Rose nodded, eyes riveted on the pair her mother had pointed out.
“Your papa is the man with the cane. Your uncle is the other man.”
“Uncle who?”
“Why, Uncle Gayle.”
Rose must have heard the uncertainty in her mother’s voice, for the child clutched her bear more tightly. “I don’t want to meet my papa.”
“Rose…” Guinevere bit her lip and cast a helpless look in Douglas’s direction. Douglas hunkered down and tipped Rose’s chin up with his finger until their gazes met.
“It’s all right to be scared, Rose. Your papa might be scared too. Will you feel more brave if I carry you over there?”
Rose stared at the ground, allowing the smallest nod in reply.
“I will carry you then, though only as far as the bench. Then you must carry me back to the coach when we are finished.”
He lifted Rose up to his hip and caught the look of relief Guinevere gave him. It was all he could do not to wrap his free arm around her shoulders, giving both Guinevere and Rose the protection of his embrace as they met Victor. Unbidden, the memory of the morning Douglas had met Guinevere rose up, a moment carried by courage and sentiment that had indirectly started them all on the path toward this meeting.
“Westhaven.” Douglas bowed as best he could without turning loose of Rose. “Lord Victor.”
Victor rose slowly, aided by his cane, his gaze on his daughter. The adults exchanged appropriate greetings, while Douglas surreptitiously inventoried Victor’s appearance. His lordship looked if anything more pale and gaunt than he had two days earlier, though his gaze was warm, happy even, and he was smiling a damnably winsome smile.
“And who, may I ask, is this lovely young lady?”
Rose, suffering a rare attack of shyness, buried her nose against Douglas’s shoulder.
“Lord Victor,” Guinevere said, her smile as genuine as Victor’s, “may I make known to you our daughter, Miss Rose Hollister.”
Something crossed Windham’s features, a sadness mixed with surprise, but he recovered quickly, sketching a labored bow.
“Miss Rose? May I introduce you to my brother, your uncle Gayle?”
Westhaven, to his credit, reached up and grasped Rose’s hand gently in his. “Miss Rose, the pleasure is all mine.” He smiled at her, a beamish, warm smile that reminded Douglas that even Moreland himself was reportedly capable of great charm. As Westhaven bowed over Rose’s hand with mock formality, the child thawed a bit.
“You are a silly man,” Rose pronounced. “Cousin Douglas is a silly man, too.”
“Cousin Douglas,” Douglas said, “is also a man whose arms are getting tired. Down you go, young lady.”
“I have to carry him back to the coach,” Rose informed her recently introduced relations.
“You are that strong?” her papa asked in wondering tones. “Could you carry me?”
“You have to carry me first,” Rose explained. “Cousin Douglas carried me here, so now I can walk. Do the ducks bite?”
“I don’t think so,” Victor replied, “unless you are particularly sweet. They might appreciate some of the crusts of bread I’ve brought, though.”
“You can feed them?”
“We can. If you’d like to join me?”
“Mama?” Rose was all but hopping up and down, so accurately had her father guessed her nature.
“I’ll wait right here with Cousin Douglas. Perhaps your uncle Gayle might like to join you?”
“In a moment.” Westhaven handed his brother the cane. “Careful on the slope, you two. It’s slippery, and one doesn’t want to come a cropper.”
“Why is it slippery?” Rose asked, bounding along beside Victor as he made slow progress toward the pond. His answer was lost amid a flurry of honking and quacking as the waterfowl left the bank for the safety of the pond at Rose’s approach.
“Shall we sit?” Guinevere suggested.
“If you don’t mind,” Douglas addressed himself to Guinevere, “I’ll stroll for a bit. I won’t go far, but I feel a need to stretch my legs.”
He felt no such thing. He felt a need to snatch Guinevere and Rose up and spirit them far away from these charming fellows whose family was wealthy and whose papa was an autocratic old duke. Because Gwen and Rose did not need Douglas acting like that self-same, curmudgeonly old duke, Douglas took himself a short way down the path.
