Andrew: Lord of Despair (25 page)

“You sent the note telling me to meet you here, didn’t you?” She was damned if she’d let Henry know how much her bindings hurt.

“Clever of me, wasn’t it?” Henry yanked on the trailing ends of the reins, pulling Astrid toward the door of the saddle room. “You see, I am the clever one in the benighted Allen family, but by definition, that means my parents and my dear siblings were unable to appreciate my superior intelligence. While that allows a fellow a certain freedom, it does grow tedious, always having to manage every detail oneself. Come along.”

Astrid weaved on her feet, half in earnest. “I’m dizzy.”

“Come anyway, bitch,” he growled, “or I’ll drag you. And right now, you don’t particularly want to be on the floor, much less on your back, do you?”

Astrid stumbled along behind him, her sense of balance hampered with her hands tied in front of her. The saddle room loomed at the end of the barn aisle like a crypt, with doors opening both onto the aisle and onto the outside wall of the barn. If Henry got her in there, he could easily kill her and leave the building unseen.

“So it was you who poisoned me? And was it you who pushed me down the stairs?”

“Now that’s exactly what I mean,” Henry said, reverting to eerily pleasant tones. “I did indeed put the poison in your raspberry jam. Mother wouldn’t have gone near the stuff, but as for that, Mother nearly caught me giving you a little push down the steps. I do this for her, too, you know, dutiful fellow that I am. She doesn’t care for Dougie. Doesn’t appreciate nipfarthing, pompous condescension, doesn’t realize the poor boy can’t help himself. Douglas was due to join us for our weekly tête-à-tête, and it should have been he who was suspected of pushing you down those stairs, but alas, spontaneous schemes are sometimes not the best. Tell me you did suspect him, just a bit, hmm?”

Nausea rose, for once having nothing to do with Astrid’s condition. She considered bolting while Henry fumbled with the latch on the saddle-room door.

“How does pushing me down the stairs harm Douglas?” Though accusations of murder would rather hamper a man’s prospects.

“Foul play would appear to be in his interests rather than mine at present, though Dougie, I regret to inform you, is not long for this world.” He peered into the saddle room. “Damn it. It’s black as Hades in there.”

Henry Allen, cold-blooded murderer of innocents, was apparently afraid of the dark, thank God.

***

Astrid conversed with a homicidal lunatic, as if the man had come to call at teatime. Through the cracked door, Andrew had a narrow view of the barn aisle and could see his wife tethered by the hands as she was dragged toward the saddle room. Her captor was solidly built, though not as tall as Andrew.

Not as tall as Douglas Allen either. The dim lighting of the barn’s interior shrouded the man’s features when he turned to head down the aisle toward the saddle room, hauling Astrid behind him.

The saddle room held weapons—knives for trimming and repairing harness, farrier’s tools, and other items a man might use to take the life of a small, defenseless woman.

Astrid stumbled, and Andrew nearly bolted through the door to catch her. She righted herself, grousing at the fellow who dragged her through the gloom.

Andrew considered working his way around the barn from the outside, but the door from the saddle room on the outside barn wall might well be locked. The element of surprise was his only advantage, and he could not squander it. When Andrew might have slipped into the barn, the fellow contemplating Astrid’s murder yanked the saddle-room door closed and came stalking back up the aisle, forcing Andrew to give up his vantage point as well.

He eased the barn door closed the two inches he’d dared open it, just as the crunch of snow behind him warned him he was no longer alone.

“Greymoor, what in God’s name is going on?”

The voice was clipped, irritated, and far from welcome, for what murderer ever worked alone when he might recruit a willing accomplice?

***

“Your immediate family seems to suffer from a propensity for fatal accidents,” Astrid observed. Henry tugged her along, and she had no choice but to trot along behind him, like an obedient dog.

“They do, bless them. Father was my first stroke of genius, and then when Herbert became too… obstreperous, he was the next to go. I blush to admit I started a few rumors suggesting Herbert might have taken his own life—a diversionary tactic, of course.”

