Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jessamine hummed as she dressed, her heart feeling as though it was bursting.
William had smiled at her today, and Andrew had been.
He had held her. In public.
This was not the same as the kiss, the way they had frantically reached for one another.
This had been tenderness.
Andrew stepped into the room behind her, and it felt so natural for his hands to slide to her waist, resting there possessively. He met her gaze in the mirror and smiled. She hadn’t been joking when she’d said that he scowled at her less and less frequently now.
“Do you think we are actually getting on?” she asked.
“So far, it seems like it.” He took her necklace from her fingers and untangled it, fastening it neatly around her throat. She liked the look of his fingers there. The way he had held her throat before…
A flush spread across her cheeks, and his gaze traveled across it, turning heated.
“Mina,” he said, his voice low, and the sound of her name, the shortened version of it, sank through her to pool, liquid and hot, at her core.
She turned in his arms. “How much time do we have?”
“Not enough, I’m afraid.” He hesitated, his gaze moving over her face as though he could read her thoughts through her features alone. “Have you had any more nightmares?”
At the question, she paused, a little of the heat dying. “About William?”
“About anything.”
“No, not since…” Since the time he had woken her up. “They have always happened sometimes. I suppose…” I suppose I’m damaged. “I can’t forget Percy, Andrew. It will always affect me.”
“I know.” He bent to kiss her cheek and tucked her hand neatly in his arm. “Just as the war will always affect me. But we should be aware of the challenges we each face. And with William.”
“I can look after myself,” she insisted.
“I know that too. And you can look after William, too. You’ve proven that. I just don’t want anything to get in your way.”
Silence sat between them, suddenly heavy. William had smiled at her today; he had looked at her with such love, and he had smiled at her, and now Andrew’s affection had turned into concern about what might happen to William if anything were to happen to her.
Did that extend to them? Was there a them, or was he merely acting this way in order to support her?
She opened her mouth to ask, then closed it again. If the answer were a negative one, better she didn’t know.
If all he would ever offer her was this, then she’d take it, and she would learn to live with it.
Andrew handed her into the carriage, and the journey to Irene’s house was a short, mercifully quiet one. If he knew he had said something untoward, that had crushed her feelings a little, he made no sign of it, and once again, his fingertips brushed the small of her back.
Jessamine took William from Lucy’s arms, and the butler showed them through to the drawing room. It had been weeks—months, even—since Jessamine had last been here, but it still struck her as so familiar. And so was her sister’s embrace.
“Do you mind if Andrew knows?” she murmured to Irene the moment they were alone, sending a meaningful glance at Irene’s stomach.
Her dress today hid the slight bump, and Jessamine knew Irene wanted to keep the news from the ton at large. Even now, there were so many things that could go wrong, and this was a secret that belonged to them.
But Irene merely took Jessamine’s hand. “Tell him if you would like. And tell me how things are progressing? He looked so smitten with you in the park, Jessie. Like you were your very own happy family. Like William was his.”
Jessamine’s heart squeezed a little. “I think he really does love him as a son. And a second cousin.”
“Oh, it’s confusing, of course. But the fact is—dearest, you have a taste of happiness. It’s within reach.”
Jessamine glanced over to where Andrew was speaking with Henry. Both men were relaxed, a glass of brandy in their hands.
“I think Henry likes him,” Irene said under her breath. “And you know Henry, he doesn’t like everyone. But Andrew is one of the good ones. You could have found a husband corrupted by gambling or some other vice.”
“I’ve never seen Andrew gamble,” Jessamine confirmed. “In fact, I’m not sure what vices he does have.”
“All men have vices. I suspect your husband’s might be a little more subtle than most. Has he talked to you about the war?”
Jessamine shook her head. “Very little. I understand he trained in various locations across England and went to France.” She recalled the vehemence in Baron Lorthey’s voice that one time he had approached them. “I think he might have lost some soldiers there.”
“Ah.” Irene breathed out slowly. “And then he came back, and he had lost his entire family all at once.”
Jessamine blinked. She hadn’t quite considered it in those stark terms. No wonder sometimes his expression went blank when something reminded him of a world he would rather have forgotten. And no wonder he was so angry with himself for not saving Rebecca when he had lost so much.
