The Countess

by Catherine Coulter

  He cursed, let my chin go, and resumed his pacing. At the far end of the library, he called out, “You can’t be marrying him for social position, and certainly not for money. For God’s sake, you’re rich and you are the granddaughter of a duke. You can look as high as you wish for a husband, and that includes a man who still has his own teeth, has his feet planted firmly in this century and not in the last, a modicum of energy, some muscle, and a flat belly.” He paused for a moment and took a deep breath. “Oh, the devil. Listen, Andy, I know it has been difficult without Grandfather. And I wasn’t here to help you. But I had responsibilities, and you told me you understood. Ah, curse me. That doesn’t really say much of anything, does it? Look, I’m sorry I chose to remain in Paris rather than come back to London to be with you. I’m sorry. You’re not marrying this man because you’re punishing me, are you?”

  Men, I thought, did they honestly believe that everything revolved around them? That all of a person’s decisions and actions had to, perforce, put them in the very center?

  I felt tears sting my eyes. Grandfather had always been in the center of things, and I had never minded, never even thought about it. Dear God, how I missed him. The memories sometimes overwhelmed me. They did now, and I just couldn’t stem them. I knuckled away the ridiculous tears. Grandfather had disapproved of tears, actually hated them. I think now it was because my grandmother had cried very seldom, and when she did, it always brought him to his knees. If they were arguing, she could cry without saying a word, and he’d curse in a whisper, fold up, and unconditionally surrender.

  “I’m sorry, love,” Peter said, coming down on his knees next to my chair. “I’m so sorry.” And he pulled me into his arms.

  I laid my head on his shoulder. There weren’t any more tears, but the feel of him, the strong beat of his heart against my chest, the smell of him—musk and lemon—it was all so very familiar, so beloved, it all filled my memories with belonging, with acceptance, with unconditional love.

  “Come, tell me about it,” he said as he lightly stroked his big hands over my back.

  I stayed where I was, leaning into my cousin’s shoulder. I didn’t want to tell him anything. I just wanted to stay where I was, and have him be silent. Just hold me, I wanted to tell him. Don’t demand anything of me.

  Of course he did. “Tell me, Andy. Tell me.”

  Chapter Three

  There was no hope for it.

  I said at last, my voice dry now because the tears had faded into the old pain, “When Grandfather died, I had no one to help me. Miss Crislock is a distant cousin, and she has been with me forever, but she always viewed Grandfather with a mixture of fear and anxiety. She had no wonderful memories of him like I did, just autocratic ones. I would say something to her about when he did this or that, and she would just stare at me and say, ‘now, now, my dear child.’ I suppose I just stopped talking since there was no one else.”

  His big hands continued rubbing my back. “You could have written to me. You could have told me to get my selfish hind end home.”

  “No, it was impossible. I did try to write to you, several times, but the words just wouldn’t come. I felt stupid and helpless. And very alone. Then I met this man, no, not met. I just happened to see him on three different occasions. He wanted to meet me, but I wouldn’t allow it. He found out from Lord Anston who I was. He said he knew you.”

  “What is his name?”

  “I don’t know. Well, his first name is John. He made me laugh, and he laughed at things that came out of my mouth. He was marvelous with George.”

  “I know at least half a dozen Johns. No hint of a last name? Or anything about his family?”

  I shook my head.

  “All right, get on with it, Andy. It won’t get easier with waiting. Spill it.”

  “All right. About two months ago, the earl came to the house. He told me that his father had been one of Grandfather’s dearest friends, that he himself had admired and respected Grandfather for nearly all his life. He was kind to me, always sincere and direct. He was never cloying or oozing that false sympathy that drives me to the brandy bottle.”

  I paused a moment and smiled when I felt him chuckle. “He made me feel that he understood the sudden emptiness, the god-awful pain of it all. But he didn’t treat me like a helpless female in need of a man’s care.

  “We talked of Grandfather, for even though Grandfather had been his father’s close friend and not his, still, he told me, he and Grandfather had been friends. He said that Grandfather had made his entry into the ton easier by sponsoring him at White’s and the Four Horsemen’s Club.”

