An Introduction to Pleasure (26 page)

Lysandra flopped back in her chair with an exasperated sigh. Once again, she had been effectively shut out of the truth about Andrew’s wife and his past. All she got were tantalizing bits and hints, but no resolution.

“I apologize, miss,” Berges said, still standing in the doorway. “Polly is a young, boisterous woman and often speaks out of turn. She should not have been so bold with you, and she will be reminded of such from both her mother and from me as soon as I have a moment.”

Lysandra got to her feet. “Oh Berges, don’t be too hard on her. She’s a friendly girl, that is all. And because I was once…in a similar position to hers, I think she felt a kinship to me. That might have loosened her tongue a bit more than if she were speaking to a lady far above her.”

He pursed his lips. “Yes, but in the future she may wag her tongue at someone far less understanding and that could cause problems not only for the household, but for Lord Callis. Most of the women who will visit here will be ladies.”

Lysandra flinched, and Berges dropped his head. “I’m sorry, miss, I didn’t mean to offend.”

Lysandra waved off the comment. “I know you didn’t. And you’re right. Ladies will visit here far often than women like me. Samuel Callis’s future wife or…or even someone Lord Callis, himself woos in the future with a mind to marriage. Someone more like his late wife.”

The butler lifted his gaze and held hers evenly. From the expression on his face, he knew where she was going with this.

“Yes, miss,” he said softly.

“What happened?” Lysandra asked quietly. When he turned his face, she continued swiftly. “Please tell me. If I knew, it might enable me to help Lord Callis more while I remain here.”

Berges was silent for more than a minute, pondering what she had asked of him. Then he shook his head.

“There is part of me that would like to tell you, miss,” he said with a sad sigh. “Because I think somehow you
could
help him. But a servant of my rank only has one thing to recommend him and that is the trust of his master. If I betrayed that, I would betray everything I am. Everything I promise to be. It isn’t my place.”

Lysandra smiled at him. She liked this man a great deal and while his denial frustrated her, after serving in a household herself, she also understood his reasoning.

“I do apologize,” he said.

She shook her head. “No need to do so, Berges, I shouldn’t have put you in such an awkward position. The fact is that if I want to know something about Lord Callis, I suppose I must demand that knowledge from him. Anything else is unfair to everyone.”

He looked at her, and she realized it was probably more directly than he had ever looked at a houseguest in the time he’d been a servant. “You are a good woman, Miss Keates,” he said softly. “A fine
lady
.”

She smiled, knowing this was his way of showing her respect. Something she appreciated greatly. “Thank you.”

“Miss, I truly hope you find the answers you’re looking for.” He nodded his head slightly and then left the room.

Lysandra paced to the window. After two days of rain, she and Andrew were to share a walk together in just a few moments and once they were alone, she was going to finally push him on the subjects he avoided. It was time for the truth to come out and those answers Berges had spoken of to be found.

It was past time that Lysandra stopped being a warm body to fill Andrew’s bed and started being a true mistress and partner to him.

One thing Andrew had come to appreciate about his relationship with Lysandra since their arrival at Rutholm Park was that they could share a comfortable silence as easily as a passionate kiss. Except today, as they strolled arm and arm through the rose garden, Andrew didn’t feel comfort in the silence between them.

He felt anxiety from Lysandra in the way she held herself, in the way she shot him side glances every few seconds. There was something going on with her, something she hesitated to tell or ask him.

And that just wouldn’t do.

He stopped and motioned to a secluded bench at the back of the garden. The trees around them and the trimmed bushes that walled in the garden itself, both offered them some privacy in case a gardener or some other servant approached.

“Shall we sit for a moment?” he asked.

She hesitated and then nodded. “Yes, that might be best.”

Once she had taken her place beside him and smoothed her skirts, he reached out to take her hand.

“Something is obviously troubling you, Lysandra,” he said, smoothing his thumb along her hand until she shivered. He smiled. So utterly responsive.

But this wasn’t about making her shiver, it was about determining what made her so nervous. Had someone in his household said something to her? Or had a letter from her mother upset her? He needed to know so he could deal with that. Help her.

“Andrew,” she said softly. “Since my arrival here…no, it was before that.”

She bit her lip and he leaned in closer. “You can tell me anything. Did someone say something to you? Has your cousin bothered you or your mother?”

“No, this isn’t about me,” she breathed. “If it were, I think it would be easier. You would be open with me about that. You would assist me, whether I asked you to do so or not. But when it comes to you…”

She trailed off and he frowned as he pulled his hands away from hers slowly. “Me? What about me?”

Lysandra reached out and caught his fingers, drawing his hands back into her lap and holding them gently. “Andrew, from the first moment I met you, I was struck by not only your handsomeness, not only the fact that you make me weak to you…but that you carry a grief with you no one can touch.”

He flinched and tried to pull away, but she held tight and forced him to remain by her side.

“Please, let me say this,” she encouraged. “Not only that, but it is clear that others who love you see your pain, as well. It hurts them, just as it hurts me, to see how much you hold that grief in your heart. But there’s more. What you feel, it also
frightens
them.”

“Ridiculous,” Andrew interrupted and yanked himself away from Lysandra to pace a few steps away. He couldn’t be close to her when she was violating his request that she refrain from broaching these personal topics.

She followed his pacing with her stare for a moment and then shook her head.

“No, it isn’t ridiculous. Your brother had not just pity or pain, but
fear
in his eyes when he looked at you that night at the opera. And I’ve seen it again with your servants here.” She grasped her hands together in her lap. “Andrew, I’ve heard a tiny bit from you and even more from the servants.”

