Page 82 of Duke of Moonstone
Frances found Emily in the library an hour later, curled in the window seat with a picture book open across her knees. The child looked up when Frances entered, and her face did the thing it always did now. It brightened. Opened. Became the face of a girl who expected good things from the person walking toward her.
“Frances! Look—this one has maps in it.”
“Maps!” Frances crossed to the window seat and sat beside her. “How wonderful. Where do they lead?”
“Everywhere. There is one of India. And one of Egypt.” Emily turned a page. “Is this where the pyramids are?”
“It is indeed.”
Emily traced a line on the map with her finger. “Will you read to me tonight?”
Frances’s chest tightened. She kept her face easy. “I must tell you something. I am going away for a few days.”
Emily’s hand stilled on the page.
“Only a few days,” Frances said. “I am visiting a friend who is getting married. It is a journey to Scotland, but I shall be back before you know it.”
Emily looked at her. The brightness had not left her face, but something careful had arrived behind it. Right then, she looked like a child who had learned that people who left did not always return.
“You will come back?”
“I will come back.” Frances took her hand. Held it firmly. “I promise you,. I will come back.”
“Will you bring me something?”
“What would you like?”
Emily thought. “A stone from Scotland for my collection.”
“A stone from Scotland. Consider it done.”
The child nodded. She looked down at the map again, and her shoulders lowered, and Frances squeezed her hand once more before releasing it.
“Shall we read the map book together?” Frances asked. “I believe I have time before dinner.”
Emily smiled and shifted closer, Frances put her arm around the child’s thin shoulders and pointed to the map of Egypt, they spent the next hour tracing rivers and naming cities, and Frances did not think about the study or the argument or the man who would not forgive his sister for choosing love.
She did not think about it at all.
Two days later, the entrance hall was busy.
Frances stood beside her trunks—two of them neatly packed, strapped, and labeled for the journey—and checked her list while Graves waited at attention, his posture indicating that the departure of a duchess was an occasion demanding his full professional dignity.
“The letter to my sister has been posted?”
“This morning, Your Grace.”
“And the carriage?”
“Ready at the door. The coachman expects to reach the first posting inn by nightfall.”
“Very good.” Frances folded her list and tucked it into her reticule. “If anything should arise regarding Emily?—”
“Miss Bennet and Mrs. Wells have been fully apprised, Your Grace.”
“Thank you, Graves.”
The butler inclined his head. Frances drew on her gloves and was reaching for her traveling cloak when footsteps sounded on the staircase.
