“So.” Frances spoke up before he could begin rhapsodizing about Caroline. “If you don’t want me to write your letter, why have you summoned me?”

He drew himself up straighter, and his withered arm sank into the cradle of his left. “My handwriting is atrocious. Infernal, really. I hoped you could help me assemble an acceptable reply with a minimum of misshapen words.”

He cleared his throat, shrugged, and looked faintly mortified. “You were right about not bringing roses, after all. So I thought you’d know what to—ah, now that I’ve said this aloud, it sounds rather… well. You know, maybe we’d better forget the whole thing.”

“No, indeed.” Perhaps it was unworthy of her to want him to fidget a little. “I understand you perfectly. You want me to write you a love letter to Caroline, and then you’ll transcribe it. And it must be very short.”

She put a hand on her chest and intoned dramatically, “‘Bed me, my sweet.’ There, we’re done. Shall I ring for tea?”

Henry’s lips bent in an expression of wicked humor. “If that’s your idea of a love letter, perhaps you had better ring for tea, and I’ll write it myself.” He shook his head. “What am I saying? I’m not even writing a love letter. It’s a reply, that’s all. It’s a possibility letter.”

Frances permitted herself another jibe. “Still, Henry. This is one of the oddest things I’ve ever been asked to do, and I once helped Hambleton and Crisp tie their cravats together.”

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t want you to compose it, only to advise. And you needn’t do anything with my cravat.”

So of course, she had to look at his cravat when he said that. The starch-white points against his tanned skin, his blue eyes, the sun-golden of his hair. He was a bright palette, all stark colors and clean lines, and his faint scent of soap and evergreen woke something eager within her. She wanted to draw closer to him, breathe deeply, and remember how it felt to be near a man.

He began tapping his knuckles against the arm of his chair, a pillowed pat that pulled her attention back to his words. “I’ve never written with my left hand before, and I hoped you could help me learn how. My first foray was not a success. I didn’t manage a single legible letter, though I did spoil a very nice desk and cuff with ink.”

Frances chuckled, and he added, “Ah… that’s why I’ve taken the liberty of removing my coat. I hope you are not offended.”

“No, certainly not.” Not at all. Her eyes wanted to rove over his form again, but she fastened them to his face with admirable tact. “It wouldn’t do for formal company, of course, but we’re in your home and we’re quite alone.”

He seemed to become aware of that fact as well. “I apologize if this is not an appropriate request. I thought since you help Caro in so many ways, that this would not be wrong. To help her receive her reply.”

She relented at last. It wasn’t his fault he had misinterpreted the letter. It wasn’t his fault that he wanted Caroline. As Frances truly did like him, she ought to give him the friendship he seemed to want so keenly.

Even if she would rather be selfish.

“No, no. I was only teasing. I always deal with Caroline’s correspondence, so there’s nothing wrong with this, Henry.” Frances savored the taste of his name, of the intimacy he had granted her.

But that wasn’t why she’d been summoned here. Apparently.

She drew two chairs over to a graceful tambour writing desk positioned near a window to catch daylight. It held pens, ink, paper, and sand for blotting. Everything they needed.

“Do sit,” she said, sinking into a chair. “Take this pen in your hand and see how it feels.”

He hefted it sharply in a clenched fist. “It feels wrong.”

Frances pressed her lips together to hide a smile. “It’s not a riding crop, you know. Just wrap your fingers around it the same way you always did with your right.”

She slid the quill between his second and third fingers. He looked surprised at the contact, and Frances drew her fingers back. “It would be easier if we had a quill from the right wing of the goose, for those fit the left hand better. But these will work well enough until you can lay in a supply. Try forming some letters—very large, at first, just to get accustomed to the movement.”

He didn’t move; he only stared at his left arm.

“What is it?” Frances asked.

A sideways flick of his eyes. “I’m sorry to ask this, but would you roll back the left sleeve? This is my brother’s shirt, and…” He trailed off, ruddy from chagrin under his tan.

“Oh, of course,” Frances blurted. “Writing with the left hand does tend to make a muck of one’s hand and wrist. How thoughtful of you to consider the fate of your brother’s garment.”

“It’s a kindness to his valet, actually. The man almost wept when he saw what had happened to the shirt I wore last time I wrote. To say I ruined it is an understatement; I don’t think it’ll even be suitable for dustcloths.”

