Andrew: Lord of Despair (12 page)

Andrew had long since reached a place of bleak resignation with this discussion, but rallied himself to think through that demand. He couldn’t very well protect her if he was living in Italy and she was left raising a child in Sussex. And as to that, while fashionable couples often spent some of the year apart, they also spent much of the year quite publicly together. He at least owed Astrid the appearance of a true marriage—should it ever come to that.

“I accept your terms.”

“Thank you,” she rejoined pleasantly. “I compliment you on the first bit of sense you’ve shown all night.” With that, she tucked herself into the curve of his body and went quiet.

In a just world, they would have had a chance at building a life together; in reality, tragedies, bad decisions, and unfairness abounded, and he would never be worthy of her.

And he would never have the balls to explain to her why.

He made love to her by way of consolation to her and penance for himself, aroused her with tenderness and care and a wealth of longing. She joined him in a sleepy haze and wrapped herself around him, apparently accepting the pleasure—and the loss—their joining signified. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her good-bye, simply could not say the words.

Andrew told the woman he loved, with his hands, with his body and his kisses, that he was full of regret for causing her pain. He told her he did care for her, so very much, and he told her when his body slipped from hers and he left her bed this time, he would never, ever come back.

***

Douglas Allen kissed Astrid’s forehead in greeting. He had the sense she loathed the contact, and considered it, in some convoluted way, the least he could do for her. Anger had become his best antidote to overwhelming melancholy, and Astrid had reason to be melancholy, probably more reason than she knew.

But he had to admit as he stepped back, she looked better. Her eyes were no longer a flat mask of pain, and her face showed emotion besides sadness and bewilderment.

“The country air and the company of your sister have improved your spirits.”

“Nonsense, Douglas,” Lady Amery cut in. “Astrid is wan, she has lost flesh, and she looks quite worn out to me. Lady Heathgate has no doubt been at her wit’s end with concern for her sister.”

A slight smile flickered between the sisters, the last being no doubt true. Douglas noted the glance and felt a stab of old irritation. His brothers had exchanged the same kind of looks around him constantly.

“We shall soon have her back to Town, where she may recover from the rigors of her visit to the country.” He addressed himself to Astrid, because she was a woman blessedly comfortable with plain speech. “If that is your wish?”

“Perhaps we need not make plans at this point,” Heathgate interrupted, slipping an arm around his wife in a startling display of informal affection. “I’m sure you would all like to be shown to your rooms and get settled before we gather for luncheon.”

“I, for one,” said Henry, his grin much in evidence, “would like to see the stables. I’ve been told you’ve a prime eye, your lordship.”

Viscount Fairly shoved away from the mantel where he’d been silently perusing the company with his unnerving eyes. “I’ll join you,” he said, “and we can leave Lord Heathgate to complete his morning’s correspondence.”

“Capital!” Henry rejoined.

Douglas would have liked to go with them, but that would have left no one to escort his mother to her room. He gave the marquess a bow and offered his mother an elbow.

They followed Lady Heathgate up the stairs, Lady Amery chattering about the manor house’s lovely appointments. Douglas was inordinately relieved to tuck his mother into her room and follow his hostess down the hallway to his chamber. The room was commodious and comfortable, and that was a relief too, for despite determined self-discipline, Douglas remained a man who enjoyed his creature comforts.

“Your hospitality, my lady, is all that is generous.” He bowed to her formally in the corridor, seeing his valise had been brought up already.

“You must consider yourself family while you are here, my lord,” she replied. “I have enjoyed having my sister’s company, and thank you for your willingness to share her with us these weeks past.”

“She seems to be doing better, and for that, you have my gratitude. In Town, she just… She was not coping well. I was at a loss as to how to assist her.”

Douglas followed his words with the slightest hint of a self-conscious shrug and another bow, and withdrew into his room. Having gained the precious blessing of solitude, he opened the valise, took out a stack of letters, and prepared to bail against a tide of correspondence as endless as it was depressing.

***

Dinner passed as pleasantly as lunch had, if small talk, small portions, and a small case of queasiness qualified. Astrid had made certain to seat herself neither next to nor across from Andrew, which left her immediately across from Douglas.

