Douglas: Lord of Heartache (26 page)

Gwen considered him, while somewhere in the house, a clock chimed. The sound was a portent to her, not a death knell yet, but a reminder that her opportunity to make peace with the father of her child was also slipping away.

Douglas’s words, about wanting to know Rose had the honor of her paternity befallen him, rang in Gwen’s ears, and as much as she wished it were not so, she had things to atone for too.

“Victor,” Gwen said gently, “I have something to tell you, something dear and happy and precious…”

***

“I told him about Rose,” Guinevere said from her place beside Douglas in the coach. “I hadn’t realized Victor was dying… Well, of course, how could I have realized? Oh, God, Douglas… he’s Rose’s father and he’s
dying
. What difference does it make if our marriage was valid when he’s dying?”

Douglas shifted to wrap an arm around her, even while he fished for his spare handkerchief. He would have to order more at this rate, lest he be without one when he himself had tears to dry.

“I’m sure there’s time to sort out the legalities, Guinevere.” Though precious damned little of it.

“Douglas, he wants to meet her. I could not deny him.”

“Of course you couldn’t,” Douglas soothed, though the meeting had better be soon. When he and Westhaven had returned to the parlor, Victor had looked worse than ever—exhausted, haggard, and emotionally spent. Victor hadn’t even been able to walk Guinevere to the door when it came time to leave, but had used all his strength merely to rise from his seat.

“You are not upset?” Guinevere asked, shifting to regard him warily.

“I have no right to be upset,” Douglas replied, but as he canvassed his emotions, he found he could be more honest than that. “I am not upset you would want Rose to have some memory of her father, or that you would want Victor to meet the unlikely blessing to result from his past bad behavior.”

“My bad behavior too,” Guinevere said. “He asked endless questions about her, until he was too exhausted to talk and the coughing overcame him.”

“So how are you?” Douglas asked, loving the feel of her snuggled against him, regardless of the circumstances—regardless of anything, God help him. “Are you upset your former love is dying?”

“How can you ask me that?”

“I am your friend, Guinevere. Even if I were your husband, I would inquire after your emotional well-being.”

“You shouldn’t have to hear me prosing on about Victor, regardless of his illness.”

Douglas took her hand in his, wondering with whom Guinevere would talk if she could not talk with him. She had her cousins thoroughly cowed, and she would never burden her daughter with inappropriate confidences.

“Since you ask,” she said after a pause, “yes, of course I am upset Victor is dying. As a younger man, Douglas, he was passionate in all things. He did nothing by half measures, he lit up the whole room with his good moods, and raged without limit when he was angry. He was devoted to his sisters, and woe to any who did not treat a Windham daughter well. For all that, he wasn’t a spoiled young man, particularly, he was simply dramatic. He takes after his father in this regard. They are men of… of presence.”

While Douglas was a man with wrinkled handkerchiefs, who at that moment would not trade places with anybody for any amount of money, charisma, or familial consequence.

“And you told him about Rose.” Which disclosure made Douglas both proud of Guinevere, and nervous for her—and for Rose.

“I told him, and I agreed to bring her to meet him in the park the day after tomorrow. And the look on his face, Douglas… it was as if he’d been given complete, unconditional absolution for every misdeed he’d ever committed. I have never seen a man look so pleased, as if he comprehended the mystery of life itself.”

Maybe Victor had done just that. While the idea of this meeting sat ill with Douglas, that Guinevere would allow it was perfectly in keeping with the fundamental fairness, the graciousness, of her character.

And in Victor’s shoes… Douglas shied away from that uncomfortable thought.

When he ushered Guinevere into Lady Heathgate’s kitchen, they were greeted by Rose, who was having Mr. Bear join her for a tea party at the worktable while her cousin Gareth cadged biscuits from the plate before the bear.

“I see you are entertaining,” Douglas said, scooping Rose up for a hug. “How fortunate for Mr. Bear someone made a batch of biscuits.”

“Cook made the biscuits and Mr. Bear and I helped,” Rose reported, squeezing Douglas’s neck hard. “I have missed you, Cousin Douglas. You must stay right here while I get you your snowflake.”

“I have a personal snowflake,” Douglas marveled, settling on the bench with Rose in his lap and a secure arm around her precious person. “How fortunate am I. Do you hear that, Bear?” Douglas cocked his head as if to listen, then frowned. “I don’t believe he’s speaking to me, Rose. Perhaps his feelings are hurt?”

“I can make him a snowflake, too.” Rose scrambled off Douglas’s lap, and the effort it took simply to let her go nigh robbed him of speech. “I made one for everybody who loves me.” She was up the stairs in a flash, leaving three adults staring at a plate of biscuits in her wake.

