by Julia Donner
Standing and stepping out from behind the desk, Asterly said, “What is it, Harry?”
“Is Lizzie here? I would like to speak with both of you.”
Asterly looked past his twin’s shoulder to where the butler stood in the open doorway. “Crimm, is Lady Asterly in the house?”
“She returned from the bank and has gone up. She expects tea to be served at the usual hour, my lord.”
“Thank you, Crimm. Have it brought in here and let her know my brother will be joining us.”
Before the butler closed the door, Harry said, “And Crimm, thank you for your help.”
Asterly waited for the door to click shut to ask his brother, “Been prying secrets from him?”
Harry tugged off his gloves and dropped them on a tabletop. “The man knows more of what’s going on in this town than anyone else. He’s full of tasty morsels. Will he accept a vail?”
“I very much doubt it. You are family and a favorite of the lady of the house. He might take umbrage and plant you a facer. He was a pugilist, if you remember.”
“Yes, before Lizzie’s father hired him to protect her,” he murmured, distracted. “Mankiller of Manchester, wasn’t he?”
“Something on that order.”
Asterly watched his brother prowl around the room, pretend to study titles on the bookshelves, and trail his fingertips across a table’s gleaming surface. He waited for Harry to say what was on his mind, and felt concern when his twin avoided it with an elusive comment.
“This is Lizzie’s favorite room, but not yours. Why do I almost always find you in here when I come?”
“Quite obvious, I should think. Elizabeth spends most of her time at home at that desk.” He gestured with his head at the massive desk with ornately carved legs. “She says its ponderous presence sets men on edge. My favorite’s elsewhere.”
“She still manages her finances?”
“And mine,” Asterly said. “What is bothering you?”
Harry stopped to stare down at the glossy shine on the toes of his boots and clasped his hands behind his back. “I’ve something important to tell you. It should wait until Lizzie gets here. Why did you say you didn’t like this room?”
“I didn’t say that. I said that my favorite room is elsewhere, and if that grin of yours is suggesting a bedchamber, that isn’t where.”
Harry smirked. “Liar.”
“Am not,” Asterly shot back, then laughed. “Well, perhaps sometimes. But truthfully, it’s the receiving room where I first met her. Are you certain you want to wait to tell me? Whatever it is, you’re bursting with it.”
The door opened and Harry went to clasp Lady Asterly’s outstretched hands. He pulled her in for a kiss on the cheek. “My thanks for allowing me to push my way in and interrupt your afternoon.”
“Don’t talk rubbish, Harry.” Over her shoulder, she said, “Crimm, lay out the tray on the table by the windows. Bring up some chairs. Come along, boys. The sun has finally pierced the fog and gloom. We shall have tea in its light.”
She sat and fussed with arranging the tray until Crimm and the servants left. “Out with it, Harry. We have been puzzling over the mystery of your disappearance this last summer.”
Harry accepted a cup. “Yes, I expected you might have some questions, especially after the abrupt way I left this morning.” He waited until they both had tasted their tea. “I’ve asked Crimm to set about the rumor that I’m seriously looking for a wife, while not letting on that I’ve already found her.” He paused. “I see that this announcement doesn’t surprise you, Lizzie. Have the gossipmongers done their worst?”
She considered the question as she set aside the saucer and held the tea cupped in her palm. “No, it isn’t that, and it isn’t that I’m not happy for you. It’s…Harry, you don’t sound happy about this decision.”
Harry carefully replied, “There are a number of difficulties attached.”
“Such as,” Asterly asked, then quickly added, “if it isn’t presumptuous of me to want the particulars?”
Harry gave up the pretense of taking tea and set the cup and saucer on the tray. “Her family would much rather she married someone else. Someone more morally and sociably acceptable.”
Outrage stiffened Asterly’s spine. “Which is to say, someone not likely to call it off and leave her at the altar.”
