Page 90 of Duke of Moonstone
Infuriating.
But the sound was steady. Low and even, the rhythm of a body that had finally found enough space to let go of its tension. The bed was warm where he lay. Not touching her—not close to touching her—but warm all the same.
Frances closed her eyes. The snoring continued. Her heartbeat slowed. And she slept.
Frances opened her eyes to find him watching her.
Alexander lay on his side, one arm bent beneath the pillow, and his gaze was on her face with an openness that belonged tosomeone who thought himself unobserved. Tender. Conflicted. Something in the blue of his eyes that looked almost like longing before it shuttered—quick and complete, like a book snapped closed.
He looked away.
“Good morning,” he said to the ceiling.
“Good morning.”
Neither of them moved. The space between them on the mattress was the same distance as it had been when she fell asleep, but the air above it felt different. Charged with the shared knowledge of a night spent side by side and the strange, fragile intimacy of sleeping beside someone.
Alexander rose first. He dressed behind the screen without speaking. When he emerged, his cravat was tied, his coat was buttoned, and the man who had watched her with unguarded eyes was gone.
Frances dressed in silence. Miss Ripley appeared to help with the stays, and Frances kept her gaze on the wall, not thinking about warm hands or loosened laces.
They were in the carriage within the hour.
The road north stretched gray and long before them. Frances watched Alexander through the first miles—the way he spoketo innkeepers with authority, the way he checked the harness himself before they departed, the way he handed her into the carriage with a grip that was firm and brief and careful. He managed the world around them with the same precision he brought to everything: efficiently, completely, without asking whether anyone wished him to.
He cannot help it. He was born to command, and everything in his life has confirmed the instinct.
They stopped at midday at a smaller inn, further north. Frances was tired. Her back ached from the carriage. She took the seat Alexander pulled out for her and unfolded her napkin.
The man at the next table was staring at her.
She noticed it at the edge of her vision—a gaze that lingered too long, too openly. A broad-shouldered man in a coat that had seen better years, his eyes fixed on her with an appraising boldness that made her skin prickle.
She looked down at her plate.
Alexander’s chair scraped back as he stood. The movement was calm, reflecting the careful thought of a man who had weighed the situation and chosen his response. He shifted sideways and positioned himself directly between Frances and the man’s line of sight. His back was turned to her, and his shoulders blocked everything.
“You will not look at my wife again.”
The words were quiet, but they carried the message clearly, for the man lowered his eyes and did not raise them toward her again.
Alexander sat back down and picked up his fork. “The mutton looks tolerable.”
Frances stared at him. Her pulse was dancing in a peculiar rhythm. His possessiveness excited her, and it also stoked her curiosity.
“That is strange,” she said.
“What is?”
“You did not react as you did just now when I conversed with the sailor.”
He looked at her. Brief. The corner of his mouth moved a fraction. “Eat your lunch, Frances.”
She ate her lunch.
They returned to the carriage. The road continued north. The countryside changed—flatter, wilder, the hedgerows giving way to open fields and the distant suggestion of hills on the horizon.
Alexander sat across from her with his eyes fixed on the window, his jaw set, his hands resting on his knees. The ease of yesterday, the warmth of the tavern, the laughter that had flowed between them were gone. In its place sat a tension she could not read.
