Andrew: Lord of Despair (11 page)

Herbert used to tell her not to fret, usually as he was on his way to go look at
another
smashing bay hunter just shipped to Tatt’s from the Midlands.

Which might have been male euphemism for all manner of prurient,
expensive
pursuits.

“Andrew, all a widow has is her portion. Herbert made no will, and I am left with only the provisions in the marriage settlements. Now you tell me those are gone and I have nothing.”

“You have Gareth, and you have Fairly, both of whom can provide for you quite, quite generously.”

Astrid did not, in any sense Society or the law would recognize, have Andrew. He might be her lover, her friend, and her sister’s brother-in-law, but he had no right, with both Gareth and David in good health, to provide for her. “I do not want to be a poor relation to my family any more than I do to my in-laws.”

He kissed her temple, likely an attempt at distraction. “Astrid, use your formidable common sense: many women are poor relations. The widow’s circumstance, having her own money and her own property, is the exception. When you married Herbert, you had only what pin money he gave you. Fairly will see to it you have far more than that for emergency funds.”

This conversation, about money and the lack thereof, was intimate in ways that had nothing to do with two naked bodies entwined under a blanket—intimate and enraging.

“Do you know my brother, David, the estimable and ever so self-contained Viscount Fairly, is a widower? I have no details, but this disclosure came up when he last called on me in Town. I wasn’t managing very well, and David asked me what I was doing with the guilt, for I am alive and my husband will never draw breath again.”

She gave Andrew a moment to absorb the news of her brother’s previous marriage, then went on in quiet, clipped tones. “I am faced with a different question now, upon finding my late husband stole from funds that were to have been for my dotage, all the while telling me not to worry my head about his extravagances. I am faced with the issue of how I will deal with
his
guilt, his betrayal, his damned pride, that wouldn’t allow him to practice the economies most folk observe out of sheer prudence.”

Andrew rolled her to her back. “Hush. You will wake the household.”

“I want to wake the household. I want to run down the drive, bellowing at the top of my lungs that Herbert was a fool, a cheat, and a lousy husband.”

She also wanted to cry and to hear Andrew say he’d make everything turn out right. Flying pigs came to mind.

Andrew kissed her chin. “Herbert’s brother will be here tomorrow, expecting you to do the pretty as the grieving widow, and you were the one to remind me Douglas will be your child’s guardian. He is not responsible for Herbert’s mismanagement and duplicity, at least as far as we know.”

She wished she had more than the last of the firelight to illuminate Andrew’s expression, because his tone suggested there was worse news yet. “What does that mean, ‘as far as you know’?”

When he was silent, Astrid brushed a hand up along his brow, sifting her fingers through his thick locks. He did not lie to her, even when she wished he would. “Andrew?”

He caught her hand in his and kissed her knuckles, then kept his fingers wrapped around hers. “Fairly heard a rumor Herbert may have taken his own life.”

Astrid’s hand went to her belly, low down where the child grew. “Andrew, no! Herbert was proud, old-fashioned, stubborn, and occasionally slow-witted, but he would not do such a thing, ever.”

Defending Herbert this way—sincerely—felt good, but what a wretched accusation Andrew made.

“People commit suicide for reasons less compelling than shame,” Andrew replied in the same ominously quiet voice.

Dear God, what did that tone of voice mean? “Herbert would not have wanted to shame his family.” A man who indulged his mistress lavishly did not give a thought to whether he shamed his wife. Another equally bleak thought eclipsed that one. “I doubt my late husband had the courage to take his own life.”

“Perhaps he did; perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps he made it look like an accident, but you must consider another explanation.”

This was not how Astrid wanted to spend their last night together. She laid that complaint at Herbert’s sainted feet.

“What other explanation? My husband spent a great deal of time around guns and strong spirits, and one day he was unlucky.”

“Astrid, I don’t want to believe this, but please consider that your husband might have died at the hand of someone who would benefit from his death.”

