Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

F or the first hour or so of their drive, the quiet between Evan and Frances in the carriage was peaceful. It was, she realized, the first time that things had ever been like this between them. They usually sparred and sniped at one another, and while she certainly enjoyed that rapport, this was nice in a different way.

After that hour, though, the atmosphere shifted, minutely at first, and then too clearly to be ignored. She looked at the way Evan's hand was clenched against his knee and could practically taste his anxiety in the air.

"Tell me," she urged on impulse, her voice quiet yet stark into the rumbling carriage, "about Grace."

His eyebrows shot up in surprise, but his hand did unclench slightly.

"What do you mean? You knew her well."

She shook her head, softening the gesture with a smile. "Tell me about how you remember her," she clarified. "She's become…" She paused, trying to arrange in her mind what she wanted to say. "After Dowling took her, so many people talked about her. But they talked about her like a thing , like this perfect, shining angel who had been snatched from heaven. She was a person, though." She chuckled to herself. "Very shiny in her own way much of the time, it's true. But a person, with flaws and irritating habits and ways of being wonderful that were not angelic in the least."

He'd relaxed all the way up to his shoulders now.

"No," he said, chuckling slightly. "She looked like an angel, and she knew it, didn't she? Used it to drive me up the bloody wall."

Frances ducked her head, thinking about all the times that Grace had pilfered her brother's spirits or turned his favorite coat into a masquerade costume. Or the times that she'd hidden under staircases and leapt out just to make him squeak—that one had always made her laugh twice, once when she frightened him, and again when he got cross over having such an undignified noise startled out of him.

She remembered, too, how quickly Evan would soften, reaching out to ruffle his sister's hair while she pretended to be furious that he'd ruined her coiffure.

"She and Diana had a running bet on when you'd move to bachelor lodgings," Frances said quietly.

Evan's smile grew bittersweet. "I didn't go until after—" He stopped himself, then cleared his throat. "Well. She never saw it."

Frances resisted the urge to rub away the pang in her chest. "She'd have won, then. She bet you'd never go, no matter what she did. Diana was certain you'd break after the incident with the—" She coughed. "—book."

Frances had never seen the book in question—she'd been far too timid to risk a glimpse—but Grace had gleefully reported that it was highly indecent.

Evan seemed to know precisely which book she referenced. He looked bashful for a second, then rolled his eyes teasingly.

"I should have known you had something to do with that," he said.

"Me?" She pointed to herself. "I did not. I never got involved in those little pranks."

Evan looked decidedly doubtful. "Oh, come along, Frances. Surely you know by now that I don't believe in the demure front you put on for everyone else. And it's not a criticism; I like you better without it. But you needn't pretend, not with me."

His tone matched his words; he did not seem critical. This did not mean Frances was any less confused.

"I'm sorry, what?" she asked, brow furrowed.

His brow creased, too, a mirror image of her own expression. "The whole bit with the downcast eyes and the quiet demeanor," he said, waving an encompassing hand. "It's not the real you—you cannot deny it."

Answers were beginning to form, just out of reach beyond the haze of Frances' confusion.

"I mean, I suppose not," she admitted. "But I don't think I'd call it a front."

"No?" he inquired. "Why else would you act so differently then, if not out of some form of mischief?"

The fog cleared. Frances, in a sudden jolt of understanding, started to laugh.

Evan was unimpressed. "I don't see what's so funny," he groused.

"You think," she said, leaning back against the seat as hilarity made her limp, "that I am pretending to be demure as some sort of prank ?"

"Well, not a prank," he said, sounding as though he was putting in a great deal of effort to seem fair. "But rather out of…well, expectation, I suppose. About what young ladies are supposed to be."

So many things were falling into place. Why he'd felt that she was determined to reveal his affair. Any of the great number of insults that had peppered their early days at the party.

"Evan," she said, shaking her head. "You ninny. It's not a trick . I act that way because I'm shy ."

Evan opened his mouth—likely to protest the insult against his intelligence--then closed it, perhaps as he realized that, in this case, the comment was warranted."

"You're shy," he repeated as if the words felt foreign in his mouth. Then his gaze grew knife sharp. "No, you aren't. You're a nuisance."

He said it like a compliment.

"To you ," she gasped out, nearly breathless. La, but this was better than a comedy at the theater. "I assure you, your capacity to irritate me is far above average. My behavior this week has been quite uncharacteristic."

Some complicated mathematics were happening behind Evan's hazel eyes. "So, all those years, when you were absent from Grace's antics with Diana and Emily…"

"Were because you intimated me," she completed for him. "Yes, Evan—I was utterly terrified of you, because I am, for the most part, terrified if everyone ."

Now he looked cross, but more on her behalf than at her.

"Why?" he demanded in the tone of a man who planned to fight the source of her fear, no matter how amorphous it might prove to be.

Frances giggled more.

"I don't know," she said, throwing up her hands. "Why is my hair red when my brothers and sister are blond? It just happened. It was fine for most of my life, to be honest; my parents more or less ignored me, and we all got along fine."

