Andrew: Lord of Despair (14 page)

“I have a sense of unreality, of being anxious, and knowing my situation is perilous, but also feeling too tired and disoriented to do anything about it. Even thinking seems an effort, and that scares me most of all.”

Astrid frightened and unsafe in her own home was insupportable, and motivation enough for what Andrew must do.

“You were given an opiate.” And a toxin—a bloody, goddamned poison. “That might account for the disorientation. But you are also, no doubt, in shock.” When she would have interrupted him, he held up a hand. “Please, hear me out.” Before he lost his nerve.

Now she stared at his mother’s antique Axminster carpets.

“You might have fallen down the stairs, quite by accident, my dear, but if you think back carefully, can you assure me you weren’t shoved?”

“The housemaids were about,” Astrid said slowly, as if the words were eluding capture by her mind. “They would have had to bring the tea tray up to Lady Amery if Henry were paying his regular call on her. I have a vague recollection of starting to faint, but not quite being teetery yet when I pitched down the stairs.”

That was not a denial. He’d been hoping to God she’d be able to give him a confident denial.

“And today,” Andrew went on, “something you consumed at breakfast damn near killed you, under circumstances when it was likely you would have been in the house alone.” Rather than watch her face, he focused on her hands, pale and still in her lap. “We have reached a point where any reasonable person would conclude you are in need of protection.”

She did not launch into a lecture about him overreacting or overstepping. She didn’t dismiss his fears with assurances that she’d be more careful. As Astrid sat motionless and pale in the smallest parlor of his mother’s house, Andrew battled the need to do violence to whoever had rendered her so lifeless.

“What do you propose, Andrew?”

“Marriage.”

***

Andrew greeted Lord Fairly and Michael Brenner when they arrived fifteen minutes before the appointed hour, both in proper morning finery. Brenner brought the special license, and Fairly a bouquet of white roses.

“The bishop will be here on the hour,” Andrew told them. Should the right reverend lord bishop fail to show, Andrew would hunt the man down on foot. “May I offer you each a drink?”

“The Bishop of London?” Fairly rejoined. “Any particular reason?”

“The haste is because Astrid was slipped a potentially fatal dose of poison today, in her own home.” Andrew’s hand shook as he poured drinks for his guests. “If I hadn’t stopped by, completely unplanned I might add, she would have died a very uncomfortable death, alone, on her bedroom floor. The doctor confirmed that much.”

He poured himself a drink and addressed the rest of his remarks to a small porcelain statute of the winged goddess Nike on the mantel.

“The bishop is because I want this wedding to be so damned official, despite its haste, Douglas will not be able to attack it from any angle.”

Fairly turned his back, as if studying a portrait of three small boys and a mastiff that hung over the sideboard, though his grip on his glass looked ferocious.

“Prudent,” Fairly said, sipping his brandy. “When you talk to Douglas, I would like to be present.”

“As would I,” said a voice from the hallway.

Gareth sauntered in, looking windblown and smelling of exertion and horse, despite the nippy day. Andrew put down his drink and reached for the decanter as Gareth knocked his hand aside and enveloped him in a hug. “To hell with the drink.”

“You came.”

“I am not a foolish man,” Gareth said, drawing back. “Besotted, yes. Foolish, not often. Felicity saw I wanted to be here, ordered my hardiest mount saddled, then summoned me for argument. I fear I am not appropriately attired.”

When a man had only one adult male relative left on earth, that fellow’s presence was a bracing tonic. “You could have arrived in your dressing gown for all I care,” Andrew replied. “You are here, and for that, you and Felicity have my thanks.”

“Now that Heathgate has made his entrance,” Fairly said, pouring Gareth a drink, “perhaps you’d care to start your tale again. You had just explained that Astrid ingested a potentially fatal dose of poison while enjoying a solitary breakfast this morning.”

“Sweet, suffering angels,” Gareth expostulated, scowling thunderously. “If there’s more, I don’t need to hear it. Marry her and move the hell out of England until the child is of age—at least until then.”

Andrew felt a nudge of relief, because his brother had anticipated the next worry: How to keep Astrid and her child safe once Andrew had guaranteed himself the legal entitlement to do so.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Fairly said. “What haven’t you told us?”

Andrew glanced at the clock again—he was, after all, a bridegroom—and set his drink aside. Whether it was wedding-day nerves, lingering upset over Astrid’s brush with death, or sympathy for his intended’s tentative digestion, Andrew could not countenance swilling spirits.

