Page 53 of Duke of Moonstone
“Terribly. But I did it anyway, and I have never regretted it.” Margaret smiled. “Sometimes the best things are frightening at first.”
Emily was quiet for a moment. Then she said, so softly that Frances barely caught it, “May I call you Grandmama?”
Margaret’s hand went to her mouth. Her eyes filled, bright and sudden, and she blinked hard and reached for Emily’s hand and held it between both of hers.
“My darling girl,” she said, “I would like nothing better.”
Frances looked down at her hands in her lap. Her vision blurred, but she blinked it clear and kept her breathing steady. She made no sound because this moment belonged to the two of them, and she would not interrupt it for anything.
They stayed a bit longer. Margaret told Emily about the watercolor on the wall—painted by a woman the Benevolent Society had supported years ago. Emily asked if she could look at it more closely, and Margaret told her to take it down if she wanted which Emily did not do but clearly wanted to. She stood in front of it instead, studying the painted garden with the focused attention of a child who was starting to feel safe enough to be curious.
Frances rose from her chair. “We should let you rest.”
“Must you?” Margaret looked genuinely disappointed. “I have been resting for years. I am quite tired of it.”
“We shall come again tomorrow,” Frances said. “I promise.”
“Tomorrow,” Margaret repeated. She looked at Emily, who had turned from the watercolor. “And you, my dear. You must bring me one of your books. I want to hear about this princess who rescues herself.”
Emily nodded. Then she leaned forward and kissed Margaret’s cheek. Margaret closed her eyes. Her hand came up and rested, briefly, on Emily’s dark hair.
When Emily stepped back, she opened her eyes and turned to Frances, and her expression had changed. It was still warm and bright but with something deeper underneath it.
She reached for Frances’ hand and held it.
“I am so pleased you came into my son’s life,” she said. “So very pleased.”
The guilt was there. Frances felt it press against her ribs. She held Margaret’s thin fingers and smiled, and the smile was not false, but it was not the whole truth either, and the space between those two things was where she lived these days.
“Thank you, Margaret,” she said. “That means a great deal.”
Margaret squeezed her hand once, firmly, and let go.
As they left, Frances kept Margaret’s words with her like a stone in her pocket. She did not know how she felt about Alexander, nor did she understand what to make of a man who built walls around everything he loved and then, in moments of vulnerability, let them crack just enough for the light to shine through.
She knew only that something in this house was shifting.
And that,she thought as Emily’s hand tightened in hers,is the most unsettling thing of all.
“How difficult is it to find one little chit across England?”
The words came through the closed study door, muffled but unmistakable, and Frances’s step faltered for half a beat before she caught herself. Emily’s small hand was in hers.
Eleanor.
She kept walking. Her grip on Emily’s hand stayed gentle and steady, and she filed the words away in the place where she kept things she intended to address later, which was becoming rather crowded.
“Are you hungry?” Frances asked, glancing down.
Emily looked up at her with those serious brown eyes. She gave a small, considered nod.
“Good. Because Madame Beaumont has made something that smelled extraordinary when I passed the kitchen earlier, and I should hate to eat it alone.”
They reached the dining room. The table had been set for three — a smaller arrangement than the spacious, echoing length Frances had grown accustomed to, and she suspected Mrs. Wells’ influence. The chairs were arranged at one end, close enough for conversation, close enough to suggest a family might sit there rather than three strangers occupying opposite ends of a battleground.
Frances pulled out Emily’s chair and helped her up. The child’s feet did not quite reach the floor. A footman had placed a cushion on the seat, and Frances adjusted it, tucking it behind Emily’s back.
“There. Better?”
