“No, you do not,” Fielding said.
“It depends upon the day,” Baines agreed.
CHAPTER 18
The windows of Sir Percival’s house admitted a clear, unforgiving light that made every polished surface gleam and every shadow seem thin. The fire in the morning room had been built up carefully, yet the air beyond its immediate reach retained an edge sharp enough to discourage idleness. Francesca sat with an open book before her and turned the same page three times without absorbing a word. Even Nelly, who commonly detected restlessness as a hound detects a scent, had only looked at her once with mild surprise and asked whether she felt quite well.
Francesca had assured her that she was perfectly well.
This was not, perhaps, the whole truth.
Her uneasiness did not arise from indisposition, but from expectation; and expectation, she had lately discovered, was among the least comfortable of sensations, particularly when attached to a gentleman who was never likely to behave as other gentlemen did. Major Manners was not a man to call merely because a morning was fine or because he had found a lady agreeable the day before. If he came, he would come for a reason; and if he did not come, she would be left to suppose reasons still more troublesome. She disliked herself for caring.
The sound of the knocker at the front door arrived with such force to her attention that she nearly dropped her book.
Nelly glanced up. “You start as if a regiment had been announced, miss.”
“I did not start.”
“You quite flew out of your chair.”
“I merely moved to a more comfortable position.”
Nelly smiled. “Then I am happy to know movement may now produce so much colour.”
Francesca, who had indeed felt heat rise to her face, bent over her book with what she hoped was an air of grave indifference. She heard a servant cross the hall beyond; a murmur of voices followed. There was a pause, then another footstep, more decided than the first.
Sir Percival’s voice sounded from the entrance hall, followed by another which, though lower, she knew at once.
Her heart gave one absurd leap and then began to beat with a force that was wholly unreasonable.
Major Manners.
She did not look up immediately. To have done so would have been too plain. She listened instead, with the pretence of attention to print, and from the rhythm of greeting and reply inferred what she could. He had called upon Sir Percival. That, at least, was proper. It ought to have reassured her. Instead it gave a solemn cast to his arrival which she found faintly alarming.
A moment later, Nelly rose. “I shall go and see whether Cook needs any help.”
Nelly was already moving towards the farther door with all the composure in the world, leaving Francesca to suspect that helping Cook had no more to do with her departure than astronomy. When the door closed behind her, the room seemed suddenly too still.
Francesca set down her book. She ought, she knew, either to leave at once or to remain so resolutely occupied that no accusation of curiosity could ever attach to her conduct. Unfortunately, the adjoining library, where her uncle generally received gentlemen on matters of business or consequence, was separated from the morning room by nothing more substantial than a pair of doors which, though shut, did not quite exclude sound. It was impossible not to hear something, unless one contrived to be deaf.
She had no talent for deafness.
At first, only the murmur of voices reached her and they were too indistinct to signify. She told herself that if she could not distinguish words, she was not listening. This was a very soothing piece of self-deception and lasted nearly half a minute.
Then her uncle said, distinctly, “Renforth?”
Francesca sat straighter in her chair.
Major Manners replied in a tone too low for her to catch entirely, but she heard, clearly enough, “a note,” and then, after the rustle of paper, “necessary precaution.”
Sir Percival made a brief sound which suggested neither surprise nor satisfaction, but something in between. “I see.”
There followed a longer silence, during which Francesca imagined her uncle reading. Her fingers tightened over each other in her lap. Renforth. A note from Colonel Renforth could not concern any ordinary civility. She knew enough already to understand that when his name entered a room, comfort generally departed.
Sir Percival spoke again, more severely. “You believe there to be real danger, then?”
Francesca felt all the warmth of the fire recede from her at once.
