If he did not lead the conversation in a more meaningful direction, was she going to just stand there all night? Or only until he made it clear that he was busy and did not want her company?
“Why are you avoiding me?” Frances blurted suddenly and saw a flash of surprise in her husband’s midnight blue eyes.
“I am not avoiding you, Frances,” he told her after a short pause for thought. “I have had a great deal on my mind this week, and you had asked me to leave you alone.”
Frances looked down, again wishing that she could take back that foolish assertion. Whatever else it was that she wanted, it seemed not to be Ambrose’s absence from Westall Park and her own life.
“Why did you go to London today?” she asked the duke, playing for time as she tried to arrange her own thoughts more clearly, but dismayed by how interrogative her question sounded.
“Many reasons. I wanted to see Colin and I also had calls to make on acquaintances, lawyers and so forth.”
This was not a very forthcoming answer and Frances did not know what to make of it. Ambrose might equally be hiding the truth or simply not wishing to talk to her.
“Which friends and acquaintances?” she put to him, half-expecting him to evade the question.
“Lord Mulford, among others,” he told her without prevarication. “That particular call could not be delayed.”
“You spoke to Oswald Keeton?!” Frances gasped in dismay, feeling slightly sick at the idea of it. “Why did you have to do that? I just wish I could forget about him. Now he will only get worse.”
“I did it because it was necessary,” Ambrose stated implacably, without any hint of apology or regret. “I did it because he has hurt you and I would be no kind of husband if I did not protect my wife. You need not worry about him again because I will be here to deal with him.”
Part of Frances wanted badly to believe this, to believe that the Duke of Westall could be a shield from her troubled past and a guide to a new future. Another part of her quailed at the thought of what vengeful tactics Lord Mulford might stoop to next.
“Oh, I hate him. I hate him! But I told you not to do this!” she protested, giving words to both streams of contradictory thoughts in her vexation and confusion. “I fear he will never stop, Ambrose. Everything only seems to encourage him. I wish you hadn’t called on him.”
The duke shook his dark head, the gravity of his expression unchanged by her emotional outburst.
“Seeing you like this only confirms that I was right to confront him, Frances. One day, I hope you will see it too. Now, you are overwrought and I think you ought to retire.”
“I am not a child to be sent to bed!” Frances snapped but then stopped, anguished all over again by the effects of her own inner turmoil. “I am sorry, Ambrose. I do not know what is wrong with me. Why can I not be normal, like other wives?”
“I would not want you to be like anyone else’s wife,” the duke told her simply. “I should not have married you if you were. As for what is wrong with you, you are simply tired and overwrought, as anyone can me, man woman or child.”
How sensible he sounded, despite everything, and how handsome and appealing his own tired face looked. In this moment, Frances really did wish that she could be a proper wife to him.
“I’ve missed you,” she confessed very softly, her heart rising into her throat with the vulnerability of such an admission.
At first Ambrose said nothing and Frances wondered whether he had not heard her, or even if she had only thought the words rather than speaking them aloud. Then, he came out from behind the desk and stood in front of her, his brows knitted thoughtfully.
“Frances, when we married, I told you that we must get to know one another better,” he told her patiently. “I still think that, but I don’t want to put you under pressure. After all that I learned when your family visited Westall Park, and especially after you told me to leave you alone, I realized I had inadvertently pushed too hard already.”
“I didn’t mean it,” Frances told him. “I didn’t mean for you to avoid me.”
She heard Ambrose sigh again and wondered if he was wishing she would just go away and stop bothering him.
“What did you mean, Frances? What do you want from me?”
His questions were kind and less demanding than any of her own had been tonight, but still she struggled to answer him and shook her head mutely.
Once more Ambrose sighed. With tears in her eyes, Frances stepped forward, tensing herself.
“Shall I kiss you?” she whispered, but he swiftly took her by the shoulders and held her back before she could attempt it.
“Not here and now, not like this,” the duke answered firmly. “It would not be the same, believe me.”
Feeling both rejected and relieved, Frances nodded, a tear now escaping and running down her face.
“I understand,” she began to say but Ambrose shook his head.
