“You speak of each of them with such affection,” Anna said. “It isn’t always so with siblings.”
“If I credit my parents with one thing,” the earl said, running his finger around the rim of his glass, “it is with making our family a real family. They didn’t send us boys off to school until we were fourteen or so, and then just so we could meet our form before we went to university. We were frightfully well educated, too, so there was no feeling inadequate before our peers. We did things all together, though it took a parade of coaches to move us hither and thither, but Dev and Maggie often went with us, particularly in the summer.”
“They are received, then?”
“Everywhere. Her Grace made it obvious that a virile young lord’s premarital indiscretions were not to be censored, and the die was cast. It helps that Devlin is charming, handsome, and independently wealthy, and Maggie is as pretty and well mannered as her sisters.”
“That would tend to encourage a few doors to open.”
“And what of you, Anna Seaton?” The earl cocked his head to regard her. “You have a brother and a sister, and you had a grandpapa. Did you all get along?”
“We did not,” Anna said, rising and taking her glass to the sink. “My parents died when I was young. My brother grew up with a lack of parental supervision, though my grandfather tried to provide guidance. My parents, I’m told, loved each other sincerely. Grandpapa took us into his home immediately when they died, but as my brother is ten years my senior, he was considerably less malleable. There was a lot of shouting.”
“As there is between my father and me.” The earl smiled at her when she sat back down across from him.
“Your mother doesn’t shout at him, does she?”
“No.” The earl looked intrigued with that observation. “She just gets this pained, disappointed look and calls him Percival or Your Grace instead of Percy.”
“My grandfather had that look polished to a shine.” Anna grimaced. “It crushed me the few times I merited it.”
“So you were a good girl, Anna Seaton?” The earl was smiling at her with a particular light in his eyes, one Anna didn’t understand, though it wasn’t especially threatening.
“Headstrong, but yes, I was a good girl.” She rose again, and this time took his glass with her. “And I am.”
“Are you busy Tuesday next?” he asked, rising to lean against the wall, arms crossed over his chest as he watched her rinse out their glasses.
“Not especially,” Anna replied. “We do our big market on Wednesday, which is also half-day for the men.”
“Then can I requisition your time, if it’s decent weather?”
“For?” She eyed him warily, unable to sense his mood.
“I have recently committed into another’s keeping a Windham property known as Monk’s Crossing,” he explained. “My father and I agree each of my sisters ought to be dowered with some modestly profitable, pleasant property, preferably close to London. Having transferred ownership of one, I am looking at procuring another. The girls socialized little this year, due to Victor’s death, but at least two of them have possibilities that might come to something in the next year. I’d like to have their dower properties in presentable condition.”
“So what are we doing, Tuesday next?” Anna asked, folding her arms across her chest.
“I am going to inspect a potential dower property out in Surrey, a couple hours from Town, and for sale at a suspiciously reasonable price. I would like you to accompany me to assess its appeal to feminine sensibilities.”
“Whatever does that mean?”
The earl pushed off the wall and waved a hand. “There are things about a house I just don’t take in, being male. You women understand subtleties, like where windows will give effective ventilation, what rooms will be cold in winter, or which fireplaces are unfortunately situated. You can assess the functionality of a kitchen at a glance, whereas I can barely find the bread box.”
He moved to stand before her, looking down at her. “I can assess if a property is priced properly in relation to its size, location, and appointments, but you can assess if a house can be made into a home.”
“I will go then.” Anna nodded. It was a task to which she was suited, and probably only a morning’s work. “But you must consider which sister will end up with this property and think about her, so you can tell me her likes and dislikes.”
“Fair enough. We can discuss those particulars on the way there.”
He left, moving in the direction of the music room, where Val was once again between pieces, or moods. Anna watched him go, unable to help but appreciate the lean play of muscle along his flanks.
One had to wonder how the ladies of polite society had ever managed, when all the Windham brothers had assembled in one place, particularly in evening finery or riding attire or shirt sleeves…
Five
“THE ESTATE IS CALLED WILLOW BEND,” THE EARL began as they tooled out of the mews in the gray predawn light. “We should be there in less than two hours, even giving Pericles a few chances to rest.”
“Have you seen it before?” Anna asked, enjoying the breeze on her face as the horse gained the street and broke to the trot.
“I have seen only sketches, hence the necessity for this trip. I should warn you I am inclined to buy it based on proximity alone. There is only so much land for sale around London, and the city grows outward each year.”
The miles fell away as they talked, occasionally challenging each other, more often just sharing viewpoints and observations. When they were well out of town, the earl pulled up his gig to let the horse rest.
“Shall we walk? Pericles will stand there until Domesday or he eats every blade of grass at his feet.” The earl handed her down then released the checkrein so the horse could graze for a few minutes.
“He takes his victuals seriously,” Anna said.
“To any Windham male, victuals are of significant import.”