  Peter frowned. “I never heard Grandfather mention the Earl of Devbridge before, either the former or the current earl. The Devbridge family name is Lyndhurst. Lawrence Lyndhurst. I’ve heard his name mentioned in passing, but I’ve never met him, never heard talk of him. Doesn’t that seem rather strange to you, Andy?”

  I nodded. “Yes, it did, and so I asked the earl why we had never met before. He said that after Grandfather married and retired to Yorkshire that he and Lawrence’s father had lost track of each other. Then Lawrence met Grandfather when he was a young man here in London.”

  “It’s strange,” Peter said. He must have felt me tense because he patted my back. “It’s all right. We’ll work this all out. Tell me more.”

  “He asked me to marry him three weeks ago. Listen, Peter, I’m not right out of the schoolroom. I’m twenty-one years old, a woman grown. I’ve given this a lot of thought. Grandfather believed I had a good brain. Please, you must try to understand. I’m not being silly or flighty or pathetic, none of those things. I’ve given it a great deal of thought. I know that Lawrence can offer me the kind of life I want and need.”

  Peter pulled away from me. He rose, towering over me, a method of intimidation I’d learned that men used whenever they were losing ground, particularly to a woman. “That is no answer,” he said. “Dammit, Andy, what do you want and need—another grandfather?”

  I jumped to my feet, then climbed up onto Grandfather’s leather chair. It made me at least a foot taller than Peter. “That was uncalled for,” I said, leaning toward him, my nose nearly touching his. “What do you know of my wants and needs? You only see me as the little twit who worships you, but you don’t know me as a person, Peter, as a woman, a grown woman.”

  “That’s absurd, and you know it.”

  “Ha,” I said. “You’re a man. You’re free. You decided you wanted to fight Napoleon. Even as Grandfather’s heir, you hared off, putting yourself in harm’s way, not worrying that anyone would criticize you or condemn you for pleasing yourself.

  “Can you even begin to imagine what would happen to me if I decided that I wanted to travel, say, with just a companion? Goodness, I would be locked away in Bedlam or utterly condemned by friends and foes alike. It isn’t fair. Just look at you. You’re appalled that I could even say such a thing, much less want it.” I stopped and sucked in a deep breath.

  This was going nowhere. I said, “Forgive me, I’ve let fly things that don’t rightfully belong in this conversation. Wipe that repelled look off your face. No, don’t say anything. I’m talking right now.”

  But he just couldn’t help himself. He shouted, “What do you want? To be like that Stanhope woman and not bathe for months at a time and share your meals with desert rodents and evil-smelling Bedouins? That’s bloody idiocy, and well you know it.”

  I stepped down from the chair and walked away from him. When I turned, we stared at each other across the room. It was a long silence. I said finally, “Well, then, since I’m not going to eat my breakfast with the villains in the desert, then it would appear that I am in full agreement with you. I will marry, just as I’m expected to. I will be a wife, just as I’m expected to be. I will oversee a household, a responsibility that seems to be attached to women alone. No idiocy at all. Nothing at all to be disapproved by society.

  “So, Peter, the only problem seems to be in
years. You believe the earl is too old for me, and I wouldn’t care if he were a hundred.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what? That I don’t care about his age?”

  “Yes.”

  “His years are irrelevant to me. As I told you, he is kind. He offers me what I want. I expect no more because there isn’t any more. All there is, and I know this all too well, is a good deal less. I will take the earl as my husband and count myself pleased at my bargain.”

  “Are you telling me that you have fallen in love with this man?”

  “No, certainly not. There is no such thing. There are other things, certainly, but with luck and a modicum of honor on his part, I will never have to deal with them.”

  He walked to the bowed windows, pulled back one of the draperies, and looked out onto the park across the road. He said finally in a meditative voice, as if he were speaking to himself, “Devbridge, from what Craigsdale said, is a rich man. Thus, I don’t have to worry that he is in need of your fortune.”