If she thought this would quell the shimmering anger in his expression, she was woefully incorrect.

"What do you mean, they ignored you?" he snapped.

Frances' laughter died and she forced a shrug. She'd pushed aside this hurt for years; there was no use in uncovering it now to let it scratch at her anew.

"I'm the last of five," she explained. "And the elder ones… Well, they're talented and remarkable, each in their own way. And then there's me. I'm not a staggering beauty or an uncommon genius."

"No," he said, and his agreement lanced at her heart until he added, "you're both."

He said it so simply, in such a matter-of-fact way, that it made her blink.

"No, I'm not," she protested on instinct.

"Again, with the false modesty," he complained rolling his eyes.

"It's not!" she returned.

"Frances," he said, as if she were being lamentably dense. "Do you think I find myself cavorting in the bloody woods with every woman I come across? Do you think library assignations are a regular house party event for me?"

She hadn't really thought as much, even given the evidence of his mistress, but it was still bolstered her pride to have confirmation.

Even if he did sound a bit put out about her supposed allure.

He glowered at her, evidently expecting an answer.

"Ah, no?" she ventured.

"No," he said firmly. "And your parents thought otherwise, they are idiots."

Filial piety probably dictated that Frances should object to the insult against her parents but…

"Thank you," she said quietly, a warm pleasure overtaking her. She'd never expected to be the kind of girl who got compliments—even slightly begrudging ones—from gentlemen. Then something occurred to her. "You know, Grace used to always say that my parents should be less concerned about my making a scandal—their greatest fear—and more concerned that I wouldn't even make a splash, given how they always tried to keep me quiet. I hadn't thought about that in a long time."

Evan's show of temper was beginning to abate. "She had a way about her," he said. "Even finding a small sign of her, after all this time…" His hand dipped into his pocket, reminding Frances of the information she still lacked.

"Can I see it?" she demanded. "Whatever was found? I think I heard the Runner say it was a handkerchief?"

When he raised an eyebrow at her admission of eavesdropping, she flushed.

"Yes, yes," she groused. "I snooped; you tried to leave me out. We've moved past it. Can I see?"

The object he pulled from his pocket was immediately recognizable to Frances, dingy as it was with the passage of time.

"Ugh!" Grace had thrown the linen square and embroidery hoop across the parlor in a fit of pique. "Embroidery is boring . What idiot decided ladies need fancy handkerchiefs when we're just going to wipe our noses on them?"

Frances, expression wry, leaned over the back of her chair in a decidedly unladylike contortion to reach the discarded project. "I don't think we're supposed to admit we ever use them for such things," she commented dryly. "We're supposed to dangle them helplessly to attract gentlemen or something."

"That," Grace had said decisively, "is stupid. I can think of forty-seven better things to do with my time."

Frances inspected the work. "I hope you're better at those forty-seven things, because, Lord, Grace, you're terrible at this." The embroidery looked like a child had done it.

Grace stuck out her tongue. "You are a rude girl, Frances Johnson," she said, her tone falsely prim. "In retribution, I demand you help me with this infernal project."

Frances laughed. She didn't mind embroidery, as it happened. "Yes, fine, you madwoman," she said. "I'll help."

Grace's ill temper vanished in an instant. She popped to her feet, skipping across the room to press a kiss to Frances' cheek.

"I take it back; you're a darling, Frances. And I shall pay you in sweets."

"My preferred currency," Frances joked. "And I, in return, shall make it the fanciest of fancy handkerchiefs you've ever seen."

And she had. On the square of cloth that Frances now held in her hands were the words Her Ladyship, Lady Grace Miller, Daughter of the Duke of Graham in the palest blue thread. The words were bordered by delicate flowers that had taken Frances ages to sew, and the entire thing was edged in matching blue lace.

"I made this," she murmured.

Evan's head shot up. "You did?"

Frances nodded, lost in memory. "To make her laugh."

Frances delivered the handkerchief to Grace with a flourish. "May I present to you something befitting your status, my lady," she'd intoned.

Grace had taken a long look at the outrageous item and nearly fallen over laughing. "Oh my God, Frances, you genius. ‘Her Ladyship, Lady Grace'—that's incredible. You are incredible."

She traced her fingers over the words she'd so painstakingly stitched. The first A in Graham had lost most of its shape, but the thing was unmistakable.

Evan took it from her grasp as if it were fragile as gossamer. "She carried it everywhere and I remember wondering why," he said. "It was so unlike her."

"I added every flourish I could think of," she said, throat tightening. "How did it?—"

She couldn't get the full question past her lips.

He shook his head. "I want to hope," he said, voice scarcely louder than a whisper. "But I'm afraid we'll never know the truth."

He looked so defeated by the idea that Frances felt a rush of righteous fury. Nothing should make him feel like that, certainly not some no-good murderer who had kept Grace's belongings like a ghoulish trophy.

"We'll learn the truth," she vowed. "We will."

In this matter, she would not be demure; she would not be ruled by her fears. For this was too important to let anything stop her. They would learn the truth. They had to.