Andrew: Lord of Despair (The Lonely Lords)

by Grace Burrowes

  He continued to stare out at the bleak, dreary day for a moment, then nodded.

  One nod, and yet it was a death knell to Astrid’s hopes. If he’d had any intention of making a real marriage out of their situation, he would have argued with her. He would have put up a fight to see with his own eyes that she fared well; he would have made at least a pretense of remaining in her life.

  Was this how it felt to drown, to struggle and struggle as the waves closed black and heavy over one’s head? No air, no light, no hope?

  “Come,” he said, steering her toward the door. “The coach will be ready shortly, and we have preparations yet to make.”

  The preparations consisted of an elaborate ruse that had short, pot-bellied Ezra sashaying up to the house in Astrid’s good cloak and bonnet, while Andrew, to all appearances, escorted Gwen over to Willowdale. In old breeches, duster, and floppy hat, Astrid took a place on the box between John Coachman and Andrew.

  She steadied herself against the rocking of the coach by bracing herself against Andrew as they traveled the five miles to Willowdale. She did not cry, and she did not argue, but instead considered the man who’d made such tender, heartbreaking love to her the previous night.

  Andrew had treated her to her second experience with parting sex, good-bye sex. She nearly hated him for it, except in hindsight, she could recognize the wellspring of the tenderness he had shown her. Andrew had been drawing upon anticipated sorrow and regret, and a man did not regret parting from a wife for whom he felt only a duty to protect.

  ***

  Andrew followed his brother into the Willowdale library, feeling an incongruous sense of homecoming. He’d fallen a little in love with his wife in this room more than four years ago, when she’d tried her first sips of brandy, while Andrew, Gareth, and Felicity looked on.

  “You are offering libation this early in the day?” Andrew asked as Gareth went to the selfsame decanter and poured them both a couple of fingers of spirits.

  “To the health of our wives.” Gareth lifted his glass. Andrew did likewise, and savored the smooth burn of good brandy.

  Gareth set his glass down barely touched. “I need fortification, because my wife’s circumstances trouble me. She is so consistently uncomfortable these days, anything I can think of to pass the time, I offer to her. I read to her, rub her back, rub her feet, play the guitar for her, or brush her hair until she falls asleep. I stroll with her morning, noon, and night. I get up in the middle of the night to stroll with her yet more. I have never done so damned much pacing about in my life, and all at the speed of a drunken turtle.”

  When was the last time Gareth had confided his woes this way? Not since he and Felicity had faced all manner of difficulty on their road to the altar.

  “Confinement is hard on a fellow.”

  “Just wait until it’s your turn,” Gareth retorted. “You wonder how in the hell you’ll mount your wife again, knowing the misery your rutting could bring her.”

  The truth will out. “You are worried for her.” Approaching panic, if Andrew’s guess was correct.

  “Worried sick,” Gareth said, marching across the room to the errant chimera again holding vigil on his end table. Rather than return that sentinel to the company of his brothers, Gareth opened the stopper and sniffed the contents. “Felicity is so uncomfortable, Andrew, and there is no relief for her. She doesn’t complain, but whether she’s sitting or standing or lying in bed, she can find no ease.”

  When had his brother, the marquess, the man about town, the imposing, intimidating, surviving scion of the Alexander family, turned so… shamelessly besotted.

  “Felicity looks different to me,” Andrew noted after a pause to sip his drink. “Her shape is different.”

  “The babies have shifted, meaning her time draws near. The doctor claims it is part of the normal progression, and Felicity reminds me this happened with the boys—who, by the way, will not rest until they see Uncle Andrew. I believe they mentioned something about a tiger under the bed.”

  “So that’s where the blighter got to?” Andrew pretended to admire the view out the mullioned windows as a pang assailed him. He had nephews and thanked God for them. He would never have sons. Worse yet, he and Astrid would never have sons.

  “If we had more time, and if I thought it would help,” Gareth said, “I would suggest we get thoroughly inebriated. You, little Brother, look as tired, irritable, and out of sorts as I—and my wife—feel.”

