Douglas: Lord of Heartache (The Lonely Lords)

by Burrowes, Grace

  She stood abruptly, bringing Douglas to his feet as well. She was so intent on escaping him and his eyes and his veiled remarks and the lingering sense of a privacy she could not have described, that she collided with David at the door.

  “Well, good morning,” David said, steadying her by the upper arms. “Late for an audience with the Regent, are we?”

  “I’m going to fetch Rose,” Gwen said at the same time Douglas volunteered, “She’s anxious to leave my dubious company.”

  “That’s easily understood,” David allowed, bending to kiss Gwen’s cheek. “You look lovely this morning, Gwennie. But please do bring our Rose down to grace the table. It’s what Douglas deserves for being rag-mannered so early in the day.”

  “You’re a big help,” Douglas groused as Guinevere fled them both.

  “Turn loose of that teapot, old man, or you’ll see just how charming I can be first thing in the morning. Gwennie didn’t eat much.” He took Gwen’s seat and went to work on her unfinished toast.

  “She’s flustered this morning, no doubt in anticipation of your departure.” Douglas picked up a section of the three-day-old Times Guinevere had been pretending to read, though it struck him as odd that she’d been perusing the society pages.

  “Flustered?” David studied a piece of thoroughly buttered toast. “She looked more peeved to me, but then, what do I know?”

  “More than you should,” Douglas muttered from behind the paper. He was staring at some inane piece about the Duchess of Moreland’s daughters all appearing attired in pastels on the occasion of the Windham family hosting a hunt ball at the ancestral seat in Kent—who reads this drivel?—when Rose bounded into the breakfast room.

  “Cousin David!” She greeted Fairly with an exuberant hug, which his lordship obligingly bent at the waist to accommodate.

  “Morning, Poppy,” he said, holding his toast away while she embraced him.

  “Cousin Douglas!” Rose bounced around the table and headed for Douglas.

  “Good morning, Rose.” He felt a twinge of smugness when she scrambled up onto his lap, scooting around until she was facing the table.

  Well, more than a twinge, really. Fairly frowned at them then went back to reading the paper without making a single comment, while Douglas spread butter and sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on Rose’s toast, then cut off the crusts and sliced it into triangles.

  “Mama fixes my toast exactly like this. I love my toast.”

  “Your mother’s guidance in all things is to be treasured,” Douglas said. He poured a slosh of tea into a cup, added a significant amount of cream and two sugars, and set it within Rose’s reach, but not so near she might spill it by accident.

  While Fairly pretended to peruse the newspaper, his expression bemused and possibly a bit puzzled.

  ***

  As Guinevere and Rose hugged Fairly good-bye, Douglas stood a short distance away, wanting nothing more than for the moment to be over. There was work to be done, for God’s sake, and it wasn’t as if Fairly were going off to war.

  “Safe journey, Fairly.” Douglas extended a hand as his lordship at last prepared to mount. Fairly took the proffered hand and used it to pull Douglas against him in a hug.

  “See to our womenfolk, Amery,” Fairly said before thumping him once on the back—rather stoutly—and releasing him. “And send word if you need anything.”

  “Of course,” Douglas replied, deciding it was a mercy the idiot man hadn’t kissed him.

  “I’m off.” Fairly swung up onto his mare. “I’ll see you all at Christmas, if not before.”

  He touched the brim of his hat with his crop and cantered down the drive.

  “He rides well,” Douglas observed. Rose, perched on her mother’s hip, was waving her handkerchief and bellowing further good-byes to Cousin David, who had disappeared past the curve in the drive.

  Guinevere surprised Douglas by shifting to stand directly at his side and resting her head on his shoulder. Grooms in the stables and all manner of people at the house might see her leaning against him, the child in her arms, but Douglas understood the emptiness parting left for those remaining behind. He slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her against him more snugly.

  They had stood like this the day they’d met. To feel her body close to his now, to know the strange void left by Fairly’s parting was not Douglas’s singular burden, was a novel and profound comfort.

