The Heir

by Grace Burrowes

  They made their way to the back terrace of the house, where the earl set down the wicker hamper he’d carried from the gig, and bent to loosen a particular brick from the back stoop. He produced a key from under the brick, opened the back door, and gestured for Anna to precede him.

  “I like what I see,” Anna said, folding her shawl on the kitchen counter. She turned to put her gloves on top of the shawl, only to find the earl had been standing immediately behind her.

  “As do I,” he said, looking directly down at her. His eyes were steady, even searching. Looking into those eyes, Anna admitted she’d been deceiving herself. She was a good girl, but at least part of her was here to be wicked with him—maybe just a little wicked by his standards but more wicked than Anna had ever wanted to be before.

  He made no move to touch her, though, and so she frowned until insight struck: He was waiting for her to touch him, to do as she pleased.

  He merely stood there, hands at his sides, watching her, until she closed the distance between them, slid both hands around his waist, and rested her forehead against his collarbone.

  “Is this all you want, Anna?” He brought his arms around her and urged her to lean into him. “Merely an embrace? I’ll understand it, if you do.”

  “It isn’t merely an embrace,” she replied, loving the feel of his lean muscles and long bones against her body. “It is your embrace, and your scent, and the cadence of your breathing, and the warmth of your hands. To me, there is nothing mere about it. ”

  She remained in his arms, feeling the way his hands learned the planes and angles of her back, feeling his mind absorb and consider her words.

  “Let’s explore the house,” he suggested, “then poke around the grounds and outbuildings before it gets too hot.”

  She nodded, feeling a hint of wariness.

  “Anna.” He smiled faintly as he stepped back. “I am not going to maul you, ever. And I did bring you out here for the purpose of evaluating this property, not becoming my next mistress.”

  “Your next…?”

  “Badly put.” The earl took her hand. “Forget I said it.”

  She let him tow her along out of the kitchen and through the various pantries, cellars, laundries, and servants’ quarters on the ground floor. Not until he led her up the stairs to the main floor and she was standing beside him in the library did Anna find the words she needed.

  “This was the former owner’s pride and joy,” the earl said, “and I must admit, for a country library, it is a magnificent room.” The ceilings were twelve feet at least, with windows that ran the entire height of the room on two walls. Two massive fieldstone fireplaces sat one on each outside wall, both with raised hearths and richly carved chestnut mantels.

  “It’s such a pretty wood,” the earl remarked, stroking a hand across one mantel. “Warmer to the eye than oak, and lighter in weight, but almost as strong.” Anna watched that hand caressing the grain of the carved surface and felt an internal shiver.

  “I would never be a man’s mistress, you know.” She sat on the hearth and regarded him. Somewhere in their travels through the house, he had taken off his jacket and waistcoat, and turned back his cuffs. He had dispensed with a neckcloth altogether in deference to the heat, but the informality of his attire only made him handsome in a different way.

  “Why not?” The earl didn’t seem surprised nor offended, he just sat himself beside her on the cool, hard stones and shot her a sidewise glance.

  “It isn’t my precious virtue, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Anna wrapped her arms around her knees.

  “The thought had crossed my mind you might set store by a chaste reputation.”

  “Of course I do.” She laid her cheek on her knees and regarded him with a frown. “Though only up to a point. Being a mistress has no appeal, though, because of the money.”

  “You eschew good coin?” the earl said, and though his tone was casual, Anna detected a hint of pique in it.

  “I most assuredly do not, but how can a man accept intimacies from a woman who is paid to pretend she cares for his attentions? It seems to me an insupportable farce and as degrading to the man as the woman.”

  “Degrading how?” He was amused now, or at least diverted.

  “If a woman will allow you liberties only if you pay her,” Anna explained, “then it’s your coin she treasures, not your kisses or caresses or whatnot.”

  He was trying not to smile now. “Most men care only for the whatnot, Anna. They trouble themselves little about what they parted with or put up with to procure it.”

