For an endless stretch of minutes, he lay on her, panting into her hair, still throbbing inside of her. Every pulse sent a small shower of sensation along her nerves. Finally, he sighed and rolled to the side, leaving an emptiness behind, but her body was too satisfied to protest. They lay side by side in the dark, not speaking, no longer touching, as her mind came back together.
“Why?” His question was soft, almost whispered, but the sound startled her.
She kept her eyes fixed on the canopy overhead. His meaning was clear. Why was she here? Why had she offered herself up to him?
Swallowing hard, she replied. “I want a baby.”
The silence following her reply stretched out so long she wasn’t sure he would say anything more.
But then he said, “I see.”
She waited for more, to see what he thought of that, but she was met with only silence. As she was struggling for what to say next, what overture she could possibly make, the soft but unmistakable sound of his snore indicated that he’d fallen asleep.
Victoria lay still for a moment more. She’d gotten exactly what she wanted. So why did she suddenly feel like crying? He could make her body feel pleasure she hadn’t known was possible, but why did it leave her feeling so empty afterward? Her eyes burned and her throat swelled with tears. Oh no, she would not be found weeping in her husband’s bed. She was done being humiliated by this man.
Slowly, she slid out of the bed, careful not to jostle him. She retrieved her nightgown where she’d left it on the floor and ran from the room as silently as she’d come.
Andrew never woke.
* * *
Emma and Louisa had finished breakfast the next morning and Andrew still had yet to appear downstairs. Victoria had lain awake half the night before finally giving up on sleep, rising to greet the dawn. Unable to eat for nerves, she’d picked at her plate at breakfast and done her best to appear engaged in conversation with the girls. All the while, her ears had been straining to hear his approach, trying to brace herself for his reaction to her, even though she had no idea what it would be.
Last night had been more than she’d anticipated. The idea had been to get what she needed from him, quickly and furtively, and leave again. But the way it had played out surprised her. The way he’d demanded she say his name hinted at something outside of base lust. That was personal, curiously intimate. She’d been angry at him so long, but if he wished things to change between them, she could try. Those early glimpses she’d gotten of him, when she’d imagined they could have a different sort of life together, hadn’t faded completely, no matter how he treated her now. That man still existed for his sisters. Maybe he could exist for her, too, if she was willing to look for him.
As much as she’d been anticipating his arrival, when he suddenly appeared in the breakfast room doorway, it shocked her into silence. She couldn’t even bear to look at him without being deluged with memories of the night before. Emma and Louisa leaped to their feet to greet him, and she let their animated chatter fill the room. Fixing her eyes on the table, she forced away the vivid images of his hands and mouth on her body. When she was composed enough to look at him without blushing, she raised her head, just in time to catch the end of what he was saying to the girls.
“...my work can’t wait, I’m afraid, and so...”
Understanding washed over her and left her reeling.
“You’re leaving already?”
He glanced at her briefly before his eyes slid away. Guilt.
The uncertainty she’d been feeling all morning congealed in an instant into cold, hard hatred. How dare he? Once again, he was fleeing back to Italy the instant the sun came up. Even when she left his bed first, he’d figured out a way to reject her in the end. The insult stung badly. She turned her face away to hide her mortification.
“The excavation is at a critical point, and I’ve been gone for a week already.”
“Of course, Andrew,” Louisa said, laying her hand on his. “We understand how important it is to you.”
Victoria drew in a shaky breath. It didn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. She’d already come to terms with this. If he wanted to carry on the way they had been, she would. She had her work back at Briarwood to focus on, and he had his work in bloody Italy. Let him go. She’d proved to herself by now she didn’t need him for anything more than procreation, and with any luck, last night had taken care of that.
“Oh!” Louisa cried. “Andrew, before you go, let’s have Morris take a photograph of us. I’ve brought my new Brownie Box camera back from Scotland.”
“But they’ve already brought the carriage around and Morris is having my bag brought down, so...”
“We’ll hurry. Emma, where’s my camera?”
Emma blinked. “How should I know?”
Louisa rolled her eyes. “Because you had it last.” She snagged her sister’s sleeve. “Come on. If you misplaced it, then you’re helping me look for it.”
The girls disappeared upstairs to locate the camera. Andrew hesitated before leaving the room without a word and without a glance in her direction. Victoria rose and followed him downstairs to the main hall, waiting while the footman retrieved his coat.
He glanced uneasily in her direction, but not meeting her eye. The coward. “Thank you for all your kindnesses toward my sisters. I know they’re grateful to you.”
“It was no trouble. I like them both very much.”
“They seem quite fond of you, as well.”
The silence between them felt so brittle it might snap, but Victoria waited him out, arms crossed over her chest, fuming in icy fury. Eventually he spoke, seemingly just to ease the tension.
“I’m sorry I can’t stay to resolve things here in London, but my work...”
