Brendon sat on the bed and tested the springs.
“Not from the same bed-makers as those who supply the King’s Arms. Thank God! And is Sophia’s room next door?” Brendon looked at the closed interconnecting panels.
Algernon frowned at his friend.
“I don’t think she would like it in there. We have yet to get that far and even though she has no fear of spiders, after her last experience with a huge specimen, I rather doubt she will want any sleeping with her. Besides, you are practically still on your honeymoon. Why would you want a different room to her?”
Brendon coughed into his hand.
“Well, we haven’t...what I mean to say is...Er, how do I put this?” he floundered around the words.
Algernon interrupted his explanation.
“Dear Lord! You haven’t yet bedded her!”
Brendon glanced back at the door before glaring at his friend.
“You don’t have to say it as if you were the town crier. Can’t you lower your voice?” He hissed furiously.
Algernon drew in a breath.
“But why haven’t you? Are you wishing that you hadn’t married her already?” He seemed to grow in stature the more his eyebrows dipped.
Brendon waved him down, rested his elbows on his knees, and stared glumly out of the window.
“It is nothing like that, and you know it. My feelings haven’t changed, but I just cannot do it to her when she can’t feel a damn thing. It would be like making love to one of those frigid women of the ton. I want my first experience to be a more robust experience and until she can walk again...”
Algernon’s mouth had fallen open.
“I’m not sure I want to hear how you want it to be with my sister.” He wiped his brow.
Brendon let out a frustrated breath.
“Well, you seemed to want the details. Look, I know it seems like madness, but how would you feel if my sister didn’t enjoy your attentions?” He gave a superior nod as horror covered Algernon’s face.
“I see what you mean. But have you even tried. There is more to making love than the actual sexual act.”
Brendon actually laughed.
“Can you recall the first time you had a woman? Do you think you could have stopped at touching her breasts or kissing her nipples?” He raised an eyebrow at Algernon’s contrite expression. “No, thought not. I am not made of iron. I am not sure that my willpower is that strong. And I don’t want to go about this like a rutting animal. Apart from the fact that Sophia is the most precious thing in the world to me, I don’t want her to know that I have no more experience than she.”
“Why ever not? I would imagine that she would be delighted to discover that you haven’t slept with half the woman of London. I was embarrassed about my own affairs.” He ran a finger around the inside of his cravat. “Fortunately they were but few, but I dread to think what some men have to confess to.”
Brendon felt his jaw drop.
“Did Felicity ask or did you proffer the information?” He gulped at the thought of such an awkward conversation with one’s wife.
Algernon paced about the room.
“I discovered that it was best not to avoid the question once asked. Women seem to have some kind of inbuilt sensor for when one is lying about that sort of thing.”
Brendon snorted.
“And you think Sophia is going to believe that Angelique and I read adventure stories to one another?” He looked pensive. “I could always quote Robinson Crusoe to her, I suppose, just to lend weight to my words.”
A grin crossed Algernon’s face.
“You never know. Maybe she will be so awestruck by your prowess, she will be beyond asking.”
Brendon pressed his hands to his knees and stood up again.
“I confess that I never felt so inadequate in my life. And the worst thing is that keeping away from her is killing me.” He gazed out at the magnificent view, trying to regulate his erratic heartbeat.
Algernon came up beside him and stared out at the view too.
“Tell her. Tell her that you are a virgin and have no more idea about it than she. If I know anything about Sophia, it is that she doesn’t judge. Discover the things you like together. I can’t think of anything more wonderful and I sincerely regret not waiting like you.”
Brendon couldn’t keep the surprise out of his tone.
“You do?”
Algernon nodded.
“As you know, it is something so special, yet we treat it so lightly when we are young. When we eventually find the woman of our dreams, I think we all wish that we had kept ourselves just for her. You and Sophia are very lucky.”
Brendon ran his fingers through his hair as he blew out a breath.
“Well, I might be lucky, but that still doesn’t get us over the problem with her legs. I thought to take her back to London. Jacobs worked wonders for you, but when I suggested that she see him she seemed strangely reticent. I would have thought she would do anything to get back on her feet.”
Algernon grinned.
“Perhaps she simply likes you carrying her about. She had this weird dreamy look on her face when you brought her in and up to see Felicity and the babies.”
Brendon smiled widely.
“Which reminds me. We haven’t yet toasted their health and your new status. I must congratulate you. Three in one go. Better watch it next time, your own family might outstrip the number of orphans you have running about the place.”
Algernon clapped his hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“A brandy or two are definitely called for. I haven’t had a drink in a fortnight! With them keeping us up at all hours, I don’t know what we would have done without Anna and her mother. The two of them have been a Godsend. Come, we will have a toast while we wait for our wives to come down.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Promise of Pure Gardenias
“Well if this is how he behaves when you two get together, then perhaps Sophia is better off without him. What were you thinking of, Algernon?” Felicity stared down at her brother’s limp form.
Algernon yawned widely.