***
Westhaven bowed slightly as Gwen gave Douglas leave to hare off. Douglas was not abandoning her, though. His casual stroll was about trust and consideration, even though Gwen was hard put not to call him back before he’d gone less than ten yards away.
“I should have known there was a child,” Westhaven said when they had some privacy. “In hindsight, I recall seeing that stuffed bear sitting on the landing at Enfield, and Amery mentioned asking at Tatt’s about a pony when we were in the mews. Little Rose will at least have a happy memory of today. It’s more than some people have of their fathers.”
“And speaking of fathers, what will you tell yours about Rose?” Gwen had neglected to negotiate a vow of silence from both Victor and his brother before she’d revealed Rose’s existence, and that oversight haunted her.
Westhaven’s lips quirked, not with humor. “Rose isn’t mine to tell about. Their Graces should be told, though.”
“Why?”
“So they can love her, of course,” Westhaven shot back, his tone for once showing irritation. “They have lost one son and are soon to lose another, while a third is reeling from too many years murdering the French, and the fourth hides on any handy piano bench from the people who love him and worry about him. They need grandchildren to love, and I, for one, don’t understand why the patronage of such grandparents would strike you as undesirable.”
“Don’t you?” Gwen’s need to call Douglas back escalated, though he hadn’t gone far at all. “When one hears at practically every turn how old school your dear papa is? How do you think I’d fare, Rose’s unworthy mama, should my dictates as her parent conflict with His Grace’s as her grandpapa?”
Westhaven sat forward and dropped his forehead to his palm.
“His Grace isn’t… terrible,” Westhaven said over his shoulder, “but he’s ferocious, very protective, and convinced he knows best. To make matters worse, he is sometimes right, and on those occasions when he isn’t, only my mother seems able to confront him with the evidence of his humanity and survive unscathed.”
“Your description puts me in mind of my cousins.” The realization was uncomfortable. “They are both quite, quite stubborn, and equally besotted with their wives.”
“That sounds lovely, doesn’t it?” Down by the pond, Victor handed Rose one bread crust after another, the honking, flapping geese waddling closer as Rose shared her treats. “To be besotted with one’s spouse?”
“In that, at least, your parents have set an inspiring example.”
“They have.” Westhaven sat back, the picture of a handsome gentleman at ease, though Gwen could not find his company relaxing. “Victor fretted terribly about this meeting. I see that he needn’t have.”
“I fretted,” Gwen retorted. “Rose fretted, and my family fretted into the bargain. Why shouldn’t Victor fret as well?”
“Your family fretted?” Westhaven glanced at Douglas, lounging against a tree some distance off. “Your family has been kind to you and Rose these last five years?”
“To the extent I allowed them to be. Suffice it to say there have been challenges, but that is all water under the bridge, my lord. How much time would you say Victor has left?”
“Weeks, maybe less,” Westhaven said, a wealth of grief and acceptance in a few syllables. “After your visit on Saturday, he’s done little but sleep, such as he can sleep when he coughs constantly.”
“He doesn’t seem to be cou
ghing much now.”
“He’s distracted, in part, and he’s stubborn as hell. He doesn’t want Rose to remember him as an invalid.”
“She knows he’s dying.” Anybody beholding Victor would conclude as much in a single glance.
“However did you tell a child such a thing?” The question was curious rather than accusing.
“I explained that Victor did not want to risk exposing Rose to his illness, but now he is not likely to get better, so he is more worried he might get to meet Rose only in heaven.”
“God help us,” Westhaven spat. “The pain that must be endured by all as a result of this damned illness has no end. I hate it.”
Westhaven’s words bore a rare heat, and Gwen would have responded to his comment, but Rose was leading her father by the hand back toward the bench. Westhaven was on his feet immediately, offering his seat to his brother.
“Are the ducks going to sink for all the bread you’ve fed them, Miss Rose?” Westhaven asked his niece.
“No. The bread floats on the water, so it must float in the ducks as well.”