  “Then most men are easily manipulated and to be pitied. One begins to suspect holy matrimony was devised for the protection of men, and not the fairer sex after all.”

  “So you have no more regard for being a wife than you do being a mistress?”

  “It depends entirely on whose wife we’re talking about.” Anna rose and went to look out the windows. “This room is so pretty and light and inviting. I could particularly see curling up on one of these window seats with Sir Walter Scott or some John Donne.”

  “Let’s assess some more of the house,” the earl said, lacing his fingers with hers. As they wended their way from room to room, Anna noted that the earl, away from his townhouse at least, was a toucher. She’d seen the same tendency when he was with his brother. He laid a hand on Val’s sleeve, straightened Val’s collar, patted his back, and otherwise treated his brother with affection. It was the same with Nanny Fran, whom he kissed on the cheek, hugged, and allowed to treat him with similar familiarity.

  With Anna, he took her hand, offered his arm, put his hand on the small of her back, brushed aside her hair, and otherwise kept up a steady campaign of casual touches.

  Casual to him, Anna thought, knowing she was being sillier than any woman of five and twenty had a right to be. To her, these little gestures were sweet and attractive, that is, they fascinated her and made her want to stand too close to him.

  Outside, he assisted her over stiles and fences, picked her a daisy and positioned it behind her ear, stole a little kiss under the rose arbor, and tucked her against his side while they explored the garden walks.

  “Were you like this with Elise?” Anna asked when they’d found a wooden bench in some shade near the roses.

  “Good God, Anna.” The earl looked over at her in consternation. “A man does not discuss his mistress with decent women.”

  “I am not asking about Elise. I am asking about you.”

  “When I saw Elise in social settings,” the earl replied, eyes on the house across the gardens, “we were cordial. I occasionally danced with her, but she did not enjoy my partnering, as I am too tall.”

  “You are too…?” Anna scowled at that. “You are not too tall.”

  “Perhaps you can prove that point by dancing with me sometime?”

  She cocked her head at him and decided he was teasing. “So when you met socially, you behaved as acquaintances. What about when you were simply whiling away a morning?”

  “When I did not run into Elise at an evening gathering of polite society, I saw her by appointment, in the afternoon,” the earl said, resting an arm along the back of the bench with a sigh.

  “By appointment, only?” Anna’s surprise seemed to perplex him.

  “You know my week included visits to her,” the earl replied mildly. “Regular visits allowed her to schedule the rest of her affairs, so to speak.”

  “The rest of her affairs? And is this all you wanted? An hour of her attention twice a week, scheduled in advance so as to only minimally inconvenience her?”

  “Well, more or less,” the earl admitted, clearly puzzled by Anna’s indignation.

  “And that is how you go about passion? I suppose you left her free to pursue any other pair of broad shoulders she pleased when you were not bothering her?”

  “In retrospect, one can admit there were a few subtle indicators the situation was not ideal, but we are not discussing this further, A
nna Seaton. And for your information, that is not how I prefer to go about passion.” He folded her hand between both of his and fell silent. Topic closed.

  “You deserve more than to be tolerated for a few hours a week in exchange for parting with your coin. Any good man does.”

  “Your sentiments are appreciated,” the earl said, amusement back in his tone. “Shall we see what we can find in that hamper you brought? The thing weighed a ton, which is good, as my appetite is making itself known.”

  Topic closed, subject changed.

  “We’ll need the blanket from the gig, I think,” Anna said, willing to drop the discussion of his former mistress. “I saw no dining table nor much in the way of chairs inside.”

  “I gather the matched sets and so forth were auctioned this spring,” the earl said, tugging Anna to her feet. “What do you think of the place so far?”

  “It’s pretty, peaceful, and not too far from Town. So far I love it, but who are your neighbors?”

  “Now that is not something I would have considered, except that you raise it, and to a widow, such a thing would matter. I will make inquiries, though I know my niece dwells less than three miles farther up the road we came in on.”