“Tea, anybody?” Heathgate said between bites of his sweet. “And don’t think to avoid an interrogation just because there’s a bear present. How did matters go with Windham?”

The marquess, like any fellow in his own mother’s kitchen, put the kettle on and ate half the biscuits. Rose handed out personalized snowflakes to the adults, then repaired to her room to fashion one for Mr. Bear. Slowly, Guinevere explained to her cousin what had transpired with Victor, and that she had agreed to introduce the man to his daughter.

Douglas was ready to defend her decision to her cousin, but as it turned out, there was no need.

“You are kind, Gwennie,” Heathgate said, rising to put the tea things away, “but you are also tired. Why not lie down for a while, as I’m sure the day has been trying? I’ll make certain the damned bear’s snowflake is not costing us a year’s worth of paper.”

He shot a look at Douglas, a look portending future discussions outside of Guinevere’s hearing, then disappeared in the direction of the nursery.

“I want Cousin Douglas to carry me,” Rose said, the smallest whine creeping into her voice as she peered around the empty park.

“Nonsense,” Douglas said. “I carried you out to the coach, Rose Hollister. It is your turn to carry me.”

Rose looked momentarily confused, then chortled merrily. “Cousin Douglas is silly,” she told her mother, taking one of Douglas’s hands in hers. “He’s a very silly gentleman.”

“He is that,” Guinevere said, smiling over her daughter’s head. “He’s a very silly, serious gentleman.”

The humor in her expression died as they neared the duck pond and caught sight of two men seated on a bench. Both were dressed well, but one sat with a cane across his knees.

Guinevere drew to a halt and knelt beside her daughter. “You see those handsome fellows there, on that bench, Rose?”

Rose nodded, eyes riveted on the pair her mother had pointed out.

“Your papa is the man with the cane. Your uncle is the other man.”

“Uncle who?”

“Why, Uncle Gayle.”

Rose must have heard the uncertainty in her mother’s voice, for the child clutched her bear more tightly. “I don’t want to meet my papa.”

“Rose…” Guinevere bit her lip and cast a helpless look in Douglas’s direction. Douglas hunkered down and tipped Rose’s chin up with his finger until their gazes met.

“It’s all right to be scared, Rose. Your papa might be scared too. Will you feel more brave if I carry you over there?”

Rose stared at the ground, allowing the smallest nod in reply.

“I will carry you then, though only as far as the bench. Then you must carry me back to the coach when we are finished.”

He lifted Rose up to his hip and caught the look of relief Guinevere gave him. It was all he could do not to wrap his free arm around her shoulders, giving both Guinevere and Rose the protection of his embrace as they met Victor. Unbidden, the memory of the morning Douglas had met Guinevere rose up, a moment carried by courage and sentiment that had indirectly started them all on the path toward this meeting.

“Westhaven.” Douglas bowed as best he could without turning loose of Rose. “Lord Victor.”

Victor rose slowly, aided by his cane, his gaze on his daughter. The adults exchanged appropriate greetings, while Douglas surreptitiously inventoried Victor’s appearance. His lordship looked if anything more pale and gaunt than he had two days earlier, though his gaze was warm, happy even, and he was smiling a damnably winsome smile.

“And who, may I ask, is this lovely young lady?”

Rose, suffering a rare attack of shyness, buried her nose against Douglas’s shoulder.

“Lord Victor,” Guinevere said, her smile as genuine as Victor’s, “may I make known to you our daughter, Miss Rose Hollister.”

Something crossed Windham’s features, a sadness mixed with surprise, but he recovered quickly, sketching a labored bow.

“Miss Rose? May I introduce you to my brother, your uncle Gayle?”

Westhaven, to his credit, reached up and grasped Rose’s hand gently in his. “Miss Rose, the pleasure is all mine.” He smiled at her, a beamish, warm smile that reminded Douglas that even Moreland himself was reportedly capable of great charm. As Westhaven bowed over Rose’s hand with mock formality, the child thawed a bit.

“You are a silly man,” Rose pronounced. “Cousin Douglas is a silly man, too.”

“Cousin Douglas,” Douglas said, “is also a man whose arms are getting tired. Down you go, young lady.”

“I have to carry him back to the coach,” Rose informed her recently introduced relations.

“You are that strong?” her papa asked in wondering tones. “Could you carry me?”

“You have to carry me first,” Rose explained. “Cousin Douglas carried me here, so now I can walk. Do the ducks bite?”

“I don’t think so,” Victor replied, “unless you are particularly sweet. They might appreciate some of the crusts of bread I’ve brought, though.”