“I swear that I wasn’t thinking of anything. The last couple of weeks suddenly caught up with me and I fell to sleep after the first glass. Brendon must have finished the bottle alone.” He looked down at his friend who laid, mouth agape, snoring on the chaise.
“Well, do something. Kick him or something. Sophia is waiting for him to join her.” Bored with waiting for Brendon, Felicity had eventually sent for Jeffries to help take Sophia to her bedroom.
Algernon scratched his head.
“I doubt he is going to be sober enough to walk and I’m not carrying a great lump like him all the way up those stairs. I’ll just bring him a blanket. I’m sure he’ll find his way to bed if he wakes.” He picked up the empty bottle of brandy, which had rolled across the floor. “Poor man. He has problems of his own, you know.”
Felicity rolled her eyes.
“Yes, I know. Sophia told me some things but I guessed the rest. Idiot. Women gossip far more than men and it became fairly obvious when you came home last year. All that blustering and pontificating about us. He was such a prude about it all. And I always thought that affair with the lovely, but frivolous Angelique was peculiar. Why doesn’t he just confess and get it over with? Sophia might not react to his, er his condition, the way he thinks.”
Algernon yawned again, once again amazed at his wife’s astuteness, though perhaps sisters were more perceptive than he had thought. Sophia always seemed to be able to read him like an open book.
“We cannot interfere. It is up to him if he confesses or not. I cannot make him and we cannot reveal his secret. It’s not the sort of thing a man likes to admit, especially when he has had a mistress for the last year.”
Felicity stared down at her brother.
“I cannot believe he did anything so foolish. Poor Sophia. And she thinks she has problems. But physical things are often easier to
get over than mental ones. What has the poor girl been saddled with!”
Sophia stood listening at the door almost wishing that she had waited in her room, but after hearing Felicity go down stairs, she hadn’t been able to resist following her. What was wrong with Brendon? A mental problem, clearly. Perhaps it was the after effects of the war. Perhaps that was why he didn’t want to be with her? Maybe he couldn’t function as a man should, though that couldn’t be right. She was sure she had seen an enormous bulge in his trousers when he had been stroking her arm. And surely it was the same thing that pressed into her side when he had massaged her back. It wasn’t as if he carried a cudgel in his trouser pocket.
And, if it was going to affect his life so dramatically, why hadn’t Felicity or Algernon told her about it if Brendon refused?
But whatever his problem, if he could drink himself incapable in his efforts to avoid sleeping in the same bed as her, then she would make his choice easy for him and return to London. Alone.
She tiptoed away from the door, slipped through the quiet hallways, and out towards the stables. There was no way she would was strong enough to ride on horseback back to London, but Bilton was there with the carriage. If she could only persuade him to leave immediately, then she had a chance of getting away without being discovered. She couldn’t bear the thought of staying with everyone talking about her and Brendon for even another moment.
Brendon woke with the headache from hell and a feeling that the world had tipped up at an alarming angle.
He righted the alarming angle by picking himself up from the floor and crawling to the chaise, where he eventually managed to haul himself to his feet. He shut his eyes firmly and opened them again slowly, willing his thumping head to calm itself. He noticed a jug of water, a glass on the table, but although his tongue rasped against the roof of his mouth, he didn’t get chance to drink anything before Algernon came pounding into the room.
“SHE’S GONE!” He bellowed.
Brendon covered his ears as he thought he might faint from the shockwave that hit him and bounced about inside his head.
“Serves you bloody right if you go about the house shouting like that. She has three babies to look after, no wonder she wants some peace and quiet,” he managed after a few moments recovery.
Algernon strode across the room and grabbed Brendon by the shoulders.
“Not Felicity, you idiot. Sophia. She’s gone. Last night apparently.”
Brendon felt his world tip up once again, and Algernon caught him before he fell to his knees.
“Gone? How? She couldn’t walk. Someone kidnapped her? I’ll kill them when I find them.” He steadied himself and fisted his hands at his sides as his whole body began to shake with rage.
Algernon shook his head as he realized his initial outburst hadn’t been clear.
“No, no. No one kidnapped her. You must calm yourself. It is good news really. Apparently she stumbled into the stables last night, barely able to hold herself upright. She convinced Bilton that she needed to go to see a specialist in London immediately. One of the lads helped ready the horses and they set off within minutes. She wasn’t missed until Anna went to take her bathing water this morning and discovered the room empty and the bed unslept in.”
Brendon gulped in air.
“She could walk again?” He could hardly believe what he was hearing.
“Barely. It seems that she had only just made it to the stables before collapsing. Bilton put her into the carriage immediately and thinking she must have your approval, set off for London without question.” He gave Brendon a small shake. “Come on, man. You have to go after her.”
Brendon stood as if rooted to the spot.
“I can’t. She would have come and woken me if she wanted me to go with her.” The hollowness of his tones mirrored the feeling inside his stomach.
Algernon stared at his friend.
“You were comatose. I doubt you would have woken if a cannon shot had gone off right by your ear.”
Brendon cleared his throat.
“Did she leave a note to tell me of her plans?”
Algernon studied his fingernails.
