Douglas: Lord of Heartache (16 page)

Another bite of cheese was inspected then dispatched, while Douglas waited and kept an entire magazine of questions behind his teeth.

“In the morning, my supposed husband’s older brother caught up with us and raised three kinds of Cain, until my spouse informed him it had been a sham wedding. The brother was inclined to force him to marry me, but by that point, I realized what kind of man I had given myself to. I begged the brother to forget the incident, and he seemed, reluctantly, to follow my reasoning.”

The tale wasn’t that unusual. False weddings were considered sport among the more debauched roués of the aristocracy, and young ladies were cautioned against same from the time they put their hair up.

Though who would have been on hand to caution Guinevere?

“Does either the father or his brother know of Rose’s existence?”

“I don’t know.” Guinevere spoke softly, as much bewilderment as fatigue in her voice. “The older brother was not the heir then, but among Polite Society, a man’s responsibility for his own by-blows, much less his brother’s, is a matter of whim and honor. I have not contacted him or Rose’s father.”

And like a thunderclap can shake even a sturdy structure, Douglas understood what drove the woman beside him to her reclusive and unsocial tactics. “You are more concerned his family
would
take an interest in Rose than that they wouldn’t?”

She did not dither over any more cheese, but rather, studied her hands—sensible, unpretentious hands that could convey such caring.

“You gather correctly,” Guinevere said. “By law, being illegitimate, Rose is my daughter, not his, and no amount of money or influence could convince me to allow him any say over her. Because the Season was mostly over, my return to Enfield didn’t cause unusual comment. I can only guess Rose’s father was persuaded to keep his indiscretions quiet.”

Through his own fatigue, through his concern for Rose and his equal concern for Rose’s exhausted mother, Douglas felt two emotions erupting: rage, understandable and pure, for the way Guinevere had been treated by a supposed exponent of the Quality, and… a tenderness toward Guinevere that included respect, compassion, and protectiveness equal to the task of keeping the rage silent.

“You are not an indiscretion, Guinevere.”

“The worst thing,” she said, her hands balling into fists in her lap. “The worst thing about the whole business…” She took a slow breath and let it out while Douglas mentally chose swords over pistols, for a contest of swords was bloodier and more protracted.

“He consummated our farce of a union standing up,” she said in quiet misery. “He tossed my skirts over my back, bent me over a chair, and went at me. It hurt, Douglas, though not physically. Physically he was probably trying to be careful, but it hurt anyway. It hurt my spirit endlessly. When he finished, he went to the common below and spent the rest of the night—my supposed wedding night—gambling and bothering the tavern wenches. In the morning, he told me I’d disappointed him, and then—only then—did I cry. If his brother hadn’t come, there’s no telling how long I would have suffered his attentions before he confessed his venery.”

Douglas rose, scooped Guinevere up in his arms, and sat back in his rocker. He arranged her across his lap and rested his cheek against her hair.

“Right now,” he said, his voice oddly tight, “I am ashamed to be a man. That you could have been treated thus and borne the consequences so singularly… Of course it broke your heart, for it breaks mine simply to hear of it.”

He set the chair to rocking slowly, wanting both peace for her and revenge in her name on the man who’d so casually wrecked her life. Douglas let her cry, felt the heat from her body, felt the tension, and then the easing of muscles and emotions held in check for years. When she was breathing evenly again, she turned her face up to his and kissed him gently on the mouth.

“What a friend you have become to me, Douglas Allen,” she said before nestling back against him.

He continued to rock her gently, to stroke and soothe and
console
as best he could, but his mind was reeling at the magnitude of the insult done her.

The scoundrel’s brother had faced a real dilemma. Marriage would have addressed the public harm to Guinevere’s reputation, but it also would have condemned her to a lifetime of private misery, bound by law to permit a mendacious near-rapist intimate access to her for all of her days, to bear as many children as he chose to get on her, to perhaps stand by while he seduced and toyed with other innocents.

And behind those charged conclusions, another thought intruded: for Rose’s father to have both a courtesy title and an older brother, the man had to be the son of a marquess or a duke.

As silver linings went, that one was thin and tarnished, but it meant the man was likely possessed of family who would shudder at the thought of scandal, be it scandal in the form of a love child or a challenge on the field of honor.

None of which would be of any use to the woman falling asleep in Douglas’s arms or to the little girl in the next room.