  “No, he doesn’t even require a dowry.”

  “Very well. You don’t love him. He gives you what you say you need and want. Thus, I am forced to conclude what I originally said—you, Andy, need and want another aged mentor. Can it be that the earl in any way resembles our martinet of a grandpapa? Do you really see him as a substitute?”

  “Ah, that was quite low, Peter, but I am not going to shout at you. You’re just trying to shake me, rile me, make me say things that I don’t want to say. Are you quite through now?”

  “In your long line of things you were doing, you said marriage, wife, housekeeper. However, you said nothing about presenting the earl with an heir. As I told you, he has a nephew who is currently his heir. That is not the same thing as having your own son as your heir. Doesn’t he want to breed one off you, his new, ripe, not to mention very young and quite appetizing, bride?”

  It was out of my mouth before I could bite down on those damnable words. “No, there will be none of that, do you hear me? None. Ever.”

  He cocked his head at me. “Why? Is he too old to perform his husbandly duties? I thought a man had to be on his deathbed before he was incapable of taking a woman.”

  “Shut up.” I shook my fist at him and shouted, “I won’t listen to this. You’re like all the others, aren’t you, Peter? Well, married to the earl I will not have to worry about my husband parading mistresses in front of my nose or bedding the servants. I shall be spared the humiliation of watching my husband indiscriminately spread his favors among all my friends. The earl swore to me that he would not touch me, that he didn’t want any children. He swore to me that he has a mistress nicely tucked away to see to his needs. She will never intrude on our life. He swore that he would never hurt me or humiliate me in any way.”

  Peter looked at me for one long moment and whistled to himself. “I’ve often wondered how much you knew of your illustrious sire’s, ah, amorous exploits. I had hoped that your mother would have had the good sense and intelligence to keep her bitterness and disappointment to herself. But I see that she did not.”

  “If you would know the truth of it, at the age of ten, I believe I knew more about men’s dishonor than any female child alive.” I looked at him and then added, no fury at all because I meant it, and it was clear and cold in my mind, “Had I been my mother, I would have killed him.”

  “Perhaps you would,” he said slowly. “Still, you were only ten years old when she died. So young and yet you knew?”

  “Yes, I knew. I can still hear my mother’s sobs, still see her white face when he told her of his other women.”

  “That dratted woman,” Peter said, frowning down at the carpet. “I have always pitied her until this moment. After all, she took me in after my parents died, treated me quite well. But now, now I see that she was a selfish woman without an ounce of sense. She poured her misery into your ears, a little girl, not a wise or clever thing to do.”

  “Don’t you dare talk about my mother like that. You don’t know, you cannot know what she suffered. You were away at school most of the time. Well, I was there, all of the time. I saw what she suffered. My bastard of a father killed her. Don’t you know? She could bear no more humiliation, and—”

  “And,” Peter finished for me, “she caught a chill and died only a week after reaching Grandfather. Ancient history, my dear, it has nothing to do with you or me. We can curse your father, even feel sorry for your mother, but they have been out of your life for more than ten years now. I repeat, their mistakes, their selfishness, all the tragedies, none of it has anything to do with you.”

  “I really mean it, Peter, had I been my mother, I would not have run away. I would have taken up a pistol and I would have shot him, and I would have rejoiced when he lay dead at my feet.”

  He didn’t leap on that, and I suppose I was grateful, until he said, “So you are marrying a man you won’t have to murder?”

  “That is not bloody funny. My father deserved to die for what he did, for what he was, which was a philandering dishonorable bastard. And if you think I would ever take a chance of that happening to me, well, I would rather die first or die trying to take my vengeance on him.”

  “Jesus,” Peter said very quietly. He walked to me and pulled me against him. He didn’t say anything for the longest time, just held me. Finally, he said quietly, right next to my ear, “You cannot let your parents’ blunders ruin your life. You think to escape your mother’s humiliation by marrying a man too old to have desires, or unable. Yes, he has told you he has a mistress. Perhaps it is true. Perhaps he doesn’t even want you in his bed. I find that very hard to believe, however. What makes you think you can trust him? You are young enough to be his daughter. Why, my dear, why the hell does he want to marry you? Do you know? Has he told you why?”