“You want me to consider that my husband was murdered?” she hissed. “That is ridiculous, Andrew. Who in their right mind would murder an impoverished, titled gentleman, particularly one as unfailingly amiable and openhanded as Herbert? One thing you must admit about Herbert, he did not have enemies.”

Andrew rolled to his back, taking his warmth away when Astrid most wanted to cling to him.

“Astrid, he may not have had enemies, but he has a brother, two in fact. For a younger brother to covet a title would not be unusual. In most families, it would almost be expected. You’d not believe the number of jokes aimed at me, insinuating I wanted my brother’s title, or that Gareth killed five relatives to get his hands on the marquessate.” He gripped her hand more firmly. “How well do you know Douglas Allen?”

Andrew the lover was charming, dear, and heartbreaking in his determination to leave her. Andrew the warrior, hell-bent on equipping her with enough knowledge to protect herself, was daunting in an entirely different way.

“I do not know Douglas well. He is such a cold fish and even more private than David was upon first acquaintance. He is ever proper, but controlled. As if he’s always standing outside himself, watching. I’ve never even seen him express affection for his mother or a dog or a small child. I often wished Douglas had more of Herbert’s jovial social grace, and Herbert had more of Douglas’s gravity.”

“Do you feel safe around Douglas?”

Astrid searched in vain for reasons to give the reassuring answer Andrew wanted to hear. She had never felt comfortable around Herbert’s middle brother, and wasn’t sure Herbert had either.

“Your silence speaks volumes, Astrid, and forces me to lay before you another option.”

“I am not going to like this, am I?”

“No, you are not.” From his tone, neither was he.

“Then at least hold me while you deliver the worst news.” She made as if to wrestle him back over her, and Andrew complied.

“Your brilliant brother and your brilliant brother-in-law,” he began, brushing a strand of hair off her forehead, “have come up with a way to keep you safe and to ensure Douglas does not have the raising of your child.”

“I’m all for accomplishing both, so let’s hear their clever plan,” she said, nuzzling at Andrew’s throat. “You have the most marvelous scent about you.”

“As do you,” Andrew replied politely, his man parts stirring back to life despite his manners. “It occurred to Fairly that were you to marry a well-heeled fellow who outranked Douglas, then Douglas’s hands would be tied. He could not demand you rejoin the Allen household; he could not completely control your child; he could not control your finances even indirectly.”

“Oh, that’s a fine plan,” Astrid muttered, dipping her head so her tongue could go questing at Andrew’s throat for his pulse. “I see a small flaw or two, however. First, I do not want to be married to anyone ever again, and we have no duke or marquess hanging about the hedges, just waiting to ask for my dainty hand, not when I’m about to drop some other bull’s calf.”

Andrew angled up so he more thoroughly covered her. “The hedges might not hold an eligible duke or a marquess, but we could scare you up an earl.”

“I don’t know any earls under the age of fifty, and he would have to be handy with pistols, fists, and swords if he were to provide me bodily safety, wouldn’t he?” She began to rock her hips, sliding her wet sex slowly back and forth along the length of his growing erection, and wanting desperately, desperately for Andrew to
be
quiet
.

“Those skills would be important attributes, yes,” Andrew said, though his voice at least had a distracted, breathless quality.

“And,” Astrid went on, her hands sliding down his back to knead the muscles of his buttocks, “I am not going to marry another polite fellow who will expect me to wait patiently in the dark for his
timid
…
disgusting
…
inept
…
fumbling
attempts at conjugal relations.” She punctuated each adjective with a roll of her hips, indignant that Andrew could even contemplate marrying her off to another man.

“No one would expect that of you,” he said. “But our brothers have found somebody who meets all of your criteria: he’s young enough, he is motivated to protect you and your child, he is an earl, moderately wealthy, and he manages passably well between the sheets.”

“How would those two know the first thing about a man’s abilities with the ladies?” she said, not quite distracted from the topic by the hard shaft nudging at her sex. “I don’t believe such a man exists, anyway, and I would hardly take their word for his abilities.”

“Would you take mine?” Andrew asked, teasing her with the blunt tip of his cock.

“I don’t know.” She would soon not know how to form words. “Who is this paragon?”