When Gwen saw Douglas next, he had changed his clothing, shaved, and otherwise put himself together for the new day, but to her maternal eye, exhaustion was taking a toll on him. Nonetheless, when Gwen entered the breakfast parlor, the stubborn man rose, bowed, seated her, and carried on as if he’d enjoyed a full night’s sleep.

“Douglas Allen, you
must
get some rest today. Promise me. I can’t have you falling ill now that Rose is on the mend.” Though would Rose
be
on the mend without Douglas’s vigilance and support in the nursery?

“I will rest today,” he replied, which Gwen took for a polite, cheeseparing, Douglas-like prevarication. “Yesterday’s post brought us an interesting letter from one Loris Tanner, who purports to be writing from Brighton.”

Gwen laid her serviette across her lap, wondering when Douglas had had time to read his correspondence. “The name Loris Tanner is familiar.”

Douglas swirled his spoon slowly in his tea. “Her father is Meredith Tanner, our errant steward. She claims Mr. Tanner took ill in Brighton, malady undisclosed, and his illness has delayed his return to Linden. Miss Tanner will join us here soon, while her father remains behind to recuperate. A reply to the lady is in order, expressing our fervent hopes that her father will make a speedy recovery, and our cheerful anticipation of making her acquaintance.”

“Cheerful and fervent, are we?” And clearly, Douglas would not bring up the topic of last night’s exchange, which Gwen took for much appreciated consideration.

“We are nigh ebullient,” Douglas assured her gravely. He passed her the note, a polite little epistle in a pretty, feminine hand. Gwen studied it for a moment, but fell to consuming her breakfast in silence shortly thereafter. Douglas occupied himself similarly, though he wasn’t eating nearly enough to suit Gwen.

“Now that we’ve broken our fast”—Douglas drained his teacup—“if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the library, there to immure myself in the ledgers. I’m thinking a reply to Miss Tanner, indicating we’ll await a call from her two days hence, would be appropriate, if you wouldn’t mind drafting same.”

“I’ll see to it.”

Gwen let him go, not surprised that by the light of day and under the weight of what had to be crushing fatigue, Douglas was less approachable than he had been rocking by the fire in the dead of night.

It mattered not. Gwen reviewed their breakfast conversation and wondered if Douglas realized how liberally he had begun to use the terms
we
,
us
, and
our
. To Gwen’s ears, they were strange and beautiful, but ultimately, sad words.

***

“Rose is ill, though reported to be on the mend.” Andrew passed Fairly two letters from Douglas. “And my steward is nowhere to be found, or larking about Brighton for weeks, right when I’m trying to convince Douglas the damned place is well enough run he should be able to make a profit off of it in his sleep.”

“And why would you want to do that?” Fairly, looking handsome and golden by the windows, scanned the letters while he posed impertinent questions. “My grasp of commerce is admittedly shaky, but I seem to recall one retains the profitable enterprises and jettisons the others.”

“Aren’t you hilarious,” Andrew retorted, lounging in a comfortable chair behind a scarred desk that had belonged to his grandfather. “My dear wife—that would be your very own darling baby sister—has taken it into her head Douglas is in need of a home, and we own several thousand sheep too many. Ergo, Douglas should have Linden.”

“But?”

“But Linden didn’t get quite the attention from its present owner it should have. Shall I ring for tea, or would you care to join me in a drink?”

“Tea would give your brother endless opportunities to mock—we are gentlemen outside the supervision of our ladies, after all. Brandy it is.”

They were in the baron’s study at Enfield, Andrew having agreed to meet Fairly here on Gwen’s turf, where Heathgate could join them and the women and children would not. Andrew had wanted to look in on the property, and didn’t think it quite sneaking behind Gwennie’s back to neglect to mention he’d do so.

He was, after all, owner of the damned place.

“Someday,” Andrew said, “I am going to own one property, and I am going to live on the property I own, and I am going to raise horses there, and children, and have enough time each day to see to the happiness of my spouse.”

“Speaking of your spouse, how is Astrid?”

“Queasy,” Andrew replied, unable to hold back a smile, “but happy. She’s blooming with this pregnancy in ways she couldn’t with Lucy. And because she is trying to wean Lucy, I am getting to spend more time with my daughter. Suppose I should have thought of that several months ago.”