Henry passed the reins to one hand to fiddle with a lantern hanging from a crossbeam. “You are the first person to connect those two deaths, and they occurred in exactly the same fashion. Herbert moved, damn him, and ruined my shot, but it did the job, nonetheless.”

“And you think you can also murder Douglas, leaving you with the title?”

“Not a doubt in my mind—this one’s empty, bugger it.” Henry tossed the lamp aside, the resulting crash making the horses restive. “I will be creative, maybe sabotage his curricle, though I rather fancy it myself. I might hire somebody to call him out and anticipate the count just the least, most unfortunate bit—that sort of thing happens all the time.”

Something nudged at Astrid’s awareness, a flicker of light near the barn door, a shift in the air. Magic peered at the door too, suggesting Astrid hadn’t imagined whatever caught her eye. The horse also ignored his hay. Despite the cold, despite being as devoted to his fodder as any equine.

Keep
talking.

Henry straightened and gave her his boyish smile. “You know, Astrid, the most difficult thing for me has been managing this whole business without having anyone—not one soul—to appreciate the genius of it. You should consider yourself honored. I would not be surprised if intelligent younger sons weren’t getting away with murder much more frequently than the world suspects. Now where”—he gave the reins a savage yank—“will I find a damned lantern with oil in it?”

“I don’t know, Henry. I am not familiar with Heathgate’s stables. When I need a mount, I summon a groom to fetch me one.”

Henry leered at her and stroked himself through his breeches with his free hand. “And do you need a mount now? We probably have time, and I can assure you, my attentions will make you forget Herbert—or that strutting pain in the arse, Greymoor—ever touched you. You complicated things too much when you married that one, Astrid.”

Her life had been saved at least twice over when she’d married Andrew—Astrid was more sure of that now than she’d ever been.

Henry stroked himself again, and nausea welled anew. Astrid could contemplate death more easily than she could defilement by this incarnation of evil, but if Henry wasted only ten minutes raping her, that was ten more minutes when a groom, stableboy, or somebody else might come along.

“Ah-hah,” Henry cried as his gaze lit on another lantern, this one hanging on the ladder that led up to the haymow. He hauled Astrid to it and crowed with pleasure when he saw the lantern had plenty of oil.

“We’re in business, dear Astrid,” he said cheerily, lighting his prize from the single fixed lantern burning low halfway down the aisle. “Come along.”

She did, but stumbled when he pulled too sharply on her wrists.

“Isn’t it enough,” she hissed, “that you’re going to kill me, Henry? Must you abuse me in the process?”

That struck him funny as he hauled on the reins again, sending Astrid careening into the unused saddle stand. As she righted herself, the main barn door cracked open.

“Henry!” she bellowed. “You need not jerk my wrists, for God’s sake. I’ll follow you to the saddle room readily enough if you’ll be patient.”

“It really,
really
is a shame we don’t have time to play,” he observed, proceeding more quickly.

“So how will you kill me?” Astrid asked, using her two remaining wits to not look in the direction of the barn door.

“Interesting question. Do you have a suggestion? Firearms are my preference, as you know, but a gunshot would bring a crowd a bit too hastily for my convenience. I’ve a knife in my boot if all else fails.”

Oh, the preferences she had. To see Andrew again, to see the last of Henry in this life, to keep her child safe. To keep Herbert’s child safe from a menace poor Herbert hadn’t recognized. “I don’t particularly want to suffer.”

Though to reach his knife, Henry would have to take his attention from her, which gave Astrid a glimmer of hope.

“Reasonable enough, I suppose, but we must bear in mind your death cannot appear to be murder, which leaves only accident or suicide. Suicide would fit in nicely with Douglas’s theory, though his conviction regarding your inclination toward self-harm is wavering. What say we start a fire in the stables?”

And
then
nip
’round the pub for a pint?
“That won’t answer. I’d simply run out of a burning building, Henry.”

“Same thought occurred to me,” Henry replied genially as he unlatched the saddle-room door. “That leaves us with suicide, which will have the advantage of being relatively painless for you, though messy for your family. My apologies and condolences.”

“So you’ll simply cut my wrists and leave the knife by my body?” Astrid asked, hanging back at the saddle-room door.