Asterly understood the reason for the insult to Harry’s character, but that didn’t stop his elder brother sentiments from rushing to his twin’s defense. “I don’t much care for their snobbery, whoever they are. Our family has been in Kent since the conqueror days and that stupid girl’s accusations are nothing but lies.”
Lady Asterly chimed in, “Everyone in town knows you didn’t jilt the chit. She’s already contracted to some idiot fool enough to have her. She isn’t worth a discussion.”
Harry said, “It’s good of you both to tolerate the ridiculousness that continues to follow me. It’s gotten more than a little tedious the last years.”
Asterly subdued his outrage. “If you won’t allow us to knock about the source of this insult, then we must switch reins. Tell us something about the lady you have in mind.”
Lady Asterly added, “My exact thoughts. And who are her people that they think they can deal you an insult? I’ll have their names, if you please, and let them know they can’t—”
Harry reached out and clasped her wrist. “Calm, Lizzie love, and thank you, but they do have reason for concern.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I care nothing for their reasoning. If Peregrine doesn’t take them down a peg, I shall.”
Harry released her wrist. He leaned back in his chair and briefly closed his eyes. Asterly stilled from the drastic alteration of his brother’s face. Harry’s moods were mercurial and often showy, but he hadn’t seen this side of his brother since their mother’s passing.
After raking a hand through his hair, Harry said, “Her family rightly pointed out that they have ample cause for distress. Olivia has been a reclusive widow for over a decade. From all that I can tell, her late husband, Reverend St. Clair, left her penniless and at the mercy of the dictates of her family, who are severe in their beliefs and opinions. Very strict.”
“High sticklers or not,” Asterly inserted, “they have no right to abuse your character with no cause other than gossip. I agree with Elizabeth. Who are these people?”
Harry picked up his neglected teacup. “Olivia St. Clair is the grandchild of the Duke of Godolming.”
Lady Asterly paused before saying, “The Mainstay family? They are a prickly lot, but still, they boast of being Christian. All that piety and yet they treat you with no sign of tolerance or compassion?”
When Harry inhaled and straightened his shoulders, Asterly knew the bad part, the issue that bothered Harry most, was about to come out. In a smothered voice, Harry said,” I must confess that the source of their poor opinion of me is entirely mine to own. Mrs. St. Clair never had a blot on her reputation until I came into her life. She did me a great favor by taking care of me while I was injured. She’s the one who sewed my face back together. She gave no thought to herself, only to help. I repaid her with dishonor. I didn’t leave her house when I was well enough to be on my way.” He swallowed and said, “Because I’d fallen quite madly for her, you see, and selfishly did everything I could to stay in her company. I quickly came to realize that I would never again be much of anything without her.”
When Harry broke off, Asterly quietly asked, “Am I to understand that this is a lasting attachment? Quite serious?”
Gaze fixed on the floor, Harry nodded. When he drew a mask over his thoughts and said nothing, Asterly continued. “Nevertheless, even though you’ve made a reputation for yourself, people think of you as good at heart. I don’t understand the Mainstay’s position, and if Mrs. St. Clair has been a widow for a decade, surely she is old enough to make up her own mind. Does she not return your affection?”
“I believe she could eventually form
a lasting attachment, but that’s not the difficulty. She must marry immediately. We must. She’s…enceinte.”
Asterly heard his wife’s soft gasp but didn’t take his eyes from his brother’s closed-off expression. “I see. Since last June?”
Lips pinched, Harry jerked a nod. Asterly watched Elizabeth reach out and grip Harry’s arm. She fully understood the depth of Harry’s devotion once it was given and how much he loved children and grieved for the illegitimate boy he couldn’t claim. He’d had to disavow all connection to the child he’d fathered in an adulterous affair. No one realized that every day of denial, every instance of looking away, cost Harry acute pain.
Harry’s hopeful gaze sought Elizabeth’s. “Are you ashamed of me, Lizzie?”
“Only that you would ask or believe such a thing of me,” she scolded and promised in a congested voice, “Allow us to help. You merely have to ask. We don’t want you to think us interfering, but we must be allowed to make this awkward situation more tolerable. We can make it easier for you and Mrs. St. Clair. We’ll find a way to get her family to change their attitude.”
