Andrew: Lord of Despair (The Lonely Lords)

by Grace Burrowes

  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 y
ou 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.

  The voice in his head had been so loud and unrelenting through the previous sleepless night, he’d risen with the dairymaids and tooled into Town to join Astrid at breakfast.

  What if he’d been more stubborn about ignoring that voice? What if the horse had sprung a shoe halfway to Town? What if a passing shower had made the roads muddy?

  What if he’d died at the age of fifteen in that boating accident and never known the glory of loving her?

  He brought his body over hers, noting that her stomach was convex now, where it had been flat before.

  “I have missed you, Astrid.” He needed to tell her at least that.

  “I have missed you as well, Andrew, terribly. And you needn’t loom up there like I’m made of spun glass. I love the feel of your weight on me, particularly your naked weight.”

  “On your naked self.” On her warm, gloriously feminine, beautiful, naked self, which he absolutely did not deserve to touch, much less claim as her husband. “You must tell me if you are at all uncomfortable, dear heart. I would not hurt you for the world.”

  She lay beneath him, his weight taken as much as possible on his knees and forearms, while he spent several quiet minutes kissing, nuzzling, and grazing his lips over her face, neck, and shoulders. Only when he felt her breathing slow and her body relax did he allow his mouth to settle over hers.

  She opened to him on a welcoming sigh. As her tongue explored his lips and teeth, her hands gently kneaded his buttocks, urging him to rest more of his weight on her.

  Carefully, he eased down, enough so his erect cock could tease and flirt with her sex. She spread her legs and brought them up to wrap around his flanks.

  “Love me, Andrew,” she whispered.

  “Soon. Soon.”

  He’d dreamed this very scenario and woken up in an aching sweat more times than he could count, and he wasn’t about to hurry the delectable reality. He could kiss, nuzzle, and tease her like this for hours, desire at once sustained and muted by tenderness the like of which Andrew was at a loss to explain. Astrid, however, was becoming aroused, and more than anything, he wanted to give her pleasure.

  He allowed his teasing to graduate to shallow, languid penetration. “I want,” he said between kisses, “to be gentle with you.”

  “You are unfailingly gentle with me. That isn’t what I need
now.”

  Such honesty. He deepened his thrusts, holding her gaze, willing her to see that this gentleness felt different to him.

  “Andrew.” She sighed his name, her eyes falling closed, her neck arching in pleasure. In blind abandon, her hands slipped around to his chest, where her fingers grazed across his nipples, sending tendrils of desire spiraling down to his cock, and out through his whole body. Still, he kept his rhythm slow, withdrawing and pausing before he thrust again.

  A sense of burning unworthiness could give a man the most peculiar strengths.

  “More, Andrew, please…” she crooned, locking her heels at the small of his back and pulling him into her.

  He allowed his tempo to increase enough that Astrid shuddered, her breath catching, her nails digging into his hips. Her sex clutched at the length of him in hot, needy spasms as she groaned quietly into his neck. “Ah, God… yes, Andrew, yes…”

  He held back. Somehow, he held back until she was easing down from her pleasure, her legs loosening their grip to rest along his flanks, her eyes again closed in repose and repletion.

  And then he drove her up again, more quickly this time. His tongue thrust into her mouth, his fingers found her nipples, and his cock gave her the steady, deep thrusts that had her panting and bucking beneath him in no time. He could sense he’d taken her by surprise, and she would have been content with the softer, gentler wooing, but he kept her off balance, her defenses unorganized.

  “Andrew…” she pleaded, but whether it was for relief or reprieve, he could not have said.

  “Come for me, sweetheart. Come for me again.”

  His self-control frayed as Astrid bowed up to get her mouth over one of his nipples. She vised herself around him everywhere, holding on and not letting go, until pleasure bore down on him with relentless intent.

  He did not deserve this, did not deserve her, and yet, she would have him.

  Thank God, for however long it took to ensure her safety, she would have him.

  Andrew changed the angle of his thrusting, pressing more deeply into Astrid’s body and bringing a hand under her backside to anchor her against him. As satisfaction obliterated all else, he felt her shake with the force of her pleasure as well.