“Dr. DuPont told me Douglas had already interrogated him about whether Astrid might have thrown herself down the steps to harm or lose the baby. Astrid did indeed tumble the length of the Allens’ front stairway, but her best recollection is that she may have been pushed.”

“Pushed?” Gareth began. “Then why the hell would Douglas—?”

Andrew held up a hand and continued speaking. “The doctor was careful this morning to question Astrid regarding anything she might have taken, intentionally or otherwise, to induce a miscarriage. When Douglas interrogated DuPont earlier, DuPont told Douglas a woman would have to be crazy to try to lose a child by causing herself serious bodily harm.”

“And there we have it,” Fairly said, running a finger around the rim of his glass. “The contingency plan. If Astrid isn’t killed outright, she is made to look as if she has homicidal intentions toward her unborn child. I would not put it past Douglas to raise suspicions regarding the miscarriage she had last year.”

The slight uneasiness in Andrew’s guts rose higher, like seasickness as the sight of dry land receded. “I’d forgotten about that.”

Gareth sat and used a handkerchief to swat dust from his boots. “And not to cheer anybody up, Douglas will have a motive for Astrid’s resentment of the pregnancy when he can demonstrate the late viscount stole from his own wife.”

“And did so,” Andrew added bleakly, “to maintain his well-compensated mistress.” In the ensuing silence, Brenner topped off everyone’s glass, then put the stopper—a damned cherub—back in the decanter.

“Was there ever such a cheerful wedding party?” Brenner asked, his brogue slightly in evidence. His comment restored Andrew’s balance a bit, which was fortunate, because the bishop soon joined them, eyeing their drinks with a knowing smile.

“Are we fortifying ourselves, gentlemen?” he asked genially. “I believe many a wedding is thus celebrated in advance, and wouldn’t mind a tot m’self.” He had no sooner downed his “tot” in a single swallow than Astrid joined them, her attire plain lavender and her complexion pale.

But, oh, she did smile when she spied her brother standing across the room. That smile helped settle something in Andrew’s mind, helped him breathe more easily.

“You came,” she said, hugging Fairly fiercely.

“Odd,” Gareth said from his place behind her, “my sibling greeted me the same way.”

“Gareth!” If anything, Gareth’s hug was more fierce than Fairly’s had been, fierce enough to convey both his love and Felicity’s. Gareth kissed Astrid’s cheek and kept an arm around her shoulders. “Felicity sends her best wishes, but she no longer hugs anyone, she docks alongside them, so great are her dimensions.”

“That’s quite enough!” Astrid chided, but his humor had succeeded in bringing the roses to her cheeks and the light back in her eye.

Within moments, Astrid and Andrew were poised before the bishop, and Fairly was responding to the question regarding who gives the bride in marriage. With Gareth and Fairly on either side of them, they spoke their vows, Astrid quietly, and Andrew in the tones of a man who knew this wedding was right, even if the marriage itself would suffer a world of problems.

They were pronounced man and wife together, the ring one chosen by Felicity from several owned by Astrid’s mother. Documents were signed, and the bishop was sent on his way with a celebratory bottle of Gareth’s finest.

“If you two can manage from here,” Gareth said, “then I will return to Willowdale and report every detail of the ceremony to my lady wife. I should make it home before dark if I start now.”

“I will be on my way as well,” Fairly said, “though we should plan a rendezvous at Willowdale soon. Astrid, if you like, I’d be happy to pay a call on Douglas on my way home. I will deliver a letter in your hand, informing him of the nuptials.”

God bless Fairly, and a mind that tended so effortlessly to strategy.

Andrew kept an arm around his wife—his
wife
—who still looked miserably pale. “We might want to create the impression we’ve taken a short wedding journey to my Sussex estate. I will also send a note to Douglas, explaining to him that Astrid is now in my keeping, and he needn’t trouble further over her welfare.”

“Fine then,” Gareth said, calling for his hat, gloves, and riding crop. “I will expect you all to join me at Willowdale by week’s end, and do not disappoint me, or Felicity will be unhappy. Brenner, if you could walk with me to the stables?”

Fairly made his good-byes, and Astrid and Andrew were soon left alone, seated side by side on the big leather sofa.

