
Alexander had not meant to watch.
He had come to the study doorway to verify the carriage’s arrival—a practical matter, nothing more. He would confirm that the child and the governess had reached Whitestone safely, ensure that Graves had the situation well in hand, and return to his correspondence. Five minutes, at most. An efficient use of his time.
That had been the plan.
The plan had not accounted for the Duchess kneeling on the floor of his entrance hall.
He stood in the shadow of the doorframe and watched her lower herself to the marble, settling at eye level with a child who had not spoken a single word since crossing the threshold. The Duchesss skirts spread around her like something spilled. Her back was straight. Her voice carried across the hall—quiet, unhurried, stripped of every formality she wielded so naturally in his presence.
“Good day, Emily. I’m Frances.”
He had prepared himself for this moment. He had made the arrangements, as promised, with the thoroughness he applied to all things—correspondence with the governess, instructions to Mrs. Wells regarding the rooms, a schedule of meals and lessonsdrawn up and approved. He had anticipated, with reasonable certainty, the range of possible outcomes when the Duchess met his ward for the first time.
Polite distance. Competent management. Perhaps a degree of awkwardness, the kind that attended any introduction between strangers, particularly when one stranger was eight years old and had spent the past year in a state of near silence.
He had not anticipated this.
‘Do you like books?’
The child’s chin dipped. A nod so small it was barely visible from across the hall, and Alexander watched Frances’ face change—watched something warm and fierce move through her expression—and the thing in his chest that he had been ignoring for days tightened like a fist closing.
The same woman who had stood in his study two days ago with fire in her eyes and told him that duty without love was empty. Who had called him a coward without using the word which was considerably more effective than using it would have been. Who had demanded that Emily come home.
And now, she was on her knees in a silk dress that cost more than most families earned in a month, talking about books, dragons, and princesses who rescued themselves while the child’s mouth moved. Not a smile. Not quite. But close. Closer than anything Alexander had managed in a year of guardianshipwhich the Duchess had so accurately described as conducted at a suitable distance.
You would take responsibility for a child who is not yours?
Of course.
