moment. Do forgive me.”
“I was just thinking of Peter,” I said, refusing to think more about what Peter
had said and what I had said in return. Lawrence leaned over and patted my
gloved hands. “I know it is difficult for you. I, too, was very disappointed
when your cousin refused our invitation. Ah, well, he will grow reconciled once
he sees how very happy and content you are with me. He will also be impressed
when he sees how your funds continue to accumulate, since my man of business
needs but look at a guinea and it leaps to become two guineas.”
I laughed. My husband made me laugh, just as John had. I frowned at myself. That
man had appeared only three times in my life. He was long gone. He was nothing
and no one. It was time to forget him.
“Do you think you can call me Andy, my lord? I have never cared for Andrea.
Grandfather only called me by my full name when he was irked at me for some
misdeed.”
“Andy? A boy’s name?”
“I answer to it easily, sir. It’s like a very comfortable shoe.”
“Very well. It is odd, but I will try. I wish you had mentioned this to me
before, then I would have been accustomed to it by now.”
“I didn’t know if you would approve. I didn’t wish to take the chance that you
would flee if I told you about my unfeminine name before we were wed.”
He smiled at me, truly a charming smile. He really didn’t look his age. Since he
was tall and quite lean, there were no jowls to add years. His nose wasn’t
veined and red from too much drinking. His eyes were a dazzling dark blue, and
one had but to look at him, listen to him converse for but a few minutes, to
realize he was an educated man, a man of sensibility and refinement, whatever
those two things meant. I had heard them so very often growing up, that I
suppose they were important, and was thus as certain as I could be that he was
fully endowed with both of them.
He was dark, his eyebrows full over his eyes. His hair was still thick, and thin
streaks of white threaded through the darker brown hair. He was fine-looking, my
husband.
Had he been my father, perhaps things would have been different.
And then he said, “Your upbringing was unusual, what with only your grandfather
to see you after your mother died. There is much in it that is both charming and
disconcerting. We will see.”
Whatever that meant, I thought. I watched my husband settle again against the
comfortable upholstered cushions and stretch his legs diagonally away from me.
He folded his arms gracefully across his chest and tilted his head slightly to
one side, resting his chin lightly on his cravat. He seemed peaceful, calm. I
was unused to a man who wasn’t a volcano, as Grandfather had been. Always quick
to rage and equally as quick to laughter.
I said, “Peter told me that you have two nephews who live with you. One of them
is his age, Peter said, and he is also your heir.”
“Yes,” the earl said, “the older boy is my heir. We have, unfortunately, been
somewhat estranged over the past years, but he is home, at least I pray he is,
by now.”
“What happened?”
An eyebrow shot up immediately. He looked ready to blast me, and I suppose it
made some sense since my question was on the impertinent side, but I was, after
all, his wife now. Then he just nodded, as if to himself, making a decision,
drew a deep breath, and gave me a smile that was as shallow as a mud puddle
after a light rain. Still, he said easily, “It is just that he is too much like
his father. He was greatly distressed when his parents were killed by bandits in
the Lowlands of Scotland. He and his brother were only twelve and ten years old
when it happened. I was their uncle; my wife had died without children. I had no