Douglas: Lord of Heartache (The Lonely Lords)

by Burrowes, Grace

  But fallen, she had—into his arms, as he’d said, but also in love.

  “Guinevere Hollister, you are in such trouble.” She’d probably fallen in love with Douglas on each of those occasions and a few more besides, and there was not one blessed thing she wanted to do about it.

  Eleven

  “I miss Daisy,” Rose announced at lunch. “Cousin Douglas, will we go home soon?”

  “We shall,” Douglas replied, which was fortunate, for Gwen could not think of a response. “Your mother and I have almost completed our business here, but we must now wait until the weather is promising to make our journey home. You could write Daisy a letter, and I’m sure your Cousin Andrew would read it to her.”

  “Mama? Can I?”

  “May I,” Gwen corrected automatically, though thoughts of home did not bring the joy and relief they ought. “Yes, and I commend you for not pelting off without asking to be excused.”

  “Can I be excused?”

  “May I,” both adults chorused. Gwen followed up with permission for Rose to leave the table, after which Rose rocketed out of the dining parlor, intent on her correspondence.

  “So we’re soon to leave for home?” She did not meet Douglas’s gaze while she posed this question. A leaden feeling settled in Gwen’s stomach, having nothing to do with Cook’s excellent meal.

  “I’d rather tarry here and let the rest of the world go hang.”

  He looked as morose as Gwen felt, which was some consolation. “Is that an irresponsible sentiment from Douglas, Viscount Amery?”

  “Irresponsible, selfish, lascivious, and heartfelt. What becomes of us when we return, Guinevere?”

  Us—troublesome, wonderful word. “I don’t know.” She dreaded the exchange that must ensue, even as she was grateful that Douglas, at least, had the courage to face it. “I can’t see beyond the fact that we must leave.”

  Douglas propped his elbows on the table—which astounding breach of etiquette Gwen found endearing—and turned the teapot in a steady circle by its handle. “As I see it, we have several options. We can continue our liaison, though it will be more difficult with family underfoot and familiar retainers about. We can allow this aspect of our dealings to come to a close and trust each other to behave civilly when our paths inevitably cross, or we can make an effort to disentangle our lives, ensuring we need not interact in future.”

  So rational, so blasted logical. “None of those options appeal.”

  “Indeed they do not,” Douglas agreed, still twirling the teapot thoughtfully. “There are others.”

  “Others?”

  “I can buy this property, and you can accompany me here as a nominal cousin, acting as my hostess and lady of the house, or you can marry me, though I understand you do not regard that possibility as realistic.”

  Douglas was persistent. Bless him and damn him, he was persistent. “Do we have to have this conversation now?”

  “We need to start it, Guinevere,” Douglas said, his tone painfully gentle. “We face a difficult business, and if we cannot come to some understanding of our preferred outcome, we could part in anger or distrust. I could not abide that.”

  “Nor could I.” Though assuredly they would part in sadness. “I have no answers, Douglas. I do not want to part from you, but neither can I see smiling pleasantly through little Lucy’s birthday party, treating you as if you were simply her dear godfather and uncle. Nor, however, can I conceive of a future without you in it, though in some ways, a clean break might heal most easily. This idea of living together here at Linden had not occurred to me, honestly, but I will give it thought.”

  She would likely think of little else.

  He left off twirling the tea pot and seemed to come to some decision. “Why, given how you say you feel, would you not allow me to marry you? Your position makes no sense to me, and I am a man who must have his plain answers and commonsense explanations. I believe you care for me, and whatever holds you back is real to you, but I wish you could share it with me. I beg you to share it with me.”

  Oh, wretched, dear man. He would offer that—that too. “The reason is very real to me, and all I can say is I am abjectly sorry. If you cannot continue to offer me your affections, I will understand.”

  Because of this much, she was certain: if Douglas knew her circumstances, he would end their liaison immediately—would never have embarked upon it, in fact.

  Douglas was silent for a moment, no doubt shifting the beads on some internal abacus.