He slid into her on a lovely, deep, easy glide that gratified as it aroused.

“Me,” he said as he thrust home. “They want you to marry me.”

Douglas Allen, now Viscount Amery, had been taught since birth that two pillars sustained an honorable life: family loyalty and adherence to the standards of decent Society. As a grown man, Douglas had long since concluded neither family loyalty nor genteel social standards created a meaningful life—or a particularly enjoyable one. Meaning and joy, however, were luxuries the second son of an impoverished viscount could not afford.

In that spirit, the trip to Willowdale would be made to create a show of familial good feeling, to collect the young widow from the bosom of her family—and to appease the dowager Viscountess Amery’s ceaseless whining.

Douglas sipped at a scant finger of brandy, feeling a passing pity for Astrid Worthington Allen, whom he liked as much as he liked anyone. She was pretty, charming, intelligent without being obnoxious, and genuinely kind. In time, she might have been the making of his spendthrift, self-indulgent older brother.

The first two years of that marriage, however, had left Douglas with the impression his older brother, as usual, was putting a brave face on a bungled job. Herbert neglected his young wife, ignored her advice, and sought the company of muddy dogs and drunken squires—and his mistress—instead.

Douglas downed his last swallow of brandy—and it would
be
his last of the evening, economies being what they were—and prepared to take himself up to bed when the front door opened.

“Greetings, your lordship,” Henry Allen called as he bounced into the library and headed straight for his older brother’s brandy decanter. He poured himself a bumper, grinned, and waggled the bottle at Douglas. “May I offer you refressment… re
fresh
ment?”

“Thank you, no, though might I say how pleased I am to see you on familial territory before dawn’s early light? The guest room is kept in readiness for your impromptu visits.” Douglas closed the door Henry had left open, lest what meager heat the hearth produced be lost to the night air.

“Now, Douglas, don’t go getting all starchy on me. I’m just nipping in between rounds, so to speak.” Henry took an exuberant, audible gulp of his drink.

When had his little brother, once so merry and charming, turned into such a vapid waste of indifferent tailoring? A second son had a difficult existence, raised to understand the privileges of the title, but not to exercise them. As the third son, free of such constraints, Henry could make his way in the world however whim and fancy struck him. He chose to do so as an inebriated, skirt-chasing, utterly unimpressive excuse for a young man.

As Henry guzzled the scant supply of decent brandy, Douglas silently vowed to order the staff to leave only the cheaper offerings in plain sight.

“So, Henry, will you be in any condition to join Mother and me for our weekend call on Heathgate?”

For a moment, Henry looked confused, then his mouth creased into a smile that brought out his resemblance to Herbert. They shared the same build too—substantial and sturdy, while Douglas was taller and… skinny.

“Time to bring the little viscountess back into the fold, eh? Have to commend Herbert on choosing a right pretty thing for a wife. Do you suppose she’s getting lonely yet?” Henry underscored his lascivious meaning with a wink.

“You are half seas over, Brother,” Douglas observed as he put the decanter into the sideboard’s cupboard. “I will thank you not to discuss our sister-in-law in such disrespectful terms. If she wishes to return to Town, we will be happy to escort her, particularly because it is Mother’s fondest wish she do so.”

Mother’s only wish, to hear her tell it and tell it and tell it.

“And maybe your fondest wish too, your lordship?” Henry assayed such a winsome, irreverent grin, Douglas was reminded of the mischievous boy Henry had been.

“Henry, you really should be adopting a more decorous demeanor,” Douglas chided tiredly. “Our brother is only three months in his grave, and you are, as long as I remain unwed, the heir presumptive to a title. You would be better advised to spend your time acquainting yourself with the family’s situation than larking about with every soiled dove who waves her larcenous fingers at you.”

Henry’s grin broadened. “It ain’t their waving fingers that makes me
come
running, Dougie.” He was so overcome with mirth at his play on words, he had to sit, and still he managed to spill a few drops of his drink on the only good carpet remaining in the house.

