“No need,” Andrew said, cutting off Astrid’s reply. The servants began to troop in with the bath and a dozen buckets of steaming water. “I will see to my wife.”
Gwen shot Astrid a questioning look, but withdrew without further comment.
“My cousin has allowed me the privilege of privacy with my wife,” Andrew said. “So, come along, you.” He rose from the sofa and extended a hand to Astrid—a hand that, to his surprise, did not shake. “I want to assure myself you are not injured elsewhere, and get you into the bath while the water is hot. Shall I wash your hair?” he asked, coming around to the back of her to start on the hooks of her dress.
***
Andrew’s competent fingers began the process of undressing her, and just like that, Astrid suffered an upwelling of self-consciousness. A blush crept past her neck, one Andrew could not fail to see.
They had made that reluctant, desperate sort of love in the darkness, doing things with each other that required trust and intimacy under the blankets. But it had been weeks since Andrew had seen her naked, and in those weeks, Astrid’s body had continued to change.
Andrew’s hands paused on her shoulders. “You are shy of me.”
Of course she was shy of him. He was the only man ever to see her naked, and in his own way, he rejected her daily.
“Ah, sweetheart,” Andrew said on a sigh, “I am sorry.” He brought her against his chest and used the embrace to complete the process of unfastening her dress. She sensed his apology was general, for transgressions past and present, but also future, and that hurt worse than all her injuries put together.
“Shall we consign this to the ragman?” Andrew asked, tossing her dress across a chair.
“The maids might want it.”
Andrew’s eyes were tired and not only in a physical sense. When had that happened? And he did not argue with her, though Astrid suspected he’d have the dress burned.
He untied the ribbons on her chemise, one by one, and she made no move to stop him as his strong, graceful fingers unraveled bow after bow.
“I don’t deserve the privilege of assisting you, Wife, but if you will allow it, I would be appreciative.”
He would not plead with her. She didn’t want him pleading with her, for that matter, so she remained silent as Andrew finished with his task.
Which left her naked before him for the first time in weeks.
His gaze traveled over her, pausing at an angry contusion at her shoulder. He stepped around her and ran his fingers over the darkening flesh.
“You have a terrific bruise coming up here,” he said, stroking gently. “Another one here.” He trailed a finger from the bottom of her back over her right hip. “A quite respectable, though slightly smaller one here.” He brushed fingers down the back of her right thigh. He touched several more before coming around to her front.
“All in all, you are going to be more than a little uncomfortable for at least a few days. Shall I have Gwen send up some laudanum?”
“No, thank you,” Astrid said, taking her naked self over to the tub. He’d looked at her bruises; he hadn’t looked at her—and how symbolic was that?
Andrew was beside her in an instant. “Let’s prop the arm on towels and let the rest of you soak.”
She lowered herself carefully into the delicious, soothing heat of the water, as Andrew held her bandaged arm aloft. He arranged towels so she could prop her arm on the rim of the tub, and then stepped back, his expression hooded.
“You are comfortable?” He looked like he wanted to kick something. “Stupid question. Is there anything I can do to make you less uncomfortable?”
“You offered to wash my hair.” She wouldn’t ask either, and a lump in her throat joined her other aches. Delayed reaction, no doubt.
“I did offer.” He dragged a stool over to the tub and settled himself on it. “Would you like to soak a bit first, or shall I be about my appointed labors?” His voice wasn’t flirtatious, not for Andrew, but it wasn’t combative either.
“Soak.” He could not walk away, not with her injured and unable to dress herself, so Astrid seized the initiative. “And talk.”
“What shall we talk about?”
“About this attempt on my life?” Astrid suggested pleasantly. She picked up the soap in her left hand and realized one needed two hands to raise a lather. One needed two hands for many worthwhile undertakings.