  Andrew sat on the hard stones of the hearth, knowing this interrogation—this confession—was unavoidable. “Married life does not agree with me.”

  Gareth left off sniffing at spirits and leaned a hip on his desk. “Astrid seems to be in reasonable charity with you.”

  “She, silly little twit, thinks she loves me,” Andrew said, bitterness creeping into his voice. “And I have been unsuccessful at disabusing her of that notion, despite a good faith effort on my part.”

  “Take a lover,” Gareth suggested laconically. “She’ll hate you something fierce then. A mistress in Town, a night or two with a toothsome opera dancer, a receipt for a bracelet or a necklace given to another. It isn’t hard to break the heart of a good woman, Andrew. I should know.”

  Gareth was taunting him as only an older brother with a thorough grasp of strategy might. Andrew shot him a disgusted look.

  “Dear me,” Gareth replied innocently, “not the advice you sought? Hmm. Let’s see… you could try loving your wife, Andrew. The concept is novel, and not favored by titled Society, but it has, I can tell you, much to recommend it.”

  Return fire was expected, but the entire discussion curdled the drink in Andrew’s gut. “Like you’re so happy pacing about and drinking at midday over this wife you love?”

  “Unworthy of you, Andrew,” Gareth said mildly. “I am happy with Felicity, and well you know it. She is… the home my heart has longed for. At present, however, I am also quite concerned for her. The two conditions—love and concern—are occasionally found in proximity to one another. I believe”—his eyes narrowed—“you know this already.”

  “To my everlasting sorrow.”

  Rather than needle him further, which Andrew would have welcomed, Gareth sat beside him on the hard stones. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Keep her safe. For the love of God, keep Astrid safe. She won’t take stupid risks, but she won’t cower, either. My wife has an appalling abundance of courage.”

  “She’d have to, to take you on. But something about this whole situation… rankles badly.”

  “I know.” And thank heavens that Gareth’s instincts matched Andrew’s. “Something doesn’t add up. Something feels like it’s missing my notice. Douglas has done nothing since Astrid married me but meet with solicitors and barristers and even bankers. I cannot believe he will be content merely to bring a lawsuit when the baby arrives. He doesn’t strike me as a man who would trust his ends to the ponderous whims of the court. Moreover, you and I and Fairly are in a much better position to buy the outcome of any litigation, and Douglas is not stupid.”

  “He most assuredly is not, and that is part of what bothers me.”

  A rap on the door had both brothers looking up as David Worthington, Viscount Fairly, let himself into the library.

  “Time was,” Fairly observed cheerfully, “one never knew what one might interrupt waltzing into this room unannounced. Part of the charm of the household.”

  Gareth rose and scowled at his guest. “You are an unnatural brother.”

  “There you would be wrong,” Fairly replied. “I am nothing if not a natural brother. I thought we had decided to be discreet about it.”

  “Sit,” Andrew growled at him. “We were discussing Amery’s doings and the present state of his mischief toward the family.”

  Fairly’s smile vanished, leaving in its place a coldly polite mask. He sa
t on the sofa, facing Andrew’s perch on the hearth.

  “Amery has been a busy fellow,” Fairly said. “He conducts business with a dispatch that would impress even you, Heathgate. He has also, to my surprise, paid a call on the Pleasure House, though he remained below stairs for the duration.”

  “So we must conclude he knows you own the place?” Andrew asked.

  “We must. I’ve warned the women if he does ask one of them upstairs, to be very, very careful. We don’t know that he’s ever abused a woman outright, but there were rumors, and that reassures me little.”

  That they were monitoring another man’s traffic with Fairly’s ladies did nothing to calm Andrew’s nerves. “He’s repaying Astrid, with interest.”

  Gareth shoved back to sit on his desk, which on this occasion, sported no rattles. “He’s paying her back? With what money? The man was all but done up.”