  “I want to shout at you, Guinevere.” Douglas spoke very softly, a note of bewilderment in his tone. “I feel like shaking you, like galloping away on Regis and never looking back. This vacillation of the emotions—from ecstasy to despair in the course of a morning—is beyond what I can bear, yet bear it I shall. I sense defeat looming, though, and without even being able to name my foe. I can’t bear that either.”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I will have any place in your life you’ll allow. As Lucy’s uncle, as your former lover, as your friend, as your cicisbeo. I will leave you in peace if that’s what you ask of me, but Guinevere, it will be the loneliest, most pointless peace either of us has ever known.”

  “I know,” Gwen said, tears trickling down her cheeks. “Douglas, I know.”

  Gwen got up so quickly Douglas barely had time to get to his feet before she snatched her cousin’s letters from the sideboard and quit the room.

  What she wanted was to throw herself on the bed and dissolve into tears—except that bed was where she and Douglas had first made love. The vanity was where Douglas had taken such care with her hair. The hearth rug was where she had waited for her lover…

  She took the letters to the escritoire by the window, promised herself a good cry later, and tried to focus on the words her cousins’ wives had penned to her. When she’d read the first, never mind the second, she climbed onto the bed and cried as if her heart was broken and would never mend.

  ***

  “You didn’t see her?” Victor Windham asked again, though Westhaven’s note had been clear enough, and several days of rereading it hadn’t changed the brief contents.

  “No, I did not, and neither did I see portraits of her hanging about the place that would tell me how her looks have changed in six years,” Westhaven said, drawing open curtains to let cold autumn light fill the small parlor. “She is surrounded by a phalanx of concerned, titled, wealthy, and protective male relatives now, and a butterfly on a pin would have been more comfortable than I was taking tea with them.”

  Victor’s older brother paced the confines of the smallest family parlor in the Moreland ducal mansion, a distaste for both confinement and secrets part of his nature. Westhaven was a good sort, duty bound and conscientious about the land—also possessed of vibrant animal health, for which Victor gave thanks every night. God knew, Westhaven would make a better duke than their late brother Bartholomew would have, and he was by far a better brother than Victor deserved.

  “I appreciate that you tried,” Victor said, staring at the blanket on his lap. He was often cold of late, and their sister Jenny had knitted him the blanket. She’d used a blend of wool and angora, and the blanket’s soft, plush feel was a tactile reminder of her love. “I hope you’re willing to try again.”

  “I’ll see her, Victor, and I’ll put your request to her.” Westhaven squeezed his shoulder gently.

  Everyone handled him gently these days. Everyone except his father, His Grace, the Duke of Moreland. The duke, a hale, bluff curmudgeon of a former cavalry officer, expressed his disappointment in his remaining—woefully unwed, according to His Grace—sons at every opportunity.

  Westhaven paused to straighten a frame that held a sketch Jenny had done of her five brothers years earlier. “I will not fail you on this. Fairly seemed confident Miss Hollister would admit me, though I suspect it would be to give me a
royal dressing down.”

  “She has nothing to castigate you for,” Victor retorted. “I’m the one who used her badly and made no reparation.” None at all, though he’d intended his distance as a kindness—not that Gwen could understand it as such.

  Westhaven made another circuit of the parlor, boots thumping in the confident rhythm of excellent health. “At the time, she truly did not want to marry you, and I think you’ll find her mind unchanged. If she has any sense, she regrets trusting you. She does not regret her unwed state.”

  Guinevere Hollister had had buckets and bales of sense, and if Westhaven hadn’t met with her, he could hardly speak to the woman’s regrets. “I have to try, Westhaven.”

  The earl did not argue—Westhaven was the soul of discretion and courtesy—but instead summoned a footman to wheel Victor’s Bath chair from the room.

  Gayle Windham watched his brother’s departure with a sinking sensation that had become reflexive where poor Victor was concerned. This quest—for in Victor’s eyes, it was a quest—to offer reparation to Miss Hollister seemed to be the main reason Victor clung to life.

