Page 95 of The Quiet Wife
“Sorry, but you have such a lovely chest.”
“Would you hit me if I said so do you?” He squeezed her.
“But I don’t… oh. Oh!” she said and buried her burning cheeks against him, and then laughed with him.
“Talk to me,” she said after a little while.
“What would you like to talk about?”
She dropped a soft kiss on his collar bone. Loving the feel of his hands on her hair. “Talk to me about art. You were talking about Art for Art’s sake, but I didn’t understand. Help me understand.”
He wrapped her more tightly in his arms, rested his chin on her head, took hold of another handful of hair, and they talked for the rest of the night.
CHAPTER 31
London – Kensington
Frances squared her shoulders as she headed for the breakfast room the next morning. She felt reasonably sure Frederick would have left the house early to avoid having to speak to her. She hoped so as she wasn’t sure she had the fortitude to face him. Besides, several guests had stayed the night so she imagined there would be quite a gathering and she would be forced to keep up civilities.
She took a breath and swept into the room as though she hadn’t a care in the word and found…
Frederick. Alone.
Her heart stuttered to a halt and for a second, she toyed with turning around and leaving. But he’d seen her, and she determined in that moment thatshehad done nothing wrong. He had. So, she walked into the room, head held high.
He paused, setting his knife and fork down on the plate of ham and eggs. She retrieved some toast from the sideboard and sat opposite him. The voice in her head chimed loudly, ‘don’t forget it is he who is wrong. Don’t forget.’ Frederick, unfortunately, had a way of making her feel wrong when he confronted her,even when she wasn’t. Today she determined she would not be dissuaded.
He tapped on the table with a finger for a moment and then looked at her. “I don’t understand why you came to my room.”
Frances applied butter to the toast, hesitated, then spread it liberally with jam.
“I was worried about you. You said you had a headache, and I realised I hadn’t seen you for a while, I was concerned. I popped in to see Elinor and decided I should make sure you hadn’t been taken ill,” she said coolly.
“I hadn’t.”
She glanced at him. “Evidently.” She took a bite of toast, chewed, then had a sip of tea.
“Is this a longstanding affair or was last night just a…” she shrugged. “A tumble?”
“Don’t be vulgar. I’m… sorry you had to see it. We shall say no more about it.”
Frances blinked. Was that all that was to be said? Not if she had anything to do with it.
She nibbled on her toast. “I see.”
He sighed. “I tried to speak to you last night, but you were not in your room. Where were you?”
She really didn’t like his tone and recognised this is where he would try to turn the blame on her. He never was good at owning up to his shortcomings.
“Where else did you look?”
He frowned. “Nowhere.”
“Well, if you’d thought to check in on Lizzie, you would have found me quite easily.”
She needed to find Lizzie immediately and warn her.
He clenched his jaw at that. It would irk him no end to realise that she would have confided freely in her sister.
