Douglas: Lord of Heartache (The Lonely Lords)

by Burrowes, Grace

  “This way,” Westhaven said, moving off toward the back of the house. “And mind you, my cattle can’t hold a candle to the Moreland teams.”

  ***

  When she was alone with Victor, Gwen resumed her seat, allowing him to do likewise.

  “They certainly cleared out in a hurry,” Victor said as he settled back in his chair. “Are you comfortable unchaperoned with me?”

  Gwen regarded him over her teacup and struggled to balance honesty with compassion. “Not entirely, though I believe you are frankly too unwell to do me bodily harm, and you’d rather discuss certain matters without an audience.”

  “Kind of you,” Victor said, brows knitted. “Now I don’t know where to begin.”

  “Find a place, because you have only forty-five minutes left to conduct this business, Victor. If you’ve left your explanation this late, the least you can do is deliver it well rehearsed.”

  “Ah, Gwen.” He gave her a sweet smile that harkened back to all of the charm and appeal he’d had when in good health. “I have missed you so.”

  The sentiment and the affection of it were honest, which was a bewildering surprise. “I have not missed you.” Also quite the truth—lately.

  “Well, good. I did not want you to miss me.”

  He sounded sincere, and Gwen was reminded that part of what had upset her so about their elopement was that Victor had never, previous to that night, struck her as capable of unkindness. “Why wouldn’t you want a former amour to miss you?”

  Amour. Vapid, silly, innocent word—and it had applied, six years ago.

  “The place to start this explanation,” Victor said, “is where it is ending, with my illness. I was aware of my condition when I courted you, Gwen. Although three different physicians had confirmed the diagnosis, I did not accept their judgment.”

  “You didn’t seem ill.” He’d been the picture of dashing young manhood, blast him and the fate that had befallen him. Gwen reached for her drink then drew back, something about the blinding shine on the service rendering the tea unappealing.

  “The illness is worst in the autumn and winter, when the coal fires are lit,” Victor explained. “The spring of your come-out, I rallied, as I do every spring and summer. I threw myself into every entertainment available to a duke’s younger son, and that included flirting with the debutantes.”

  “I was long in the tooth for that designation.”

  “You were not yet twenty and so lovely—you’re still lovely, of course, even more so—but you were different from the simpering widgeons and scheming bitches haunting the social scene. You were bright, shy, beautiful, graceful… I fell for you harder than I’ve fallen before or since.”

  “And I fell for you,” Gwen said, which was only part of the relevant truth. “I have since remedied that misstep, lest you harbor any delusions to the contrary.”

  “No delusions, my dear,” Victor murmured, regarding her wistfully. “I courted you then, sincerely, intensely, and with a burning awareness my time with you would be limited.”

  “So you proposed that we elope?”

  He shifted in his chair, the way an old man does, one who has so little flesh to pad his bones that even a cushioned seat becomes uncomfortable. It occurred to Gwen that if he tried to sip his tea—even that—he’d likely be afflicted with more coughing.

  “I proposed an elopement, yes. I didn’t want my more sensible siblings talking me out of something as selfish as taking you to wife when I knew I would not be a healthy spouse. I had not disclosed the nature of my affliction to them, but Westhaven in particular is canny. I knew I could provide for you well, of course, though I would make a widow of you all too soon.”

  Gwen put a tea cake on her plate—chocolate, Douglas’s favorite—mostly to distract herself from the emotions flitting across Victor’s ravaged face.

  “Victor, what business would it have been of your brother’s if we married or not? Many couples don’t have even five years together before one or the other of them dies, goes off to war, perishes in childbed, or otherwise leaves.”

  “True, but I did not tell you I was ill, Gwen, and in that I wronged you.”

  “That is hardly to the point”—especially considering the further transgressions he committed on their wedding night—“and I can’t think, as infatuated as I was with you, it would have made a difference.”

  Victor smiled faintly. “I do note you used the past tense.”

