“It is precaution in the only form presently available.”
He saw at once that the answer did not please her, and that nothing he might say would render it agreeable. There were situations in which a man must accept being ill thought of in order to be effective. He did not enjoy the necessity.
“You speak as though you expect me to submit quietly,” she said.
“No,” he replied, and the last trace of levity left him. “I speak as a man who would rather endure your anger than discover, too late, that he spared your wish for independence and lost your safety.”
He had not intended to speak so plainly.
The words, once given voice, seemed to settle between them with a weight he had not entirely anticipated. He saw the effect of them in her stillness, in the way her breath hitched before she mastered it, and in the faint alteration of her gaze as it searched his face for any hint of exaggeration.
He had said too much—or perhaps only enough.
He took one step nearer, being careful not to presume upon the liberties he had claimed moments before for the sake of appearances. The line between pretence and presumption was finer than he liked, and he had no wish to cross it inadvertently.
“Francesca,” he said.
The familiarity of her name, once spoken, struck him as keenly as it did her. He saw it in the quick lift of her eyes, in the brief, startled look that followed. If he had possessed any prudence, he might have then retreated into safer address. Instead, he forged on.
“I know this arrangement is ungenerous. I know what it asks you to surrender. But if Kendall suspects you—truly suspects—then what was once merely inconvenient may become dangerous very quickly. I could not stand in your uncle’s library, knowing that, and say less.”
It was not, perhaps, the most elegant justification ever offered. It was, however, the truest.
For a long moment, she looked at him. There was more calculation in that look than he had expected; not coldness, but an active weighing of his words, as though she considered not merely what he had said, but what he had withheld. He respected her the more for it, even as he found himself wishing, quite irrationally, that she might accept his judgement without such scrutiny.
“I could not refuse,” she said at last, “should I want to.”
The quiet resignation of it troubled him more than her anger would have done.
“I would follow you nonetheless,” he said, before he could check himself, “but it would invite remark of another sort entirely.”
He saw, as soon as the words were spoken, that he had strayed again from what was prudent. There was something in the admission that belonged less to military strategy than to inclination, yet he could not wholly regret it. It was, at least, honest.
For a moment he expected her to rebuke him. Instead, to his astonishment, her mouth curved—not in mockery, but in something akin to reluctant amusement.
“You are very provoking.”
“I have been told so.”
“By whom?”
He allowed himself the smallest return of humour. “Chiefly by you, of late.”
It was a risk, that lightness. He took it deliberately, to ease the strain he himself had created. He saw it succeed in part; the concern in her expression lessened, though it did not wholly dissolve.
The smile trembled—he saw it, and something in him tightened at once, for he knew too well the signs of a feeling not yet permitted to exist—and nearly became tears, which she suppressed with admirable determination.
“You must not think to win me by candour,” she said, lifting her chin. “I admire it only because so few gentlemen possess it.”
“Then perhaps I am helped by the deficiencies of my sex?”
“You are helped by circumstances being arranged entirely in your favour.”
He glanced, without intending to, at her hand—the same hand he had held moments before, the memory of which lingered with inconvenient clarity.
“Not entirely.” He knew, even as he spoke, that he ought not to have said it.
The colour rose to her face at once. “Sir.”