  And while their parents hovered around Victor, Westhaven was left to manage the vast acreage of the ducal estates. Their youngest brother, Valentine, chose to rusticate, and kept an eye on matters at the family seat in Kent, but Val was typically so lost in his music, Westhaven relied on him as little as possible. As the fourth legitimate son by birth, Valentine now approached the status of presumptive heir to a dukedom. If the title befell him, he’d have little enough time for his music.

  While Devlin, God love him, continued to jump at shadows and hear the cannons of Waterloo in his dreams.

  And God help Guinevere Hollister, because diligent, discreet searching had turned up no evidence that she’d married a man of her own choosing these past six years, meaning Victor’s scheme for her faced no impediment. No impediment whatsoever.

  ***

  Astrid and Felicity’s letters said the same thing, no matter how long Gwen stared at them, no matter how many times she reread them: Gayle Windham had come to call, and he’d introduced himself as the Earl of Westhaven. Six years ago, he’d not assumed one of the duke’s lesser titles, that being the privilege of his older brother, Bartholomew, Marquess of Pembroke, the duke’s heir. Why had Westhaven—now the ducal heir—called upon her all these years later? Where was Victor?

  And what did it all mean for Rose?

  Dread congealed in Gwen’s stomach, and her imagination threatened to gallop away with her reason. She curled on the bed, desperate prayers winging up as despair threatened to swamp her.

  When a knock on her door interrupted her flights of panic, Gwen dragged herself from the bed and opened the door to find Douglas standing in the corridor in waistcoat and shirtsleeves. He took one look at her, stepped into her room, and closed the door behind him.

  “Guinevere, what in God’s name is wrong?”

  She threw herself at him, and his arms wrapped around her, without questions, without hesitation.

  And without hope. “He’s going to take Rose,” she moaned into his shoulder. “Oh, Douglas, after years of leaving us in peace, he’s going to take Rose.”

  “Nobody is going to take Rose without a damned nasty fight,” Douglas replied, tightening his embrace. “I won’t allow it. Now breathe.”

  She gulped a breath, the scent of him calming her as much as his embrace.

  “Again,” Douglas ordered, “and let it out slowly.”

  He held her for long moments while she literally caught her breath, then walked her over to the bed, where he sat her down, fetched her a glass of water, then sat beside her.

  “From the beginning, if you please,” he instructed, taking her free hand and holding it in his lap.

  “I did not want to tell you, not ever. I’ve never told anybody.”

  Douglas looped his arm across her shoulders. “Sooner or later, we are given an opportunity to trust again, Guinevere. Whatever misery looms over you, I suspect it affects me as well, and probably every person who cares for you and Rose.”

  Before anxiety could claim the last shred of Gwen’s coherence, she made herself start speaking. “Rose’s father—”

  The words hurt. Even those two small mundane words hurt unimaginably.

  “Guinevere, I might not like what you have to tell me, but I will not judge you, and I most assuredly will not judge that dear little girl for matters far beyond her control. I am, and ever shall be, your friend.”

  Such a stern friend, though a true friend, one who would listen. The thought gave Gwen emotional ballast, as Douglas’s physical presence calmed her bodily.

  “Victor Windham,” she began again, “is a younger son of the Duke of Moreland. Victor is Rose’s father. His brother Gayle came to call on me at Enfield last week. Fortunately, David, Andrew, and Gareth were there at the time, and they received him without disclosing my whereabouts or Rose’s.”

  Douglas held up the water glass, as if he’d known this recitation had left her mouth dry, then passed her a handkerchief with three simple letters monogrammed at one corner in black thread.

  Gwen took a sip of fortitude and soldiered on. “Gayle is the brother who found Victor and me when we eloped. He knows Victor dishonored me. At my request, and then Victor’s, he did not go to his father with the tale. Gayle, however, is now using the title Earl of Westhaven, and is the Duke of Moreland’s heir.”