“Good thing I brought a very full hamper, then, isn’t it?” The earl offered her his arm, and she took it, realizing they had never in the months she’d worked for him simply walked side by side like this.
“It’s a lovely morning,” Anna said, taking refuge in the weather. “After all the noise and wind, I was expecting we would get at least some rain last night.”
“A few drops. Val sleeps on his balcony these days and said that’s all he felt.”
“And where was he off to this morning?”
“To see our little niece, Rose,” the earl replied, pausing before a wooden stile. “Had I been able, I’d have moved this appointment to join him, but there are several people interested in Willow Bend.”
“Or so the land agent told you.”
“Repeatedly and emphatically. Had I coordinated more closely with Val, though, he could have at least escorted us for much of the distance. Welbourne is not far from Willow Bend.”
“Do you like children?” The stile was level at the top, so Anna settled on it, the better to watch his smile disappear at the question when he took a seat beside her.
“Babies rather intimidate me, as one can drop them, and they break, but yes, I like children. I am not particularly charming, as Val is, but children don’t mind that. They want honest regard, much like a good horse does.”
“But Rose was not much taken with you?”
“More to the point, Rose’s mother, to whom His Grace would have seen me wed, was not much taken with me, and in the way of children, Rose comprehended that as clearly as I did.”
They fell silent, sitting side by side, until Anna felt the earl’s hand steal over hers to rest there.
“Today, I am going to call you Anna, and you are going to permit me to do so, please? We will be congenial with each other and forget I am the earl and you are my housekeeper. We will enjoy a pleasant morning in the country, Anna, with none of your frowning and scolding. This is agreeable to you?”
“We will share a lovely morning in the co
untry,” Anna agreed, wanting nothing so much as to start that morning by letting her head rest against his shoulder. It was a wicked impulse and would give him all the wrong ideas.
“And seal our agreement”—the earl shifted to stand before her—“with a kiss.”
He gave her time to wiggle off the hook, to hop down off the stile and dash past him, to deliver a little lecture even, but she sat, still as a mouse, while he framed her face with his bare hands and brought his lips to hers. He propped one booted foot on the stile and leaned over her as his mouth settled fully over hers.
While Anna’s common sense tried to riot, the earl was in no hurry, exploring the fullness of her lips with his own, then easing away to run his nose along her hairline, then cruising back over her mouth on the way to kissing the side of her neck.
Her common sense gave a last, despairing whimper and went silent, because Anna liked that, that business of him nuzzling and kissing at her neck, at the soft flesh below her ear, at the place where her neck met her shoulder. He must have liked it, too, as he spent long minutes learning the various flavors of her nape and throat, the spots that were ticklish and the spots he could soothe with his tongue and lips.
She swayed into him, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck for support, wishing she’d thought—as he had—to take off her gloves. Oh, she knew nothing of the details of being wicked, nothing at all except that with him, she liked it. She liked the way she felt more alive wherever he touched, liked the way her insides melted at the scent and taste of him. Liked the feel of his long, muscular body so close to hers.
Anna felt a hairpin plink against her cheek and made herself draw back.
“Oh dear.” She stared up at him, dumbstruck by the heat in his green eyes. “Dear, dear, dear.”
The earl looked down and traced a finger along the slope of her breast to pluck the hairpin from her dress. He held it out to her, smiling as if he were presenting her with a flower.
“I may be feeling winded,” he said, offering her his arm, “but by now Pericles should be well rested.”
Anna took his arm, glancing over at him cautiously. The sensation of his finger sliding down her breast had been enough to make her heart kick against her ribs. God in heaven, he knew how to touch a woman, but it didn’t seem to wind him at all, contrary to his words.
“You are quiet, Anna,” he remarked as they climbed aboard and gained the road.
“I am overwhelmed,” she said. “I think I must be a very wicked woman, my… What do I call you?”
The earl urged Pericles to the trot. “Today, you call me whatever pleases you, but why do you say you are wicked?”
“I should be remonstrating you, making you behave, chiding you for your lapses,” Anna informed him, warming to her topic. “Our lapses. But my self-restraint has departed for the Orient, I suppose, and all I want…”
“All you want?” The earl kept his eyes on the empty road.
“Is to forget every pretense of common sense.” Anna completed the thought, and now—now that he was all cool composure beside her—she was uncomfortable with herself. “To share more lapses with you.”
“I would like that, Anna,” he replied simply. “If it would please you to lapse with me, then I would enjoy it, too.”
“It can’t lead to anything,” Anna said miserably, “except more and worse mischief.”
The earl glanced over at her but had to keep some focus on the road. “Why not just enjoy these hours as we choose to spend them? I will not take liberties you deny me, Anna, not today, not ever. But for today, I will enjoy your company to the fullest extent you allow, and I will do so without regard to whether today leads to something or merely rests in memory as a pleasurable few hours spent in your company.”