“He will not,” Andrew hissed, brandishing a pistol. “Run, Astrid!”

She bolted for the far end of the barn aisle, jerking the reins from Henry’s grasp in the instant it took him to realize that his ingenious machinations would again be foiled. Astrid flung open the door and pelted out into the bright sunshine.

Her balance and her nerves failed her then, and she ended up floundering to her knees in the snow a few feet from the door.

“Astrid!”

Douglas Allen hissed her name from beside the door. He put a finger to his lips, motioning for silence. “It’s Henry, isn’t it?” he whispered. He drew a knife from the folds of his cape and freed her wrists with one slice.

“With Andrew—Henry has a knife. Henry was going to murder me, and… oh, Douglas…” She hung her head and tried not to retch.

“I know,” Douglas said softly. “But it’s dark in there, and Henry is distracted by Greymoor. I’ll have the advantages of stealth and surprise.” Only then did Astrid see Douglas, too, had a gun, a long-barreled pistol that would be lethal over a goodly distance, likely half a matched set of Mantons. Before she could say another word, Douglas hoisted her to her feet, nodded briskly toward the manor house, and slipped into the barn.

Get
help
, Astrid thought desperately, trying to draw air into her lungs. Go to the house and get help. Feeling returned to her hands in stinging agonies, and she wasted precious moments trying to push away the dizziness and the roaring in her ears.

The barn door burst open, and Henry stumbled out, his knife in his hand. Before Astrid could scurry to safety, he hauled her up against him and raised the blade against her throat.

“That’s far enough, Greymoor,” Henry panted. “Toss your gun out here into the snow, and then come out slowly with your hands behind your head.”

Nothing moved in the darkness within the barn, prompting Henry to jam the blade tighter against Astrid’s neck.

“Quickly, man! No tricks, or I cut her throat,” Henry cried.

A gun the exact match of the one Douglas had held came sailing through the door, landing in the snow at Astrid’s feet.

“Now out!” Henry barked.

After a long moment’s pause, Andrew slowly emerged from the barn and stood in front of the door, his hands raised and clasped behind his head. The posture was humiliating, one forced on soldiers taken prisoner.

“You have only one blade,” Andrew pointed out. “You might as well bury it in my heart, Henry. There’s no love lost between my wife and me, and I doubt she’d testify against you. In fact, you could probably depart the scene and blame my death on her.”

“Oh, Greymoor.” Henry sounded positively gleeful. “I do admire this display of coolheaded reason, but it won’t serve. Astrid, I’m afraid we’re back to setting the barn on fire.”

“Henry…” Astrid raised her left hand, as if fending off a swoon. She sagged against his arm for further effect, but as her hand approached her face, she opened her fingers and flung a handful of sugar directly into Henry’s eyes.

“Astrid, down!” Andrew bellowed.

She rolled herself into the snow as Andrew dove at Henry and wrenched the knife from his hand.

“Hold still!” Andrew roared, sending the knife sailing across the stable yard. “Hold still, or by God I’ll murder you with my bare hands.”

He had Henry in a choking hold, his elbow hooked around the shorter man’s throat.

“Andrew, you can’t kill him,” Astrid panted, struggling to her feet. “He’s Douglas’s only brother, and he’s not—”

“He’s not sane,” Douglas said, emerging from the barn, his pistol cocked and aimed at Henry. “He’s cheerful, charming, good company, and willing to kill for the privilege of a viscountcy I neither need nor want.”

Henry seemed to grow smaller as Andrew dropped his arm and took a step away. “Douglas. You weren’t supposed to find out. You were supposed to be dull old Douglas, until—”

“And
you
weren’t supposed to leave Mother alone. I am slow, Henry. A plodding embarrassment of a brother, I know, and a pathetic excuse for a viscount, but the staff at least follows my directions when I tell them to report to me the comings and goings of family.”

While Astrid watched, Henry’s bewilderment shifted, his expression lightened, and foreboding gripped her by the throat. “Andrew, watch—”

She’d left the warning too late. Henry darted forward, snatched the gun from Douglas, and as Andrew bundled Astrid off to the side, the sharp report of a sizable pistol reverberated through the stable yard.