“Not that we can discover.” He looked up again. “But that means nothing. If she suddenly found she could walk and she couldn’t raise you, she did the next thing she could to get to this specialist. You said yourself that you wanted to take her to see one.”
“But she didn’t even come to tell you that she was leaving. I think she’s made it plain that she wants nothing more to do with me.” He lifted his chin and fought the ache in his heart. “I only just caught her, and I have already lost her.” He whispered as anguish filled his tones.
Anger suddenly filled Algernon.
“So you are giving up?”
Brendon shook his head.
“It’s not a case of giving up. I forced her into this marriage, but it is clear she didn’t want it right from the start. She said last year that I was the last person she would marry. I should have taken her word for it and not been such a bloody fool.”
Confusion covered Algernon’s brow.
“What in heaven’s name are you talking about now? When did she say that?”
Brendon began pacing the room.
“Last year! You were right there when she said it, the second I woke up after you bashed me on the chin for giving her those medical books to read. You were demanding that I married her, and I was about to ask her, but she outright refused. I should have damned well listened to her instead of forcing the issue a year later. And just look at how she sniped at me on our way down here. It is no wonder she has run at her first opportunity.” He paced some more. “But I am really blaming my father for this whole debacle. If hadn’t involved himself in that stupid duel he wouldn’t have sent me to Fallows, and none of this would have happened.”
Algernon sat down heavily as he recalled the incident after his recovery from the bullet the previous year.
“But Sophia didn’t mean what she said then, Bren. That was just her pride talking. She loves you, I know she does.”
Brendon quashed the sudden surge of hope in his belly and sat down beside his friend.
“She’s never said as much. She’s never even said that she likes me.”
“And now you sound like a sulky boy. Have you told her exactly how you feel? Have you manned up told her that you love her?” Algernon turned to stare at his friend.
Brendon felt his guts twist, and it had nothing to do with the amount of brandy he had drunk.
“Well, yes, of course. Sort of, but perhaps not in so many words. But she must have known from the way I acted. I could barely go near her for fear that I might ravish her. I told her that. I think.” He scratched his head as he realized how his actions might have been misconstrued.
Algernon raised his eyes heavenward and sighed deeply.
“For God’s sake, man! How the hell do you think she can translate you telling her that you can’t go near her into meaning that you love her? Didn’t you hear what she said when we were in London? She has abandonment issues, Bren and has little experience of men. How would she know how we express our emotions? We left her for years. First with a depraved and debt ridden father and then later to the mercies of my bloody uncle. Then you abandoned her last year for Angelique and let Lucas take over. And now you have done it again, when she was paralysed and needed you most.”
Brendon stood up quickly.
“Well, she is clearly not paralysed now. Besides, I don’t see how you can construe marrying someone as abandoning them. She is the one who has left me. I have my pride, you know. There is only so much it can take.” He lifted his chin and sniffed dramatically.
Algernon forbore strangling his friend, though he really wanted to.
“And you are going to let your stupid pride stand in the way of your happiness. Is that what last night and the bottle of brandy were about? Do you think that drinking yourself stupid every time you have the chance to get close is a
ctually going to help the situation? Do you imagine that running away from her at every hurdle is going to send her the right message, or convince her of your devotion?”
Brendon hesitated before he answered.
“I should have thought it obvious that I am thinking of her feelings and sensibilities. I was being a gentleman!”
Algernon closed his eyes and pinched the top of his nose before speaking again.
“How about simply trying to be a man? Go after her. Tell her that you love her. Let her know that you only read, or played cards, or whatever it was with Angelique. Confess that you are a virgin and don’t have a clue what you are doing. Throw yourself on her mercy.”
Brendon paled.
“More like my own sword. And what if she rejects me still? I’ll look like a fool.”
Algernon threw up his hands in frustration.
“Better looking like one than actually being one.” He snapped back. “This is my sister we are talking about and you promised me that you would be there for her. You forced her into this situation. Now take some damned responsibility, and make your marriage work.”
Brendon glanced at his friend. It wasn’t often that Algernon showed displays of bad temper. His words made Brendon think of his own father’s hints at responsibility. Hints that he had ignored until forced to take them seriously. He blew out an agitated breath.
“Well, like I said before, I blame my father for all this. If he hadn’t got himself shot I wouldn’t be standing here now having this stupid argument with you. I would be reading with Angelique or gossiping with friends in the gun club.”
Algernon raised an eyebrow.
“And that is what you want to do for the rest of your life? Seems pretty shallow to me.”
Brendon’s shoulders slumped as the thought of his previous life weighed heavily. Fallows and Sophia made him feel alive. He searched his conscience and confessed the truth to himself at last.
“I know. It was bloody boring when I think about it, but I didn’t realize how much time I wasted on trivial pursuits until I came to Fallows. Damn it! I have become a yokel. I even enjoy doing the bloody gardening! And the orangery is amazing.” He whirled around as the image of all the exotic flowers sprang to life and he suddenly thought he could smell his wife, but his hopes were dashed when Felicity walked into the room.
A Promise of Pure Gardenias Page 24
