Page 30 of A Very Bellamy Christmas

Chapter 5

Lady Addiscombe re-appeared in the drawing room no more than ten minutes after she had left it.

Judging by the high color in her cheeks and the flames shooting from her eyes—and also the fact that Andrew wasn’t currently standing out front of Wych House with his bags piled around his feet—he was apparently not going to be tossed out of the house.

He could not decide if he was glad or disappointed.

The mood at the dinner table was stilted, all the guests unable to ignore the dark cloud hovering over Lady Addiscombe’s head. Not until almost the end of the meal—and the impending prospect of getting away from the unpleasant woman—did the atmosphere begin to lighten and the guests start to converse without restraint.

Andrew enjoyed the half-hour of port and cigars after dinner. Especially interesting to him was listening to Needham describe—at the behest of Shaftsbury and Chatham—his initial steps to revivify the estate the Earl of Addiscombe had spent the prior twenty-years decimating. As the owner of a criminally neglected estate—a great deal of which was Andrew’s doing—he appreciated Needham’s pragmatic approach and had taken more than a few pointers from the businessman turned landed gentleman.

He had been dreading returning to the drawing room, where he assumed the morose shadow cast by the countess would be casting the entire assemblage into gloom and doom.

Fortunately, Lady Addiscombe had eschewed the promised entertainment. She did not retire quietly or gracefully, of course, but made her displeasure at the prospect of games and amateur musical performances known—loudly—before rudely rejecting her companion’s offer to accompany her back to her chamber.

“Oh, do stop clinging, Martin. I am far too fatigued to entertain you tonight” the countess snapped before leaving the room.

Andrew considered doing the very same thing—albeit far less noticeably—but one look at Sylvester’s hopeful face decided him against it.

Only by claiming mental fatigue from the journey did he manage to avoid being roped into either whist, chess or—God forbid—the noisy game of Casino taking place at a table full of boisterous youngsters.

Instead, he sat in a comfortable wingchair with a book he’d found tucked under the chair cushion.

Chatham, blast him, had almost choked on his tongue when Andrew had claimed that he preferred to read. His cousin knew that Andrew had not voluntarily opened a book since he’d left school to join the army. Unless one counted betting books or stud books.

He lazily examined the other guests as he pretended to read, his gaze flickering over a trio of men who were talking quite loudly about a new tariff agreement currently in the works—business acquaintances of Needham’s—to where Shaftsbury appeared to be playing chess with an elderly squire from a neighboring village.

Shaftsbury leaned forward, lightly touched the pieces on the board and then moved his knight. “I believe that is checkmate, Sir John.”

His opponent gave a good-natured chuckle. “I fear I am not giving you much of a challenge, my lord. Will you allow me another chance to retrieve my dignity?”

The marquess smiled. “Of course—if you do not mind setting up the board.”

Who would have believed that a blind man could play chess?

There was a cluster of three older ladies talking quietly in front of the fireplace, all of them industriously engaged in needlework. Andrew thought they might be the spouses of the three businessmen.

His eyes moved on, flickering over a lone female sitting beside a brace of candles.

And then returning to her again.

It was the Countess of Addiscombe’s dogsbody, the same woman who’d slammed into him in the corridor before dinner. She had been something of a shrew, hectoring Andrew even though she had been the one who’d not looked where she was going.

She was not the sort of female Andrew usually noticed. That is to say she was neither pretty nor ugly but just…there. He probably would not have taken any notice of her right now if not for the fact that she was the only person in the room who was alone. Other than Andrew, of course.

She must be some poor Bellamy relation who had the unfortunate luck to be tapped as the countess’s companion. He couldn’t recall the woman’s name at the moment but had a nagging feeling that he’d seen her before.

The most interesting thing about her, as far as he could tell, was her ability to occupy a room without anyone else noticing her.

But he noticed. And he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps because he, too, was an outcast—a leper who’d not yet been captured, contained, and transported to isolation. While the Bellamy siblings and their spouses had been amiable enough, they were obviously in no rush to associate with him.

The other guests were either of the merchant class or the sort of bourgeois gentry who would have read about Andrew’s antics over the years and been disgusted. As a result, there was an invisible barrier around him that kept anyone except his cousin—and, unfortunately, Kathryn—from coming too near.

He lost interest in the colorless companion and turned his gaze to Chatham, who was currently paired with his wife in a game of whist against Lord and Lady Needham.

Andrew’s lips twitched. He didn’t need to ask to know how that was going. Needham would be fortunate to leave the room tonight still in possession of his shirt. Andrew had had his arse kicked by the duke and duchess times beyond counting in the months that he’d been forced to cohabitate with them. He would almost prefer a night in the stocks to sitting across the table from the formidable, merciless duo.

Not that life at Chatham Park was any great hardship. With over two hundred rooms he could have arranged his life so that he had only encountered his cousin and his wife at meals, if he so chose.