“Let me.” Andrew came off his stool to kneel by the tub. He took the soap from her, and was soon sliding his lathered palms over Astrid’s uninjured arm. His touch, while far from lover-like, was gentle and soothing. He attended her arm, back, neck, legs, and feet, but avoided her breasts and genitals. With her belly, which protruded noticeably, he was particularly tender.
And while he bathed her, they did talk—or their version of it.
“I wish I could argue with you,” Andrew said as he lathered her hair some minutes later. “I wish I could assure you this was simply an accident, an unfortunate mishap, but I suspect otherwise.”
Astrid closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of Andrew’s fingers massaging her scalp. “I am the only person who uses that platform as a balcony,” she said. Used it as often as she could, because watching him ride was one way she could be with her husband. “I sit up there almost every morning you work the horses, not just every once in a while.”
His dug his fingers into the muscles of her neck and applied a luscious pressure. “Why do you do it?”
“I love to watch you doing what you love. To work with a beast who does not particularly choose to work with you can be frustrating, I know, but you win them over, Andrew, and the results can be beautiful. Look at your gallant steed, and how he behaved today. Gareth despaired of that horse ever being safe under saddle.”
“Thank you. Your words mean… a lot.”
They weren’t words about horses, but Astrid doubted Andrew grasped that.
He rinsed her hair, wrapped a towel around the heavy, wet mass, then knelt beside the tub, crossed his arms on the rim, and rested his chin on his wrist.
“Astrid, would you consider traveling with me to the Continent?”
“To hide me from this menace?”
“Yes. I have failed to keep you safe, even here, on our own property. That platform was built to hold great quantities of hay, as well as the weight of a grown man. I know it’s as old as the rest of the barn, but I am sure I will find that a saw was taken to the supports. I don’t know how on earth you survived the fall, as well as the weight of all the lumber that landed on you.”
She’d landed in the muck pit, that’s how, a fitting analogy for her circumstances generally. The sturdy sides had kept the lumber from landing on her, and the contents of the pit had cushioned her fall.
Which would be funny in some metaphorical sense, except…
“If Gwen were laying my body out in the parlor now, Andrew, would you be relieved or sorrowing or both?”
He pushed away from the tub and paced across the room.
“I would be insane with grief and guilt,” he bit out, snatching a large towel off a pile on the clothespress. He came back to the tub as she rose from the water, opened the bath towel, draped it over his shoulder, and held out a hand to steady her as she stepped from the tub.
“Allow me,” he directed when she would have taken the dry cloth from him.
She allowed him to gently towel her body dry, then sit her down, back to him, on the sofa. He brushed her hair dry then dropped a nightgown over her head, working carefully to avoid movement of her throbbing shoulder. With equal attention to her comfort, he wrapped a night robe around her.
When Gwen brought up a very late luncheon tray, Andrew joined Astrid in a meal, making her a sandwich and cutting her apple into quarters, so all she had to do was eat one-handed.
He could not have been more attentive. A
strid considered planning an attack on her life every few weeks to keep him at her side and civil, but discarded the notion. As much as her shoulder hurt and her arm throbbed and her head ached, the hurt she saw in Andrew’s eyes was the far greater source of pain.
Fifteen
In the ensuing days, Astrid suffered no cramping, no bleeding, no signs of internal ill effects whatsoever, while the child continued to move and grow within her. She was stiff, sore, and scared, but above all, she was grateful her child yet lived.
About a week after she’d sustained her injuries, Astrid lay in bed, spooned with her husband. They had not made love since she’d been hurt, but in the intervening days, she’d seen the hungry look in Andrew’s eyes and been heartened by it. Maybe these injuries were a blessing in disguise. Maybe Andrew was resolving whatever doubts had been haunting him.
Though Dr. Johnson’s observation about second marriages being the triumph of hope over experience came to mind.
Andrew’s hand splayed across her belly, his touch familiar and comforting. “Somebody is up past bedtime tonight.”