“A scientific conclusion,” Westhaven allowed. While Gwen monitored this exchange, from the corner of her eye she saw Douglas striding toward them with uncharacteristic haste. Foreboding tickled up her spine when a cultured voice spoke from the turn several yards up the path.
“I see our boys have captured the attentions of two fair ladies, my dear. Westhaven, introduce us.”
Percival, Duke of Moreland, stood smiling expectantly at his heir, a dignified blond lady of mature years on His Grace’s arm. Victor had introduced Gwen to Moreland years ago, and the duke was yet a handsome, lean fellow with snapping blue eyes and a full head of snow-white hair.
“I’m Rose.” The bright, childish soprano sailed across the brisk air like so many arrows aimed for Gwen’s heart. “This is my papa, and this is my uncle Gayle. Papa wanted to meet me before he went to the Cloud Pasture, but it’s all right, because he can visit Daisy there.”
A moment of stunned silence followed before the duchess asked, “And who, dear, is Daisy?”
“She was my pony, but she was very old. My papa is not very old, but he is quite, quite sick, and so he didn’t know me. But we came here today, and so now he knows me. We fed the ducks.”
“Westhaven.” Douglas’s voice cut into the next thick silence. “You will provide the introductions?”
While Westhaven managed that task, an expression of profound regret suffused Victor’s face. Obviously, he hadn’t told his parents anything of Rose, and consequences that might have been avoided—unpleasant consequences—were now going to rain down on Gwen from his ducal papa in torrents.
“Percival”—the duchess spoke with low urgency to her husband—“there is a child present. An innocent child.” Her reminder seemed to steady the duke, whose jovial demeanor had gone from stern to thunderous the longer Rose chattered.
The duke turned a gimlet eye on Victor. “You, sir, have much to answer for, as do you.” The last phrase was directed at Westhaven, who stood unflinching at his brother’s side.
“This is neither the time nor the place,” Westhaven rejoined. “Might I suggest Miss Rose be taken home, and the adults assemble at my town house two hours hence?”
“You may not,” Gwen interjected, glaring at the duke. “I will take Rose home and await word from her father regarding his pleasure. If he has anything to answer for, Your Grace, then Rose and I are the ones to whom he need answer, and we were having a perfectly pleasant visit until we were rudely interrupted. Lord Amery, if you don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” Douglas replied, bowing civilly to all, lifting Rose to his hip, and offering Gwen his arm before he led the ladies away. He handed them into the coach and sat down between them, an arm around each.
“Are we upset?” he asked the air in general.
“We are,” Gwen said, offering him a watery smile.
“Who was that old man?” Rose asked. “He was mean to my papa and to Uncle Gayle.”
“He was your papa’s papa,” Gwen explained, “and I think His Grace’s feelings were hurt.”
“He hurt my feelings,” Rose countered, “and the ducks ran away.”
Gwen tried again. “Your grandpapa was upset to think we tried to hide his granddaughter from him. That hurt his feelings.”
“Nobody tried to hide me,” Rose protested. “I was right there.”
“That is the perishing truth,” Douglas muttered.
“Your grandpapa hadn’t met you before, Rose, and you are already five years old.”
Rose had fixed her gaze on Mr. Bear, her expression guarded. “Don’t they want a granddaughter?”
“Of course they do,” Gwen said. Probably wanted her tucked up in a ducal nursery, never to see her mother again.
When Douglas passed his handkerchief into Gwen’s hand—she was gathering an entire collection of Douglas’s handkerchiefs—she repeated the words more softly. “Of course Their Graces want you.”
***
“You should consider going through a marriage ceremony with me, immediately.”
Guinevere stepped back, out of Douglas’s embrace, and from her expression, his suggestion had not struck her with a strong, immediate appeal.
Well, damn, what had he expected?
“Why should I do that?” she asked, wrapping her arms around her middle and pacing a few steps closer to the fire warming Lady Heathgate’s parlor.