Fairly scowled, sliding down to sit against the wall, his knees bent before him. “My sisters are not rabbits to be kept perpetually gravid by their idiot spouses.”

“One of whom would be me,” said Gareth, Marquess of Heathgate, strolling through the open door and closing it behind him. He was a slightly larger, darker version of Andrew, complete with sable hair and snapping blue eyes and—according to Andrew’s exceptionally discerning countess—a trifle less handsome. “Who is perpetually pregnant?”

Andrew bounced out of his chair to shake his brother’s hand.

“Congratulations are in order, Brother.” Andrew grinned as he stepped back. “You are to be an uncle again.”

Heathgate shot a sheepish look at Fairly, who had risen and gone to the decanter. “As are you two, possibly.”

“Fucking rabbits,” Fairly muttered, handing Heathgate a drink. “Can’t either of you keep your bloody breeches on?”

Andrew and Heathgate exchanged a look of self-conscious glee, a look that confirmed that keeping one’s skirts down had as much to do with events in anticipation as keeping one’s breeches up.

“May we turn our attention to the matters at hand?” Heathgate asked.

“Here.” Andrew passed him the letters. “Read for yourself.”

“Don’t suppose there’s much we can do for Rose,” Heathgate said a few moments later, “short of prayer. Mother is still not entirely recovered from her go ’round with flu. And where in the hell is your steward, Brother? I thought you hired the fellow yourself.”

Heathgate sank onto the edge of their grandfather’s desk, tossing the notes down on the blotter.

“I don’t know where Tanner has hared off to,” Andrew replied. “I have no business I can think of that would take him to Brighton, and he didn’t send me word he was traveling from the property.”

“Is that unusual?” Fairly asked.

Fairly excelled at the insightful question, may he choke on his brandy.

“Yes,” Andrew replied. “Tanner has been all that’s conscientious when it comes to sending along the reports, giving me the information I need to make decisions, and so forth. I wrote to him that Douglas and Gwennie were going to look the place over, and told him to be as forthcoming as if Douglas were already the new owner.”

Though that outcome—
damn
and
perdition
—looked increasingly unlikely.

“I wonder if your man met with foul play.” Heathgate was the local magistrate. Foul play in its various forms was his idea of a diversion and frolic.

“The neighborhood didn’t strike me as a foul play kind of area,” Fairly commented. “The estate is well run, but—forgive me, Greymoor—has substantial problems.”

Douglas had delicately alluded to the same notion, but Fairly would be blessedly blunt. “What kind of problems?”

“Your pastures are overgrazed, according to Gwen. You’ve made no headway on an irrigation and flood control system, for another. The fences are falling into disrepair, and the land is tiring. It’s salvageable, but in another few years it will become expensive to turn around.”

Andrew glowered at his drink when what he wanted to do was toss it back and immediately pour himself another. “I thought I was offering Douglas the property at a more than fair price, and now we shall have to haggle. When I last saw the place, it seemed as lovely as ever. But as for this situation with Gwen and Douglas…”

Which was what they really ought to be discussing, but what did a concerned cousin say, when all and sundry had been more than half-hoping both Douglas and Gwen would turn up smitten?

“I don’t know as there is a situation,” Fairly said. “Gwen won’t have him as a spouse, which was made clear to Douglas when he approached her honorably. They seem to be getting on better though, and he calls her Guinevere, so make of that what you will.”

“Swiving her,” Heathgate predicted. “Or she’s swiving him, poor sod.”

“Ungentlemanly, Heathgate,” Fairly said, which did not go to the accuracy of the observation. “What I want to know is why Douglas, whom one wouldn’t exactly term impulsive, would offer for a woman he’s known only a few weeks.”

“Because Gwennie is lovely and lonely, and Douglas is nothing if not discerning and persistent,” Andrew said. “Why do you think we suggested Douglas avail himself of her expertise?”

Though a decanter had figured in the discussion he and Heathgate had had when the idea had been hatched, and possibly a few hints from Astrid and Felicity. A decanter and a rotten headache the next morning.

“Rabbits,” David muttered. “Perishing damned rabbits, with only one rabbiting thing on your little rabbity minds.”

“I rather think,” Heathgate said, making a study of the cupids cavorting about the crown molding, “they are both lonely and discerning, and further speculation on their personal interactions does not respect their privacy.”