  Gwen scowled at him, tempted to dump the teapot in his lap, illness notwithstanding. “I am not in the habit of remaining enamored with people who treat me badly, deceive me, and then disappear from my life for years on end.”

  His smile vanished. “Nor should you be. If you believe nothing else, though, believe I regret the manner in which we consummated our vows.”

  Gwen got up and paced away from him, unwilling to hear his damned manly regrets. “You all but raped me,” she said, whirling to skewer him with her gaze. “Why?”

  He still had beautiful eyes—a lovely, perfect green, capable of mirroring such sincerity, his gaze alone could have destroyed the common sense of her nineteen-year-old self. And those eyes were so sorrowful now. Not angry, not defensive, but… profoundly sad.

  “I was losing my nerve, hence the state of semi-inebriation,” he said. “I wanted to seal your commitment to me as quickly as possible, but I couldn’t look into your eyes while I did it. It certainly wasn’t healthy for you to be in close face-to-face proximity with me, either.”

  “You hurt me,” Gwen said bitterly. “And I do not refer to the physical discomfort some women experience on the occasion of their deflowering. You abused my sensibilities, Victor, and that…”

  He waited, his gaze unflinching.

  He wanted her to administer a sound tongue lashing, to excoriate him with her words, and she simply hadn’t the heart for it. Hadn’t the energy.

  “I was so disappointed,” Gwen said. “Then you railed at me for being disappointing to you. Victor, I was as ignorant of how to please you as a grown woman can be. Why did you treat me that way?”

  This was why she’d consented to meet with him. Not because he’d asked, but because she needed to have answers, however painful or difficult it was to put her questions before him.

  “I cannot excuse my behavior in any way, Gwen, but I have had years to reflect on it, and I’ve arrived at an explanation of sorts.”

  To her horror, Gwen’s eyes had filled with tears, and she was too upset to reply. She visually cast around the room for something interesting to glare at while she blinked away her lachrymose impulses.

  Victor held out one thin, pale hand. “Come sit with me, Gwen, lest manners require I struggle to my feet. You are entitled to cry, so let’s have no stiff upper lip nonsense.”

  He was charming still. He was winsome, urbane, and thoroughly self-possessed, even as death stalked him. She hadn’t stood a chance with this man. His social skills, his intensity, the driving needs originating in his illness—they’d all conspired to render her powerless in his unfolding personal drama.

  “So explain,” she bit out, using a handkerchief—Douglas Allen’s handkerchief—to blot at her tears. The little scrap of linen bore Douglas’s scent, a significant comfort.

  “I wanted to live,” Victor began. “Being a young fellow, raised in the ducal household, I thought I was entitled to live my three score and ten, of course, and so I was angry. I was also, understandably, terrified. I wanted to live, and I did not want to be alone with my illness. The solution, it seemed, was to find a devoted bride, in whose arms I would be able to at least forget my condition for moments at a time. When I was with you, Gwen, I did forget—or almost forget.”

  “When I was with you I forgot what day it was.” In no way did she intend that as a compliment.

  “You can’t imagine what a tonic that was for me, to be
found absolutely fascinating by someone as vital and attractive as Miss Gwen Hollister. But the nasty thing about consumption is it can be contagious, or so some physicians believe. As we made our plans and then journeyed from London, that began to prey on what remained of my conscience.”

  Consumption could be contagious, and yet it also often wasn’t. “Victor, you should have told me.”

  “No doubt, I should have. You would have had two choices then, Gwen. You could have left me, showing the good sense to put your longevity ahead of your infatuation, or you could have agreed to stay with me, as my wife, and run the risk of infection to both you and any children we might have had. Neither choice had much appeal from my perspective—recall, please that I was a younger man, in many regards.”

  “So when it was all but too late, and the opportunity presented itself,” Gwen said slowly, “you gave me a third option: I could part from you enraged, happy never to see you again, and you could tell yourself you had done me a favor. You never had to suffer the fear you would indirectly cause my death, but neither would you see my regard for you fading as you grew more ill.”