“Lying down seems to provoke a time of moving about,” Astrid replied, drifting her fingers across the back of Andrew’s hand. “It has been thus for the past few weeks, and Felicity has written it was thus for her as well.”
And Gareth had loved to spend the time marveling at the child’s movement, but she didn’t voice that confidence to the man’s brother. Instead, she wrapped her fingers around Andrew’s and deliberately moved his hand up over her breast.
He kissed the nape of her neck on a sigh. “I am not a saint, Astrid. If we couple again… It changes nothing.”
Astrid wrestled herself onto her back, finding Andrew propped on one elbow, looking down at her gravely. His eyes by the dying light of the fire conveyed a wall of sadness banking a burning desire.
“I want to make love to my husband,” Astrid said, her voice surprisingly even given the desperation she felt.
Andrew brushed his fingers across her forehead, smoothing her hair back in one of the touches she loved best. “You are sure?”
“I am sure,” Astrid said, turning her face to the muscular plane of his chest. “Andrew, I miss you so.”
He closed his eyes, as if sustaining a blow, but he had spoken honestly: he wasn’t a saint, and the next thing Astrid felt was her husband’s mouth, open and tenderly ravenous against hers.
He shifted over her, enfolding her in his arms. “If I am careful, can you be comfortable on your back?”
“Don’t, for the love of God, be careful. Just love me, Andrew, please…”
He apparently couldn’t talk to her, couldn’t tell her what demons drove him, but he could offer tactile consolation, with his hands, with his mouth, with his hard male body. He offered his mouth, to cover hers when she cried out. He offered his hands, to arouse and soothe by turns. And he offered himself, thrusting into her eager heat with endless, determined patience.
But as passion built, and built some more, Andrew held himself just above her. This consideration drove Astrid mad and had her clutching at his back, his shoulders, his buttocks.
“Andrew, I can’t…” She levered herself up against him, interrupting his rhythm in a desperate search for the satisfaction of his intimate weight. “Please, Andrew… oh, God, please…”
He groaned something unintelligible, shifted them to their sides, cupped her buttocks with one large hand, and buried his face in the crook of her neck. She gave a panting sigh, then a low keening moan of satisfaction as he drove her into a release all the more powerful for having eluded her.
When she lay sated and boneless against him, Andrew resumed moving in her slowly, each thrust and withdrawal lazy and thorough. He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her forehead lingeringly, as if memorizing the feel of her features with his lips.
Astrid’s hands trailed languidly along the muscles of his back, then into his long, thick hair. Any pretense that they were merely coupling was shattered by the tenderness of Andrew’s attentions. He was making love with her, making love like a man going off to war, storing up the feel, the scent, and the taste of her the way she’d stored up the same memories of him.
Or perhaps, like a man coming home from war.
Heartened by that possibility, Astrid moved with him, undulated in counterpoint to his thrusts, focused her awareness on his scent, on the feel of his sighs against her skin, the soft, intimate sounds their bodies made in the darkness. He laid his cheek against hers, a gesture of intimate surrender.
“Sweetheart… I can’t…” he rasped.
Whatever he’d been about to say, whatever thought he’d been able to form dissipated as Astrid felt a wet heat deep inside her body. He dropped his forehead to her shoulder and remained still, while she savored the pleasure of stroking her fingers over his nape.
He was hers. For these few moments, he was hers and hers alone. The thought encouraged her, and the way he wrapped her in his arms as she eased into dreams gave her hope.
In the morning, she rose to the news that he was sending her away.
***
“You knew.” Astrid fired the words across the breakfast table. “You knew you were sending me to your brother, and yet you said nothing to me last night.”
Andrew, usually so handsome and attractive, looked haggard in the morning light. She half hoped he’d indulge in some sniping or grouching that would gratify her need for… meanness.
Instead, he regarded her with patient, unhappy eyes. “Would it have made a difference if you’d known my plans?” he asked gently.