Douglas reminded himself they were both tired. The day had been long, including explanations to Guinevere’s elder cousin, polite if strained conversation over Lady Heathgate’s dinner table, more strained and not-so-polite discussion with the marquess over drinks, and now this.
Douglas resisted the urge to wrap his arms around Guinevere again. If you are not married to Victor, then marriage to me puts any other marriage for you out of consideration, at least during my lifetime.”
Guinevere shook her head, and even that gesture looked tired to Douglas—tired and defeated. “Marrying you might make me a bigamist—don’t you think the duke will pounce on that, bring charges, snatch Rose, and so forth?”
Would Moreland brand Rose’s mother a criminal? Douglas considered the peer who’d verbally court-martialed two grown sons in the park, and came up with an answer between maybe and quite possibly.
“That is a risk. But I suspect the duke will have you marrying one or the other of his sons directly. I can think of no other way to spike his guns.”
And not for lack of trying, and trying, and trying yet again.
“One or the other of his sons?” Apparently Guinevere hadn’t allowed herself to consider that there were three ducal sons yet in whacking good health. “I may already be married to one of his sons. Whatever are you talking about?”
He was talking about a fate he could not countenance, not for Guinevere, not for himself. Douglas also could not stand to have this conversation at a distance, so he settled for taking both her hands in his.
“Assuming you are unwed, the duke will likely be unable to force Victor to marry you, Victor’s health making it harder to bully him. That leaves Westhaven, with whom you get on well enough, whom Rose has met, whom we both know to be a dutiful, marriageable son. It also leaves Valentine Windham, who, if rumors are to be believed, would have little objection to a white marriage if it allowed him to remain in the country with his music. And there’s a firstborn bastard, Devlin St. Just, who served honorably against the Corsican.”
She scowled up at him but did not drop his hands. “Where do you get such notions? The duke would not…” But her protest died, perhaps as she recalled the scene in the park. “I was worried before,” she said, going back into Douglas’s arms. “I am terrified now.”
“Don’t be terrified. You have allies, and for whatever it’s worth, you have me.” She nodded, but
Douglas knew his words had provided little comfort.
To either of them.
“You need rest, Guinevere.”
“Will you be here when I wake up?”
“I will be in my own quarters, as they’ve yet to sell,” Douglas said. “I’ll be with you in spirit until I collect you for our meeting with the Windhams. Tonight, you must sleep, and things will look less daunting in the morning.”
The door opened, admitting Heathgate. The marquess raised a sardonic brow. “Am I interrupting?”
“Yes,” Douglas replied, not removing so much as a finger from the person of the lady, for his hands upon her person had been intended for her comfort. He was immensely gratified that Guinevere also made no move to leave his embrace. For good measure, he kissed her cheek then forced himself to step back.
“Good night, Guinevere.” He looked down at her, troubled by the fatigue and upset he saw in her eyes. “Sleep well.”
He let her go and waited while her cousin wrapped her in a fierce hug before bidding her good night and sending her up to bed. An hour later, Douglas and Heathgate had each won a hand of cribbage, the brandy decanter had been soundly defeated, and yet—even aided by the brandy decanter—neither man had come up with one hopeful or encouraging thought regarding Guinevere’s dealings with the duke.
***
Westhaven had the dubious honor of moderating the discussion among the group arranged in the ducal formal parlor, and Douglas didn’t envy him the job.
His Grace wanted to bluster and rant as befit a cavalry-officer-turned-duke, Her Grace looked like she wanted to cry, Guinevere clearly wanted to leave, while Victor…
If Victor hadn’t exactly looked forward to death before, he was probably contemplating it a bit more fondly as the morning progressed.
“I am here,” Guinevere said, “at Victor’s request, and I would like to hear what Victor has to say.”
“What Victor has to say,” the duke barked, “is of no moment, young woman. You and he have conspired to drag the name of this family through the mud, to deprive my only grandchild of the loving care I would see her provided with, to upset my duchess, and to render what little honor remains to your own family a joke in very poor taste.”
Douglas: Lord of Heartache (The Lonely Lords) Page 26
