“I hate that you’re tormented by something that happened nearly half your lifetime ago.”
He pillowed his cheek on the slope of her breast as her arms settled around him. “When you next see the sea, you must share your displeasure with it, Wife. Perhaps your sentiments will meet with more respect than my own, but Astrid?
She kissed his temple. “Hmm?”
“You must promise me never to travel on the water.”
Her hand went still midstroke over his brow. “So you can hare off to the Continent, secure in the knowledge I can’t give chase?” She sounded more exasperated than offended.
“So you don’t die, screaming for rescue, knowing your child will never draw breath and your family will be driven insane with grief.”
He had not planned those words, had not mentally braced himself against the desperation with which he meant them. Astrid’s hand resumed its soothing progress over his features, bringing him a faint scent of lavender and lemons.
“I will not chase you, Andrew. Drat you, you have been honest with me regarding the metes and bounds of this marriage. I wish you’d tell me about the accident.”
“Promise me.”
She heaved up a sigh, a soft, fragrant swell of the bosom upon which Andrew’s cheek rested. “I will not travel upon the water without you, Andrew. I can swim, though. Felicity and I both can swim like ducks—or perhaps like hippopotami, given our present dimensions. Go to sleep now. This bed holds no sea monsters, other than your damnable pride and perhaps my own.”
Andrew closed his eyes but did not expect to sleep. Astrid would make a wonderful mother—practical, loving, patient, insightful, and good-humored. That she would never be the mother of his children was only part of the price Andrew would extract for what she called his pride.
When sleep did come stealing up to him, bringing with it the echoes of Julia’s screams, Andrew instead focused on the sound of his wife’s breathing, on the feel of her hand in his hair, on the scent of her.
And for the first time following that particular nightmare, despite all deserts to the contrary, Andrew slept the remainder of the night in peace.
Fourteen
Morning dawned sunny, dry, and surprisingly mild, a parting gift of autumn as winter tried to elbow its way in the door. The pleasant weather was fortunate, because seeing his mother off in a storm would likely have been a greater trial than Andrew’s nerves could tolerate.
He should not have come back to England in autumn.
He should not have come back to England at all.
When Lady Heathgate had taken her leave of the ladies, she asked Andrew to walk her to the coach.
“I am not a demonstrative woman,” she said, turning worried eyes to him. Andrew steeled himself for some display, because her words were nothing less than a warning shot. “And yet, I think you need to be reminded that I love you. Do you know, Andrew, there is nothing I would not do for you, nothing I could not eventually learn to accommodate, should you ask it of me. I have always been proud of you and considered myself fortunate to be your mother.”
Andrew felt as if his mother had doubled back her fist and ploughed it into his belly, much as he felt when the nightmare plagued him. Scolding and criticism he could handle; a disapproving silence would have been within the ambit of his tolerance, and even a relief.
But this… loving kindness was unbearable. In the years he’d been gone, Andrew’s mother had changed subtly. A touch more gray fringed her dark hair, a touch more sadness lurked in her blue eyes. She was still a tall woman, but not so tall as she’d been four years ago. And yet, like Astrid, she was fierce.
“I am fortunate to be your son,” he said, wishing he were worthy of it as well.
But her ladyship had merely fired her opening salvo.
She laid a hand on his arm. “Your brother is concerned for his wife, but you know he would also make every effort you might ask of him. If you had seen the way he anticipated your letters, read them to one and all, and reread them and reread them… We missed you so.”
His throat constricted around a painful lump, his vision blurred. He bent to kiss his mother’s cheek, inhaling her signature lilac scent as if it could make him a small child again.
Thirteen years ago, he’d hauled her from the waves that would have taken her from him, and yet, even saving her life could not excuse the other choices he’d made the very same day.
He bowed, the universal gesture of respect. “You had best be on your way, Mother. Safe journey.”
She patted his cheek and allowed him to assist her into her cavernous traveling coach. As the coach rumbled off, Andrew was mortified to feel a tear slipping from the corner of his eye.