A servant knocked and entered the morning room before she had recovered sufficient command of her countenance. He bowed. “Sir Percival requests your presence in the library, miss.”
There were moments in which one’s whole future appeared to hang upon the arrangement of one’s features during the walk from one room to another. Francesca rose with what dignity she could collect, smoothed a hand over the front of her gown, and crossed to the library doors.
Her uncle stood near the desk with his spectacles in one hand and Colonel Renforth’s note in the other. Major Manners was by the fire. When she entered, his gaze met hers at once, and whatever she had expected to see there—embarrassment, formality, reluctance—she found instead a seriousness so immediate that all her prepared defiance deserted her.
“Uncle,” she said, then, because one could hardly begin by admitting one had heard everything, “Major Manners.”
“Come here, my dear Franny,” said Sir Percival, with unusual gentleness.
That gentleness alarmed her more than sternness would have done. She obeyed, though not without glancing again at Major Manners, who had not looked away. He seemed tired, she thought suddenly—not physically, perhaps, but burdened. There was a gravity in him she had noticed before, but never so strongly as now.
Sir Percival indicated a chair, but she remained standing.
“I would rather stand, sir,” she said.
He studied her for a moment. He was too discerning, she knew, to miss the colour in her face or the tension of her hands. “As you please. There is no advantage in softening a thing by postponement. Major Manners has brought me a note from Colonel Renforth. It appears your late transactions with Kendall may have exposed you to some attention of a very undesirable nature.”
“I gathered as much,” said Francesca, feeling her cheeks heat further at the implication of knowledge.
Sir Percival’s brows rose a fraction. Major Manners, she thought, almost smiled, though the expression vanished before she could be certain.
“Did I hear you correctly? I thought you said you gathered?” queried her uncle.
“I meant only that I conjectured something was wrong, Uncle.”
To Francesca’s relief, Sir Percival, who understood evasions because he employed them himself when convenient, said no more. “Very well. I will come to the point: if Kendall suspects that your sanction of his schemes was not given in ignorance, but rather with design, you may be in some personal danger.”
The words, though anticipated, landed with a force that made her feel, briefly, cold to the marrow.
“You believe I am in danger,” she repeated, “from Thomas?”
Major Manners spoke then, for the first time since she had entered the room. “It is conceivable. We do not mean to alarm you needlessly, but neither should you be left in ignorance.”
She looked at him. “What. May I ask, is your warning is to consist of? Have you the intention of locking me in the house until Parliament has risen and villains grow honest?”
“No,” he said, and there was something almost like patience in his tone. “My warning is to consist of plain measures. You must not go out alone and without protection.”
There was that phrase again.
She turned a little towards her uncle. “Have you agreed to this, Uncle?”
“I have agreed that I value my niece’s safety more than her temporary displeasure,” said Sir Percival.
“I hardly think such extreme measures are warranted by the plan we have enacted,” she countered.
“If that were all, I would agree. However, there is new information come to light about Mr. Kendall. It seems he is involved in some potentially treasonous plots.”
Francesca drew breath to argue, but the effort failed. She could hardly believe that what they were saying of Thomas could be true, yet they would not make up such things without cause. It was difficult to make a spirited defence of liberty when one’s uncle looked at one as though one had come close to an abyss and did not yet understand how near.
“In addition,” said Sir Percival, with the directness of a man who had resolved to say the most disagreeable thing without adornment, “for a time, it may be prudent for Major Manners’ attentions to appear somewhat particular.”
Without her conscious intent, Francesca’s gaze flew back to said major.
He stood quite still beneath it, which was unfair. The least he could have done, she thought, was to look uncomfortable. Instead, he bore the matter with such calm that she felt all the more acutely the tumult within herself.
“My attentions would be intended only to shield you from censure while allowing me to accompany you with less remark than might otherwise attend it.”
“‘Intended only’,” she repeated. The words were civil; the manner in which she uttered them was not.
