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Archie was glad that Hester and Flint had departed, meaning that there was a room available in the family hallway, as well as Flint’s room in the guest wing, but he wanted to be as close to Cecilia as possible. Even if she would not speak to him now. Even if they would never again share what they had.
He stared into the darkness of the room while trying to wrap his head around what she had said and had not said. She had been angry with him for being foolish enough to father a child with Lavinia, but what had upset her most, what seemed to have severed all ties that they could ever live comfortably together, was the fact that he had not told her. That she could not trust him because he had withheld information from her.
But what could he have done? Which man in his right mind told his new bride that he had conceived a child with his paramour only months before they had wed? He tossed to one side, but almost immediately shifted to the other. Even though the bedding had been changed, Hester’s scent of lemon and spring flowers still wafted from it when he moved. Archie lay on his back, his nose as far from the mattress as possible to minimize the scent.
He wanted to go to Cecilia – and he did not. He wanted to talk to her, argue, plead his case until she was finally able to see the matter from his point of view – he did not.
With a frustrated sigh, Archie sat up in bed and tore at his hair. He would not be able to sleep and there was no point in torturing himself by remaining here. He needed a brandy, but since this had been Hester’s room until today of course there was no liquor here.
He could call for a servant to bring it, but the restless energy surging through his body urged him to put on a pair of pantaloons and his dressing gown and hurry down the hallway toward his parents’ private salon, where he knew his father always had a tumbler of the best brandy available. He had not bothered bringing a candlestick and was surprised when he walked in and found that several were already lit as well as the fireplace. A shushing noise from the corner alerted him to his older brother Henry sitting on the sofa, rocking his infant son in his arms.
Archie greeted him with a wave and steered directly towards the side table; he had no wish to stay in a room with a sleeping infant longer than he had to. But as he filled his own tumbler with three fingers worth of brandy, he could not help but raise the bottle in a questioning manner toward his brother. Henry nodded and sent him a grateful smile. Archie was not certain how much a new father sitting up with his young child at night could stomach and only poured two fingers for him. He held the glass out to Henry and meant to leave, but his brother checked his son’s face and exhaled in a mellow voice:
“He is asleep now.”
After accepting the tumbler from Archie, Henry took a small sip before setting it down on a side table by the sofa.
“Edwina is going to wonder why I smell of brandy when I return.” Henry sent him a tired smile.
“Why are you here? Taking care of him?” Archie motioned towards his tiny nephew's back which was covered in a white gown as well as a dark gray woolen blanket.
“Edwina needed a couple of hours of sleep,” Henry answered, leaned back, and took another small sip of his drink again.
Archie copied his motion but took a much larger sip of his brandy and pushed all thoughts of another young child that would arrive soon out of his mind. It would do him no good to wonder who would be taking care of it when it was fussy at night.
“Don’t you have a nanny for that?” Archie asked as he sat down. He realized he preferred the company of a sleeping infant to that of his own thoughts in the darkness of his bedroom.
“Edwina wants us to take care of the children ourselves as much as possible. This is how her mother and her grandmother have done it and she thinks it will be beneficial for them,” Henry explained in a tired voice that told Archie that despite Henry adoring his wife, he did not exactly agree with the decision.
Archie huffed as he watched his brother gently stroke his son’s back almost as a reflex. Archie swallowed the joke that had been on his lips and blurted his question before he lost his nerve to hear the answer.
“Did you... how did you feel when Edwina told you she was expecting?” He could not bear to meet his brother’s eyes, but he could hear the glee in Henry’s voice as he exclaimed a little too loudly:
“Are you and Cecilia already...?” Henry quickly checked himself and whispered: “Congratulations.”
“It’s not... we’re not... No,” Archie muttered, still without meeting Henry’s eyes. If he was not able to make amends to Cecilia, chances were that they might not ever have a child unless Cecilia had already conceived.
“Oh,” Henry began, and judging from his tone of voice, he would probably have apologized if Archie had not interrupted him by saying:
“Would you please just answer the question?”
Henry was quiet for a moment. Archie stole a glance at him as he took another large sip of his brandy. Henry frowned as if he was trying to determine why Archie asked.
Of all his siblings Henry was the one he looked the most like. Or that was to say, both of them bore a strong resemblance to their father: tall, broad-shouldered, and blue-eyed. Henry’s hair was darker than Archie’s and he had cut his short and practical since he had given up his philandering ways before meeting Edwina. Archie preferred his longer and wavier. As did the women. He assumed Cecilia as well: he had more than one memory of her playing with his hair after they had made love. He pushed the thought away and luckily Henry finally answered.
