She let her gaze wander over his broad shoulders where he hunched like a golden raptor with his ledgers. He was muttering again. From time to time he’d pounce with his pen on an inaccuracy, talking to the figures under his breath as if they were some sort of sparring partner.

“Got you, you…”

“You don’t belong in expenditures, and you know it.”

He was down to shirt and waistcoat, in deference to the heat, and he’d dispensed with his neckcloth. The tanned skin at his throat fascinated Alice. She’d had her face against that skin, felt the heat of it. She’d inhaled the clean scent of him and felt the urge to remain in his embrace, her face hidden against him, her body slack and safe in his arms.

“Don’t know what to tell them?” he asked.

He was on his feet, leaning back against an arm of the sofa, regarding Alice with amusement.

“It’s repetitive,” Alice said. “My sister still lives in the North, at the family seat.” Though how Avis tolerated such proximity to the Collins estate was a mystery. “Both my brothers are from home, so one must write the same news twice, at least, if not three times. And then I need to write a simpler version of things for Priscilla, and a not-so-simple version for Leah Haddonfield and Reese Belmont.”

“All those people are to know the illustrious doings of my boys’ governess. I am impressed.”

“You are not,” she said mildly, stifling the urge to yawn. The library really was very pleasant, with a ceiling of at least twelve feet, clerestory windows over the French doors, and shade trees beyond the windows all contributing to a cool, airy feel.

“Have some lemonade,” he said, pouring her a glass. “You’ve been scratching away for more than an hour, and I propose a recess on the terrace.”

“A fine idea.” Alice rose, held steady for a moment, then preceded him through the French doors to the shady terrace. “How do you suppose Waterloo is proceeding?”

“The Corsican has probably been routed halfway to Kent by now, several times.”

“And covered with mud,” Alice added, letting him seat her at a wrought-iron table among boxes of flowering lilies. “Your house is very pretty, Mr. Grey. Is that your late wife’s influence?”

He studied his drink. “Barbara wasn’t the domestic sort. Lady Warne—Nick’s grandmother—pointed out to me after Barbara’s death that I was always happier in the country. I began to take more of an interest in Tydings after that, but anybody can order the gardener to plant a few flowers.”

“Not everybody does,” Alice rejoined, declining to point out that it was far more than a few. Roses ringed the terrace in thriving abundance, their fragrance blending with the breeze. A rainbow of beds of cutting flowers spread across the back lawns. “What had you muttering and threatening away the afternoon?”

The question was a bit beyond the bounds of what a governess might ask her employer, but then, this employer had kissed the governess. True, it had been a rhetorical kiss, a point made in the interest of some sort of debate, but it left Alice more conversational latitude than she might have assumed otherwise.

“I was working on the accounts.” His smile was sheepish. “I get fierce when the numbers aren’t as they should be. What of you? Have you completed your letters?”

“I haven’t written to Nick and his countess.” Alice hid another yawn behind her glass of lemonade. “He insisted I let him know we are safely arrived, because he didn’t trust you to see to it.”

“He wanted to know you hadn’t left us in a fit of wrath.”

“I will not hare off in a fit of pique.” Alice sipped her drink, enjoying the cool of the glass against her fingers. “I would not do that to the boys. But why don’t you write to your brother and spare me the effort?” One needed to make such a suggestion casually. Alice drew her finger around the cool, wet rim of her glass.

“Perhaps I shall. I should thank him for putting up with my darling sons, shouldn’t I?”

“He was happy for Ford and John to have other playmates. One has the impression Nick will always enjoy having children around, and Leah doesn’t seem to mind, when they make her dear Nicholas happy.”

“Are you jealous of her?”

That was definitely not an employer’s question to the governess, though Alice didn’t resent his curiosity. Much.

“Oh, certainly.” Alice considered her drink, which could have done with a touch more sugar. “Leah has the love of a good man, material comforts, a loving family, and the certain knowledge her dragons will all be vanquished before her morning tea. Few women are so blessed.”

“Do you harbor a tendresse for my brother?” Ethan asked, swirling his drink slowly—casually.

An inquiry that qualified as odd. “Nick?” Alice snorted. “He is a shameless flirt and oblivious to the dictates of Polite Society. He was a prince with Priscilla and calls her his princess to this day.”