  “I miss Daisy,” Rose said. “And Cousin David and my other cousins.”

  Guinevere put Rose down, shot a rueful smile at Douglas, then tucked one hand into his and the other into Rose’s.

  “That’s the trouble with loving people, Rose,” Guinevere said. “You miss them sometimes. But you will see all of your cousins again soon.” She began walking them toward the house. “Do you also miss Hester’s sisters?”

  “A little.”

  “Then it’s a good thing you’ll get to go play with them again this afternoon.”

  Rose brightened. “I may? I promised to bring paper with me when I visited, so we can make snowflakes for the windows.”

  “I’m sure they’ll enjoy that.” Guinevere chattered on, distracting her daughter from the sadness of dear Cousin David’s absence, and offering to bake some biscuits to send along to the vicarage.

  “Biscuits!” Rose dropped her mother’s hand and scampered ahead of the adults, leaving Guinevere and Douglas walking hand in hand.

  “Do cousins normally hold hands?” Douglas asked.

  “I don’t know.” She kept her hand in his and sounded toweringly unconcerned. “Andrew often takes my hand, though Gareth isn’t as demonstrative. I am still not quite comfortable with all of Andrew’s hugging and so forth, but he is attempting to provide me what he thinks I need. I accept that, and understand, as you pointed out, I hurt his feelings when I don’t try to meet him halfway.”

  “I’d say you’re a bit past halfway,” Douglas observed, squeezing her hand. “And I daresay Fairly, whom I saw kiss you three times this morning, would agree.”

  “He did, didn’t he?” she said, looking thoughtful. “And you have yet to kiss me even once today. Fancy that.”

  She strolled off toward the kitchen, leaving Douglas in her wake—unkissed but proud of his lady nonetheless.

  ***

  “Douglas?” Gwen came upon him, boots propped on the corner of his desk and a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose. She drew the glasses away and tried them on herself when he rose.

  “Gracious. These would spare the eyes considerable effort.” She took the spectacles off and handed them to Douglas. “They make you look professorial. Even more distinguished and proper than usual.” They called attention to his eyes, too, which were a gorgeous, piercing shade of blue.

  “But you know better, don’t you, Guinevere?” He abruptly seemed about as professorial as a great golden jungle cat, as if he’d moved closer without shifting his feet. “You know I am not always so proper, hmm?”

  “I know no such thing, Douglas Allen,” she retorted, unwilling to step back when proximity allowed her to inhale the spice and starch scent of him. “You are a gentleman under all circumstances.”

  He raised an eyebrow then handed her a sheet of foolscap covered with elegant, flowing script. “My report to Greymoor, to which you may append any editorial comments you deem appropriate.”

  “Duly noted.” Gwen withdrew to the sofa and not entirely for the cushions it offered. “Cook said something odd in the kitchen just now. The staff supports your purchase of Linden, thinking you would be an improvement over Andrew’s absentee efforts, but Cook also said, regarding the steward, ‘That one didn’t know as much as he thought he did.’ She used the past tense, as if the man has left his post.”

  Douglas sat at the desk and twiddled a white quill pen in elegant hands—elegant hands capable of endle
ss tenderness. “That might explain why the books are in such disarray, but it leaves us with the question of who made the peculiar entries if the original steward has departed.”

  Douglas’s fingers brushed softly over the feather, which sight did queer things to Gwen’s middle.

  “You mean, whom is Andrew paying to lie to him and falsify his records?”

  “Precisely. I would rather we came across a steward who was lax in his bookkeeping than a liar.”

  “You won’t buy the property now?” And did she want him to? This corner of Sussex was not close to Surrey, not as close as London was.

  “I don’t know,” Douglas said, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Have you considered buying it?”

  “Me? I haven’t the money, and Andrew isn’t offering it to me.”

  Douglas regarded her steadily. “As trustee of Rose’s funds, you could certainly use them to provide a home for her.”