  And—Gwen admitted this only silently—he’d ensured she could abandon him without guilt on her part, a kindness as backhanded as it had been profound.

  Hence his bad behavior and insults had been an effort to drive her away even before Westhaven had arrived. The scheme was stupid, desperate, and yet credible, for Victor had been young, scared, and given to dramatics.

  He was not being dramatic now. He looked disgruntled, as if Gwen had divined in a moment of hindsight what might have taken him years to put together.

  He twiddled a gold cuff link in a gesture reminiscent of the younger man, though the cuff was woefully loose on his wrist. “With the benefit of hindsight, I conclude I tried to control the terms of our parting because I was too immature, selfish, horrified, and inebriated to allow you or my illness that prerogative—and I succeeded, may you and God forgive me.”

  I will not allow us to part in anger or confusion, Guinevere… Oh, Douglas.

  “When your brother showed up the next morning, you simply turned coward,” Gwen summarized, though this honesty—and oversimplification—offered no gratification.

  “I did,” Victor acknowledged, head bowed for a long moment. “I would not give you the chance to reject me for a good reason when I could make damned certain you would for a bad one, and I told myself I was acting in your best interests at the time. I cannot think,” he paused again, “I cannot think how you can stand the sight of me even now. I can barely stand the sight of myself when I consider how terribly hurt and angry you must be, all because I could not cope with the sadness every grandfather faces when his chest pains him, or he can no longer see to read stories to his grandson.”

  Gwen considered him, while somewhere in the house, a clock chimed. The sound was a portent to her, not a death knell yet, but a reminder that her opportunity to make peace with the father of her child was also slipping away.

  Douglas’s words, about wanting to know Rose had the honor of her paternity befallen him, rang in Gwen’s ears, and as much as she wished it were not so, she had things to atone for too.

  “Victor,” Gwen said gently, “I have something to tell you, something dear and happy and precious…”

  ***

  “I told him about Rose,” Guinevere said from her place beside Douglas in the coach. “I hadn’t realized Victor was dying… Well, of course, how could I have realized? Oh, God, Douglas… he’s Rose’s father and he’s dying. What difference does it make if our marriage was valid when he’s dying?”

  Douglas shifted to wrap an arm around her, even while he fished for his spare handkerchief. He would have to order more at this rate, lest he be without one when he himself had tears to dry.

  “I’m sure there’s time to sort out the legalities, Guinevere.” Though precious damned little of it.

  “Douglas, he wants to meet her. I could not deny him.”

  “Of course you couldn’t,” Douglas soothed, though the meeting had better be soon. When he and Westhaven had returned to the parlor, Victor had looked worse than ever—exhausted, haggard, and emotionally spent. Victor hadn’t even been able to walk Guinevere to the door when it came time to leave, but had used all his strength merely to rise from his seat.

  “You are not upset?” Guinevere asked, shifting to regard him warily.

  “I have no right to be upset,” Douglas replied, but as he canvassed his emotions, he found he could be more honest than that. “I am not upset you would want Rose to have some memory of her father, or that you would want Victor to meet the unlikely blessing to result from his past bad behavior.”

  “My bad behavior too,” Guinevere said. “He asked endless questions about her, until he was too exhausted to talk and the coughing overcame him.”

  “So how are you?” Douglas asked, loving the feel of her snuggled against him, regardless of the circumstances—regardless of anything, God help him. “Are you upset your former love is dying?”

  “How can you ask me that?”

  “I am your friend, Guinevere. Even if I were your husband, I would inquire after your emotional well-being.”

  “You shouldn’t have to hear me prosing on about Victor, regardless of his illness.”

  Douglas took her hand in his, wondering with whom Guinevere would talk if she could not talk with him. She had her cousins thoroughly cowed, and she would never burden her daughter with inappropriate confidences.

