Andrew Lord of Despair(6)

Hard for her? She’d described her version of hell, and made it sound convincingly trivial. But what to say?

“I think most couples find the first few years of marriage a challenge. Learning how to communicate with one’s spouse takes time.” Though what Andrew knew about marriage could fill a small thimble, and that gained mostly from his dealings with wives more vocal than faithful.

Astrid blew a stray lock of hair off her forehead. “Not for your brother and my sister. Have you seen how those two look at each other?”

“It’s nauseating,” Andrew agreed, speaking more literally than Astrid could know. “Also dear. Have you considered making your household with them, Astrid? I don’t like to think of you alone.”

She folded the blanket on her lap, a soft pile of pale wool with embroidered satin borders. “I honestly could not stand to live with those two right now, much less the demon brats who are our nephews. I haven’t the energy to deal with a happy family and their well-intended concern.”

“Speaking of concern, you feel skinny to me, Astrid. When was the last time you ate?” How easily they reverted to simple honesty with each other, something Andrew had missed more than the very shores of England.

She folded his cravat—now hopelessly wrinkled—on top of the blanket.

“That long?” Andrew answered himself. “I find myself in want of sustenance, so you are invited to raid the kitchen with me.” He didn’t move to rise out of the chair until Astrid had scrambled off his lap, but when he saw she was unsteady on her feet, he stood and secured an arm around her waist.

“Astrid—” Women could be carried off by grief, and she weighed less than thistledown.

“Don’t scold me, please, Andrew. I am simply light-headed. I don’t sleep so well, and I haven’t much appetite, is all. I’ll be right enough when I get some food in me.”

“I’ll send a maid up here to tidy up. Would you like the trunk taken over to your house?” he offered as he ushered her out of the room. He took care to walk slowly and kept his arm around her as they traveled down three flights of stairs to the kitchen.

And Astrid allowed this familiarity, when Andrew knew she shouldn’t. She ought to slap his face and deliver the blistering lecture he had coming after four years of larking around anywhere but where she was.

“Don’t send the trunk over just yet,” Astrid told him as they progressed through the house. “It’s safe enough here, and Felicity may not have a girl, despite Gareth’s autocratic pronouncements.”

Maybe not so honest after all; though it occurred to Andrew he was in the presence of an expecting female, and for once not the least bit upset by it. “You were on a mission for your sister?”

She paused at the top of the last flight of stairs. “I could tell you I was, Andrew, but the truth is I have reason to believe I might be increasing. I am hesitant to share this news, however, because I’ve already had one disappointment, and it would not be fair to Amery’s family to get their hopes up.”

He’d heard about the miscarriage—a half sentence in one of Gareth’s letters, a half sentence Andrew had read and reread, between prayers for the aggrieved mother.

Andrew turned her by the shoulders to face him. “If you are increasing, you must take special care to eat, to rest, to keep up your strength. You cannot go all day without eating, and all night tossing between the sheets. You know better,” he chided gently.

She ducked out of his grasp and trundled down the steps.

“I tell myself the same thing, Andrew, but in truth I am not sure I want to have this baby—and yes, I know that sentiment is at least eight kinds of blasphemy.”

Astrid could torture him with her physical proximity, and she could torture him with confidences too. “What do you mean?”

“If I present the Allen family with their heir, then I am tied to them for the rest of my life. The new viscount, Douglas, will have the raising of my son—who will depose Douglas as viscount—or the guardianship of my daughter, and Douglas’s views on many things are not entirely consonant with my own. I have tried to like Douglas, but he is a cool… a reserved fellow. He will bear the title with more credibility than Herbert ever did.”

Andrew tucked her hand around his arm and continued walking her toward the kitchen, wondering why nobody—nobody named Gareth—had seen fit to provide him information about this Douglas fellow earlier.

“You know Gareth will take a hand in the upbringing of any child of yours, if you wish it—and probably if you don’t. He can’t help it, and he is a marquess, not a lowly viscount. Then too, I apparently hold the titles of both baron and earl, thanks to my brother’s well-intended, if egregiously misguided, machinations. So both of us outrank Amery, and could at least tie up a guardianship in years of knots.”