  “I believe,” I said, “that the earl much admires me, as our grandfather’s child. He is very fond of me. He enjoys my company. I amuse him. He enjoys pleasing me. He is lonely. He knows I will run his household to perfection. He knows he can count on me. He knows I will not interfere with his private comings and goings. He knows he can trust me. He knows I would never betray him, since I want none of that, ever.”

  “And if he has lied to you? If he changes his mind and tells you he wants you in his bed?”

  “I won’t do it. I have told him so. He will not cross that line. Unlike the tolerant attitude of most men when a woman is adamant about something, when I am resolute, he knows it. He believes me.”

  Peter didn’t say anything for the longest time. He walked away from me. He stroked his chin, a habit of long-standing. “Oh, my God,” he said, turning back to me. “I wondered why you turned down young Viscount Barresford, an excellent man and sincerely attached to you. And Oliver Trever—another very nice man who worshiped you—you went driving with him once, Grandfather told me, then you refused to see him again.

  “You believe to avoid all unhappiness by running from life? By shackling yourself to an old man who swears he won’t touch you as a man touches a woman?”

  Blacking out of life, that was what John had said. I shook my head. I was silent, there was nothing more to be said, but Peter didn’t realize that. “Andy, listen to me. Not all men are like your father. I never heard that my father was unfaithful to my mother. Believe me, Andy, I am not like your father. When I take a wife, I will be faithful to her. Many more men are like me rather than like your father.”

  Silence lay deeply between us.

  He shook his head, and there was such sadness in his voice I wanted to cry. “No, I can see that you refuse to believe that.”

  I said, then, for there was nothing else to say to reconcile him, “The wedding is Tuesday next. We leave immediately for Devbridge Manor. You are, of course, welcome to come if you wish.”

  “This is dreadfully wrong, Andy,” he said, “and it breaks my heart.”

  I did not reply, for my throat was choked with tears.

  I heard him stride quickly f
rom the library, the doors banging behind him. Through the windows I saw Williams, the groom, bringing around Peter’s horse, Champion. He swung a leg over the saddle and was gone.

  I curled up in the window seat and stared out at the gathering fog. Peter’s final words rang in my head. “This is dreadfully wrong, Andy.” Dreadfully wrong.

  Was he right? Was I escaping life, afraid of repeating my parents’ failure? Was I blacking out life? I dashed my hand across my eyes, trying to rub away the tears. And he had said that it broke his heart. But men didn’t have hearts that broke, even Peter, though I had little doubt that he believed what he had said. I had no doubt either that he did truly love me. But he hadn’t come home when Grandfather had died because he’d had other, more important things to do. And no one had thought very much of it. No one blamed him—no one except me.

  No, men took and took and did just as they pleased. They were to be tolerated, perhaps even loved, but never trusted. Even cousins who were so close they were like brothers, and you loved them and they loved you. I would never find myself with child and thus dependent upon a husband.

  Grandfather had been different. I prayed that my future husband would be as well.

  There was a light tap on the door. Skinny Lord Thorpe, a name Peter had given Thorpe the butler ten years earlier, entered the library, stood straight and proud as any aristocrat in front of me, and announced the arrival of the Earl of Devbridge. I blinked in rapid succession to make the tears recede. Rising from the window seat, I quickly smoothed my gown and my hair.

  “Andrea,” he said in his smooth, beautifully modulated voice. “Andrea.”

  I jumped, startled, and looked quickly around me. I wasn’t in Grandfather’s library in Cavendish Square, but rather sitting across from my new husband in a gently swaying chaise.

  Chapter Four

  “Andrea,” he said yet again, smiling at me, “have you been bored to death, my dear? Or mayhap dreaming a bit yourself? I do believe that I nodded off for a moment. Do forgive me.”