“I did not expect even to see you today, much less end up married to you,” Astrid said. She looked and sounded dazed, not at all like the confident, articulate woman who seized life by the lapels and lectured it into submission.

“Nor I to you,” Andrew replied. “I am pleased, despite all.” Pleased and relieved, also furious on her behalf and rattled as hell.

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “I cannot think of
all
today, Andrew. I can barely form coherent thoughts, if you must know. But I am pleased as well.”

Pleased
was something. He took her hand, glad for the solitude that allowed him such familiarity, only to realize that as her husband, such familiarity was… permitted. “This has not been the quiet day the doctor ordered.”

“Dr. DuPont? I do not want to see him again. He bore tales to Douglas, and suspected me of harming my own child. I went back to him because he attended me last year.” Astrid opened her eyes and focused on Andrew, looking more like herself—a little disgruntled and weary, her eyes not quite right, but like his Astrid. “I suppose, having dispensed with a wedding breakfast, this brings us to the wedding night?”

“A pleasure, Fairly.” Douglas Allen, Viscount Amery, bowed correctly to his guest, though he managed to convey to David that an unexpected visitor was not a pleasure at all. His lordship’s sitting room was chilly, though comfortably appointed in green, brown, and cream—but then, it was public and visible from the street. The windowsills boasted no fresh bouquets; the walls were bare of domestic adornments. No paper cuttings, no watercolors from a talented cousin’s days in the schoolroom, no pressed flowers as a token of Lady Amery’s idle hours.

Nothing to suggest the house was anything other than a bachelor encampment with walls.

“Shall I ring for refreshment?”

“Please,” David replied, relishing the thought of a hot, sweet cup of tea, but also wanting to preserve the fiction of civility.

“I confess to some confusion,” Amery said, gesturing to the settee opposite the empty fireplace. “My mother stopped by only an hour or so ago and told me you were entertaining your sister Astrid. Did Astrid tire of your company?”

“I fear there has been a misunderstanding, Lord Amery,” David began
pleasantly
. “Though I have in fact spent much of the afternoon with my sister. I left her in reasonably good health and in great good spirits.” Two exaggerations in the name of strategy. David flipped a sealed note onto the low table before the settee. “Perhaps this will explain.”

He watched Amery’s features as his lordship read the brief missive, though Douglas’s expression did not change.

Not in any detail.

“My sister-in-law is due congratulations,” Amery said at length. “When may I call upon the happy couple to offer them in person?”

“Lord Greymoor has written to you as well,” David said by way of answer. This missive he passed to Douglas, allowing their hands to brush. David had removed his driving gloves upon entering the house, and Douglas—called from his desk, if the ink on the heel of his right hand was any indication—was also bare handed. The man’s fingers were like ice, and he made no reaction to the unusual, if accidental, touch of another man’s hand on his.

Amery read the note, looking up only when a servant entered with the tea tray.

And again, not a flinch, not a flaring of the nostrils or a narrowing of the eyes. Over cards—or dueling pistols—Amery would be impossible to read.

“Because we have no hostess, I propose we serve ourselves,” he said. “After you, Fairly, unless, of course, you are concerned I might be of a mind to poison you too?”

Opening
salvo
, David thought, mentally saluting.

“I am not a diminutive, pregnant, grieving widow,” David said, hefting the teapot, “home alone and completely without defenses, and”—he offered his host a smile—“because I am in desperate need of a cup of tea, I will treat that remark as facetious. I gather Dr. DuPont has already called upon you?”

And
there’s your answering fire.

“He left a card while I was from home,” Amery replied. “Do try the cakes. Cook quite outdoes herself.”

“You will be interested to know Dr. DuPont will no longer be attending the countess.”

Amery blinked, once. Countess—
of
Greymoor, of course
.

“That is,” Amery said as he reached for the teapot, “alas, no longer my concern. You are rather fond of your sugar.”

“I am fond of all things sweet, Amery,” David said, helping himself to a cake. “Including my sisters. When someone tries to poison a member of my family, fatally, I might add, then I take it very much amiss, as does Greymoor, as does Heathgate.”

Amery settled back in his chair, his expression unperturbed. “I have been convicted of attempted sororicide by a jury of my betters, then?”