No wonder he was afraid of compromising William’s future, or putting her in a position where she could no longer care for William the way she had been doing.
“Go to him,” Irene said, giving Jessamine a little nudge. “And—oh, don’t mind us. Kiss him. Show him how very much you care.”
Jessamine needed no more encouragement. What they shared, she couldn’t put her finger on, but she needed him to know—right now, in this moment—that she saw him. That his pain was her pain, and that she would sit in it with him until he finally forgave himself for Rebecca’s death.
He glanced up at her approach, a question in his eyes. Although he was relaxed—for Andrew—he couldn’t compare to the easy way Henry slouched. And he straightened as she approached.
“What is it?”
“I just wanted to say,” she said, reaching for him, cupping his face in her hands and holding him as close as she dared, “that I see you.”
Then she kissed him.
Andrew held on to Jessamine in a daze, unsure what was happening.
All he knew was the soft warmth of her mouth as it coaxed a response from him.
And he had spent far too much time wanting her for there to be any doubt about his response, or the force of it.
He briefly forgot about their company, the room, or anything but the fact that Jessamine was here, kissing him, and she had told him she saw him.
He doubted that. His soul was far too blackened for anyone as sweet and innocent as his Jessamine to truly see. But he appreciated the gesture all the same.
When she broke away, he almost followed her down, chasing the taste of her lips. He stared at her, attempting to parse her expression. Then he glanced up at the duchess, who watched them with an indulgent expression.
“It must have been so hard,” Jessamine whispered, “coming back here after everything. Your father, your brother… We haven’t spoken about them, but I see you.”
I see you.
That phrase again.
“Losing my father is the natural way of things and not as much of a blow as you think,” he said, acutely aware of the duke just feet away. “And my brother was a blow, but we were not close. Don’t pity me, Jessamine.”
“I am not pitying you. I am seeing you.” She slipped a hand through his arm and squeezed. “I just never thought about it before. When you first approached me about William, I never considered what you had returned from. All I’m saying is… I’m thinking about it now.”
He patted her hand. “Later,” he told her, and glanced at the duke. “I think I heard the bell. Shall we go in for dinner?”
Dinner was, to Andrew’s relief, a lighthearted and easy affair. The duke and duchess did not stand on ceremony, instead addressing Jessamine like a sister, even now, and treating him like a long-lost brother.
“When I was at Oxford,” the duke said, “I used to climb up the window to my rooms after a long night out.”
The duchess folded her hands on the table. “I beg you would not tell me what you were doing during those drunken nights, Henry.”
“Nothing you would disapprove of, my dear.” He grinned at her, affection clear in every gesture. “I would never have dared.”
“You didn’t know me then.”
“And yet, my instincts led me true.”
Andrew grinned down at the table. Jessamine nudged him. “What about you?” she demanded. “Where were your instincts when you were dancing with other ladies during your training?”
“Dancing is not what I was afraid of,” the duchess said with emphasis.
Jessamine’s brows both rose, and Andrew let his head sink into his hands. “Thank you, Setton,” he groaned. “For drawing attention to my past behaviors and encouraging my wife to pry into my affairs.”
“Once you marry,” the duke said, “all your affairs become your wife’s business.”
“Even the less palatable ones,” his wife added with an indulgent smile. She rested both hands on her stomach, and although no one had made any explicit reference to her state, Andrew was beginning to suspect he knew the situation. “That is one of the joys of marriage.”
“Joys?” Jessamine queried, raising a brow.
“Learning everything there is to know about your spouse is a particular sort of privilege,” the duchess said with a small smile. “And I would call that a joy. Even if what you learn is not always palatable.”
“Irene,” the duke protested, though he was fighting a smile. “Stop casting such aspersions on my character in front of our guests. The last thing I’d want is for our new brother-in-law to think I’m a reprehensible character with a murky past.”
“I could never think that,” Andrew said.
There was an oddly warm feeling in his chest at the sight of this easy conversation and lighthearted bickering.
No wonder Jessamine loved her family this much—if she had been exposed to this sort of casual affection on a daily basis, then that would inform the way she thought.
It was as though he had opened a door into her mind. This was part of her lived experience, and it had shaped him. Just as his lived experience had shaped him, now they came at the same problem—William—with different solutions.