Page 104 of Duke of Moonstone
Frances remained still and silent, her hands flat on her knees while her heart pounded so fiercely, she could feel it in her throat.
“I thought the best things a husband could offer were safety,” Alexander continued. “Stability. Respect. I thought that if I built a life ordered enough, controlled enough, dutiful enough, it would be sufficient for everyone.”
His voice was steady, but his hands were not. She could see the faintest tremor in his fingers—barely visible, entirely unlike him.
“I was wrong.”
The words fell into the room. Simple and unadorned.
“The moment you left, the house stopped feeling like a home. The breakfasts were silent. The library was empty. Emily asked me if you were coming back, and I could not answer her because I did not know, and the not knowing...” He stopped and swallowed. “The not knowing was unbearable.”
Do not hope. Do not hope. He will say something else. He will explain it away. He will?—
“I love you.”
Frances’s breath stopped.
“I love your kindness,” he said. “I love your courage. I love the way you understand things I cannot say aloud. I love what you have given Emily, what you have given my home. And I love... I love the way you look at me as though I might be worthy of something better than I have allowed myself to be.”
He took another step forward. His eyes were very blue. Very bright.
“I want your heart,” he said. “If you can still give it. If I have not destroyed any chance of earning it.”
The tears came. She could not stop them. They rose and spilled.
Alexander’s face changed. The composure, or what remained of it, cracked entirely. He moved toward her, his hand reaching, his expression stricken with the particular terror of a man who had made a woman cry and did not know if it was the right kind.
“Frances… I… God, I did not mean to?—”
She laughed. It came out wet, broken, half a sob. “You look so frightened.”
“You are weeping.”
“Yes. That is what women do when men say things like that.”
“Is it…is that?—”
“Are you certain?” She looked up at him through the blur of tears. “Alexander. Are you certain? Because if this is duty, if you are saying this because you feel obligated…”
“I have never been more certain of anything in my life.”
Frances wiped her face. Drew a shaking breath.
“You hurt me,” she said. “Deeply. What I heard you say to Eleanor…”
Surprise crossed his face. “You heard?”
She nodded.
“I was speaking from fear. I was telling her what I believed the arrangement required because I was too much of a coward to admit, even to myself, that the arrangement had stopped being enough weeks ago.”
The ache in her chest was still there but lighter now.
“One more question,” she said.
“Anything.”
“Do you still want an heir?”