  “You believe they know of Rose’s existence?”

  “They easily could.”

  “I would not be so sure, Guinevere. Your own cousins weren’t aware of Rose until she was almost four. You didn’t live quietly at Enfield, you were an anchorite.”

  “This is why,” Gwen cried. “Because I didn’t want Victor’s family finding out about Rose.”

  “If she is illegitimate,” Douglas reminded her, “the father and his family have no claim on her.”

  “But what if she’s not?” Gwen wailed, five years of uncertainty loading her question with panic. “What if the damned wedding was real? What if they can make it real? Then they can take her away and I have nothing to say to it and I won’t even be able to s-s-see her.”

  She dissolved into tears, great, noisy, terrified sobs that robbed her of dignity. Douglas laid her back on the bed, straddled her, and crouched over her, sheltering her with his body. Gwen clung, wept, and clung more tightly still, while Douglas comforted her with his touch, and with his very presence. When she lay spent and boneless, and her breathing calmed, Douglas brushed her hair back from her forehead and regarded her solemnly.

  “Better?”

  To Gwen’s surprise, she was. Not as choked with fear, not as paralyzed. “A bit.”

  Douglas sat up, swung his leg over her, helped her sit, and passed her a second handkerchief, this one sporting not even a monogram.

  “I am mortified.”

  “Terrified,” Douglas countered—accurately. He settled on the bed beside her, and Gwen could feel his mind clicking away, adding facts and supposition on an internal abacus.

  “You won’t marry me because you are afraid you might be married?” he hazarded. “And any children you bore me would then be the legal issue of your first husband, Victor Windham, while he remains extant, and my union with you would make you a bigamist.”

  How calmly he referred to a felony offense.

  Douglas did not take her hand, did not wrap his arm around her, but his insight afforded a curious relief. Sooner or later, we are given an opportunity to trust again. Douglas was her opportunity, and Gwen did trust him.

  “You may add that I have possibly inveigled you into an adulterous liaison—for which I apologize,” Gwen said.

  “If you have a husband, then surely his apologies to you are the only ones that matter.”

  I love you. Gwen reached for Douglas’s hand ra
ther than offer that sentiment now.

  “You did not want to return to the shabby little chapel where the ceremony was held for fear word of your inquiry might get back to Victor, who seemed content to leave well enough alone, but you’ve always wondered about your marital status and Rose’s legitimacy. Victor has not married in the past six years?”

  “I’ve watched the Society pages. He has not married or announced any engagements.” She hadn’t watched the Society pages, she’d read them religiously. “I took that as evidence Victor was also reluctant to commit bigamy.”

  Douglas kissed Gwen’s knuckles in a manner she might have described as fierce. “Why do you believe the ceremony was genuine?”

  “I saw the marriage lines, Douglas.” Gwen unclenched her free hand, which had wrinkled his handkerchief beyond hope. “I signed a registry, and I saw our names on something that looked like a special license.”

  Douglas took a drink from Gwen’s glass. “Those things can be forged. A special license is merely writing on parchment with a seal attached.”

  “They can be forged,” Gwen agreed, “but when Victor joined me in the morning, he told me in no uncertain terms I was going to make a poor wife for the rest of his life, I had about as much passion in me as a dead fish, begetting children on me was going to be more work than any man should have to endure, and so forth.”

  Those spiteful words had wrought devastation at the time, though now they struck Gwen as petty and unimaginative.

  “I’m sorry. Victor Windham was mean, stupid, and wrong.”

  Given the utter conviction in Douglas’s tone, Gwen pitied Victor Windham should his path cross Douglas’s—and pity was one emotion she’d never thought to feel about any duke’s son.

  “I know he was wrong—now—but until his brother showed up and rang a peal over his head, Victor behaved convincingly like a disgruntled bridegroom, when he could easily have told me we weren’t really married. He saved that revelation for when Gayle barged in and found me in tears, and Victor railing against the fate he’d consigned himself to.”