While Andrew conversed, flattered, and played the part of a cheerful guest, Astrid pushed braised carrots around on her plate and thought of skipping stones. Whenever she looked up, somebody was studying her—Felicity, Gareth, Henry Allen, or Douglas.

Though not Andrew. Never Andrew.

She put a forkful of carrots in her mouth and chewed slowly, then had to pretend to sneeze into her napkin to preserve herself from swallowing food that agreed with her even less than the company who had come to call.

When Felicity rose and invited the ladies to join her in the family parlor, Astrid thought to make her escape above stairs, only to find Douglas hovering at her elbow in the corridor.

“Might I offer you a turn about the gardens, my lady?” He held out an arm and assayed what for him was probably a smile, though it looked to Astrid like an inchoate case of dyspepsia. Perhaps the condition was contagious. “The evening is cool, but there are matters I would raise with you privately.”

“I’ll get my shawl.”

Douglas was nearly as tall as Andrew, and had an elegance to his frame neither of his brothers shared. Those attributes were none of his doing, but Astrid also had to credit the man with a curiously pleasant, cedary scent.

Her condition was making her daft, or making her nose daft. She repaired to her room, gave the quilt a longing stroke, and chose a lavender shawl. Let Douglas be warned that her mourning no longer consumed her, and she would not be a slave to convention merely to appease his sensibilities.

“Shall we use the back terrace?” she suggested, not waiting for him to offer his arm again. He stayed by her side, nonetheless, as they meandered around the side of the house to the largest terrace, the one that bordered the fading flower beds. The full moon had risen, making the whole scene eerily well lit.

“So, Douglas,” she said as they strolled along, “what would you discuss with me?”

He was not like some men—like Herbert—charging ahead and leaving a diminutive lady to trot after him.

“You are my brother’s widow,” he began, as if rehearsing a sermon, “and as such, certain funds should now become available to you. We have, in fact, discussed these monies on more than one occasion.”

He’d tried to discuss them while she’d considered smashing clocks. “We have. Briefly.”

“There is no other way to say this, but your funds are sorely depleted. I do apologize to you for this mismanagement.”

An opening salvo, no doubt intended to unnerve more than it apologized. “And how were my funds mismanaged, specifically?” She kept her voice pleasant, merely curious.

“I do not want to speak ill of my late brother, but his grasp of business principles was… not sophisticated,” Douglas offered, as if this were the more difficult admission.

“Is ownership, then, a complicated business principle, Douglas? As in, the dower portion of the settlements was mine, and was not his to use. That money was the one thing I, as a wife, could expect to remain in possession of, despite becoming my husband’s chattel. Your brother’s fault lay not in his grasp of business principles, but rather, in his grasp of morals.”

They strolled along a walk of crushed white shells, which the moonlight made luminous. Perhaps the surrounding darkness enhanced her awareness of scents, for Astrid could divine the odor of rotting undergrowth beneath the fragrance of the flowers and Douglas’s cedary scent.

Douglas bent and snapped off a white chrysanthemum. “I cannot know my brother’s motivations.” A martyr prayed for his executioner’s forgiveness in the same patient, condescending tones.

“Douglas, let us be honest.” Lest she spend the rest of the night among the chilly flowers and Douglas’s chilly remorse. “Herbert was not a bad man, but he was self-indulgent and immature. He wasted money on himself, his leman, his dogs and horses and cronies. Your brother stole from funds that should have been saved for my exclusive use, and because
he
was head of the family, no one stopped him.”

Though Astrid did not think Douglas would permit himself the same latitude.

“I can see your grief is abated.” One could not tell with Douglas where thoughtful observation ended and dry sarcasm began, but he was at least trading honesty for honesty.

“Do you begrudge me an abatement of grief, Douglas? Particularly when what has speeded me along has been nothing other than the reality of Herbert’s betrayals?”

Perhaps the full moon did incline people to lunacy, for Astrid felt a bout of histrionics welling.

White chrysanthemums stood for truth. Douglas tossed his into the hedge. “You speak in the plural.”