“You can
feed
them?”

“We can. If you’d like to join me?”

“Mama?” Rose was all but hopping up and down, so accurately had her father guessed her nature.

“I’ll wait right here with Cousin Douglas. Perhaps your uncle Gayle might like to join you?”

“In a moment.” Westhaven handed his brother the cane. “Careful on the slope, you two. It’s slippery, and one doesn’t want to come a cropper.”

“Why is it slippery?” Rose asked, bounding along beside Victor as he made slow progress toward the pond. His answer was lost amid a flurry of honking and quacking as the waterfowl left the bank for the safety of the pond at Rose’s approach.

“Shall we sit?” Guinevere suggested.

“If you don’t mind,” Douglas addressed himself to Guinevere, “I’ll stroll for a bit. I won’t go far, but I feel a need to stretch my legs.”

He felt no such thing. He felt a need to snatch Guinevere and Rose up and spirit them far away from these charming fellows whose family was wealthy and whose papa was an autocratic old duke. Because Gwen and Rose did not need Douglas acting like that self-same, curmudgeonly old duke, Douglas took himself a short way down the path.

***

Westhaven bowed slightly as Gwen gave Douglas leave to hare off. Douglas was not abandoning her, though. His casual stroll was about trust and consideration, even though Gwen was hard put not to call him back before he’d gone less than ten yards away.

“I should have known there was a child,” Westhaven said when they had some privacy. “In hindsight, I recall seeing that stuffed bear sitting on the landing at Enfield, and Amery mentioned asking at Tatt’s about a pony when we were in the mews. Little Rose will at least have a happy memory of today. It’s more than some people have of their fathers.”

“And speaking of fathers, what will you tell yours about Rose?” Gwen had neglected to negotiate a vow of silence from both Victor and his brother before she’d revealed Rose’s existence, and that oversight haunted her.

Westhaven’s lips quirked, not with humor. “Rose isn’t mine to tell about. Their Graces should be told, though.”

“Why?”

“So they can love her, of course,” Westhaven shot back, his tone for once showing irritation. “They have lost one son and are soon to lose another, while a third is reeling from too many years murdering the French, and the fourth hides on any handy piano bench from the people who love him and worry about him. They need grandchildren to love, and I, for one, don’t understand why the patronage of such grandparents would strike you as undesirable.”

“Don’t you?” Gwen’s need to call Douglas back escalated, though he hadn’t gone far at all. “When one hears at practically every turn how
old
school
your dear papa is? How do you think I’d fare, Rose’s unworthy mama, should my dictates as her parent conflict with His Grace’s as her grandpapa?”

Westhaven sat forward and dropped his forehead to his palm.

“His Grace isn’t…
terrible
,” Westhaven said over his shoulder, “but he’s ferocious, very protective, and convinced he knows best. To make matters worse, he is sometimes right, and on those occasions when he isn’t, only my mother seems able to confront him with the evidence of his humanity and survive unscathed.”

“Your description puts me in mind of my cousins.” The realization was uncomfortable. “They are both quite, quite stubborn, and equally besotted with their wives.”

“That sounds lovely, doesn’t it?” Down by the pond, Victor handed Rose one bread crust after another, the honking, flapping geese waddling closer as Rose shared her treats. “To be besotted with one’s spouse?”

“In that, at least, your parents have set an inspiring example.”

“They have.” Westhaven sat back, the picture of a handsome gentleman at ease, though Gwen could not find his company relaxing. “Victor fretted terribly about this meeting. I see that he needn’t have.”

“I fretted,” Gwen retorted. “Rose fretted, and my family fretted into the bargain. Why shouldn’t Victor fret as well?”

“Your family fretted?” Westhaven glanced at Douglas, lounging against a tree some distance off. “Your family has been kind to you and Rose these last five years?”

“To the extent I allowed them to be. Suffice it to say there have been challenges, but that is all water under the bridge, my lord. How much time would you say Victor has left?”

“Weeks, maybe less,” Westhaven said, a wealth of grief and acceptance in a few syllables. “After your visit on Saturday, he’s done little but sleep, such as he can sleep when he coughs constantly.”

“He doesn’t seem to be coughing much now.”

“He’s distracted, in part, and he’s stubborn as hell. He doesn’t want Rose to remember him as an invalid.”

“She knows he’s dying.” Anybody beholding Victor would conclude as much in a single glance.

“However did you tell a child such a thing?” The question was curious rather than accusing.

“I explained that Victor did not want to risk exposing Rose to his illness, but now he is not likely to get better, so he is more worried he might get to meet Rose only in heaven.”