Douglas’s tortured, “Dear God, no,” reached Astrid’s ears while Andrew’s arms tightened around her.

“Don’t look,” Andrew rasped as he pushed her face against his shoulder. “Dear heart, please spare yourself and don’t look.”

“What made you come out to the stables?” Astrid asked.

She feared Andrew’s reply, because when one person asked a question and the other provided an answer, it could be construed as a conversation, particularly when those two people were alone before a roaring fire in the Willowdale library.

Since Henry Allen had…
died
earlier that day, Andrew had not left her side. He’d kept an arm around her, a hand on her arm, or his fingers clasped with hers. He reminded her of a wolf, bedding down with its mate to maintain bodily contact through the long, cold night.

But they’d spoken little. Andrew had summoned Gareth and told him in terse language what had transpired. Gareth, after a few moments of outrage that his household would be further troubled while the marchioness’s health was imperiled, had calmed down and set about dealing with the practicalities.

Andrew had sent for the magistrate and the estate carpenter, who would measure Henry for his coffin. With Douglas’s consent, he’d directed that a place be made for Henry’s remains in an unused, unheated parlor, and dispatched notes to Lady Heathgate and to the Allen solicitors. A groom tore off for London to fetch changes of clothing for Douglas and David, and to determine the whereabouts of Lady Amery.

Douglas had been assigned a guest room, and David had been assigned to watching over Douglas, lest the events of the day result in any more pointless tragedies.

Between Andrew, Gareth, and David, it was agreed that Henry’s death would be labeled an accident, rather than a suicide, damp weather being notorious for making guns unreliable, even in the hands of men accustomed to their use.

Andrew seemed to share Astrid’s reluctance to begin a dialogue, for he took his time forming an answer to her inquiry regarding his trip to the stables.

“Gareth and I had been roughhousing in the playroom,” he said slowly, “and talking. Talking about… the past. I wanted to be in the saddle, wanted to go for a good gallop and clear my head. Cook told me you’d taken yourself out to the barn, but what about you? What drew you to the stables?”

He wasn’t telling her half of what she wanted to know, but neither was he lying. “One of the footmen had a note for me. I thought it was from you. Henry likely slipped it to a groom, and the rest of the household knows I’m happy to go visit the horses.”

Astrid laced her fingers through her husband’s. How long would it be before she had the courage to visit the stables without an escort? What if Douglas had not brought two pistols—because by all accounts, Andrew had arrived to the stable unarmed? What if Henry had seen his brother lurking in the shadows of the barn? What if Henry had pitched that knife at Andrew? What if Andrew had not felt the need for time in the saddle?

“I like to visit the horses too,” Andrew said. “They can help a man sort himself out. These past few days have been so…”

“At sixes and sevens,” Astrid supplied. “So happy, so sad, so tense, so tiring… I have wanted to talk to you too, Andrew, but I haven’t known what to say.”

“Hush,” he replied, looking at their linked hands. “Never let it be said Astrid Worthington Allen Alexander was at a loss for plain speech.”

Rather than admit she was at a loss for much more than that, Astrid concentrated on the feel of his hand, warm and secure around hers.
This
is
where
he
tells
me, so gently and regretfully: we really cannot continue like this, and he will be leaving me soon.

“Astrid,” Andrew said as a shower of sparks disappeared up the flue, “we cannot continue the way we’ve begun in this marriage.” Her worst fears, put into words, but Andrew wasn’t finished. “I love you—”

She dropped his hand. “
What?
”

“I love you.” He eyed her hand but didn’t make a grab for it. “I’ve loved you since you were a girl of seventeen trying not to cry because you’d beaten out a fire with your bare hands. I’ve loved you across three continents, several years, and more stupid behavior on my part than I can recall. I love you, and I’ve done a damned poor job of owning up to it.”

“Yes, you have.” Astrid subsided against him, at a loss to label what she was feeling beyond… shock.

“You don’t have to choose now to be agreeable.”

“Civil and agreeable are two different things,” she retorted. “So why have you gone to such great and unpleasant lengths to convince me my husband did
not
love me?” Because that question desperately needed an answer if she was to maintain her sanity.