“Henry, I will take my leave of you. Your dazzling wit is more than my feeble brain can bear. Please present yourself at a proper hour and reasonably attired on the morrow. Mother is taking the coach, and I will accompany her on horseback.”

Henry gulped back more of his drink. “You would ride the distance rather than join Mother in the coach, wouldn’t you? I think Herbert’s death has made her worse. She’s gotten downright whiney. So whiney you’ll sit a horse for two hours rather than put up with her. What would my late brother say if he could see this?”

My
late brother, not
our
late brother.

“Maybe he would say good night,” Douglas replied, willing to leave Henry alone with the decanter if it meant Douglas could take himself off to bed.

When he gained the solitude of his room, Douglas folded his clothing into the clothes press—he did without a valet quite nicely—and made use of the washbasin before climbing into bed. One of Henry’s crude remarks came back to him as he began the nightly ritual of fighting to fall asleep: “Do you think she’s getting lonely yet?”

She
probably was lonely. Douglas would have wagered money he could ill afford to lose on the certainty
she
had been lonely before Herbert’s death.

Viewed from that perspective, Herbert’s death had probably been a blessing to his wife. Douglas rolled to his side, grateful at least one other person could feel relief that the late Viscount Amery had gone to his untimely reward.

***

Andrew forced himself to consciousness through the cozy certainty he should remain wrapped around the delightful, warm curves sharing the bed with him.

In the next brutal instant, he stifled the impulse to scramble off the mattress, for he had fallen asleep in Astrid’s bed—in her very arms. No sounds came from the lower floors, and if he’d had to guess, he would have estimated that dawn was an hour away.

So he had time, minutes anyway, to resolve what he’d been too cowardly to deal with as Astrid had drifted off in his arms hours earlier.

“Don’t go.” Astrid punctuated her command by taking his arm and wrapping it around her middle.

He should invite her to make a visit behind the privacy screen. She was still shy about pregnancy’s effects on her body, and the idea that she’d be shy about anything with him was dear and painful.

“I’ll stay for a bit.” He didn’t want to leave her alone in this bed, and he didn’t want to leave her
alone
, but he was going to. “You did not respond to my proposal.”

And because he needed to see her face when they had this most miserable discussion, he hoisted her over him so she sprawled on his chest. By the embers in the hearth, he could see her braid was a mess and her cheek bore a wrinkle from where it had been pressed to the pillow.

“Did you propose, Andrew? I heard you describing a scheme hatched by our brothers, not an offer of marriage.”

Peevish. She was peevish that he’d not gotten down on bended knee and prettied things up. She was going to be more peevish still.

“If we were to marry”—not
when
we
marry
—“I would not get children on you.”

She paused midnuzzle on his chest. “Then we won’t have children. You’ve told me there are precautions to prevent conception. Besides, we are likely to have a brace of nieces and nephews, so it hardly matters.”

The better to focus both of them on what needed to be said, he took her hand as it began a southerly peregrination. “I’ve told you about certain precautions. I’ve also told you no precautions are a perfect safeguard, and the only way to prevent conception for certain is to remain celibate. I am telling you”—he forced himself to make the words pass his lips—“if we marry, I will be your bodyguard, your friend, and until you deliver this child, I will be your lover. After that, I will not be intimate with you lest you conceive my child.”

For no child should have him for a father. He’d been certain of that since before his sixteenth birthday, and he was certain of it still.

Astrid curled her fingers around his, her grip fierce. “You are saying you would be celibate rather than risk another child?” Oh, the hurt in her voice, but still he’d insist on hurting her further.

“All I can promise you is I will be celibate with you.” Even if it meant more years of subsisting on thin soup, breathing the stench of cooked cabbage, and missing her.

“Andrew, why? I would gladly bear your children, and if—”

“I would not be a good father,” he interrupted before the entire conversation blundered into more questions and worse pain. He kissed her knuckles and wrapped his arms around her, but being Astrid, she did not let the matter lie.

“Is it that you do not want to have children
with
me
?”