As nimbly and dispassionately as a maid or valet, Frances slipped his cufflink from its moorings and turned back the light fabric of the sleeve, once, twice, to the middle of his forearm. Tendons played under his skin as he flexed his hand at the wrist. The back of his hand grazed hers, and she pulled away a little too quickly, self-conscious.

A second of awkward silence followed. Henry broke it by saying, “Thank you.”

Frances only nodded, her throat closed on a reply. Where his bare hand had grazed hers, the skin tingled, eager.

Gingerly, Henry dipped the pen and began to scrawl the alphabet in large, untidy capitals. The edge of his hand slid through the ink of the first letter he drew, smudging paper and skin.

“Try angling the paper to the right,” Frances suggested. “Your hand will travel down in a line, rather than across what you’ve just written. Yes, exactly. That will save your cuffs from now on.”

His hand flexed on the pen as he drew another letter, almost sideways. The hairs of his arm were fine, bleached gold against his sun-darkened complexion.

“How is it you know so much about writing with the left hand, Frances?”

“In the likeliest way you can imagine. I was inclined to use my left hand as a girl.”

“You don’t anymore?”

“No, my governess was adamant that I use my right. I resisted making the change, but she triumphed in the end. She had the ruler, and I the lashings, you see.”

Henry’s hand stilled, and he stared at her. Frances smiled. “Don’t feel bad for me. I assure you, I made her job as difficult as I possibly could. I can be quite stubborn.”

“I believe your determination, but you don’t strike me as the disobedient type,” he said, studying her face. “Or as someone who once favored her left hand. So you were sinister as a girl, were you?”

“I am still sinister,” she said. “I frighten everyone I meet. You must be extraordinarily brave to sit so close to me.”

Teasing to cover the import of the moment. Not since Charles was alive had a man chosen her company. Yet here she sat in a chair pulled as close to Henry’s as space would permit, their hands bare, not even inches apart. It might have been miles, though, for all that she could not bring herself closer. He had only chosen her company for the sake of another.

Her hands became busy trimming a pen, shaving away bits of the quill with a penknife until the nib point was whittled so fine as to be useless.

“You know,” Henry said, sitting back and holding up his work to the window light, “I think that’s a bit better. The angle of the paper helped. Here, see what you think.”

His fingers brushed hers as he stuffed the paper into Frances’s hand. She bobbled it, grazing her skirt. “Damn it.”

Henry lifted his eyebrows. “Good thing you’re my fellow soldier, or I’d be shocked by your language.”

“Oh, stop,” Frances muttered. “I told you, it’s a borrowed gown, and I mustn’t get ink on it.” She laid the paper down on the desk and smoothed the fabric tightly over her thighs. “No, I don’t think I did.”

She looked up to see him studying her oddly. “What? Did I?”

“No,” he said, still looking at her in that strange way. “You look very well.” He shook his head, then gave her the paper again, holding it tight at the edge until she grasped it.

She could see on the paper the effect of her hard-won, palms-being-smacked experience. Though Henry’s letters were still large and unformed, they grew tidier and less blotchy as they marched down the page.

“I think you’ve got the idea,” she said. “Only lay in the right kind of quill, and you’ll find it much easier.”

He nodded and took back the paper, laying it on the desk again. “I’m glad to know it. You’re a good teacher.”

“Oh.” She waved a hand. “Well, thank you. I actually was a teacher once, during my scandalous youth.”

“A palm-smacking governess?” His head tilted, as though he were trying to imagine it.

“Nothing so formal as that. My good memory meant I was just the girl to help the squire’s young son brush up on his Latin or teach the village children the names of every flower in the field.”

Henry looked surprised, and Frances added, “Don’t credit me with any great charity. I thought it my duty to help, yes, but I also dearly loved to be right.”

His mouth made a wry curve. “Loved, past tense? I think not.”

He bent his fair head over the paper and skkkriiiikkked another line. A fine spray of ink dotted his face, and he squinted, dropping his pen to grope in his waistcoat pocket for a handkerchief. “Right now, for example, you are perishing to tell me why I can’t draw a neat line for anything.” He rubbed at his face. “Go ahead. I’m ready to hear it.”