Rather than offer a snide retort, David considered a tea cake draped in lavender frosting. “I cannot speak for Heathgate and Greymoor, but as for myself, all I can convict you of is failing to keep Astrid safe, as your brother failed to keep her funds safe.”
And
her
heart.
“In Greymoor’s hands, she will be physically and financially out of harm’s way. The match thus has my support,” David said, popping the tea cake in his mouth.

The flavor of the frosting was lavender, and the cake itself a buttery little decadence of which Amery’s cook had every right to be proud. David poured himself a second cup, the blend being a stout black without a hint of delicacy.

“Has it occurred to you, Lord Fairly, that
the
countess
herself
is perhaps the source of the danger to the child she carries?”

David inhaled the fragrance of his tea before adding two sugars. Greymoor had divined this line of reasoning, but when Amery presented it, it didn’t sound as far-fetched as it ought.

“We did suspect that was your agenda, Amery.” David gestured with the pot, a serviceable piece of blue Jasperware that was out of place in the brown, cream, and green room. “More tea?”

Amery held up his cup, and conversation paused while David poured steaming-hot liquid to the very rim of the cup in his lordship’s rock-steady hand.

“Thank you.” Amery sat back. “You suspect I am trying to impugn the state of the countess’s mental health?”

“We suspect you, or somebody, is laying a trail of evidence that will make Astrid appear either dangerous or mentally incompetent. And of course”—David helped himself to two more cakes—“an incompetent mother is by definition a danger to her infant child. Lovely blend, by the way. From Twinings?”

“I enjoy my tea,” Amery responded, his brows knit. “And Twinings’s shop has the advantage of proximity. So you don’t believe a pregnant woman who would toss herself down a flight of stairs—or ingest dangerous herbs when she knows she’ll be home alone—doesn’t wish harm to her child?”

Douglas’s expression suggested they were touching upon the variability of the weather in spring.

David closed his eyes to again inhale the fragrance of his tea—the brew was slightly abrasive, and yet, had a peculiar appeal—also to marshal his wits in the face of such sangfroid.

“Let us consider, my lord,” David said when he put his teacup down. “We have two hypotheses to explain the known facts. You have seen a grown woman, one of particular grace, come head over heels down a flight of stairs, risking serious injury to herself and possible injury to her child. You also have the doctor’s word that the poisons that found their way into her body could have caused the child’s death, if not hers as well. You reach the conclusion the danger is directed by the mother toward the child. I see the situation differently.”

Amery chose a few pretty tea cakes, his focus appearing to be on whether chocolate, cream, or pink frosting was most worthy of his notice. “Do tell,” he murmured, selecting the cake with pink icing for himself.

Heavenly angels, the man was amazing. Amery bit into his confection and munched away, the picture of domestic contentment.

“I see that my sister,” David said, “a woman whom I know to have been honorable under all circumstances to date, suffered a serious accident in the Allen household. As a man whose own late spouse was once in anticipation of an interesting event, I am well aware the child in the womb is, in fact, safer than the woman who carries it. Astrid could have knocked herself into a coma and very likely not have harmed her child. She would, as Dr. DuPont suggested, have to have been crazy to attempt such a stunt to rid herself of the child.”

Amery appeared to be debating a second cake and declining the pleasure.

“Then we have the situation today,” David went on. “Dr. DuPont was clear Astrid’s symptoms could not all be explained by the abuse of herbs or drugs intended to end the pregnancy. They were, however, consistent with use of a deadly poison. I either believe my sister is making artless and painful efforts to kill herself—when relatively painless and certain alternatives exist—or I believe someone else wishes her grievous harm.”

David took a steadying sip of his tea before concluding. “Knowing my sister, and knowing what I do of your family, I am not inclined to believe she is making attempts to end her own life, or that of your brother’s child.”

Amery frowned at his plain blue teapot. “We are at an impasse then, as we simply hold differing interpretations of the agreed-upon facts.”

Rather than watch Amery demolish another tea cake, David rose to take his leave.

“Douglas,” he said, clearly startling his host with the use of his Christian name, “for God’s sake, use your intellect. I need not prove you wish my sister ill. You’re a second son who will be disinherited of your title should Astrid have a boy.”

Douglas remained sitting and did indeed help himself to another cake, this one chocolate. David forged on, when he wanted to smash his lordship’s jasperware pot to bits.

