At Westall Park, with her new little family, Frances felt safe from the gossiping mobs and any enemies, both known and unknown. In fact, she had not left Westall Park since the Fordham ball last week. She had spent the last few days days walking or riding in the fresh air by herself or with Winnie.
“Very wise. It is good to spend time with family,” her companion agreed. “There is no need for newlyweds to be rushing around the ton all the time, seeing people and being seen. It always seems foolish and unnecessary to me at a time when they ought to be focusing closer to home.”
Family… Yes, Ambrose and Winnie really were her own family and belonged to her in some way. Frances’ mouth curved in a smile.
“I am happier at Westall Park than in London,” she confirmed.
“There is Aunt Anne with baby Leo,” remarked Winnie, bouncing a little on her seat between the two adults and wavingtowards a fair-haired woman of early middle-age out on Levene Hall’s lawns, accompanied by a nursemaid and a rosy-cheeked toddler.
“That is the present Lady Levene with her youngest,” Euphemia clarified for Frances, smiling. “To avoid confusion, you’d best call me ‘Grandmother’. Everyone else does.”
Ambrose had said that he would likely be late home and not to wait for him for dinner. In the event, Frances and Winnie spent so long at Levene Hall and were shown such hospitality there, that no dinner was required.
The day had been a happy one, filled with children, babies, dogs, cakes and visits from apparently every Levene sibling and cousin in the district. Frances and Winnie had been driven home in a carriage, at Lord Levene’s insistence, with the promise of returning their visit with his family on another day.
Whether dandling baby Leo on her knee, accompanying shy Winnie in a ballgame with her cousins, or learning about the district’s society over tea with the kindly Anne, present Lady Levene, there had been no room for Frances brood on unwelcome gossip or the consequences of unconsummated marriages. There had been only one moment when a shadow almost fell and that was only a passing cloud.
Anne had smiled to see how well little Leo took to Frances, clambering up onto her knee and snuggling against her forlong minutes as the ladies in the drawing room conversed. The gentlemen were then outside playing cricket with the older children.
“What a little darling he is,” Frances had complimented Leo’s mother, while stroking his soft warm head and chubby cheeks. “I almost want to take him home with me.”
“Be my guest! Still, you’ll have little ones of your own at Westall Park before long,” Anne had laughed merrily. “Then you’ll be happy enough for someone else to dandle one of them for even five minutes, I can tell you.”
At this, all the other mothers in the room laughed too, and joined in with stories of the busyness of their own lives with their children.
“So, you see, there’s no rush,” concluded the Dowager Lady Levene, her blue eyes twinkling at Frances. “If I were you and Ambrose, I would wait a year or two.”
“If you can, with such a handsome husband,” joked a cousin whose name Frances had not caught.
“And ifhecan,” added another merrily laughing step-relative, only married a year and already nursing twins. “Look at us – Hector and I both failed at the first hurdle, I fear.”
Blushing deeply and unable to enter the conversation, Frances sensed Euphemia Wilson’s eyes upon her.
“What fine healthy girls they are, Melinda,” said Euphemia, coming over to inspect the two little ones, and, to Frances’ relief, turning the conversation in a more comfortable direction. “Sometimes twins are so small and slow to grow but yours are thriving.”
Compliments on the two baby girls, and general observations on twins followed, sweeping away the gentle ribaldry that had threatened Frances’ peace of mind. The rest of the afternoon passed easily and Frances and Winnie were returned to Westall Park at seven o’clock, in one of Lord Levene’s carriages.
By then, Winnie was almost asleep on the carriage seat, her head on Frances’ shoulder and a whole well-wrapped orange cake clutched in her arms from the Levene Hall kitchens. Frances was so exhausted that she did not last long after reading Winnie’s bedtime story, declining Mrs. Betsworth’s offer of supper and retiring to her own suite by nine o’clock.
Opening her eyes abruptly, Frances realized that she must have fallen asleep while reading. A candle still burned on her bedside table and her book lay on the floor by her bed. Perhaps it was the sound of the book falling that had woken her?
Her heart was racing and her skin felt warm although she did not know why. Then, Frances remembered her dream.
She had been lying in a bed with Ambrose, sunlight streaming in upon them from the window. They were under the covers andFrances knew that both of them were naked beneath the sheets, although there was a small space between them as they lay facing one another.
“Shall we have little ones of our own at Westall Park?” her husband had asked in the dream, his midnight blue eyes deep, kind and full of a magnetic longing that pulled at Frances’ heart and other portions of her anatomy.
“Yes,” Frances had answered in the dream and Ambrose had reached out a hand to touch her face.
Then, the sound of footsteps approaching had startled and distracted her, before she woke up in her own bed alone. As Frances marveled at the oddness of her dream, and blew out her candle, her ear detected the faint sound of footsteps passing along the corridor outside her room, and her mind immediately identified them as belonging to Ambrose.
The sound that woke her had been real. Ambrose had come home and paused outside her door on his way to his own suite. When Frances had blown out her candle, he had continued on his way. But why? Why any of it? Her heart pounded and her mind raced, bewildered and still heated from her dream.
If she had left the candle alight, would Ambrose have knocked on her door? Had he hoped that Frances would hear his footsteps and open the door to him? Was he disappointed that she had not?
Lying in the darkness, Frances listened as her husband’s footsteps passed onwards to his own suite, followed by the sound of his door opening and closing. She could go to him now, she realized with a shiver that was not one of fear. She could unlock the door between their suites of her own volition. For some seconds, it almost felt possible, but then her courage waned again.
She gave a small sigh, but did not feel entirely disheartened. Not yet, but soon, Frances felt she would be able to open the door between them. On the other side of that door, Ambrose would be waiting; solid, reliable and capable of exciting her beyond measure with his touch.