Asterly added, “Would you like me to have a word with the bishop?”
The flash of his brother’s bravado returned when Harry smirked. “I’m ready for anything the duke and the bishop may throw at me. It’s Olivia. She may not…may prefer not to have me. I come with a great deal of embarrassing history.”
Shaking her head, Lady Asterly said in an admonishing tone, “Harry, never tell me that you couldn’t persuade her to accept.”
“Lizzie, not everyone thinks of me as the prize you are wont to believe. Even Perry, here, admits to my faults. But yes, she will have me. The point is that I didn’t want her feeling coerced. That’s the rub. One would rather be eagerly accepted than have to persuade someone into acceptance.”
Asterly abruptly said, “Wed her and worry about the rest later. It’s been three months. You haven’t the time to dither.”
A discreet tap on the door announced Crimm’s interruption. “Begging your pardon, my lord, but His Grace has arrived.”
Asterly stood. “I forgot about Wellington. Did you set him up with a decanter of the superior sort?”
“Yes, my lord, and he is asking for her ladyship to come with you.”
“Please tell him we’ll be with him in a moment.”
Harry felt a measure of pluck restored to his failing heart when his brother paused by his chair to grasp his shoulder in a bruising grip. “Well, Hare, I find myself finally able to repeat what you said to me in a comparable situation. Thank you for making me an uncle. Now I must beg leave. Elizabeth?”
“Tell Arthur I shall be along directly. He’ll quite understand if you explain that it has to do with family.”
His brother gave Harry’s shoulder a last squeeze before dropping his hand. “I am sorry to leave you like this.”
“Not at all, Perry. I’m quite puffed with the knowledge that I’ve taken momentary precedence over the great man.”
After the door clicked shut, Elizabeth waited in silence for him to speak. When he didn’t, she shuffled her chair closer to his and captured his hands. He suffered her searching gaze, not knowing what to say, how to start.
She did. “I have never seen you this out of countenance. There is more. What grieves you so?”
Long-suppressed emotions surged up, choking his throat, threatening to unman him when he needed so much to speak. He bit into his upper lip to quell his lack of control, from holding it all inside for the last miserable months of wondering and worrying. When the tightness in his chest eased, he slipped a hand from her grasp to rub his thumb over the back of her hand. He needed somewhere to direct his attention other than the sympathetic ache flooding her eyes.
“I’ve never said how much joy I’ve found from being around you and Perry. There’s an overflow in the presence of your marriage. It’s more than mere marriage. There is nothing that you would not do for each other. All either of you has to do is ask and it is done with complete trust and willingness. Your connection is so profound a friendship that there is no breaking its perfect commitment.”
“But why should that impact your present situation and be the cause of such anguish?” she prompted. “And Harry, I can see how distressed you are.”
“Lizzie, I’m ashamed to admit to a sort of despairing envy. As much as I felt true happiness for you and Perry, I had given up hope of ever finding something so marvelous for myself. It is rare, you know, what you and Perry have.”
“Yes, I do know, and at one time became so furious with him for risking it that I ran away. If not for the loan of your fastest team for Peregrine to follow, I might still be hidden in some Alpine chalet. And this is the cause of your distress, that your association with Mrs. St. Clair might not provide the relationship you aspired to?”
“Partly. Last June, for a few hours, I understood what it is like to share another’s heart with complete openness and trust. Laughter and utter peace. The shining joy of it, Lizzie, it still takes my breath. And then to have it wrenched away. I let that happen. Pride talked me out of staying and fighting for her. As you would do for Perry, wouldn’t you? If someone threatened you or your relationship?”
A grim shadow flattened her glare into an eloquent statement of what she would do. She glanced away and when she looked back, the scary expression was gone. “Then why do you worry?”
“I know what it meant to me, what it means to me now, but I have no assurance that she returns my devotion. She may be resolved to accepting a marriage to me to provide for the child. And yes, there is nothing wrong in that, but I’m selfish, Lizzie. I want that peace back. I want what you and Perry have.”