He was silent for a moment, while Astrid contemplated smacking him.

“It’s complicated.”

She mashed her nose into his shoulder. Love was
not
complicated. “Then you’d best have a good explanation.”

“I have for many years been under a serious misapprehension,” he began. “I was wrong about myself, among other things, and I want to choose my words with utmost care, Astrid, because I doubt you’ll give me a chance to refine on them.”

She did not tell him he likely had the right of that, for his tone was too grave.

Haltingly at first, then more easily, Andrew related to Astrid the events of his fifteenth summer. About the accident, Astrid had thought she’d been well informed, but about Andrew’s involvement with Julia Ponsonby, she’d had no clue—neither, apparently, had Gareth, at least not until it was too late.

When Andrew paused to pour them both a tumbler of brandy, Astrid was aware that she’d rather he not have left her side even to cross the room.

“I had clues as to this misapprehension of yours,” she said, considering a drink she did not want but probably needed. “I once overheard Gareth wondering why you never entertained women he’d been involved with, despite their many attempts to gain your notice, but you didn’t mind in the least where your castoffs went for consolation.”

Andrew’s expression was… bewildered. “You consider that a clue?”

“Of a sort. Or there’s the way you would not allow Gareth to help you, not with your property, not with your various scrapes and peccadilloes—why did it never occur to you, if you’re going to fight a duel, your brother should have been your second, not the last to know?”

Andrew sat beside his wife, his drink untouched.

“I did not want my brother to be as ashamed of me as I was of myself. I did not want him to ever, ever find out what a weak, immoral, dishonorable man I was.”

This reasoning was flawed. Understandable, but badly, badly flawed. “If anybody knows about being immoral with women, it is your brother. He convinced himself he could misbehave with Felicity, a spinster virgin if ever there was one.”

Andrew settled his arm around Astrid’s shoulders, a warm, welcome weight. “Gareth apologized to me. It about broke my heart. He said my brothers ought to have protected me.” Now he slugged back his drink, a gesture that struck Astrid as despairing.

“I’ve seen him looking at you lately with an odd expression on his face. Was this a recent discussion?”

“Shortly after the babies arrived,” Andrew replied. “I waited for Gareth to come down the stairs, knowing he’d have to get something to eat or drink eventually. When he found me, he was a man who believed his selfish rutting had cost his wife her life. I thought to comfort him by confessing to costing my own child—conceived with Gareth’s fiancée—his or her life. In hindsight, it was a deuced odd sort of comfort to offer, but under the circumstances, it made a kind of sense.”

Astrid was silent, feeling utterly weary. Andrew’s revelations explained a lot, but she wasn’t ready to believe their marital problems were solved.

She squirmed down to lay her head on his muscular thigh. “Something bothers me.”

His hand settled on her hair, the near reverence in that simple touch making Astrid’s heart beat harder. “Tell me, love.”

“You believed you were responsible for the death of an unborn child, but now you know there was no child. Morally, is that a material distinction to you?”

Andrew put his drink on the end table and let his hand drift from Astrid’s hair to her face. She had asked the ultimate difficult question, but she was also coming to know her husband, and the matter had to be faced:

How was Andrew to reconcile himself to the fact that he’d been
willing
to put the life of that unborn child second to his mother’s welfare, and in his own eyes, second to his own convenience? Had there been a child, the child would have died with Julia, and by virtue of Andrew’s choice.

“I made a mistake,” he said. “I made a selfish mistake, the results of which are no more than I deserved for having slept with a woman who was, as far as I knew at the time, otherwise chaste. Had there been opportunity, I would likely have slept with her again at other times and places.”

Such remorse would have felled a lesser man, and yet, the conversation could not end with that guilt-wracked recitation. Astrid covered Andrew’s hand with her own, lest he try to extricate himself from the discussion.

“Let me put a question to you, then, Andrew,” she said. “Why do you define your entire self, your entire life, in terms of those mistaken moments?”

Andrew’s hand went slack in hers.

A silence grew, punctuated by only the crackling of the fire.