He gathered her closer, hating Herbert Allen for planting a seed of self-doubt in the mind of a woman who didn’t deserve that misery. He hated himself for nurturing that seed, but for the first time, and with surprising ease, he hated Julia Ponsonby too.

“If I were to have children with any woman, it would be you. I am not willing to sire children at all, though, and thus you have the terms of my offer.”

Also his heart on a platter, which was no improvement on the bargain. Would that he had perished in that damned accident and Adam had survived. Would that he could assuage Astrid’s doubts with tales of familial insanity or inherited weakness, but the weakness was his and his alone.

“I cannot accept such an offer, Andrew,” she replied, sadness in every word. “I do not know why you have so little faith in yourself, and I know not how to argue the point. I think we are saying good-bye.”

She was brave, and she deserved so much better.

“Ah, love, don’t cry,” Andrew whispered, shifting over her to kiss her cheeks. “Please, please don’t cry. I should never have taken liberties with you, knowing it would come to this, but believe me, Astrid, it is for the best that we part now.”

“No, Andrew,” she said through her tears, “you do not have the right of it, not this time. You are being stubborn, misguided, and f-foolish. I am glad we took liberties with each other, but I wish you would reconsider this rule you have made, or at least tell me why it is so important to you.”

She asked for so much more than she knew. She asked for him to watch the love in her eyes turn not to fond recollection or puzzled indifference, but to dismay and even hate.

He kissed her forehead as her weeping subsided. “Shall I take myself off to Enfield or disappear back to Sussex? Gareth and Felicity will understand, if it would be easier on you not to have to see me.”

Astrid bit his nipple, and not gently. “You want my permission to slink away, Andrew Alexander? I think not. You have said we are friends, and that is not how I would have my friend treat me. I will go back to Town with Douglas, armed with warnings of your suspicions, and I will be careful. Once I am gone from here, I understand you will keep your distance. But you will stay this weekend, and you will be the doting brother-in-law you’ve always been.”

“If that is your wish,” he said, inordinately relieved she wasn’t sending him away, equally concerned she would be going back to live in the Allen town house while he remained in the country—of course—thoroughly loathing himself because their dalliance was ending exactly as he’d foreseen it would.

With Astrid hurt.

“My wish is that we remain friends,” she said. “Someday, you know, I will be too old to have children, and I am waiting to hear what excuse you come up with then.”

As an attempt at humor, her words were paltry, but as an olive branch, they sufficed.

“You are forgiving me.” He wished she wouldn’t. He wished she would make him beg and suffer, and most of all, he wished she would make him reconsider.

“I am not forgiving you, Andrew. There is nothing to forgive.”

She bludgeoned him with her tolerance, pushed him overboard into seas that heaved with guilt and bewilderment. More guilt. Now he wished she’d bite him again, this time hard enough to draw blood.

“Astrid, promise me if you feel at any time unsafe with the Allens, if you have any evidence Douglas means you ill, then you must allow this marriage. Your pride, and even your feelings for me, aren’t worth your life.”

“Of all the arrogance…” Astrid huffed out. “You would ask me to be your wife, expecting me to look the other way while you sought pleasure with others? And what of me, Andrew? I am supposed to become a nun, sacrificed on the altar of your antipathy to fatherhood? Do you expect me, knowing my feelings for you, to lie with other men while you smile and wish me best of luck?”

Astrid on a verbal tear was frightening. She wielded truth like a delicate épée, slicing cleanly to the bone with every stroke.

And yet, Andrew parried her ripostes. “If we worked at it, we could come to tolerate married life. I am asking you to put your safety
and
that
of
your
child
above your infatuation with me. In time, you will understand I’m not worth these feelings you have for me. In time, you might even be relieved I would put no demands on you. But love me, hate me, or disdain me altogether, I would very much rather have you and your child alive to do so.”

She bit his shoulder in a fashion Andrew found… thoughtful. “I will promise, you misguided,
lost
man, to marry you if it becomes clear there is a threat to my life or that of this baby. I do not, however, agree to any of your other terms, and I further demand that should we marry,
you
promise
me
we will live together as if we were truly man and wife.”