Andrew Lord of Despair(107)

He wasn’t telling her half of what she wanted to know, but neither was he lying. “One of the footmen had a note for me. I thought it was from you. Henry likely slipped it to a groom, and the rest of the household knows I’m happy to go visit the horses.”

Astrid laced her fingers through her husband’s. How long would it be before she had the courage to visit the stables without an escort? What if Douglas had not brought two pistols—because by all accounts, Andrew had arrived to the stable unarmed? What if Henry had seen his brother lurking in the shadows of the barn? What if Henry had pitched that knife at Andrew? What if Andrew had not felt the need for time in the saddle?

“I like to visit the horses too,” Andrew said. “They can help a man sort himself out. These past few days have been so…”

“At sixes and sevens,” Astrid supplied. “So happy, so sad, so tense, so tiring… I have wanted to talk to you too, Andrew, but I haven’t known what to say.”

“Hush,” he replied, looking at their linked hands. “Never let it be said Astrid Worthington Allen Alexander was at a loss for plain speech.”

Rather than admit she was at a loss for much more than that, Astrid concentrated on the feel of his hand, warm and secure around hers. This is where he tells me, so gently and regretfully: we really cannot continue like this, and he will be leaving me soon.

“Astrid,” Andrew said as a shower of sparks disappeared up the flue, “we cannot continue the way we’ve begun in this marriage.” Her worst fears, put into words, but Andrew wasn’t finished. “I love you—”

She dropped his hand. “What?”

“I love you.” He eyed her hand but didn’t make a grab for it. “I’ve loved you since you were a girl of seventeen trying not to cry because you’d beaten out a fire with your bare hands. I’ve loved you across three continents, several years, and more stupid behavior on my part than I can recall. I love you, and I’ve done a damned poor job of owning up to it.”

“Yes, you have.” Astrid subsided against him, at a loss to label what she was feeling beyond… shock.

“You don’t have to choose now to be agreeable.”

“Civil and agreeable are two different things,” she retorted. “So why have you gone to such great and unpleasant lengths to convince me my husband did not love me?” Because that question desperately needed an answer if she was to maintain her sanity.

He was silent for a moment, while Astrid contemplated smacking him.

“It’s complicated.”

She mashed her nose into his shoulder. Love was not complicated. “Then you’d best have a good explanation.”

“I have for many years been under a serious misapprehension,” he began. “I was wrong about myself, among other things, and I want to choose my words with utmost care, Astrid, because I doubt you’ll give me a chance to refine on them.”

She did not tell him he likely had the right of that, for his tone was too grave.

Haltingly at first, then more easily, Andrew related to Astrid the events of his fifteenth summer. About the accident, Astrid had thought she’d been well informed, but about Andrew’s involvement with Julia Ponsonby, she’d had no clue—neither, apparently, had Gareth, at least not until it was too late.

When Andrew paused to pour them both a tumbler of brandy, Astrid was aware that she’d rather he not have left her side even to cross the room.

“I had clues as to this misapprehension of yours,” she said, considering a drink she did not want but probably needed. “I once overheard Gareth wondering why you never entertained women he’d been involved with, despite their many attempts to gain your notice, but you didn’t mind in the least where your castoffs went for consolation.”

Andrew’s expression was… bewildered. “You consider that a clue?”

“Of a sort. Or there’s the way you would not allow Gareth to help you, not with your property, not with your various scrapes and peccadilloes—why did it never occur to you, if you’re going to fight a duel, your brother should have been your second, not the last to know?”

Andrew sat beside his wife, his drink untouched.

“I did not want my brother to be as ashamed of me as I was of myself. I did not want him to ever, ever find out what a weak, immoral, dishonorable man I was.”

This reasoning was flawed. Understandable, but badly, badly flawed. “If anybody knows about being immoral with women, it is your brother. He convinced himself he could misbehave with Felicity, a spinster virgin if ever there was one.”