Page 97 of Duke of Moonstone
He was not calling it a honeymoon. The word sat between them, unspoken, large as a loch itself.
“Yes,” Frances said.
He blinked. “Yes?”
“Yes. I should like that very much.”
Something moved in his expression—surprise, perhaps, that she had not made him work harder for it.
“Good,” he said. “I will make arrangements tomorrow.”
“Good.”
They looked at each other across the small room. The candle on the washstand burned low. The bed waited between them. A place they would lie down together because they had done it before and because the doing of it had become, somehow, easy.
Frances pulled back the covers and slid beneath them. Alexander extinguished the candle. The room went dark. She felt the mattress dip as he settled on the far side. They lay in the dark. The space between them was narrow. His breathing was steady. Her heart was not.
A week. A week in Scotland. Together. Alone—or near enough to it.
She wanted to turn toward him. Wanted to close the careful inches of mattress that separated his warmth from hers. Wanted to say something—I am glad you came. I am glad you are here. I am glad, I am glad, I am glad—but the words sat heavy on her tongue, too large for the darkness, too dangerous for the silence.
He has not said he loves me. He may never say it. But he asked me to stay.
The bed was cold beside her.
Frances reached out before she was fully awake, her hand moving across the sheets to where his warmth should have been. Her fingers found nothing—cool linen and an empty pillow—the quiet stillness of a space recently vacated.
She opened her eyes as the morning light filtered softly and gray through the curtains. The room was silent. His coat had been taken from the chair, and his boots were no longer beside the door.
Frances sat up, got dressed, wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, and stepped outside. Her hearing improved as she went down the stairs, catching two voices—Alexander and Eleanor.
Frances was halfway down the stairs when she heard her name.
“Frances seems happy here,” Eleanor was saying. “With you. She seems genuinely happy, Alexander.”
Frances stopped. Her hand gripped the banister. The kitchen door was open at the bottom of the stairs—not fully but enough that the conversation carried with perfect clarity into the narrow stairwell.
I should not listen.
She did not move.
“She is kind,” Eleanor continued. “And patient. More patient than you deserve, frankly. The way she looked at you yesterday during the wedding breakfast... Do you not see it?”
There was a pause. Then the sound of a cup being set down on wood.
“See what?” Alexander said.
“That she cares for you. Truly cares. Not as an arrangement. Not as a duty. She looks at you the way...” Eleanor stopped. Started again. “Are you happy? That is all I am asking. Are you happy with her?”
The silence that followed was long enough for Frances to count her own heartbeats. Three. Four. Five.
“The marriage began as a practical solution to a difficult situation.”
“I know how it began. I am asking how it is now.”
“Eleanor.”
“Do not ‘Eleanor’ me. I am your sister, and I am asking you a simple question.”