  “Good heavens.” Was he exhorting her to put the money to that use? Was he relieved to think she might be distant from him when their task—journey, whatever—was complete? “I could. But I won’t.”

  He tossed the quill on the desk. “Why not? If not Linden, then why not find some nice, pleasant little estate and become not simply its steward but its de facto owner?”

  “I’ve never considered such a thing.” Dreaming about something was not the same as considering it. “Enfield is our home, and Rose can use the money to choose her own home, or for her settlement, should she marry.”

  “By the time she marries, if she marries, that trust will hold far more money than Rose would need as a settlement, and you have more expertise than she will have at choosing and maintaining a valuable property.”

  Gwen wanted to argue—she also wanted to kiss him. Douglas was relentlessly rational but also not… not wrong.

  “What you’re politely implying is that I, as the fallen woman, will have more need of the funds than Rose, who may find a decent man to overlook the shortcomings of her antecedents.”

  But being a proud fallen woman, a stubborn fallen woman, she’d made it impossible for her cousins to provide her any wealth directly.

  Douglas picked the feather up and stared at it as if he’d no notion how it had fallen to his blotter. “And if I offered to marry you?”

  The question was quiet—Douglas dealt his most telling blows quietly. “I’ve already told you I have no interest in even discussing the word. None.”

  How convincingly she lied, for the notion of marriage to Douglas fascinated her.

  Douglas took a seat beside her on the sofa, hunching forward so she saw his face only in profile. “I’d be a bad bargain, anyway, though I don’t like to think of you alone for the rest of your days, subsisting through your daughter, serving the Alexander family business without reaping much reward from it.”

  She rubbed his back between his shoulder blades, a gesture she’d never offered a grown man. “You would not be a bad bargain, and my life at Enfield is good. I have security and meaningful employment, and the Alexander family business is what has allowed Rose’s trust to be so generously endowed. You are in a strange mood.”

  “That feels good,” Douglas said, his shoulders relaxing under her continued touch. “And I am feeling a bit off. Fairly was good company, but he has a disconcerting habit of seeing one too clearly and wanting to discuss what he sees. Still, I had expected to be relieved at his departure.”

  “One misses one’s friends,” Gwen said. Like she was going to miss Douglas. “Particularly when they are few in number.”

  “And then what does one do with the… loneliness?” Douglas asked, the note of bewilderment in his voice suggesting the question had taken even him by surprise. “I was defined for so long by the conviction that if I were a decent fellow and occupied myself with the family’s finances assiduously, then my life would unfold as it should.”

  He would describe the archangel Michael as a decent fellow, and refer to slavish devotion as mere assiduousness.

  “And now,” Gwen said, “despite your efforts, the family finances are in difficulties, but what do they matter, when you have essentially no family left worth claiming?”

  Douglas glanced at her over his shoulder, a self-mocking acknowledgment of her question in his gaze.

  “Somewhere, Douglas,” Gwen said, her hand drawing slow patterns on his back, “you lost sight of, or were not permitted to keep in sight, the person you are. You like animals and sweets and taking care of things. You have a good, rational head for business, and you are shy, but people like you too. You are a gracious host and inspire loyalty in your staff. You are patient, kind, and honorable, every inch a gentleman.”

  His shoulders dropped on a sigh. “I don’t know this paragon you describe, for he exists only in your imagination. I’m trying to get under your skirts, so you must attribute virtues to me I don’t have.”

  And sometimes, he was not so rational after all. She tugged on his earlobe.

  “That’s my point. You don’t know this paragon, you don’t appreciate him, you don’t take pride in what he has accomplished and in what he plans to accomplish. You don’t love him; you don’t protect him from the abrasiveness and carping of your more critical self.”

  Gwen dropped her forehead against Douglas’s back, wondering where on earth such blunt words had come from. “I’m sorry, Douglas, I have no right to speak to you thus.”

  He drew her arms around his waist.

  “Don’t stop now, Guinevere. Whoever this fellow is, he sounds like an improvement on your present company. I should like to meet him.”