A catlike slyness gleamed in her eyes. “Then we shall devise a strategy.”
“I’m not sure there is a way to force someone to love.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“That look you have in your eyes is a bit disconcerting. I’m not sure I should ask what you advise.”
“My dearest Harry, the ways to obtain a woman’s heart are not difficult. It merely wants what it wants. You must decipher exactly what that might be and provide it. What does your Mrs. St. Clair want?”
Chapter 16
A tap on the bedroom door sent Olivia’s heart racing. She stared at her image in the long mirror, while straining to hear what the maid discussed with the footman in the doorway. Harry had arrived thirty minutes ago and did not expect to be long in his interview with her father. Documents were being signed, irrevocably tying her to Harry. Dismay slid through her veins, cold and discouraging. Dread’s emotional weight slowed her pulse. Plain, boring Olivia Mainstay would now be expected to hold the interest of the brilliant Handsome Harry? It had to be the joke of the century.
The irony of her future taunted. She would have her dream, the love of her life, but only due to obligation. Something about her attracted him in a physical way but that wouldn’t last for long. The day would come when he would do as most men of their class did and resort to the excitement and newness of a mistress. How she would survive that, she didn’t know and couldn’t think about. She wished, as she did every day, that she had someone to confide in, to ask if there were a way to keep one’s husband from straying.
She turned to her image in the long mirror. Nausea in the morning, something she never had with her first pregnancy, had plagued her for months, only fading the last week to mild queasiness. Her companion told her that it would disappear altogether quite soon, but the disinclination to look at anything but toast and tea for weeks had the benefit of her losing a great deal of weight. Although Mrs. Oliphant lacked as a confidant, she was an excellent seamstress, but her eyesight had started to fade, which meant Olivia had a seamstress brought to the house to take-in her riding dress. Her father had insisted on new gowns, declaring her style sadly uninspired and an embarrassment. He knew as well as she that there had scarcely been enough money for food and certainly nothing left over for clothe
s.
But that reminded her of one thing she did well. She’d forgotten about her excellent riding skills. There had never been a horse that she’d met that she hadn’t liked. Even the mean-natured ones, she adored them all. She’d grown up to believe the old adage of nothing being better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse and that it also held true for women. She missed having a horse of her own—the calming, contemplative rides—and rather than living with the ache of doing without, she’d taught herself to avoid the loss by not thinking about it. The duke kept a magnificent stable in town, but she never dared to leave the house, even for an early morning ride. She visited the mews every day, but the dread of encountering Harry kept her from riding out. Now that the first meeting was over, and not nearly as complicated as she had expected it to be, she could look forward to today’s outing.
Her reflection in the long glass looked unfamiliar. All in black, with the exception of blazing white blouse and primly tied stock, her figure looked slimmer and elegant. Prior to the weight loss, she had too much bosom for riding comfortably and had required painful binding. She only required a snug vest now, but so much black did make her look somewhat like a crow. The short curls twining at her collar helped to soften the stark appearance.
There was nothing she could do about the habit now. She had no sense of fashion and wouldn’t know how to make a flashy show. Her governess had made that failing readily understood on the day she’d met Harry. She had muttered, while tying pink ribbons in Olivia’s hair—as Aunt Charlotte had demanded—that it wasn’t much different than primping a prized sow. Her aunt had agreed but insisted that something must be done to draw attention from Olivia’s unfortunate plainness.
She pushed aside a memory that continued to sting and turned away from the mirror. Primping would only serve to make a cake of herself next to Harry’s effortless splendor. After tugging on her favorite tan gloves, she tucked a handkerchief into her pocket and went out the door the maid held open. Lips pressed into a line of determination, she strode the long passageways and down the stairs. Harry waited for her in the vestibule. He looked up with a small, encouraging smile and a gaze of adoration that appeared sincere. How did he do that? No wonder everyone loved him.
