She allowed herself to laugh, though his touch had startled some of the air out of her lungs, turning it into a softer chuckle. It was not a habit that would be easily overcome, laughing without hiding it, and one that would have to be remembered when she returned to London.
“I suppose if she can perspire elegantly, it should not be too great a concern,” she said, her heart so full of joy that feared it would feel much too empty once the evening was over.
Dominic nodded. “And how does one perspire elegantly?”
“Thatis a question for a physician not a tutor,” she replied, smirking. “Fortunately, dancing does not require too much pushing, unless she should find herself among a gaggle of nasty rivals. Indeed, she will have greater need of pushing strength in the refreshment room, where sneaky mothers and competitors always manage to jostle you and they can never seem to pass by a girl without stepping on her dress. It is the strangest thing.”
A quiet laugh rumbled pleasantly from his chest. “I do not believe there is any more fearsome beast than a society mother.”
“I have often thought that the fighting on the Continent could easily be won if the country just sent its society mothers,particularlythose with daughters who have been out for at least three Seasons, for they are already eager for battle and will stop at nothing.” She grinned at the thought, and peered up at him, to find that he was smiling too.
“Promise that their daughters will be given husbands if they are victorious?” he said.
“Exactly!”
He chuckled, the sound so distracting that Frances did not realize that they had wandered off the main path of the fair and had ventured down a quieter trail, through the majestic plane trees and cedars. A shadowed, peaceful world away from the noise of the carnival. It appeared that he had not realized either, and she felt no immediate need to point out the mistake.
No one knows me here. They might know my name, but not my face.
For that moment, at least, she would not sacrifice her enjoyment for the sake of not being spotted. Besides, anyone wandering in the same place probably should not have been there either.
In Harriet’s opinion of gambling,thiswas worth the risk.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“But you must have encountered your share of society mothers?” Frances said lightly, praying that he would not notice how far they were getting from the main event. “I am still surprised that you do not have a horde of them at your gates every morning, hurling their daughters at you.”
Dominic shook his head. “I have encountered very few of those formidable women, in truth. I was not involved in theton’sevents for long enough to really contend with any, nor was I presented with any need to contend with them.”
“How so?” She held her breath, as if inhaling too loud might distract him.
He shrugged and his arm tightened against his side, bringingherarm flush against his ribs. It did not appear deliberate, but more like an instinctual need to brace himself.
“I spent three weeks in London when I was twenty,” he said, after a pensive pause. “I was a student at Oxford, my father summoned me to the city, I had exactly three dinners with one woman, and I was married to her at the end of those three weeks. Once the wedding was over, I returned to Oxford to finish my education, and then… I have been at Alderwick ever since.”
Frances’ heart missed a beat, a thousand questions jostling each other in her mind like those spiteful socialites, but she said nothing at all. If she spoke, she feared she might break whatever spell had encouraged Dominic to speak of such things, of his past and the wife that she knew almost nothing about.
“Althea and Harriet spent most of their time in London, until Althea fell ill and insisted on returning to Alderwick,” he continued, his voice thick. “I did not understand why she would move further away from the country’s finest doctors to be in a manor she abhorred. Rather, I did not understand until a couple of years ago.”
Althea…It was a beautiful name, and if his wife had been anything like Harriet, then she had had a beautiful face to go with it.
“Why?” Frances asked carefully.
Dominic tilted his head up, a sigh straining those poor waistcoat buttons. “Because I was a fool,” he replied. “She did not come back to Alderwick for herself, or to try and be the wife that neither of us wanted her to be. She came back for Harriet, so that I could get to know my child better.”
“You did not know much of her before that?” Frances could not hold back the question, for she could not imagine any father being entirely absent from their child.
Herfather could be in the same room and feel as if he were a thousand miles away, but at least he was there. Present in person if not in mind or feeling. To live apart from one’s children: that was something she could not comprehend at all.
His face twisted into an awkward sort of grimace. “Althea and I agreed to live separately. We tried to reside together in the first year after Harriet was born, and we very nearly killed one another.” His voice went strange, as if he had something lodged there. “The birth nearly killedher. The least I could do was let her do as she pleased once she was well again.”
“You never tried again?” Frances said, her face flushing. “For sons?”
Dominic shook his head. “It would have been too cruel in all regards. Too cruel to put her through another birth, too cruel to make her stay, too cruel to be so…” he looked away, a muscle ticking in his jaw “… intimate with someone who barely tolerated me, and with whom I am afraid I felt nothing but obligation.”
She dropped her gaze to the ground as if she had wandered in on a confessional, her face flaming with the very notion of intimacy. It was not something that was spoken about where she came from, and she could see that he, too, was uncomfortable with the conversation.
And then there was that word again. Obligation. The theory he had had about Frances’ parents. She had wondered if he was speaking from experience, and now she knew.