  “Her aunt would like that, I’m sure, being close to Rose,” Anna said as they walked back into the kitchen.

  “Rose wouldn’t mind, either. She gets on with everybody, even His Grace.”

  “You see him only as a father. As a grandpapa, he may be different.”

  They retrieved the blankets—two of them—and strolled through the lawns toward the spot for which the property was named, a grassy little knoll overlooking a wide, slow stream. Weeping willows grew on both banks, their branches trailing into the slow-moving water and giving the little space a private, magical quality.

  “Perfect for wading,” Anna said. “Will you be scandalized?”

  “Not if you don’t mind my disrobing to swim,” the earl replied evenly.

  “Naughty man. I bet you and your brothers did your share of that, growing up at Morelands.”

  “We did.” The earl unfolded a blanket and flapped it out onto a shady patch of ground. “Morelands has grown, generation by generation, to the point where it’s tens of thousands of acres, complete with ponds, streams, and even a waterfall. I learned to hunt, fish, swim, ride, and more just rambling around with my brothers.”

  “It sounds idyllic.”

  “So where did you grow up, Anna?” The earl sat down on the blanket. “You aren’t going to loom over me, are you?”

  Anna folded to the blanket beside him, realizing how vague her notion of the day had been. A few kisses, a tour of the property, and back to the realities of their lives at the townhouse. She hadn’t considered they would talk and talk and talk, nor that she would enjoy that as much as the kissing.

  “Hand me the hamper,” she ordered. “I will make us up plates. There is lemonade and wine, both.”

  “Heaven forefend! Wine on a weekday before noon, Mrs. Seaton?”

  “I love a good cold white,” Anna admitted, “and a hearty red.”

  “I hope you put some of what you love in that hamper. This is a long way to come for bannocks.”

  “Not burned bannocks, please,” she said, pawing carefully through the hamper. When she finished, Westhaven was presented with sliced strawberries, cheese, buttered slices of bread, cold chicken, and two pieces of marzipan.

  “And what have we here?” The earl peered into the hamper and extracted a tall bottle. “Champagne?”

  “What?” Anna looked up. “I didn’t put that in there.”

  “I detect the subtle hand of Nanny Fran. A glass, if you please.”

  Anna obligingly held the glass while the earl popped the cork. She shamelessly sipped the fizzy overflow and held the glass out to him. He drank without taking the glass into his own hand and smiled at her.

  “That will do,” he declared. “For a hot summer day, it will do splendidly.”

  “Then you can pour me a glass, as well.”

  “As you wish,” he replied, accommodating her order and filling a glass for himself, too. To Anna’s surprise, before either drinking or diving into his meal, the earl paused to wrench off his boots and stockings.

  “I have it on good authority extreme heat is dangerous and one shouldn’t wear clothes unnecessarily, or so my footmen tell me when I catch them only half liveried.” He sipped at his wine, hiding what had to be a smile.

  “I did not precisely tell them that, though it’s probably good advice.”

  “So are you wearing drawers and petticoats?” the earl asked, waggling his eyebrows.

  “No more champagne for you, if only two sips make you lost to all propriety.”

  “You’re not wearing them,” he concluded, making himself a sandwich. “Sensible of you, as it seems even more oppressively hot today than yesterday.”

  “It is warming up. It also looks to be clouding up.”

  “More false hope.” He glanced at the sky. “I can’t recall a summer quite so brutal and early as this one. Seems we hardly had a real spring.”

  “It’s better in the North. You get beastly winters there, but also a real spring, a tolerable summer, and a truly wonderful autumn.”

  “So you were raised in the North.”

  “I was. Right now, I miss it.”

  “I miss Scotland right now, or Stockholm. But this food is superb and the company even better. More champagne?”

  “I shouldn’t.” Her eyes strayed to the bottle, sweating in its linen napkin. “It is such a pleasant drink.”