“You shouldn’t pry,” he snapped as he turned on her.

“I didn’t,” she retorted, and finally the heat of her voice matched his. “Damn it,
you
brought me here. You brought me to this place you shared with Rebecca. To a place where I would see her pictures and interact with her servants. You brought me here and you must have known that being here would give me more information and more questions all at once. I think you did that on purpose so that these secrets you carry so heavy in your heart would finally be purged.”

Andrew glared at her. “What could you be going on about? I don’t want to speak about this, why would I purposefully expose you to it and hope that you would ask me?”

“Perhaps you don’t
want
to speak of it.”

Lysandra stepped toward him, slowly like she was moving on a skittish horse. Slowly, she lifted her hand to his cheek. The warmth of her touch moved through him, soothing him in ways he didn’t like to consider.

“Andrew, I think you
need
to talk about it. With someone who wasn’t there during the worst time of your life. With someone who is here for your pleasure and for your pain. A mistress. Me.”

He stared at her, horrified by the fact that her accusations, which he tried so hard to deny, might actually be true. Had he brought her here on some deep, secret level, in order to confess his soul? To use her to heal in a way he denied he required? Was it possible?

“So please tell me,
why
is there fear in the eyes of those who love you?” she whispered. “Why do the servants whisper of a child your wife looked forward to bearing? Why do they speak of something you tried to do that horrified them?”

Andrew couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. Images bombarded him. Memories long sunk away so deeply that he prayed he would never feel their effects again.

“You can trust me,” Lysandra said, smoothing his cheek as she looked up at him with eyes so dark blue that he could lose himself forever. He
could
trust her. He had been denying he wanted to for weeks, but there it was. She was here, for him. And he suddenly wanted to confess the things he had buried deep inside.

“She was pregnant,” he said, choking on the words. “Rebecca was almost six months along the night…” He stopped because the words were impossible. “We argued. It was over something foolish.”

“What?” Lysandra asked softly.

He shut his eyes. “When she told me she was with child, I panicked. I had given up the life of a libertine to be with her and I knew that a child would change even more between us. Change
me
even more. I had gone out a few nights in a row with old friends who were visiting the shire. She wanted me to stay with her. I wanted to, that’s the worst part. But we argued about my ‘freedom’. I left and within an hour a servant rushed to find me, to tell me that my wife was gravely ill. I came home to discover she had begun bleeding. The baby was coming, far too early, and there was nothing the doctor could do to stop it.”

She shut her eyes. “Oh, Andrew, but that wasn’t your fault.”

He shook his head. “Wasn’t it? She asked me to stay. Perhaps if I had, I could have done something. Or perhaps she would have been calmer and she never would have become ill.”

Lysandra’s pity was written all over her face. The same pity he hated from everyone else who looked at him that way. He didn’t deserve it. He deserved their hate. Their judgment.

“The baby didn’t survive?” she whispered.

He shook his head. “My son didn’t even cry. He was gone before he even had a chance to take his first breath. And my wife’s bleeding couldn’t be stopped. She died alongside him within half an hour of his birth.”

Lysandra finally moved on him, reaching to take his hand. He pulled it away. He didn’t deserve to be comforted.

“Andrew,” she whispered. “These things sometimes happen. For no reason. With no fault, as much as we want to find someone to blame.”

“She needed me, and I let her down,” he said, his tone filled with the pain he had kept inside for three years. “I knew it. I felt it in my very soul. I dreamed of her for years afterward, and I felt her hatred toward me in those dreams. And so I—”

He broke off. He had never said this out loud. Not to anyone.

“What did you do?” she whispered.

“The reason that those who love me look at me with fear is that two and a half years ago, I tried to end my life.”

He let out a long breath. To his surprise, it was almost a relief to say it. Oh, others had tried to talk to him about what he had done. The physician. His brother. His father. His friends. But he had always put them off, not fully denying the attempt, but never admitting it either.

“Andrew!” she cried out, taking a staggering step backward as her face twisted in horror. “What did you do?”

“Drank myself nearly to death.” He swallowed hard. “And then took a pistol and fired it at my head. Only, a drunk is a bad shot. I winged myself, nothing more.”

He lifted up a section of hair to reveal the white scar that marred his scalp near his temple. Lysandra swallowed and tears began to sparkle in her eyes as she looked at the evidence of the depth of his despair that night.

“I would have shot again, finished the job, but Berges, who was meant to have the night off, had actually come home earlier than I thought. He heard the shot, wrestled the gun from my hands and had a footman call for the doctor while he sat on my chest to keep me from getting to the weapon again.”

Lysandra’s eyes were wide as saucers, not that he blamed her. What he described had been quite a scene, indeed. He remembered chaos, blood, screaming…

“And what did you feel about that?” she pressed. “Him saving you?”

He blinked. No one had ever asked him that question before. Everyone talked to him about what he should or shouldn’t have done. They told him he was lucky to have lived at all, which was true. But no one had ever asked how the thwarting of his attempt on his life felt to him that terrible night.

“I was angry for almost six months,” he admitted slowly. “I almost sacked Berges a handful of times for his interference. He refused to leave.”

Although the tears still ran down her cheeks, Lysandra actually smiled. “And then?”

He sighed as he retook his seat with a thump. “I realized that had I succeeded, all I would have done was hurt my family even more than they were already hurt by the loss of Rebecca and the baby. It was a selfish inclination that capped off a life filled with selfish inclinations.”

Lysandra made a face as if she didn’t entirely agree with that assessment and then said, “And there is the fact that your life has value and shouldn’t be wasted.”