  “Not quite.” Andrew considered another drink and decided on a sharing of intelligence instead. “The family was all but done up. Herbert had the handling of the family finances, and those are in sad disrepair. Douglas’s personal wealth, however, has been growing steadily since he attained his majority.”

  “Where did he get his start?” Fairly asked. “He’s only the spare, and he hasn’t married money.”

  “His maternal grandmother left him her modest fortune when he was nineteen, and tied it up so his family could not relieve him of it. He has made steady progress restoring the sum taken from Astrid’s dower account. She is not aware of this, but she will be when the funds are repaid entirely.”

  Or when Andrew quit England again, whichever should first occur.

  “I take it,” Fairly said, “you are also not supposed to be aware of this, but rather, the account, whole and hearty, will be produced as evidence should we attempt to disparage Amery at trial?”

  “I can think of another explanation, one that fits most of our facts.”

  Gareth glanced pointedly at the clock. “Because luncheon and a resumption of the ladies’ charming company looms, I hope you will share that with us.”

  “Douglas was a year behind me at university,” Andrew said. “He always struck me as a tediously upright fellow, but also rather his own man. He never rode to hounds with his brothers and father. He shoots well, but not for sport. He is, above all, pragmatic. When you, Gareth, were cutting such a wide swath as a newly minted marquess, Douglas did not join in the gossip or the teasing.”

  “Luncheon,” Fairly reminded him, shooting a cuff.

  “My point,” Andrew said with some exasperation, “is that it could be Douglas is not our man. Viewed objectively, if he is not the one out to harm Astrid, then his theory that she seeks to harm herself also fits the available facts. He simply has to ignore what he knows of Astrid’s personality, just as we are ignoring what we know of his. We know Herbert was a weak-kneed, self-indulgent nincompoop, but we have little evidence of that same character in Douglas.”

  Fairly toyed with a gold sleeve button nearly the same shade as Astrid’s hair.

  “Who else has all the right motives, Greymoor? Who else would want Astrid and her child disposed of? I’ve made the acquaintance of Herbert’s former mistress, and I can assure you Mrs. Banks is not a woman afflicted with jealousy toward her late protector’s wife.”

  Respect for Fairly twined with something else. To follow up with the mistress was prudent, a loose end Andrew had not considered. That Fairly should take it on without saying anything to anybody else was… sad.

  “We are not going to settle this by argument, gentlemen,” Gareth said, pushing to his feet. “You raise a good point, Andrew: Douglas is either not our man, or he is making a very careful case for not looking like our man. I vote the latter.”

  “As do I,” Andrew said, “because I cannot afford to do otherwise.”

  “Perhaps our malefactor is not a man at all,” Fairly said, his peculiar eyes focused on some aspect of the problem Andrew could not see.

  Felicity interrupted at that point, calling all hands to the table, though all too soon, luncheon was over and Fairly taking his leave. The coach was ordered around from the stables, and the time for Andrew to bid his wife farewell—yet again—drew nigh. He chose the library for that purpose.

  Astrid watched him close the door the way another might watch a physician who could only bear bad news. “I feel as if by complying with this scheme of yours, Andrew, I am somehow abandoning you, and thus I am going to cry.”

  Abandoning him. She offered the sweetest, most daft sentiments. “Come here, then,” he said, holding out his arms. “You needn’t cry all by yourself over there.” Astrid went to him, but she’d doubted her welcome in his embrace, and that was nobody’s fault but his.

  “Andrew, why does it have to be like this?”

  He rested his chin on her crown—she fit him perfectly, in so many ways.

  “It has to be like this, Wife, so you may be safe, and that is all that matters for now.”

  “What about after this now you speak of? Why must we have this awful distance between us? Oh, don’t answer me,” she said, sniffing into his handkerchief. “You will give me some drivel about expectations and happiness, and more nonsense than I can stand.”

  An accurate summation. Andrew wasn’t going to admit to her that her husband was a conscienceless bastard who would betray his brother, his honor, his birthright, and his own child. Not yet, and maybe not ever. Better she hate him on general principles than have the burden of that knowledge.