  “Since you ask,” she said after a pause, “yes, of course I am upset Victor is dying. As a younger man, Douglas, he was passionate in all things. He did nothing by half measures, he lit up the whole room with his good moods, and raged without limit when he was angry. He was devoted to his sisters, and woe to any who did not treat a Windham daughter well. For all that, he wasn’t a spoiled young man, particularly, he was simply dramatic. He takes after his father in this regard. They are men of… of presence.”

  While Douglas was a man with wrinkled handkerchiefs, who at that moment would not trade places with anybody for any amount of money, charisma, or familial consequence.

  “And you told him about Rose.” Which disclosure made Douglas both proud of Guinevere, and nervous for her—and for Rose.

  “I told him, and I agreed to bring her to meet him in the park the day after tomorrow. And the look on his face, Douglas… it was as if he’d been given complete, unconditional absolution for every misdeed he’d ever committed. I have never seen a man look so pleased, as if he comprehended the mystery of life itself.”

  Maybe Victor had done just that. While the idea of this meeting sat ill with Douglas, that Guinevere would allow it was perfectly in keeping with the fundamental fairness, the graciousness, of her character.

  And in Victor’s shoes… Douglas shied away from that uncomfortable thought.

  When he ushered Guinevere into Lady Heathgate’s kitchen, they were greeted by Rose, who was having Mr. Bear join her for a tea party at the worktable while her cousin Gareth cadged biscuits from the plate before the bear.

  “I see you are entertaining,” Douglas said, scooping Rose up for a hug. “How fortunate for Mr. Bear someone made a batch of biscuits.”

  “Cook made the biscuits and Mr. Bear and I helped,” Rose reported, squeezing Douglas’s neck hard. “I have missed you, Cousin Douglas. You must stay right here while I get you your snowflake.”

  “I have a personal snowflake,” Douglas marveled, settling on the bench with Rose in his lap and a secure arm around her precious person. “How fortunate am I. Do you hear that, Bear?” Douglas cocked his head as if to listen, then frowned. “I don’t believe he’s speaking to me, Rose. Perhaps his feelings are hurt?”

  “I can make him a snowflake, too.” Rose scrambled off Douglas’s lap, and the effort it took simply to let her go nigh robbed him of speech. “I m
ade one for everybody who loves me.” She was up the stairs in a flash, leaving three adults staring at a plate of biscuits in her wake.

  “Tea, anybody?” Heathgate said between bites of his sweet. “And don’t think to avoid an interrogation just because there’s a bear present. How did matters go with Windham?”

  The marquess, like any fellow in his own mother’s kitchen, put the kettle on and ate half the biscuits. Rose handed out personalized snowflakes to the adults, then repaired to her room to fashion one for Mr. Bear. Slowly, Guinevere explained to her cousin what had transpired with Victor, and that she had agreed to introduce the man to his daughter.

  Douglas was ready to defend her decision to her cousin, but as it turned out, there was no need.

  “You are kind, Gwennie,” Heathgate said, rising to put the tea things away, “but you are also tired. Why not lie down for a while, as I’m sure the day has been trying? I’ll make certain the damned bear’s snowflake is not costing us a year’s worth of paper.”

  He shot a look at Douglas, a look portending future discussions outside of Guinevere’s hearing, then disappeared in the direction of the nursery.

  Fourteen

  “I want Cousin Douglas to carry me,” Rose said, the smallest whine creeping into her voice as she peered around the empty park.

  “Nonsense,” Douglas said. “I carried you out to the coach, Rose Hollister. It is your turn to carry me.”

  Rose looked momentarily confused, then chortled merrily. “Cousin Douglas is silly,” she told her mother, taking one of Douglas’s hands in hers. “He’s a very silly gentleman.”

  “He is that,” Guinevere said, smiling over her daughter’s head. “He’s a very silly, serious gentleman.”

  The humor in her expression died as they neared the duck pond and caught sight of two men seated on a bench. Both were dressed well, but one sat with a cane across his knees.

  Guinevere drew to a halt and knelt beside her daughter. “You see those handsome fellows there, on that bench, Rose?”