“Perhaps not,” Andrew said, “but it’s fun, and the women would have gossiped circles around us by now.”

“And this,” Fairly mused, “would help us figure out where your steward is?”

While Andrew cast about for a witty rejoinder that wouldn’t start a round of fisticuffs, a knock sounded at the door.

“Enter,” Andrew barked.

“Milords.” The butler bowed, exposing the top of a shining pink pate. “A visitor for Miss Hollister.”

Andrew plucked the proffered calling card from the butler’s salver. “Westhaven?” he asked, glancing from Fairly to Heathgate.

“Gayle Windham, Earl of Westhaven,” Fairly supplied. “Heir to the Moreland dukedom, sober fellow to all appearances, considered a prime catch, spends most of his time at the family seat avoiding the ladies or holed up with his man of business in Town. Was the spare until the more dashing older brother got himself killed in Portugal.”

“I did some business with him once,” Heathgate added. “No complaints, but he isn’t the most cordial of men.”

“That honor would likely go to you?” Andrew asked.

“Receive him in the front parlor,” Fairly instructed.

“For God’s sake, I know where to receive a guest on my own property.”

“Children, please,” Heathgate tut-tutted.

“Show my guest into the visitor’s parlor, Denton. A tea tray with some decent food would also be in order.” Andrew grabbed his coat, buttoned it up, and prepared to look genial and harmless, for glowering was Heathgate’s forte, and being shrewd and silent, Fairly’s.

While Andrew made introductions, he also sized up Gayle Windham, Earl of Westhaven. Westhaven was of a height with the rest of them, a few inches over six feet, with dark chestnut hair. His eyes were a startling green and fringed with thick, dark lashes long enough to fascinate debutantes and dowagers both. Those lashes gave an otherwise austere countenance a touch of the exotic.

Andrew launched the protocol of inquiring after one another’s health and family, and remarking on the weather and the unfortunately virulent strain of flu going around. Throughout that trial, Westhaven gave no hint that he found the trivialities a test of his endurance. He was even well mannered enough that he couldn’t be caught staring at Fairly’s peculiar eyes—which only made Andrew watch his guest more closely.

The small talk paused when the tea tray appeared. “You’re a distance from Town,” Andrew said. “I thought some sustenance might be appreciated. Shall we sit?”

Westhaven flicked an odd glance at him but took the proffered seat on the sofa, while Heathgate and Andrew took the flanking padded chairs.

When tea and sandwiches were disappearing down four male gullets—and where were the cakes, for God’s sake?—Westhaven made his first bid for information. “I trust Miss Hollister is in good health?”

“She is,” Andrew replied, “as far as we know. She’s from home today on a short holiday with other family members. Join me in another sandwich, would you, so these two”—he gestured with his chin toward Fairly and Heathgate—“do not remark my greed.”

“You’re just a growing boy,” Heathgate said. “And the kitchen serves sandwiches sized for a lady’s hand.” He picked up his third and smiled blandly. “So, Westhaven, how was the harvest at Morelands?”

They fenced verbally, Westhaven probing delicately regarding Gwen’s location, her expected date of return, and the identities of the others in her party, while Andrew and Heathgate parried with hints and insinuations aimed at determining the nature of Westhaven’s business with her.

Eventually, Fairly, who had wandered off to a window seat—the man had a penchant for lurking near exits—spoke up.

“Gentlemen, I see we have demolished the fare provided by our host, and I am soon to leave for Town. Perhaps we might spare our guest further games and simply ask him what his business is with Miss Hollister?”

Westhaven’s answer came easily enough, for it turned out to be no answer at all. “I am not at liberty to disclose the exact nature of my dealings with Miss Hollister. I can assure you, however, I wish her no ill, nor do I believe she has reason to be… uncharitably disposed toward me. I hope you would be good enough to let her know I have called, because unless Lord Greymoor forbids it, I will call again.”

A pretty speech, delivered with a determined glint in the man’s eyes. Gwen was technically under Andrew’s protection, though Heathgate was head of the Alexander family, so Andrew provided a response.

“We will tell her you called, and you may await her here upon her return,” Andrew said, because if she didn’t want to deal with the fellow, Gwennie should have the pleasure of rejecting him herself. “Please send word first, and be warned she might not receive you. Gwen lives a retired life, and we would, each of us, go to great lengths to protect her privacy and peace of mind.”