Page 73 of Duke of Moonstone
She looked down.
A shawl. Heavy wool, dark green, far too large for her. It was carefully draped across her shoulders—tucked at the edges and arranged so it would not slip. It was the kind of quiet, deliberate act someone does for a sleeping person who must not be awakened.
Frances’s breath caught.
She looked up. The corridor beyond the open door was empty except for one retreating figure. Alexander was walking away. His back was straight, his stride steady, his hands clasped behind him. He did not look back and showed no sign that he had been there at all.
Frances watched him go. The dark green wool was warm against her arms. Emily slept on, her breath soft and even, one small hand still resting near where Frances’ had been.
The gray light grew brighter. The room became clear around her—the bed, the chair, the curtains, the child.
He is incapable of feeling. That is what you said. On the terrace, not eight hours ago, you told Lavinia he would never love you.
CHAPTER 26
“Goodnight, Frances. Goodnight...” Emily paused in the doorway, her gaze moving to Alexander with that careful, tentative quality that had begun, over these past days, to soften into something braver. “Goodnight, Alexander.”
“Goodnight, Emily,” he said.
She smiled and disappeared into the corridor. Her stockinged feet padded against the carpet, growing fainter, and then she was gone, and the library was very still.
Frances sat in the armchair by the fire with a book open in her lap. She had been reading aloud to Emily until ten minutes ago, her voice carrying through the room with that particular warmth he had come to associate with evenings here—unhurried, unguarded, nothing like the careful composure she maintained in daylight. Now she turned a page. She was not reading it. He could tell because her eyes were not moving.
Alexander stood at the shelf nearest the window, a volume of Plutarch in his hand that he had selected for its proximity to a reasonable vantage point and not, strictly speaking, for its content. He had read approximately four sentences in the past half hour.
The fire crackled. A log settled in the grate, sending up a brief shower of sparks. Frances’ hair was half-pinned, the rest of it falling in loose waves against her neck. The candlelight caught the strands and turned them to something between gold and copper, and he looked at them then turned back to Plutarch.
The room pressed close around them but not unpleasantly. It was the particular intimacy of a space shared by two people who were acutely aware of each other in a way neither would admit, and both were failing to hide. Every sound was amplified—the turn of her page, the shift of his weight, the quiet rhythm of her breathing.
Stop.
Thunder split the sky.
The crack was sudden and thunderous—like the world splitting apart—and rain immediately followed, pounding against the windows in sheets. The glass rattled in its frames. Frances looked up from her book.
“Have you heard anything further?” she asked. She was looking at the window. “About Eleanor.”
The question sank into his chest and stayed there. He waited for the usual response—the tightening of his jaw, the firmness of his voice, the cold, controlled anger that had greeted every mention of his sister’s name for weeks.
It did not come.
“No,” he said. “Only that she was last seen near the border. I hope she is safe.”
The words surprised him. Not the content—he had always hoped she was safe, even when he was furious—but the way they came out. Quiet. Honest. Free of the rigidity he had wrapped around the subject like armor.
When did that change?
He knew when. He simply was not ready to examine it.
Frances turned the book over in her lap, her fingers resting on the spine. “At least she followed her heart.”
“Following one’s heart is not always wise.”
“No.” A pause. “But it is brave.”
“Bravery and wisdom are not the same virtue.”
“They are not. But I have noticed that people who lack one often claim to possess the other.”