He seemed to think she would have withheld her favors, the idiot. “Yes, it would have made a difference. I would have imposed on your generosity until neither one of us could have kept our eyes open.”
When she wanted him to launch into an argument, Andrew covered her hand with his. “I am sending you to Heathgate because you will be safer there, nothing more, nothing less. He is the marquess, he has held Willowdale for more than fifteen years, and our papa held it before that.”
Andrew did not let go of her hand, which was prudent, because many small objects lay within Astrid’s reach. Her husband had considerately allowed her to heal, and considerately ensured the child had not been harmed. Now, he was considerately sending her away.
Husbandly consideration was apparently to plague her in both of her marriages.
“Astrid, do not be wroth. Heathgate’s people are loyal to us, whereas here, I am still viewed as an interloper. Somebody very cleverly weakened the supports to your viewing platform, and the only thing that saved you and the baby was that you landed on a week’s worth of old straw and hay. Any other day of the week, any other time of the day, and the muck pit would have been empty.”
She’d landed on a week’s worth of manure, fortunately; otherwise, she would be dead. He didn’t need to say that, and he didn’t need to admit again that her death would devastate him. His eyes were that haunted.
“Andrew, I do not want to go,” she said, all pride deserting her.
“And I,” he said quietly, “do not want to let you go, despite all, Astrid.”
Despite all. That covered a lot of nameless misery and loneliness caused by a man she thought she’d known, and known she’d loved.
“But you will send me away.”
“I must,” Andrew rejoined. “Besides, Felicity’s confinement draws nigh, and she needs you. Gareth needs you too, as do our little nephews. I’ve sent word to Fairly he might find you at Willowdale as well.”
“That’s lovely.” Astrid pushed cold eggs around on her pretty blue plate and wondered why Gwen had known to dodge breakfast today, of all days. “You have decided I am needed by my sister, my brother, my brother-in-law, and my nephews, so off I go. Was it my imagination, or did you fail to mention I might need my husband, or—just possibly—he might have need of me?”
>
Andrew shoved tiredly to his feet—had he remained awake while she’d slept in his arms? “He does need you, Astrid, but he needs you safe, whole, and out of harm’s way. Please, I beg of you, do not fight me on this.”
He stood by the window, looking out over the bleak, gray morning he had chosen for her departure. His back was to her, the set of his shoulders grimly determined. His complexion this morning was as gray as the clouds lowering over the hills and fields, fatigue etched in every line on his face.
Andrew was suffering. He had stopped trying to antagonize or avoid her, almost as if he had no energy to spare for such pretenses. He truly did want her safe, and that goal was directing this decision. His recent weeks of dodging her and barking at her had taken a toll, one Astrid was not happy to acknowledge.
He does need you, Astrid… The words brought her strength, for they were an admission beyond that niggardly business of simply caring for her.
She took a place beside him. He neither looked down nor made a move to touch her, until she rested her head on his shoulder and slipped an arm around his waist.
“I am as afraid of losing you, Andrew, as I am of losing my own life. I will do as you ask today and go to my sister’s household, but I fear what the future holds for us. I am afraid if I go today, you will believe you have won in your efforts to destroy the hope I have for our marriage.”
His arm came around her shoulders, and his lips brushed against her temple.
“If you go today, you do so simply to respect my need to keep you safe,” he said, relief evident in his voice. “I will visit when I can.”
Oh, what a lot of comfort that wasn’t. He would always find some horse to ride, some pamphlet to read, some ledger to stare at. He’d send her little notes, and she’d try to answer them…
She pulled away, the pain in her heart making her reckless.
“Perhaps you should not visit. You say I am being sent away simply as a function of my safety, but, Andrew, a part of you wants this too, and not because Gareth has the better, more trustworthy staff. You are confused about your reasons for marrying me. Maybe if I am not underfoot, your reasons will become more clear to you.”
Andrew: Lord of Despair (The Lonely Lords) Page 21