  He kissed her temple and tried for something—anything—honest. “I did not set out to make you unhappy, please believe that.”

  “And I,” she said, stepping back, “did not set out to love you, Andrew, but there it is. I will miss you.”

  She delivered that observation like the slap that conveys a challenge, then ruined the effect by wrapping herself against him again, clinging fiercely.

  Andrew, despite his best intentions, was gratified by the desperation in her embrace. It nearly matched his own, and so he held on to her just as tightly, until long moments later, when she again found the strength to step back.

  “I love you,” she said, tears spilling down her cheeks.

  Andrew caught a tear on his index finger and brought it to his lips.

  “Be well, Wife,” he said, bowing, “until next we meet.”

  ***

  “He told me,” Astrid fumed, “to be well. Well, Lissy, and I let him walk away while I cried like the greatest fool God ever created from the rib of Adam. How can I be well when he leaves me to hide in your house while Douglas skulks about Enfield, lying in wait?”

  Felicity threaded an embroidery needle with purple thread as Astrid paced the library where only hours earlier, she’d bid her idiot husband farewell.

  “Gareth says Douglas is not the only suspect, Astrid,” Felicity said, knotting the thread. “Douglas does not appear to have the requisite dishonorable character, though he certainly has motive and opportunity.”

  Astrid whirled in a swish of skirts, paused to assay her balance, and glared at the sister who sat so serenely behind Gareth’s desk. “I am talking about my husband here, and you are going off about Douglas and his schemes. You are as bad as the men in this family.”

  Felicity looked nonplussed. “That bad?”

  “That bad,” Astrid said, unwilling to be teased. “Worse, because you are my sister, and I expect you to support me in my marital difficulties.”

  Felicity fastened her hoop onto a pillowcase that was acquiring a border of hyacinths the same color as Gareth’s eyes. “I do support you. When Gareth told me you and Andrew were marrying, my first reaction was glee, because I love you both, and I know you had a great tendresse for Andrew before he went traveling. But upon reflection, the idea troubled me, Astrid, for this very reason you allude to. Andrew is…”

  �
�Andrew is lost,” Astrid finished the thought, plopping down into a reading chair far too large for her. “He always was, I think, but compared to Gareth, who was even more lost, Andrew appeared the more reasonable of the two. I believe Andrew merely became more adept at hiding his true nature. Gareth, bearing the title, was allowed and even expected to behave outrageously.”

  “And look at him now.” Felicity scooted forward to adjust a pillow at her back. “My dear husband is nigh unmanned to see me this gravid. He is full of talk about waiting at least two years to have more children, if even then, and so forth. I argue with him that one of the pleasures of marriage is the conjugal bed, and I will not be denied my husband’s affections because nature takes its course. Sometimes, I even win this argument.”

  “I suppose you won it last, oh, about eight months ago?” Astrid replied, though she wasn’t nearly finished ranting about Andrew’s stubborn, misguided, infernal, pestilential pigheadedness.

  “About eight and a half months ago, we did indeed have a memorable skirmish.” Felicity’s smile was naughty. “I would I did not win it quite so effectively.”

  Twins. Twins was a very effective victory, provided there were no casualties. “Are you afraid?” For Astrid was afraid. Afraid of childbirth, afraid of losing her husband, afraid of accidents that might be planned for her by Douglas Allen or his minions.

  “Terrified,” Felicity said, blinking at her embroidery. “Twins are always complicated, and the babies are usually small, and… I am not worried for myself, but I am worried for my children. For these two, but also for my dear little boys, who can barely understand what’s going on with their mama. And Gareth… I worry most for him.”

  “Heathgate? Why would you worry for him, Lissy? He’s as stubborn a man as I’ve ever met.” Though not as stubborn as Andrew.

  “He is such a good man, Astrid, an honorable man,” Felicity said, smoothing a finger over glossy hyacinths. “And he has lost so much. How will he bear it if he loses these children, or me, as well?”