Anna fell silent, considering his words. If Westhaven’s brother Victor could have had such a morning, able to breathe without coughing, would he have fretted over a few kisses leading to nothing, or would he have seized the hours as a gift? Knowing he could well have been riding to his death in the next battle, would Lord Bartholomew have demurred, or would he have stashed a bottle of wine in the hamper?
“And now,” Anna said after a time, “you are quiet.”
“It is a pretty morning.” He smiled at her, including her in that prettiness. “I am in good company, and we are about a pleasant errand. Just to be away from Town, away from Tolliver’s infernal correspondence, and away from Stenson’s grasping fingers is reason to rejoice.”
“I could not abide the touch of someone I did not like,” Anna said, grimacing.
“So I do my best to stay out of his reach and to bellow like the duke when he transgresses,” Westhaven said. “He is getting better, but tell me, Anna, did you just indirectly admit to liking me?”
She drew in a swift breath and saw from his expression that while he was teasing, he was also… fishing.
“Of course I like you. I like you entirely too well, and it is badly done of you to make me admit it.”
“Well, let’s go from bad to worse, then, and you can tell me precisely why you like me.”
“You are serious?”
“I am. If you want, I will return the favor, though we have only several hours, and my list might take much longer than that.”
He is flirting with me, Anna thought, incredulous. In his high-handed, serious way, the Earl of Westhaven had just paid her a flirtatious compliment. A lightness spread out from her middle, something of warmth and humor and guilty pleasure in it.
“All right.” Anna nodded briskly. “I like that you are shy and honorable in the ways that count. I like that you are kind to Morgan, and to your animals, and old Nanny Fran. You are as patient with His Grace as a human can be, and you adore your brother. You are fierce, too, though, and can be decisive when needs must. You are also, I think, a romantic, and this is no mean feat for a man who spends half his days with commercial documents. Mostly, I like that you are good; you look after those who depend on you, you have gratitude for your blessings, and you don’t think enough of yourself.”
Beside her, the earl was again silent.
“Shall I go on?” Anna asked, feeling a sudden awkwardness.
“You could not possibly pay me any greater series of compliments than you just have,” he said. “The man you describe is a paragon, a fellow I’d very much like to meet.”
“See?” Anna nudged him with her shoulder. “You do not think enough of yourself. But I can also tell you the parts of you that irritate me—if that will make you feel better?”
“I irritate you?” The earl’s eyebrows rose. “This should be interesting. You gave me the good news first, fortifying me for more burdensome truths, so let fly.”
“You are proud,” Anna began, her tone thoughtful. “You don’t think your papa can manage anything correctly, and you won’t ask your brothers nor mother nor sisters even, for help with things directly affecting them. I wonder, in fact, if you have anybody you would call a friend.”
“Ouch. A very definite ouch, Anna. Go on.”
“You have forgotten how to play,” Anna said, “how to frolic, though I cannot fault you for a lack of appreciation for what’s around you. You appreciate; you just don’t seem to… indulge yourself.”
“I see. And in what should I indulge myself?”
“That is for you to determine,” she replied. “Marzipan has gone over well, I think, and sweets in general. You have indulged your love of music by having Val underfoot. As to what else brings you pleasure, you would be the best judge of that.”
The earl turned down a shady lane lined with towering oaks and an understory of rhododendrons in vigorous bloom.
“It was you,” he said. “Before Val moved in, I thought it was a neighbor playing the piano late in the evenings, but it was you. Were you playing for me?”
Anna glanced off to the park beyond the trees and nodded.
“It seemed somebody should. Nanny Fran said you have a marvelous singing voice, and you play wel
l yourself, but you’d stopped playing or singing when Bart died.”
“Life did not change for the better for anyone when Bart died.”
They pulled up to a pretty Tudor manor house, complete with fresh thatch on the roof and gleaming mullioned windows. Pericles blew out a horsy breath that sounded suspiciously like a sigh, but the earl did not climb down.
“Before Bart left,” the earl said, fiddling with the reins, “he told me he wouldn’t go if I forbade it. That was the word he used… forbid. He asked my permission, and knowing his temper and his penchant for dramatics, I had misgivings about his joining up, but I did not stop him. I could see that battling the duke day after day was killing them both. Bart was getting wilder, angrier, and the duke was becoming so bewildered by his cherished heir it was painful to watch.”
“If you had to do it again, would you still give your permission?”
“I would.” The earl nodded after a moment. “But first I would have told my brother I loved him, and then, just maybe, he would not have had to go.”
“He knew,” Anna said. “Just as you know he loved you, but he was coping as well as he could in a situation where every option came with significant costs.”
A considering silence stretched between them, while Anna marveled that the man beside her was so given to introspection and so adept at hiding even that.
“Let’s put away this difficult topic,” the earl suggested, “and look over the property, shall we?” Because the place was uninhabited, it fell to them to lead Pericles to a roomy stall in the carriage house cum stable and see him tucked in with hay and water.
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.
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