  “Oh, Douglas,” she whispered, squeezing him tight. “You are an awful man, an awful, lovely man. And you are not trying to get under my skirts.”

  “Not at the moment, no. Though we could lock that door and remedy the oversight.” He sounded utterly serious—but then, Douglas always sounded utterly serious.

  “In broad daylight, in the library?”

  Douglas got up and locked the door. He turned, his expression… exceedingly determined.

  “I will not importune you for favors you are unwilling to give,” he said as he stalked closer. “I will stop if you ask it of me, and I will not cause you pain.”

  “Here?” Gwen repeated, her insides going to riot. “Now?”

  Though why not? She’d surprised her menials in all manner of unlikely locations—also her married cousins.

  “Not here,” Douglas replied, sitting on the low table before her, “and not now, because I won’t have our first consummation in one of the public rooms of the house, when anyone could knock on that door.”

  “Then why…?” Gwen glanced meaningfully at the library door.

  “I want to kiss and cuddle a bit.”

  “You don’t look cuddly, Douglas.” Many a baby had no doubt been conceived in the midst of kissing and cuddling a bit.

  “Then you shall have to help me acquire the knack.”

  ***

  “Fairly claims there’s billing and cooing going on in rural Sussex, though he saw no direct evidence of it.” Andrew passed the letter to his brother, a proposition made dicey when his horse refused to stand still in the chilly air of an autumn afternoon.

  Heathgate stashed the epistle in the pocket of his riding jacket and nudged his gelding forward. “If there’s no direct evidence, then how does Fairly reach his conclusions?”

  Andrew’s horse, Magic by name, chose to passage along next to Heathgate’s less athletic—or excitable—mount. “Gwen kissed him good-bye.”

  A low-hanging branch momentarily interrupted conversation.

  “If kissing Fairly would inspire him to leave, I might have to try it myself,” Heathgate said. “One does worry about our Guinevere, though.”

  Heathgate was head of the Alexander family, which position gave him a warrant to worry ab
out all and sundry, though he’d seldom admit as much in words.

  “One worries about Douglas, too, but mostly, one worries for Rose.” Andrew could say this only because of the little blond, blue-eyed sprite ruling over his nursery—and over his heart. “Do you realize that in five years on earth, Rose has probably never been to Sunday services, never been farther from home than the village on market day, never galloped her pony beyond the bounds of Enfield?”

  “She’s too young to gallop.”

  “She’s our kin,” Andrew said, slowing his horse to a point approaching the trot in place known as piaffe. “She’s not too young to gallop, though Daisy is too old.” And getting older as the days turned chillier. Andrew had cleaned his horse pistol even as he’d also prayed fervently for a mild winter.

  “Children raised in the country often stick close to home until they’re older,” Heathgate said. “Will you stop showing off?”

  “Piaffe is not showing off,” Andrew said, then he collected the horse further, into a few seconds of the crouching rear called pesade. “This is showing off.” When Magic’s front hooves dropped to the ground, Andrew petted the gelding soundly on the neck, which only provoked the beast back into passage.

  “To look at that animal, one would never suspect him of the potential you’ve found in him,” Heathgate said. “Well done, baby brother.”

  Heathgate had seen the horse first and given him to Andrew, though if Andrew made that point, an argument would ensue. Magic was a sensitive fellow and did not care for argument of any kind.

  “Magic puts me in mind of Douglas,” Andrew said as they approached the fork in the trail at which his path would diverge from his brother’s. “One tends to underestimate them both.”

  “We’re back to the billing and cooing,” Heathgate said, bringing his chestnut to a halt. “A crooked pot needs a crooked lid, and if Felicity says Douglas and Gwen would suit, then I believe her.”

  “Douglas and Gwen are not crockery. Fairly says Gwen kissed him good night too, readily took his proffered arm, was heard to laugh when playing cards, and has allowed Rose to make the acquaintance of the hooligans from the local vicarage.”