“Forget the courts, Amery, for Greymoor and Heathgate will be after you like dogs on a bitch in heat if any more harm befalls my sister—as will I. Moreover, I need not investigate your theory that Astrid has been driven into a murderous rage over your brother’s theft of funds Heathgate, Greymoor, and I can
each
easily replace. You are blinding yourself to the more sensible possibilities.”

Amery rose and regarded David closely, all pretense of bored politesse gone from glacially blue eyes. “So you’ll spend your time trying to prove I’d murder my brother’s widow and his unborn child?”

The offense in those blue eyes looked genuine, and it was offense—not the feigned dismay of a murderer trying to appear righteously innocent.

Which was a relief, though a puzzling one. “If Astrid isn’t trying to kill herself, and you are not trying to kill her, then at least one other person assuredly is. While we are busy pointing fingers at each other, that person will be plotting another trip down the stairs for her and for the little Amery heir, hmm?”

To that, Amery had made no answer, but merely wished David good day, and asked him to convey felicitations to the happy couple. As David departed, Douglas himself was tidying up the tea things, much as any butler or footman would do upon the departure of a guest.

***

Astrid awoke to lengthening shadows and a sense of peace. She was wrapped in warmth and softness; she was safe and…
happy
. The child within her moved, as if waking up with her.

“Was that the baby?” asked a familiar, masculine voice. The rest of Astrid’s reality snapped into place. She was burrowed against the warmth of Andrew’s bare back in a bedroom at Lady Heathgate’s town house. She and Andrew had been married earlier that afternoon, which meant… She was his
wife
.

“There it goes again,” Andrew said, her belly still flush with his spine. He shifted to face her and covered her tummy with his hand. When the baby obligingly kicked at his hand, Andrew’s smile would have lit up Mayfair.

“It’s so odd,” he said, “to think that there’s a complete, small person in there, probably listening to your voice all day, and feeling hungry and tired or sleepy or restless. But you’re used to all this.” He laid his cheek on the upper swell of Astrid’s breast while his palm remained on her belly.

“No, Andrew, I am not used to all this.” She’d never thought to be intimate with Andrew Alexander again, and now they were man and wife for the rest of their lives. As surprises went, that qualified, and Astrid was certain it would not be an entirely happy development.

Which she would worry about later. She slid an arm around Andrew’s neck and watched while he learned her new contours. The baby moved occasionally, and each time, Andrew laid his hand over the spot where the movement occurred. He’d been her lover before, and he had certainly been curious and considerate toward her pregnant body, but his touch was now that of a
husband
. And not like any husband she’d had previously.

“How do you feel, Astrid Alexander?”

Gracious, she liked the sound of that.
With Andrew beside her, touching her this way, she felt
married.

And yet, she’d decided on a nap directly after the ceremony—or her body had decided for her. “Not as tired. Still a little off, mentally. I could eat something bland.”

“As could I.” He took her hand and put it against his own stomach. “This is a boring comparison, is it not?”

“You are an odd man.” An odd, dear man. Astrid slid her palm up to rest over his heart as she rolled against his side. “What are you thinking?”

He stared at the ceiling as Astrid let her hand drift over his exquisitely muscled—not boring at all—belly.

“I will need time to get used to being a husband. If I were more adept at it, I’d know some other way to ask this question.”

“Just ask.”

“I’ve been told women expecting a child can have intimate relations up until the last month or so, if they are so inclined.”

Astrid waited, not sure where he was headed.

He turned, so they were both on their sides again, facing each other. “Are you so inclined?”

Another surprise, though Astrid knew the answer to his question, and silently thanked him for posing it. “With you?” She touched his mouth with her fingers. “Always.”

“Can you still be comfortable on your back?” He kissed her fingers before trapping them in his own.

“I don’t know. We’ll have to find out.”

***

Six weeks ago Astrid had been a fine partner for some tender, exuberant sex. Andrew cared for her, but he’d certainly spent time with more experienced lovers. He’d had more creative partners, more sophisticated, more bold. But he didn’t miss any of them the way he’d missed her. He’d forced himself to send her only one brief note a week, not flowers, not love letters, not gifts. He’d tried to convince himself he was relieved to be simply a friend to her within her own family.

He and Magic had traversed every inch of Willowdale and Enfield, and all the properties in between, by day and by night, several times over. Andrew had brought every account book up to date, met every tenant farmer, and generally worked himself to exhaustion, trying to quell a voice in his head insisting he had to go see
for
himself
that Astrid was well.