Page 10 of Duke of Moonstone
“Like you are, pleased.”
Lady Montfort settled her hands in her lap with the composure of a woman arranging something to her satisfaction. “I am simply considering the possibilities.”
“The possibilities?” Frances stared at her. “My reputation may be in ruins, and you are considering the possibilities?”
“Your reputation is not in ruins. It is at a crossroads.” Her aunt tilted her head slightly. “There is a significant difference, Frances, between a young woman whose name is ruined and a young woman whose name is shortly to be attached to that of the Duke of Whitestone.”
Frances felt the full meaning of this arrive and immediately wished it hadn’t. “No,” she said.
“The Duke is a man of honor. He will do what society expects of him.”
“Aunt—”
“He has little choice, and neither, frankly, do you.”
“I will not marry him.” Frances heard her own voice, very clear and quite certain despite the tears still drying on her face. “Iwill not marry a cold, autocratic, entirely heartless man simply because he found me in his gardens. There are other solutions. We could say I was taken ill, or we could say that he was and that the whole thing was misrepresented, that?—”
“Frances.” Lady Montfort looked at her with a patient expression. “He is a duke.”
“I am aware of what he is.”
“He is one of the wealthiest men in England. His name would repair every remaining shadow over your family’s reputation in a single morning.” She paused. “I have waited a long time to see you well settled. I had begun to fear it might not happen. And now, through what I can only conclude is the particular providence that watches over impulsive young women, you find yourself in precisely the situation most likely to bring it about.”
Frances opened her mouth.
“This may be the luckiest thing that has ever happened to this family,” her aunt continued. “I may yet see another of my nieces married to a duke.”
“I would sooner—” Frances stopped herself because she was not entirely sure she could finish the sentence coherently, given she was still crying intermittently. “He is cold,” she said instead. “He is rigid and cold, and he cares for nothing but his own authority, and I will not, even if he asks me, Aunt, which he will not. I will not say yes.”
Lady Montfort smiled. “We shall see, my dear,” she said.
The carriage turned through the gates of Evermere, and Frances looked away from her aunt’s expression because it was making her feel things she did not want to feel. Chief among them was the terrifying suspicion that Lady Montfort was not entirely wrong.
She went straight upstairs when they arrived without bothering to stop in the hall to look for Lavinia or Tristan.
Her maid helped her out of the costume in near silence. Frances was not capable of conversation, and Miss Ripley had learned, over several years of service, to read the difference between moods.
Frances then sat at the vanity in her nightdress and stared at her reflection. She was still sitting there when the knock came.
She said nothing, hoping that whoever it was would assume she was asleep and go away, and she could sit here in the quiet without having to put any of what had happened into words for at least one more night.
“Frances.” Lavinia’s voice, low and careful, from the other side of the door. “Are you well? I saw you come up. You were... You seemed distressed.”
I am perfectly well,she thought.Go to bed, Lavinia. I will tell you in the morning, and it will be just as terrible then, and at least one of us will have slept.
Lavinia did not leave and instead opened the door and stepped into the room.
She took one look at Frances’ face and came forward to take both of her hands and draw her to her feet which was exactly what Frances had expected and exactly what she needed though she would not have been able to say so.
Lavinia looked like herself, like the person who had been more mother than sister for as long as Frances could remember, and the familiarity of her was enough to make Frances’s throat tighten all over again.
“Sit,” Lavinia said, guiding her to the small chair by the fireplace and drawing up the other one across from it. “Tell me what happened.”
So, Frances told her. All of it: Eleanor’s plan, the costumes, the ball, the garden, the fall, the mask, the crowd on the terrace, Lady Montfort’s rescue, and her confidence about what was going to happen next. Lavinia listened without interrupting which was one of the things Frances had always loved most about her.
When she finished, Lavinia’s expression was not entirely clear. The alarm was evident, Frances could see it clearly, but she held it carefully, the way Lavinia handled most difficult things—behind the part of her face that stayed calm for other people’s benefit.
“Come here,” Lavinia said and opened her arms, and Frances leaned into them the way she had when she was very small, and the world had been confusing in a different way, and for a moment, neither of them said anything.