“God help us,” Westhaven spat. “The pain that must be endured by all as a result of this damned illness has no end. I hate it.”

Westhaven’s words bore a rare heat, and Gwen would have responded to his comment, but Rose was leading her father by the hand back toward the bench. Westhaven was on his feet immediately, offering his seat to his brother.

“Are the ducks going to sink for all the bread you’ve fed them, Miss Rose?” Westhaven asked his niece.

“No. The bread floats on the water, so it must float in the ducks as well.”

“A scientific conclusion,” Westhaven allowed. While Gwen monitored this exchange, from the corner of her eye she saw Douglas striding toward them with uncharacteristic haste. Foreboding tickled up her spine when a cultured voice spoke from the turn several yards up the path.

“I see our boys have captured the attentions of two fair ladies, my dear. Westhaven, introduce us.”

Percival, Duke of Moreland, stood smiling expectantly at his heir, a dignified blond lady of mature years on His Grace’s arm. Victor had introduced Gwen to Moreland years ago, and the duke was yet a handsome, lean fellow with snapping blue eyes and a full head of snow-white hair.

“I’m Rose.” The bright, childish soprano sailed across the brisk air like so many arrows aimed for Gwen’s heart. “This is my papa, and this is my uncle Gayle. Papa wanted to meet me before he went to the Cloud Pasture, but it’s all right, because he can visit Daisy there.”

A moment of stunned silence followed before the duchess asked, “And who, dear, is Daisy?”

“She was my pony, but she was very old. My papa is not very old, but he is quite, quite sick, and so he didn’t know me. But we came here today, and so now he knows me. We fed the ducks.”

“Westhaven.” Douglas’s voice cut into the next thick silence. “You will provide the introductions?”

While Westhaven managed that task, an expression of profound regret suffused Victor’s face. Obviously, he hadn’t told his parents anything of Rose, and consequences that might have been avoided—unpleasant consequences—were now going to rain down on Gwen from his ducal papa in torrents.

“Percival”—the duchess spoke with low urgency to her husband—“there is a child present. An innocent child.” Her reminder seemed to steady the duke, whose jovial demeanor had gone from stern to thunderous the longer Rose chattered.

The duke turned a gimlet eye on Victor. “You, sir, have much to answer for, as do you.” The last phrase was directed at Westhaven, who stood unflinching at his brother’s side.

“This is neither the time nor the place,” Westhaven rejoined. “Might I suggest Miss Rose be taken home, and the adults assemble at my town house two hours hence?”

“You may not,” Gwen interjected, glaring at the duke. “I will take Rose home and await word from
her
father
regarding
his
pleasure. If he has anything to answer for, Your Grace, then Rose and I are the ones to whom he need answer, and
we
were having a perfectly pleasant visit until we were rudely interrupted. Lord Amery, if you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Douglas replied, bowing civilly to all, lifting Rose to his hip, and offering Gwen his arm before he led the ladies away. He handed them into the coach and sat down between them, an arm around each.

“Are we upset?” he asked the air in general.

“We are,” Gwen said, offering him a watery smile.

“Who was that old man?” Rose asked. “He was mean to my papa and to Uncle Gayle.”

“He was your papa’s papa,” Gwen explained, “and I think His Grace’s feelings were hurt.”

“He hurt my feelings,” Rose countered, “and the ducks ran away.”

Gwen tried again. “Your grandpapa was upset to think we tried to hide his granddaughter from him. That hurt his feelings.”

“Nobody tried to hide me,” Rose protested. “I was right there.”

“That is the perishing truth,” Douglas muttered.

“Your grandpapa hadn’t met you before, Rose, and you are already five years old.”

Rose had fixed her gaze on Mr. Bear, her expression guarded. “Don’t they want a granddaughter?”

“Of course they do,” Gwen said. Probably wanted her tucked up in a ducal nursery, never to see her mother again.

When Douglas passed his handkerchief into Gwen’s hand—she was gathering an entire collection of Douglas’s handkerchiefs—she repeated the words more softly. “Of course Their Graces want you.”

***

“You should consider going through a marriage ceremony with me, immediately.”

Guinevere stepped back, out of Douglas’s embrace, and from her expression, his suggestion had not struck her with a strong, immediate appeal.

Well, damn, what had he expected?

“Why should I do that?” she asked, wrapping her arms around her middle and pacing a few steps closer to the fire warming Lady Heathgate’s parlor.

Douglas reminded himself they were both tired. The day had been long, including explanations to Guinevere’s elder cousin, polite if strained conversation over Lady Heathgate’s dinner table, more strained and not-so-polite discussion with the marquess over drinks, and now this.