Page 100 of Duke of Moonstone
He could not.
By the time the carriage turned onto the London road on the fourth morning, the space between them felt permanent.
Whitestone House loomed before them in the late afternoon light. The carriage came to a stop. Alexander stepped down and offered his hand. Frances took it with her gloved fingers and immediately let go.
“I will not be staying,” she said.
He went still.
“Lavinia has invited me to Evermere.” Frances adjusted her gloves. She was looking at the front steps. At the door. At anything that was not his face. “I should go stay with her.”
“How long?” he asked.
“Several days. Perhaps a week.”
“Frances—”
“The carriage is waiting.” She nodded toward the second vehicle—the one that had carried Miss Ripley and the trunks. It sat with the horses still in harness. Already arranged. She had planned this before they arrived.
He stood on the gravel drive and watched her gather her things. Watched Graves open the door and direct the footmen. Watched Miss Ripley climb into the carriage with a small trunk and a hatbox and the particular expression of a maid who knew better than to ask questions.
Frances halted at the carriage door. For a moment, she turned, her eyes locking with his across the drive. There was a depth in that glance—something raw and hurt she quickly masked before he could recognize it. She then stepped inside. The door shut behind her. The coachman clicked his tongue.
Alexander stood in the doorway and watched the carriage until it turned the corner and disappeared.
The house was quiet behind him. The entrance hall stretched cool and dim. And her absense pressed against him with a weight that made it difficult to draw air.
She is gone.
He went to his study. Sat at his desk. Pulled the estate ledger toward him and opened it to the page he had marked before Scotland. The numbers swam. He closed it.
She was gone, and he could not ask her why because she never gave him the chance.
Emily knew.
Children always knew. They could not explain it, could not name the thing that had shifted in the air around them, but they felt it the way animals felt storms: in the bones, in the blood, in the particular quality of silence that meant something was wrong.
She came to him that first evening. Quiet and smaller than usual, somehow, as though she had drawn into herself, pulled her edges inward for protection. She sat beside him on the settee in the drawing room, saying nothing. Her hand found his. Her fingers curled around two of his, and she held on.
The second evening. The same. Her small body pressed against his side while he pretended to read and she pretended to look at her picture book. Neither of them turned a page.
The third evening, she asked, “Is Frances coming back?”
The question was quiet. Careful. The voice of a child who had asked this question before and received answers she did not want.
Alexander looked at her. She was eight years old with large brown eyes that seemed too big for her face. She carried the quiet stillness of a girl who had already learned that the people she loved could vanish.
“I do not know,” he said.
Emily’s hand tightened around his fingers. She nodded once and said nothing more.
Alexander closed his eyes. But then he opened them at the sound of Graves clearing his throat from the doorway. “Yes?”
“Her Grace has called for you,” he announced.
Alexander nodded and stood up then headed to his mother’s chambers.
“Sit down, Alexander,” she said the minute he walked in.