“Oh, don’t trouble yourself,” she said with a breezy disregard she did not feel in the slightest. “I can certainly manage without you. You’ve done what you needed to do, so you might as well go.”
* * *
Had he a single reservation about leaving again, Victoria had just dispatched it.
From the moment Andrew had woken this morning—alone—he’d swung between anger and regret. He’d been drunk when he’d woken to find her naked in his bed, but he remembered enough. He remembered it was astoundingly good, and that he wanted much, much more of it. Then—after—he made the mistake of asking her why. She’d had her reasons for marrying him in the first place, and she’d had her reasons for what she’d done last night. Both times, they’d had nothing to do with him.
Yes, he’d done what he needed to do. And she’d gotten what she wanted from him. As always, their transaction was complete, and he was left feeling embarrassed at how much he’d wanted her, how passionate he’d made their coupling. She’d have probably preferred lying on her back, staring at the ceiling and thinking of England. Her attitude this morning said as much.
The girls came back downstairs with the camera, saving him from coming up with a response.
“I’ll get Morris to come take it for us,” Louisa said, but Victoria stopped her and took the camera from her hands.
“No need to bother Morris. I’ll take it.”
“But then you won’t be in the picture,” Emma protested.
Victoria glanced up from the camera’s settings, meeting Andrew’s eyes for an instant. “I’m of no consequence. Now, move in a little closer, Emma dear. Louisa, your hair looks lovely this morning.”
It was a marvel, seeing her so gentle and open with his sisters, yet so hard-hearted to him. A small voice in his head whispered that perhaps it had been him who’d made her that way. He’d certainly never given her reason to open up to him. Then again, maybe he was trying to credit her with more than was her due. She’d married him for his title. Now she’d bedded him to get her heir. Maybe she truly had no other use for
him.
Within minutes, the picture had been taken and he’d said goodbye to his sisters. Once he was in the carriage and moving away down the street, he glanced back at the front of Waring House. Emma and Louisa stood on the steps waving goodbye to him, but Victoria wasn’t there. She’d already turned her back on him and returned inside. He cursed himself for even looking for more from her.
Chapter Thirteen
Briarwood Manor, Hampshire
May 4, 1896
Your Grace,
I thought I should let you know I’ve invited your sisters to spend their summer holiday with me here at Briarwood. I know in past years they’ve stayed with a hired companion, but that seemed unnecessary, as this is their home and it’s now fit to receive them. I am delighted to have them with me. I wrote to your mother asking her permission to take them from Mrs. Fielding’s care. She didn’t care one way or the other where they spent the summer. I hope these arrangements meet with your approval.
Regards,
Victoria, Duchess of Waring
Andrew read over the letter again, noting each small detail. From the lack of a “dear” in her salutation, to her signature—merely “regards”—Victoria’s disdain for him rang clear. She was writing to let him know as a perfunctory courtesy. She didn’t care what he thought, and she certainly wasn’t soliciting a reply.
He’d spent their entire marriage pushing her away, hoping for this sort of impersonal formality. But now that he had it, it rang hollow.
What she said made perfect sense. It had never sat well with him that his sisters spent their summers with a paid companion in London when their family had a house there. But their mother was never home, and even if she had been, caring for two young girls was abhorrent to her. Their father and Edmund had both been too dissolute to watch them properly, and Andrew lived in Italy. So every year, the girls went to a stranger’s house.
From what Louisa and Emma told him in their letters, Victoria had been corresponding with them since his father’s funeral, and they’d grown close. Lacking any sort of decent female role model, it was no wonder the girls were so fond of her.
Their letters from the past months had been full of her—Victoria said this, and Victoria did that. She sent them presents, little things chosen specially for each girl—the latest novels from London for Louisa, new sheet music for Emma to play on the piano, a set of mother-of-pearl hair combs for Louisa, a new wool scarf for Emma that she said perfectly matched her eyes.
More letters from the girls began arriving shortly after they settled at Briarwood for the summer, telling him all about it in lengthy detail. It sounded as if they’d set down in a veritable fairyland. Louisa, always effusive, couldn’t say enough about it. It was so beautiful, so elegant, yet comfortable. He’d have thought her suffering from delusions had not Emma’s letter echoed her sentiments. His curiosity grew by the day until he was nearly desperate to see this wonderland Victoria had fashioned from a ruin. This home she’d made for his sisters—the one he’d exiled himself from.
But did he have a right? It was hers, he’d ceded it to her from the first. And the tone of her last letter made it perfectly clear he wasn’t expected or wanted, at least not by her.
No one would fault him for visiting his sisters, however. The idea took root and refused to be ignored.
The library door opened and Luciana came in, pausing behind his chair.
“She’s written again?”
“Yes.”
“It’s been a while.”