  The earl topped off both of their glasses. “This is a day for pleasant, not a day for shoulds and should nots, though I am thinking I should buy the place.”

  “It is lovely. The only thing that gives me pause are the oaks along the lane. They will carpet the place with leaves come fall.”

  “And the gardeners will rake them.” The earl shrugged. “Then the children can jump in the piles of leaves and scatter them all about again.”

  “A sound plan. Are you going to eat those strawberries?”

  The earl paused, considered his plate, and picked up a perfect red, juicy berry.

  “I’ll share.” He held it out to her but withdrew it when Anna extended her hand. Sensing his intent, she sat back but held still as he brought it to her mouth. She bit down, then found as the sweet fruit flavor burst across her tongue that her champagne glass was pressed to her lips, as well.

  “I really did not pack that champagne,” she said when she’d savored the wine.

  “I did,” the earl confessed. “Nanny Fran is sworn to secrecy as my accomplice.”

  “She adores you.” Anna smiled. “She has more stories about ‘her boys’ than you would recognize.”

  “I know.” The earl lounged back, resting on his elbows. “When Bart died and she’d launch into a reminiscence, I used to have to leave the room, so angry was I at her. Now I look for the chance to get her going.”

  “Grief changes. I recall as a child sitting for hours in my mother’s wardrobe after she died; that was where I could still smell her.”

  “I recall you lost both parents quite young.”

  “I was raised by my father’s father. He loved us as much as any parent could, probably more, because he’d lost his only son.”

  “I am sorry, Anna. I’ve talked about losing two brothers, both during my adulthood, and I never considered that you have losses of your own.” He did not raise the issue of the departed Mr. Seaton, for which Anna was profoundly grateful.

  “It was a long time ago,” Anna said. “My parents did not suffer. Their carriage careened down a muddy embankment, and their necks were broken. The poor horse, by contrast, had to wait hours to be shot.”

  “Dear God.” The earl shuddered. “Were you in that carriage, as well?”

  “I was not, though I often used to wish I had been.”

  “Anna…” His tone was concerned, and she found it needful in t
hat moment to study her empty wine glass.

  “I have become maudlin by virtue of imbibing.”

  “Hush,” Westhaven chided, crawling across the blanket. He wrapped her in his arms then wrestled her down to lie beside him, her head on his shoulder. She cuddled into him, feeling abruptly cold except where his body lay along hers.

  “Val had a bout of the weeps the other day.” The earl sighed. “I forget he is so sensitive, because he hides with that great black beast of his and tries so hard not to trouble others. When Bart died, Val went for days without leaving the piano, and only Her Grace’s insistence that he be indulged preserved him from the wrath of the duke.”

  “Your family has not had an easy time of it. One would think rank and riches would assure happiness, but by the Windham example, they do not.”

  “Nor do they condemn one to misery,” the earl pointed out, his hand making circles on her back. “I, for one, do not relish the thought of being poor.”

  “There is poor, and there is poor. In some ways, I have more freedom than you do, and freedom is a form of great wealth.”

  “It is,” Westhaven agreed, “but I don’t see where you have it in such abundance.”

  “Oh, but I do.” Anna sat up and put her chin on her drawn-up knees. “I can leave your employ tomorrow and hare off to Bath, there to keep house for any beldame who will have me. I can answer an advertisement to be a bride for an American tobacco farmer or go live with the natives in the American west. I can join a Scottish convent or journey to darkest Africa as a missionary to the heathen.”

  “And I, poor fellow”—the earl smiled up at her— “have none of those options.”

  “You do not,” Anna agreed, grinning at him over her shoulder. “You are stuck with Tolliver and Stenson and His Grace, and barely recalling what pleasure is when your housekeeper remembers to sweeten your lemonade.”

  The earl folded his hands behind his head. “There is a pleasure you could allow me, Anna.” He kept using her name, she thought, using it like a caress, a reminder that he knew the taste of her.