“Of course I do. Tell me which of the wedding vows Herbert kept, Douglas, and explain to me how this frittering away of the only funds I have wasn’t also a betrayal.”

They reached a stone bench that overlooked the strange beauty of the fall garden by moonlight. Astrid seated herself and gestured Douglas to do likewise.

Abruptly, she was tired, and tears threatened. She missed being able to eat whatever she pleased; she missed the simple misery of being Herbert’s wife; she missed Andrew’s difficult, affectionate company.

“Sit with me a bit, Douglas. Stop looming over me like a disappointed angel. There is more we need to say to each other.”

A
disappointed
angel?
Douglas obligingly sat and waited for Astrid to fill the silence.

“My brother uses the same tactic,” she said. “He sits, silent as a sphinx, unnerving people with his odd eyes, and soon they start telling him anything he asks simply to make him and his infernal silences go away.”

And Fairly no doubt turned his odd-eyed stare on his own younger sibling, suggesting Astrid was due a small pang of sympathy.

“I played cards with your brother this afternoon. You would have been amused at our manly stratagems and posturing. I should hope the both of us were.” He fell silent, not to make her squirm, but to give her time to collect her thoughts, because apparently, embezzlement, adultery, and bereavement were not to be the limit of their cheery little discussion.

“What would you have me do about this matter, Douglas?”

He could dither and insinuate, or he could be blunt and get them both off this cold, hard bench all the sooner.

“First, keep it to yourself, and second, allow me time to replenish your accounts.” These were commonsense responses to a ridiculous situation, but Douglas resented that they left him relying on Astrid’s good graces. “The family finances are teetering somewhere between precarious and uncomfortable, but not quite dire. It is not well said of me, but if Herbert had died five years hence, I would not be so sanguine. My own investments are prospering, however, and I am hopeful in time, we will be on more solid footing.”

He was not hopeful, he was bloody determined, though if he had to replace all Herbert had taken from Astrid’s dower funds, he was also going to be bloody old before he achieved his goal.

Astrid scuffed a slipper against the grass. “And if Herbert had died five years ago, this whole situation would have been avoided.”

Douglas maintained a diplomatic interest in the gardens rather than comment on that observation.

“Douglas, I would have truth between us. Don’t hold back if you’re trying to spare my feelings.” She sounded like she was spoiling for an exchange of truths and wanted his magazine empty when she started firing.

“Isn’t it enough your late husband abused your trust in this too?” Douglas asked, anger creeping into his voice, because as Herbert’s heir, Douglas had also been bequeathed a share of ire.

She turned a pretty, sad face up to the moon. “It wasn’t your fault Herbert was morally weak. It wasn’t your fault he had so little self-discipline. It wasn’t your fault I was so anxious to get out of my sister’s household I married him. You have inherited a mess, much as Heathgate did. I will not judge you for it, nor will I judge you because Herbert betrayed your trust as well.”

Douglas remained seated beside her, though the damned woman was entirely too perceptive. Herbert had betrayed them all, and it had caught up with him. Dead men tell no tales, but neither could they hide behind lies, denial, or sheer bravado when truth came for a reckoning.

“I’ve wondered why you accepted Herbert’s suit, but it was too advantageous a match for me to question it. And Herbert’s motivations were obvious.”

She gathered the shawl closer. “Herbert was after two things: the marital settlements David so generously provided for me and a legitimate heir. He may well have gotten both.”

“What in God’s—I beg your pardon?”

“I am increasing, Douglas,” Astrid said tiredly. “I appear to have conceived two weeks before Herbert’s death, which puts me at about three difficult, uncomfortable months along.”

Douglas said nothing, and he hoped his face gave nothing away, but inside, oh, inside his emotions were reeling. “You are sure?”

“I am.” She did not sound pleased about it.

“My sincerest congratulations,” he replied, but his preoccupation sounded in his voice. “This changes things.” It changed
everything
.

“I know, Douglas. I know.”

“No, you don’t.” She thought somebody had come along and moved her bishop, when in fact, the entire chessboard had been sent end over end. “Mother has it in her head you should move in with her and I should take up residence in the town house. She will be doubly insistent when she knows of this development.”