It had been months. In the beginning, Victoria had written constantly, one lengthy letter after another, detailing all the minutiae of her life in Hampshire and the work she was doing on Briarwood. This marked the first letter he’d received from her since his father’s funeral last November. Anything he knew about how she’d spent those months came from the tidbits dropped in his sisters’ letters. He was embarrassed to say how he’d hoarded them.
Blast it, he missed her bloody letters. He missed her voice in each line. He missed her descriptions of the bloody cows and the orchards. He missed her wry observations about the household staff and her retelling of all their small dramas. He’d refused to engage with her, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t engaged with him. It happened every time he read them, and he’d always read them, even when he was at his angriest. He’d never answered them, but she kept writing them. What he hadn’t realized at the time was it had been her attempt to show him who she was. She had been giving him a chance to get to know her and experience her life. When she’d come to his bed in November, she said she wanted a baby, but was it possible she’d wanted more? He hadn’t stayed long enough to find out.
He’d been reeling, as miserable as he always was when forced back to England, furious at his mother, still nursing some half-formed suspicion Victoria might be no better, taking lovers the moment he left. Her terse explanation, that she’d only come to him to secure her heir, had only solidified what he already thought he knew about her and their marriage.
But with time away, many things became clear. For one thing, the woman corresponding with his sisters was no monster. As they described her, she was closer to an angel. For another, if she was truly set on his mother’s path, picking up lovers left and right, she certainly didn’t need to come to his bed to get what she wanted. Any lover would do to father a child, as his mother had so amply proved.
She’d come to him. And she’d been furious with him when he left her the next day. Her subsequent silence seemed to indicate he’d hurt her badly with this latest abandonment. She’d offered herself to him and he’d rejected her with his departure. Now she’d taken herself back, carefully protecting herself from him. What might have changed if he’d given a little? Written back in the beginning? Met her halfway when she was trying, after his father’s funeral? Stayed instead of running away? Now he might never know.
Luciana was silent for a moment, then she moved around to the side of his chair and crouched, bringing herself eye level with him.
“Andrew, I’m leaving.”
“When will you be back?” he asked absently, not looking up from Victoria’s letter.
“I won’t be.”
That finally pierced his distraction and he met her gaze. Her dark eyes were clear and solemn, not a hint of a tear. Tears were not Luciana’s way. “Luciana, I know I’ve been a bear to live with lately, but—”
“Andrew, you haven’t touched me in months.” God, she was right. Not since he’d come back from his father’s funeral, and only occasionally before that. He had to admit, they’d been living here as mildly affectionate siblings rather than passionate lovers for ages.
“I’ve been out of sorts.”
“No, it’s more than that. There’s a reason you can’t bear to touch me.” He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. “The reason you can’t touch me is, you’re thinking about her, aren’t you?”
He hesitated a moment, then nodded in weary resignation. Yes, he thought about her. All the time. Every damned night. Memories of Victoria, the two brief nights she’d spent in his arms, haunted him. He could barely sleep, and—Luciana was right—touching her had been out of the question. But he hadn’t expected her to call him out on it.
“I’m sorry—”
She held up a hand to silence him again. “No, please. It’s all right. We’ve always been friends as well as lovers, haven’t we?”
He smiled fondly at her, closing his hand over hers where it rested on the arm of his chair. “Indeed, we have. I’ve always valued our friendship. And your honesty.”
“Then let me be honest, as your friend.” She reached out and eased Victoria’s letter from his grasp. “Andrew, go home. Make things right with your wife, before it’s too late.”
He swallowed hard around an unexpected swell of emotion, fixing his eyes on Victor
ia’s elegant handwriting, and her “Regards.” That stupid word had somehow pricked his heart more than anything had in so very long.
“I’m not sure she wishes me to. She may already have moved on.”
“You won’t know if you don’t try. My marriage was a happy one, full of love and respect. He was my partner and my passion. It was a rare treasure, one I don’t expect to find again in this lifetime. If there’s any chance you can have that with her, it would be a terrible waste to let it slip through your fingers.”
He smiled to cover up the pain he couldn’t quite face yet. “Some mistress you are, sending me back to the arms of my wife.”
“Perhaps we’ve always been better as friends. I like you too much as my friend to hold you here so I can keep you as my lover. Besides, it’s dreadful living with a man who’s in love with someone else.”
“I’m not in love with her.”
“Could you be?”
“I—” But he didn’t finish that sentence, because he wasn’t sure. And he wouldn’t ever know sitting here in Italy. Luciana was right. It was time for him to go home and find out.
He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “You’re a good woman, Luciana.”
Luciana skimmed the brief letter. “She says your sisters are spending the summer with her in Hampshire.”‘
“Yes. They adore it there. And they adore her.”
“Go spend the summer with your family. Leave your anger here. See what happens.”
“What about you?”
“I won’t be here when you get back. It’s time we both move on.”
A Duchess in Name Page 16
