Beatrice stayed with her that night, changing into her nightdress and climbing into bed beside Frances as she had sometimes done as a child after a nightmares.
This time it was Beatrice who comforted Frances in the face of bad dreams, both sleeping and waking. It was Beatrice who talked sense and rationality to drive back the shadows.
“I’m glad you’re here, Beatrice,” Frances told her sister as Beatrice bathed her hot forehead and stroked back her hair after Frances woke in a sweat. “I could not bear to be alone, and yet there is no one else I want near me now.”
“I sent Ambrose home, as you asked,” Beatrice put in. “I think he was sad, but he understood too. You don’t really believe all that nonsense about him having a mistress do you?”
“I saw him with Annabelle Sinclair,” Frances admitted to her sister. “I came home early from London after I saw that scandal sheet, and she was there in his study with her arms around him.”
Beatrice drew in her breath sharply.
“Really? No wonder you were so angry with him. But it doesn’t make sense, Frances. It really doesn’t. Are you completely sure about what you saw?”
At this questioning, Frances had to hesitate. No, she was not completely sure. Every time she tried to recall the scene, the sight of Miss Sinclair entwined with Ambrose stabbed her heart so deeply that everything else slid away.
“I…don’t know. It’s a blur, but I saw what I saw. Ambrose promised me after the Fordham House ball that there was nothing between them, and I believed him then. That is why it hurts so much. I don’t want to be a fool and let myself be taken in for years. I couldn’t bear my children pitying me as I pity Mother.”
Even in the dark, Frances could sense her sister’s frown and the working of her sensible mind.
“I think you need to talk to Ambrose, Frances. There’s something else you should know too about Mother and Father, something that Ambrose told me before he left. Apparently, Mother always knew about Father’s affair with Lady Mulford.”
“Mother knows?!” Frances questioned, loudly enough that Beatrice shushed her.
“Father admitted everything and Mother forgave him long ago. I told you that they loved each other, didn’t I? He did something wrong once, long ago, but it’s over now. They both confessed it all to Ambrose.”
Frances turned on her back and gazed up at the dark ceiling, overwhelmed by this revelation that she could never have guessed at.
“I wish I had know that,” she said at last, and then lay awake in the dark pondering this intelligence long after Beatrice had fallen back to sleep.
“May I come in, Frances?” Lord Scovell asked, having knocked on the bedroom door and then cautiously put his head around it. “I brought you up some breakfast.”
Frances sat up in bed and smiled at her Father, nodding for him to come inside. The constant irritation she was accustomed to feel at the sight of him was not there today and when he began to pull up a chair after setting down her breakfast tray, she did not stop him.
“I wanted to apologize to you, Frances,” Lord Scovell said once Frances eaten a little and drunk some coffee. “I always knew that I’d done wrong and I apologized to your mother for my actions long ago. I didn’t understand how much wrong I’d done to you too, and how my actions and those of Lady Mulford had echoed down the years.”
Frances nodded, struck by how humble his tone and expression seemed. While her father had certainly committed a grave transgression, she had punished him as though he had been Casanova and Bluebeard all rolled into one. Instead of which, he was just a man who had let his eye be caught by a handsome neighbor when his wife was sick and paying no attention to anyone but her baby.
“Oswald Keeton hurt me more than you did,” Frances reflected now. “I realized yesterday that he might always have been wicked and mad, regardless of what happened to his parents. If they hadn’t died young, there would have been some other axis for him to twist his reason around.”
“Maybe,” Lord Scovell agreed. “I hope one day, you can forgive me for my affair but I will I understand if you can’t forgive me for not knowing how Oswald abused you.”
“I don’t know how I feel yet,” Frances told him. “Everything is very confusing. I shall try to forgive you, since Mother has done so and had far more cause for anger than anyone else.”
“Your mother is a very good woman,” Lord Scovell said earnestly. “I am lucky to have her. Not every marriage is so blessed as mine. I always hoped that yours would be as happy, and Beatrice’s one day too. I always wanted you to have good husbands who would love and protect you.”
Frances wanted to say something in response but her tongue felt tied and clumsy in her mouth. The Duke of Westall was a good man and he had certainly defended and protected Frances in every way that a man could, but how could they ever be happy together after she had seen him with Annabelle Sinclair?
“Your duke would be quite heartbroken if you left him,” her father suddenly said, and Frances looked away.
“Did he say that? Did he talk of it?”
“No, but I could see it in him when Beatrice told him that you wished him to return to Westall Park.”
Frances could too easily imagine the falling of his handsome face and it was yet another knife in her heart. She swallowed and turned back to her father. If anyone could understand her present doubts, surely it must be Lord and Lady Scovell who had lived and survived infidelity.
“If Ambrose did have a mistress…” she began cautiously.
“He does not,” Lord Scovell told her immediately. “Having spoken to him, I am entirely satisfied on the subject.”