“I do not want to live with your mother.”

Douglas nearly snapped that nobody wanted to live with Lady Amery, but held his temper. Astrid had not had an easy time of it at the hands of his family, and besides, she wasn’t done speaking.

“Your mother’s house is not large, and it is dark, cluttered, and completely unsuited to raising a child. I like the town house, and you have said I might live there as long as I pleased.”

Damn all logical females with accurate recall, and damn him for his misplaced generosity.

“What if Mother were to move in with you there? We are supporting three households, Astrid. Yours, Mother and Henry’s, and mine. If you ask it of me, I will move in with Mother and Henry, but Mother will make a nuisance of herself with this baby anyway. You won’t escape her just because she lives with me and not you.”

Astrid scuffed her slippers again, both this time, while Douglas took a leaf from Fairly’s book and let her stew.

“I accept your mother under my roof,” Astrid said, “but you must make her understand two things: first, it is
my
roof, Douglas. I set the menus, manage the help, and keep the household accounts. Her advice is welcome, but not her interference.”

Whether she knew it or not, Astrid was discussing terms of surrender.

“I can speak to her as often and as sternly as necessary.” Though with Mother, who was even less biddable than dear Herbert had been, his lectures would do no good whatsoever. “What is your other condition?”

“You and she must understand, Douglas, I will spend a great deal of time with my sister, particularly in the coming months. She will have need of me, and I will certainly have need of her.”

“I would not think to keep you from her under the circumstances. As to that, your time here seems to have stood you in good stead. If we are agreed then, perhaps we can put these awkward subjects to rest?”
Please
God.

Astrid wrinkled her nose, looking young and unhappy. “You aren’t getting off that easily, Douglas. We must make one further agreement. Lady Amery is not to know I am expecting until I decide to tell her.”

The request was peculiar, when that child might mean Astrid had fulfilled her obligation to the succession. Most women would have been crowing over such a coup.

“Why?”

“I lost a child last year, and I was further along then than I am now. To get your mother’s hopes up if another disappointment is in store would be cruel. She doted upon Herbert, and the child will be precious to her.”

Herbert hadn’t said anything about losing a child, but then, Herbert would not have been comfortable alluding to such a situation any more than Douglas was. He steeled himself to touch on a matter as personal as embezzlement. “How long does this business take?”

“This business,” Astrid said with a small smile, “takes about nine and a half months. I should deliver in mid-March, if all goes well.”

Douglas tried to think of a delicate way to phrase his next question—and failed.

“After a certain point, I should think your condition would be obvious. Your sister, for example…” He let the observation trail off, the matter speaking for itself, though rumors abounded that Princess Caroline had hidden more than one interesting event from her royal spouse.

“Felicity is twice as far along as I am, Douglas, and first babies tend not to show as early. This is my sister’s third child.”

He’d already learned more than he wanted to know. Pregnant women made him nervous, particularly when their condition sailed before them like the prow of some small, feminine ship. Thinking of Astrid, as petite as she was, reaching those proportions made him…

Well, he wouldn’t think of her in that condition. Would not.

“I will leave the timing of your disclosure to Mother in your hands,” he said, rising. Mother would know soon enough. The household staff was not immune to her questioning and prying, as Astrid would soon learn. As Henry might realize, if he paid the least bit of attention. “Shall we go inside?”

“If you wouldn’t mind, Douglas, I would like to remain out here. I value my solitude.”

Douglas didn’t respond to the obvious jibe:
And
your
mother
and
your
thieving
brother
and
this
child
growing
inside
me
have
all
conspired
to
see
to
it
I
have
no
solitude.
He valued solitude as highly as anybody, so he bowed politely and took his leave of her. His most distasteful obligation dispatched—he
had
apologized to the woman—he was now free to return to his correspondence.

***

Andrew waited in the shadows until Douglas Allen had taken his stiff-rumped, proper self back into the house, then came down beside Astrid on the bench. “How did he take the news?”