Ethan wrinkled his nose, as if the noisy, busy child he’d met earlier in the summer was in nowise a candidate for a crown. “Were you somebody’s princess?”

Alice considered remarking that they’d probably have a storm by nightfall, except Ethan’s question was a version of what an employer might ask—before he allowed a woman to have the care of his sons.

“I was my papa’s princess, and my brothers’, as was my sister.”

“And your brothers don’t mind you traveling all over England to see to other people’s children?”

That question, she did not want to answer. “Of course they mind. They are my brothers, and my older brothers at that. But they understand I need to make my own way. We correspond regularly, and when I’m in London, I try to see them.”

“We’ll be in Town for Nick’s investiture, though if you need to see your family sooner, you’ve only to ask.”

Alice smiled at him patiently. “You’ve spent one morning with your boys, Mr. Grey. You would not be so generous were it a long week of mornings, I assure you.”

“If you need to see your family,” he said again with peculiar gravity, “you have only to ask. We’ll put you in the traveling coach, you can stay with Lady Warne, and the boys and I will manage. And you agreed to call me Ethan.”

“Thank you.” Alice cocked her head, seeing he was dead serious, and Ethan Grey’s version of dead serious was serious indeed. “Ethan.”

“Better.” He sipped the last of his drink, and quiet settled around them. For Alice, it was pleasant and peaceful to be out on the shady terrace, sipping lemonade and enjoying a summer afternoon. Out in the sun, particularly if one were active, it would be hot.

“Shall we move a bit?” he asked, rising and extending a hand. “I promise to keep you in the shade.”

“A little movement would be appreciated. I can become too accustomed to the indoors, and that is a waste of pretty grounds.”

“I’m fortunate that Argus makes it worth my while to keep him in regular work. The consequences of neglecting a morning hack don’t bear consideration.” Mr. Grey—Ethan, now—tucked her hand onto his arm. Because his sleeves were turned back, and Alice without her gloves, this put her hand on the bare expanse of his muscular forearm. “This path keeps to the shade and takes us by the stream. If my hearing serves, we are likely to come across a great battle on the way.”

Alice strolled along beside him, thinking he was relaxing more the longer he was on his home turf. Lady Warne had been right to hint he should spend time in his own home, but then again, maybe it wasn’t travel that put him out of sorts, but time with his brother, the earl.

“How was it you were separated from your siblings?” Alice asked when they’d gone some way in silence.

“A misunderstanding. The story of record, until recently, is I accidentally branded Nick’s fundament with an H, and the old earl thought I was a danger to his heir.”

“Nick’s famous scar.”

“You’ve seen it?” His eyebrows rose, but his voice dropped with some severe sentiment—censure, or possibly disappointment.

“I most assuredly have not, but not for lack of hearing him offer to show it to the dairymaids, the goose girl, the vicar’s granny, and my own self. He says he was branded like a bullock because he was mistaken for one by a drunken herdsman.”

“He would.” Ethan’s smile held relief. “Our father burned an H for Haddonfield into the harnesses and saddles and anything in the stables that might tend to disappear. Nick and I were fooling with the branding iron, I tripped, and Nick’s nether parts got stuck with the hot iron. I’m told he did not ride for several weeks, but even then, he wasn’t offended.”

“No doubt he enjoyed having the maids tend his wound. But you were sent away for this?”

“Not exactly.”

Alice heard the boys shrieking with glee over by the river, heard the soft, summery sounds of the afternoon: birds singing, a breeze soughing through the oaks, a cow lowing for her calf. She forced herself to let out a breath and waited, because Ethan was not done answering her question.

“The earl came by our bedroom at night to check on his injured son,” Ethan said, pausing on the path but keeping Alice’s hand at his elbow. “He found Nick and me in the same bed, which happened frequently. We were great ones for whispering and plotting and rehashing our days so the younger boys couldn’t hear us. I have no doubt we were sharing the same pillow. The next night his lordship found the same situation, and he concluded I had enticed my younger brother into an unnatural association. He feared for his sons, his legitimate sons, and so he sent me away.”

“He thought you had enticed Nick…?” Alice said slowly, while a feeling like panic, but angrier than panic, took hold in her belly. “And, of course, you had not. Not in any way.”