“I was proud,” he began with a crooked smile. “It is really foolish, but I was extremely proud that I had been able to impregnate her. Not that I had any doubt that I would be able to,” he hurriedly added with a raised eyebrow that told Archie that despite his brother’s self-assured way, this was not a matter that he should tease him with. And he would not; despite the circumstances, he recognized the feeling.
“And then I felt an immense sense of love, followed by an equally immense sense of worry. For Edwina and the child.” Henry gulped and Archie took a long moment to study him.
Growing up, they had not been particularly close. Henry was five years his senior and had alternated between being annoyed that he had been usurped as the family's favorite by his younger brothers, finding them too childish to bother with, and leading them into mischief that they were not old enough to handle and had resulted in Gregory breaking his arm at one event and Archie to sprain both his ankles at another.
When they had both been in their twenties, before Henry married Edwina five years ago, there had been four or five years that had brought them quite close. Archie had been old enough to become a member of the gentleman clubs and enter the gaming hells and they had found that they shared quite a few interests in those days.
They had even hosted a couple of house parties together at both Farleigh Cottage and Henry’s estate Seacourt Manor for other bachelors and women of questionable reputations. But that was before Henry had become boring and staid when he married Edwina. Only looking at Henry now with his young child, Archie did not find his brother dull. In fact, he actually understood his emotions: if Cecilia told him she was expecting he was certain his emotions would mirror his brother’s.
“I’m...” Archie leaned forward and put the empty tumbler on a side table, then steepled his fingers looking intently at them as he spoke. “I had an affair with an actress before I married Cecilia...”
“Oh, I know,” Henry interrupted him in such a smug voice that Archie looked at him as a reflex. The smirk on his brother’s face was instantly wiped away as he met Archie’s eyes.
“She is expecting,” Archie mumbled despite being certain that Henry had already guessed.
His brother’s face went completely expressionless for a moment.
“Have you found a solution?” he asked in a more subdued voice than he had used before, and Archie was certain that it was not because he was afraid to disturb the sleeping child.
“I offered to pay for a doctor to remove it, but she refused. One of her friends had her body destroyed by it. I tried to explain that I would of course find a good doctor and not a quack, but she still refused,” Archie mumbled.
“What will you do then?” Henry asked gently.
“I have been trying to find a family that will take in the child and pretend that it is their own... but I have had no luck yet.” Archie rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. He felt drained all of a sudden.
“It sounds as if you are trying your best despite the circumstances,” Henry told him gently.
Archie looked surprised at his brother. He had expected to be lectured, had perhaps even wanted it, but he only saw concern on Henry’s face.
“It could have happened to me as well,” Henry continued even more gently, answering the question that Archie had not asked. He gave his brother a thin smile in appreciation.
“Does Cecilia know?”
Archie nodded. He might have told his brother if his throat had not constricted at that moment. He swallowed profusely several times before he was able to answer.
“She... she seemed angrier that I had not told her, than that I am having a child with another woman,” Archie finally managed.
Henry gave a bark of laughter that started the child awake with a cry. Henry rose quickly and started pacing the room, patting his son’s back and shushing him at the same time. Archie watched this for a couple of minutes and was about to think that the child might go on for hours and planned his retreat when the tiny child yawned in a way that practically split his face and seemed to doze off again against Henry’s shoulder.
Sighing with relief, Henry sat again.
“He is truly exhausted. He cried for almost two hours before Edwina threw us out.”
For a moment they sat in silence and Archie tried not to think of an overly tired Cecilia throwing him from their bedroom carrying their infant child. The image made his entire chest feel as if it was in a vise. He had never imagined that a sour female, a crying infant, and the lack of sleep would be something that he would strive to achieve.
“I suppose that you have done everything you can to apologize?” Henry asked and made Archie pay attention to the present again and not a future that might have been if he had not been such a fool.
“For now,” Archie murmured. “I need to prove to her that she can trust me, and I still need to figure out what to do with the child.”
“Have you asked her?”
“Cecilia?” Archie asked incredulously.
Henry nodded as if it was self-explanatory.
“In the best marriages, the two parties help and advise each other, like Mother and Father. I suspect this is what Cecilia wants from a marriage as well.”
Archie nodded slowly. He had no wish to burden Cecilia further, but he could not deny that Henry might be right that that was exactly what she wished to be.