Andrew Lord of Despair(26)

More charm, to compliment her rather than lecture her. Gwen could not help a blush, but she could stall by admitting a footman with a large tray. “Enfield is a wonderful property.” She gestured for the footman to set the tray down. “Will you reside here soon?”

Andrew rose and went on a tour of the parlor. “You’ve kept this room as Grandfather had it, except for a few touches. I like the touches.” He took down a sketch in a simple oak frame—Rose and a tabby cat. “Does she have your red hair?”

She had her father’s sable hair, dramatic brows, and… charm. “More like yours and Gareth’s. Dark. Tea or coffee?”

He did not hang the sketch back up, but rather brought it with him to the sofa. “You drink coffee?”

“I drink both, depending on my whim.” Because she was the lady of the house, and her whims controlled the domicile, for now.

“If it’s good and strong, I prefer tea,” Andrew said. “The child has your determined chin and your unapologetic nose.”

Gwen fixed her cousin his tea, two sugars, a dash of cream, and let the comment pass. She’d been called much worse than determined and unapologetic, and Andrew was being observant rather than mean.

“I hear Felicity’s sister is biding at Willowdale for a time.” And because Astrid Allen was arguably family, Gwen really ought to have made a condolence call, though that would mean deciding whether to bring Rose.

“Astrid needs sunshine and fresh air like I need the occasional mad gallop and you need to balance your account books,” Andrew said, accepting his cup of tea. “I’m curious about what else you might need, Gwennie. I’ll not turn you out, you know, not banish you to some cottage on the moors, there to read your Bible and tat lace.”

She knew how to tat lace, though her patience with Scripture was limited. Gwen also knew that some banishments did not require isolated cottages or visible signs of penance.

“You know Lady Amery well?”

“She’s easy to get to know,” Andrew said, finishing his tea at a swallow and passing his cup back to Gwen. “At first glance, you take her for a pretty little thing, and then you realize that pretty little thing is a small female tiger, with a fierce intellect, a quick wit, a keen eye, and a big heart.”

Gwen poured him another cup of tea, not that he was tasting what he consumed. One of the advantages—one of the many advantages—of a marginalized existence was that others did not raise their defenses around Gwen the way they might with their peers and accepted social equals.

“How is Lady Amery managing? Her husband hasn’t been gone that long, and his death had to have been unexpected.” And a woman could miss a man she’d known only a season, much less one she’d been married to for two years.

“She has as much determination as you do, Guinevere Hollister. I’ve no doubt Astrid will come right soon. She needs only time and care, and in her sister’s household, she can have both.”

From the look in Andrew’s eyes as he resumed studying Rose’s sketch, Gwen concluded the pretty little thing with the fierce intellect and the big heart could have more than that. Very likely, she could have anything it was in Andrew’s power to give her.

“Fresh air, sunshine, and good company can set much to rights,” Gwen said. They certainly had set her to rights. “Why were you gone so long, Andrew?”

Before he’d left, he’d told her the nightmares had gotten worse, but she didn’t dare bring that up now.

“The world is a big, wonderful place, Gwennie, and I wanted to see it. Perhaps you’d like to see some of it, too?”

“You’d send me abroad? Have you ever traveled with a small child, Andrew? And you do recall there are hostilities on the Continent?” Because she couldn’t be sure he was jesting, Gwen kept her tone more cool than teasing.

He propped Rose’s sketch against a pillow on the end of the sofa, as if Rose were present in the room by virtue of her sketch resting on the cushions. “I once had the pleasure of traveling with a pair of newborns. They seemed quite portable to me.”

“Then you traveled upwind of them, and slept where you couldn’t hear them rousing the watch several times a night. If you’re not going to eat, let’s away to the nursery. Rose has had at least fifteen minutes to get her hair in complete disarray, smear jam on her pinny, and draw you pictures of every horse on the property.”

For that’s what Gwen had done long ago when waiting for a visit from her cousins.

Andrew escorted her through her own house, and though he did indeed charm Rose, he also glanced at the clock often enough that Gwen knew he wasn’t going to tarry long marveling at Rose’s drawings of unicorns and dragons.