“You may have the right of it.” Gareth might have intended to say more, but he was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Gareth? Andrew?” Felicity, Marchioness of Heathgate, came in sporting a fulsome smile and suspiciously bright eyes—also carrying a silver tea tray which she set on the table in front of the sofa. For a progression of moments, Andrew experienced a resurgence of joy mixed with unease as Felicity fussed, hugged him, dabbed at her eyes, and fussed some more.
And her ladyship was visibly gravid, which did nothing for Andrew’s nerves.
She ensconced herself next to Andrew, right next to him, in the friendliness Andrew associated with both Worthington sisters.
“Are you interrogating my brother-in-law, sir?” she asked her husband. “I won’t have it. That prerogative is reserved for females, among whom you do not number. Who would like tea?”
Gareth returned her smile, his saturnine features acquiring a softness when he beheld his wife. “None for me, sweetheart, I’m drinking the good stuff.”
“None for me either, sweetheart,” Andrew said. “I’m drinking Heathgate’s good stuff, which I have sorely missed.” He had not missed the little lies Polite Society required in the name of manners, but he could hardly say he’d missed his brother to a point approaching lunacy.
“Leaving the entire pot for me,” the marchioness said. “While the tea is steeping, would anyone like a sandwich?”
Andrew considered the question and realized that with the anticipation of this homecoming behind him, he was starving. He accepted a heaping plate—two sandwiches of sliced beef and cheddar on white bread with a pale French mustard—and caught the look Felicity exchanged with Gareth. Their brief glance was domestic, a bit of wifely smugness at having guessed correctly at Andrew’s appetite.
“Eat all that,” Gareth remarked, “and we will have to change your title to Earl of Shoat. I wouldn’t mind a sandwich myself, Wife, if there are any left, that is.”
“Now, children,” Andrew chided between bites of simple English food. “I will eat as much of this delicious fare as I may, and would appreciate it if we did not apply any titles to me, even in jest.”
Another look passed between Gareth and Felicity, but it wasn’t domestic or smug. Felicity was puzzled, and Gareth was… uneasy.
“What?” Andrew asked, pausing with a sandwich halfway to his mouth. Astrid was now widowed, possibly an expecting widow. What development could be more disconcerting than that?
Gareth appeared to find his sandwich fascinating. “You do have a title, or two, actually.”
Foreboding settled into Andrew’s stomach, swirling about in a queasy mess with his brandy, his half-eaten sandwich, and the upheaval of Gareth’s various disclosures.
“What do you mean, I have a title, or two—actually?”
“You will recall our maternal grandfather was a baron,” Gareth began. “But you may not recall he had a second cousin who was Earl of Greymoor. The earl died without surviving issue, and after some roundaboutation, that title devolved to grandfather the year before his death. He made nothing of it, and I wasn’t even aware it had happened until I was tidying up his estate and cousin Gwen informed me. By then, Privileges was looking about for someone to foist the barony and the earldom onto. Because I am already overburdened with titles, they saw to a special remainder, or a re-issuance of the letters patent, something of that sort—it was one of those titles that could be preserved through the female line—and settled the honor on you.”
Andrew shot out of his chair and whirled on his brother, who was very likely the something of that sort responsible for this fiasco.
“How could you let that happen, Gareth? I trusted you to watch my back while I was gone, and I come back to this? I want no titles, do you understand? Privileges will have to look about for someone else to honor, but it won’t be me.”
The damned man remained seated, regarding his wife, then his glass of spirits, when what Andrew wanted was the sort of set-to they’d indulged in as adolescents, before the accident had made them so blessed careful with each other.
“I knew you’d resent this,” Gareth said. “If you don’t want to administer the estates, we can hire a steward or two. The titles need not burden you, Andrew.”
Felicity’s expression was worried, so Andrew forced himself to sit back down beside her.
“You will pardon my lack of manners, Felicity,” he said. “I do not mind the burden of the estates, Gareth.” Not much. Not yet, though he would and soon. “The burden of the succession is the untenable obligation.” He managed a sip of brandy and tried to batten down his anger—his panic, to apply the more honest term.