Chapter Twenty-One
The sun shone brightly in the perfectly blue sky, and they shaded themselves from it under a large oak tree in the park. Mrs. Turner, the cook, had sent a red-checked blanket along with their picnic, and as they sat there, the grass springy beneath the fabric, Laurence felt like a young lad again.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a picnic. He thought he remembered his nanny taking him when they were out on the Kent estate.
But that was a very long time ago indeed.
“What was it like, growing up with a brother?” Laurence asked as he peeled segments of an orange and popped them into his mouth. He offered one to Anastasia, and she took it with a smile.
She bit into the fruit before answering, and as droplets of juice ran down her chin, he had to fight the urge to lean forward and catch it on his tongue. Perhaps if they had been eating this fruit at home, he might have done so. But he couldn’t—not in public. It wouldn’t be right.
And what if it offended her?
“I always wanted a brother,” Laurence confided as she finished the piece of fruit. “Or a sister, I suppose—but it was always a brother I imagined. A playmate, you know?”
Anastasia nodded. “I can understand wishing for one…but growing up with Oliver was not always pleasant.”
Laurence was not wholly surprised by this revelation. Oliver did not seem like a particularly nice man, and so it was no stretch to think that he had not been a very kind boy.
“My father hated his brother. Even more so as they became adults, and my uncle frittered everything away. He even made me promise—” Laurence cut himself off, deciding in the moment that it might not be the most sensible thing to share.
He didn’t want her to think that he had aimed to trap her into marriage that night, on the dark walk.
Although he had planned to find a wife, he certainly hadn’t thought it would be like that.
He wasn’t entirely sure that she was happy in this marriage, and he didn’t want to give her a reason to dislike him.
“He made you promise what?” Anastasia prompted, reaching for a slice of bread and some cheese. The picnic was even more delicious for its simplicity.
Laurence shook his head. “I can’t remember what I was going to say. But you would not recommend growing up with a brother?”
“I cannot speak for all brothers,” Anastasia began slowly. “But Oliver…well, I do not think he has ever liked me.”
“I’m sure that can’t be true,” Laurence said with a frown.
She smiled sadly. “It is a realization I have only recently accepted, but I do not think he ever has. He would get very frustrated, as a child, and he would take it out on me.”
“He would shout at you?” Laurence asked, picturing a little redheaded girl and a redheaded boy shouting at one another over the placement of a toy or who got the last sweet treat.
“Shout at me, hit me, lock me in the cupboard…” Anastasia spoke as if these things were normal, of little consequence—and yet they did not sound like the normal behaviors of a brother toward his younger sister.
“Did your parents never reprimand him? Or your nanny?”
Anastasia smiled ruefully. “Oliver has always been very good at knowing when he is not being watched—when he can get away with such behavior.”
Laurence felt his hands curl into fists, as anger rose in his chest. “All this was only as children, though, yes?”
“It continued into our teenage years. Things got better when he left for university.”
Laurence swallowed. While he did not like the thought of Anastasia being terrorized by her unpleasant older brother, at least it was no longer happening. “But he has not touched you in adulthood, has he?”
He did not miss the way her eyes darted away from his before she answered, all too breezily: “No, no, of course not.”
His wife was a terrible liar. It was always clear when she was about to tell a falsehood, and he knew yet again that this was not the truth.
He would not push it now—not ruin their picnic, their moment of connection.
But if Oliver Carrington ever dared to lay a hand on his wife again, then he would rue the day.
*
Anastasia did not like speaking of Oliver, or their difficult relationship.
She had truly believed that the issues between them were in the past—until all this marriage business came up, until he had grabbed her wrist in the parlor that day.
Now she felt the same fear that she had felt when she was a little girl.
But she didn’t want to feel it today.
“What’s it like to grow up knowing you’re going to be a viscount one day?” she asked.
Laurence finished chewing the shortbread he had chosen from the selection of biscuits and cakes before answering.
“When I was younger, I didn’t really think about it.
I mean, I was raised to know it would be my title one day, but my father didn’t want it to be all I ever thought about.
And then when I got older… Well, I realized that I would have this great power, this great responsibility—but that I would only get it once my father was dead.
” He gave a sad smile and pushed the plate of biscuits toward her.
“Unlike many of the ton, I liked my father. Loved him. And so I suppose the title has always been tinged with sadness, for me.”
She could hear the anguish in his tone. She reached out and took his hand without thinking. He laced his fingers between hers.
“That was probably more detail than you wanted in answer to your question.”
Anastasia shook her head and squeezed his hand tightly. “Not at all. I want… I want to get to know you. Properly.”