“He was his usual inscrutable, composed self.” Astrid stayed right where she was, didn’t scoot over or even lean in Andrew’s direction. “He said the right things, but he is moving Lady Amery into the town house with me. She is not to be told my condition until the moment of my choosing, and I am to have as much time with Felicity as I desire. Finally, dear mama-in-law will not be the lady of the house, I will.”

“You got all that resolved in less than fifteen minutes?” And was dear mama-in-law female company, Douglas’s spy, or both?

Astrid had no rejoinder for him, which was worrisome. He’d fretted about her all day but didn’t think she’d appreciate hearing that.

“What aren’t you telling me?” he asked instead.

“Douglas told me my funds are gone.”

“That was bold.” Or conniving. “Also the only good move left to him.”

“How do you mean?” Astrid was good-hearted, and good-hearted people did not naturally anticipate the deviousness of their moral inferiors.

So Andrew, who was among that number, would explain it to her. “Douglas’s solicitors have told him by now that you and your brother went nosing around, and the files have been sent to Fairly’s town house. As far as Douglas is concerned, you would have found out the truth as soon as you returned to Town. He spiked your guns by offering his confession first.”

Somewhere out in the home wood, an owl hooted, an eerie, lonely sound Andrew hadn’t heard since he’d departed for Italy years before.

“Douglas has spiked my guns, and planted his mother under my roof, and now he knows for certain I am carrying Herbert’s child. Still, Andrew, I cannot attribute foul motives to the man. He is cool, aloof, and dispassionate, but I cannot feel he is evil.”

Andrew should be relieved Astrid had reached that conclusion, for otherwise, he’d be procuring a special license. He resisted the urge to take her hand.

“You have reached a Scottish verdict. Insufficient evidence—neither an acquittal nor a conviction.”

They sat together, alone in the shadows, the moon appearing to grow smaller as it drifted into the sky. When he could bear the distance between them no longer, Andrew slid an arm around Astrid’s waist. Astrid rested her head on his shoulder, and they stayed next to each other until the chill drove them inside.

***

Astrid woke up one brisk fall Tuesday morning and realized she was halfway through her pregnancy. That was a relief indeed, since it meant she’d passed the point where she’d miscarried the previous year. She still had occasional bouts of queasiness—or more than occasional. At some point in each day, her stomach would signal its ability to rule her life.

Skipping meals did not help, so she headed directly for the stairs rather than get drawn into the tête-à-tête she could hear going on between Lady Amery and her youngest son in the family parlor down the hall.

And Astrid still fainted, no matter how careful she tried to be.

This unfortunate fact was borne home as she regarded the cobwebs gracing the corners of the ceiling in the octagonal entryway to her residence.

“How could you be so careless?”

That clipped, controlled voice cut across the fog in Astrid’s brain like a bitter whiff of vinaigrette.

“Douglas.” Why must he choose now to make one of his duty calls to his dependent females?

“Girls just out of the schoolroom know not to let their hems get tangled on a staircase. Must I assign the footmen to escorting you about your own dwelling?”

The chandelier needed a good scrubbing. Astrid could reach this conclusion from her position sprawled on the rug at the foot of the staircase. Mortification joined nausea as Douglas helped her to sit on the bottom step.

“Stop yelling at me, my lord.”

“I have not raised my voice, though the notion appeals strongly. You could well be carrying the Amery heir, need I remind you, and tumbling down the steps is not responsible behavior given your condition. What have you to say for yourself?” He paced back and forth like Headmaster lecturing a class of unruly boys, his movements making Astrid’s head swim.

“I have to say that you’re a perfect ass, Douglas Allen.” He paused to pivot at the edge of the rug, as if Astrid’s words had spun him by the shoulder. “Do you think I am so stupid as to carelessly put my own welfare at risk? Do you forbid me the use of the stairs until I deliver this child? Are you determined to make me as helpless and vapid as you’ve made your mother?”

He came to a halt at the opposite edge of the carpet, his features dumbstruck. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“You and Henry treat the poor woman as if she is simple, Douglas. You never ask her opinion. You never defer to her judgment. Henry makes a joke of her at every turn, and believe me, she comprehends the disrespect. But at least your mother would understand that women in an interesting condition are prone to fainting.”