“You’re a braver man than I.” Or more foolhardy. “Even Felicity wasn’t willing to raise that question. Do you suspect rape?”
Magic spooked at nothing Gareth could see, a nimble dodge to the side. Andrew didn’t so much as pick up the reins.
“I suspect rape or ill usage or something very like it,” Andrew replied, urging the beast to resume a placid walk. “Watch how she reacts when you are near, or likely to touch her in even simple ways. To see her expressions, you’d think I had nefarious designs on her person when all I do is bow over her hand.”
“I can’t say I like the thought of her rusticating the rest of her life away out here either,” Gareth said. “But she is of age, and used to a great deal of independence.”
Andrew flipped a hank of black mane from the left side of Magic’s neck to the right. “But what of Rose? Is she to grow to womanhood without leaving the estate, to have no knowledge of life beyond this bucolic backwater? Rose is related to a marquess and an earl, for God’s sake. We can do better for her than some simian farm boy with sweaty palms and a greasy forelock.”
Felicity would counsel her spouse to restraint, but Gareth had gone for too long without a younger brother to tease.
“Such avuncular sentiments, Andrew.”
Now the beast must attempt to snatch at a mouthful of leaves, an insurrection Andrew gently thwarted. “We are her family,” Andrew replied. “She is a little girl, without a man’s protection, and her mother is not thinking entirely clearly. Her welfare is our concern.”
“So what should we do about it?” Gareth asked, because his brother was making too valid a point to indulge in further needling.
“I am approaching Gwen as I do a skittish horse. I am giving her a chance to see I mean her no harm, to consider how she might trust me, and to decide what use I might be to her. The lad who brings the oats can catch even the crankiest mare in the paddock.”
“Granted,” Gareth said, though any happily married man knew equine analogies where women were concerned were a dicey proposition. “But, Andrew, what will you do with Gwen when you’ve caught her?”
“I have asked Gwen to consider that,” he said as they turned up the drive. “She and I are intelligent people, and we will find a solution acceptable to everybody.”
“You could marry her,” Gareth pointed out, because Felicity had pointed it out to him on two separate occasions. “She’d be happy with a marriage of convenience, and you could come and go as you please on the estate.”
“I will not marry,” Andrew said, his gaze fixed on the hills in the distance.
“Oh, for pity’s sake, Andrew. Are you still clinging to the puerile notion you can’t be faithful to one woman? The right woman wouldn’t care, you’ve got titles to consider now, and sooner or later, all that hopping from bed to bed gets old anyway.”
Andrew stopped fiddling with the horse’s mane and took up the reins.
“I find it extraordinary, Brother, you do not use the one argument that might persuade me to consider holy matrimony: I might, against all effort and sense to the contrary, fall in love and have the great good fortune to have my sentiments returned. I surmise it was just this happy fate that impelled you to the altar at a nigh-doddering age, giving up your own puerile notions regarding your entrenched unsuitability as a husband. Your faith in me is truly touching.”
Andrew delivered this speech in carefully amused tones, but when he finished speaking, he signaled his horse through some subtly of the seat, and rode the rest of the way up the drive in an elegant, flowing canter.
Gareth let him go, because in the course of his set down, Andrew Penwarren Alexander, swashbuckling lover across several continents, had admitted the possibility he could fall in love.
Felicity was right: there was hope for the man after all.
***
Astrid heard the bedroom door open and close, then lock with a soft click. A boot hit the floor, then another, followed by the rustling of cloth and a weight jostling the mattress. When Andrew spooned his warm, naked chest against her back, she reached behind her and drew his arm around her waist.
Such comfort, simply to cuddle under the covers in the middle of the afternoon. She hoped it was a comfort to him too.
They’d gone for a ride that morning to feed some ducks, Andrew putting Astrid up on a mare who looked large enough to house the entire Greek army. The outing had been lovely, and the tenderness in Andrew’s eyes when he’d asked at what hour she napped even lovelier.
“Sleep,” he murmured, lacing his fingers through hers, and she drifted under on a sea of contentment. The clock told her she awoke half an hour later, feeling sweet, sleepy, and warm—and in need of the chamber pot.