“Why do I…?” Andrew repeated slowly, stupidly, as if drunk.

“Why do you define yourself, your entire life and worth, in terms of the mistakes you made with Julia?”

“Because some mistakes are so great as to define one.”

Astrid sat up, hoisted herself off the couch, then turned and lowered herself to straddle his lap, her tummy bulging between them.

“You listen to me, Andrew Penwarren Alexander. You are a
good
man, an
honorable
man, and a
loving
man,” she pronounced slowly, as if he might have trouble comprehending her. “You faced a decision when you risked your life charging over here from Enfield. You could have let my sister quietly die, and her children with her, but you did not. You took a chance, you made an effort, and now Felicity, James, William, Pen, Joyce, and Gareth all have a chance to enjoy long, happy lives as a family.”

She framed his jaw in her hands. “Why don’t you allow those moments—those moments when your courage carried the day for all of us—to define you? Why don’t you allow the moments today when you
again
risked your life for me to define you? Why don’t you allow the moments years ago, when you also risked your life for me, to define you?”

She lowered her forehead to his and let her tears trickle onto his cheeks.

“I am not finished,” she admonished him, though where the fortitude to persevere would come from, she did not know.

She laid a hand over his heart, as if she’d prevent him from setting her aside and leaving the room, the property, her life.

“You were a friend to both Felicity and Gareth when they had no friend. You behaved honorably with respect to me when I was a girl, even if your notions of honor were misguided. You danced attendance on your mother when his blooming lordship, the marquess, couldn’t pause in his wenching long enough to notice she was lonely for her sons. You took yourself off to God knows where, Andrew, to try to protect the people who love you from yourself…”

She was crying openly now, but wasn’t sure all the tears on his cheeks were hers.

“You make me out to be some kind of bloody knight in shining armor,” he whispered, his lips seeking hers for a quick kiss.

“You hopeless man,” she said, kissing him back, “you
are
some kind of bloody knight in shining armor. You were prepared to let Henry m-murder you today, and I thought I would die right there with you if he did.”

He enfolded her against his body, letting her cry out all the fear and upset and loneliness and sorrow that was in her. She cried for him, and for Douglas, and even some for Henry, miserable, murderous, and mad though he’d been. She cried for Felicity and Gareth, who had come through such a frightening situation. She cried for the children who would have lost their mother, as Astrid had lost hers, and thus lost a part of their father…

And she cried for herself, finally. For her miserable excuse of a first marriage, for Herbert, so misguided and manipulated. For the child she might yet not safely bear. In the end, Astrid cried herself to sleep, her husband’s arms around her, his lips murmuring comfort against her hair.

Nonetheless, despite the revelations of the previous evening, despite Andrew’s presence beside her as she’d drifted off to sleep, when she rose the next morning, Astrid found she had, again, slept
alone
.

***

Douglas was escorted to the library the next morning by Fairly, who’d forced hot tea and buttered toast on him, then valeted him into proper morning attire. Greymoor and Heathgate were waiting for them, and to Douglas’s surprise, Astrid was also present, sitting beside her husband on the hearth.

Immediately beside him.

Douglas bowed to each, greeting them in turn. Fairly took up a post by the French doors, his back half-turned to the room, a clear reminder to Douglas he had no ally among the assemblage. Not now.

Heathgate perched on his desk, a particularly undignified choice for the marquess, but no more informal than Greymoor, hunkered beside his wife on the stones of the raised hearth.

Greymoor stood and gestured to the sofa.

“Have a seat, Douglas,” he said, the use of Douglas’s Christian name apparently deliberate. There were two explanations, of course, the first being that Greymoor intended humiliation by assuming an ungranted familiarity; the second, possible in theory, was that this was a family gathering, where one needn’t stand on ceremony.

Douglas took his assigned seat and waited, deciding silence was to his advantage. Though it ought to be beyond him, he could yet feel humiliation, whether Greymoor intended it or not.

“We have matters to resolve in this room,” Greymoor said, “and they are best resolved by consensus, but my wife has also requested an opportunity to put some questions to you, Douglas. I believe you owe her that.”