Grace Burrowes - The Heir

“My lord, His Grace means well.”

“He will tell you he does,” the earl agreed. “Just being a conscientious steward of the Moreland succession. But in truth, it’s his own consequence he wants to protect. If I fail to reproduce to his satisfaction, then he will be embarrassed, plain and simple. It’s not enough that he sired five sons, three of whom still live, but he must see a dynasty at his feet before he departs this earth.”

Mrs. Seaton remained quiet, and the earl recalled he’d sung this lament in her hearing before.

“Is my brother asleep?”

“He is, but he asked to be awakened not later than two of the clock. He wants to put in his four hours before repairing again to Viscount Fairly’s establishment.”

“I do believe my brother is studying to become a madam.”

Again, his housekeeper did not see fit to make any reply.

“I’ll take a tray out back,” the earl said, “but you needn’t go to all the usual bother… setting the table, arranging the flowers, and so forth. A tray will do, as long as there’s plenty of sweetened lemonade to go with the meal.”

“Of course, my lord.” She bobbed her curtsy, but he snaked out a hand to encircle her wrist before she could go.

“Are you unhappy with me?” he asked, eyeing her closely. “Bad enough His Grace finds fault with me at every turn, Mrs. Seaton. I am trying very hard not to annoy my staff as much as my father annoys me.”

“I do not think on your worst day you could be half so annoying to us as that man is to you. Your patience with him is admired.”

“By whom?”

“Your staff,” she replied. “And your housekeeper.”

“The admiration of my housekeeper,” the earl said, “is a consummation devoutly to be wished.”

He brought her wrist to his lips and kissed the soft skin below the base of her thumb, lingering long enough that he felt the steady beat of her pulse.

She scowled at him, whirled, and left without a curtsy.

So much, the earl thought as he watched her retreat, for the admiration of his housekeeper.

“I NEVER DID ASK IF YOU SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED your errands this morning.” Westhaven put aside his copy of The Times as Anna set his lunch tray before him.

“I did. Will there be anything else, my lord?”

He regarded her standing with her hands folded, her expression neutral amid the flowers and walks of his back garden.

“Anna,” he began, but he saw his use of her name made her bristle. “Please sit, and I do mean will you please.”

She sat, perched like an errant schoolgirl on the very edge of her chair, back straight, eyes front.

“You are scolding me without saying a word,” the earl said on a sigh. “It was just a kiss, Anna, and I had the impression you rather enjoyed it, too.”

She looked down, while a blush crept up the side of her neck.

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” he said with sudden, happy insight. “You could accept my apology and treat me with cheerful condescension, but you enjoyed our kiss.”

“My lord,” she said, addressing the hands she fisted in her lap, “can you not accept that were I to encourage your… mischief, I would be courting my own ruin?”

“Ruin?” He said with a snort. “Elise will be enjoying an entire estate for the rest of her days as a token of ruin at my hands—among others—if ruin you believe it to be. I did not take her virginity, either, Mrs. Seaton, and I am not a man who casually discards others.”

She was silent then raised her eyes, a mulish expression on her face.

“I will not seek another position as a function of what has gone between us so far, but you must stop.”

“Stop what, Anna?”

“You should not use my name, my lord,” she said, rising. “I have not given you leave to do so.”

He rose, as well, as if she were a lady deserving of his manners. “May I ask your permission to use your given name, at least when we are private?”

He’d shocked her, he saw with some satisfaction. She’d thought him too autocratic to ask, and he was again reminded of his father’s ways. But she was looking at him now, really looking, and he pressed his advantage.

“I find it impossible to think of you as Mrs. Seaton. In this house, there is no other who treats me as you do, Anna. You are kind but honest, and sympathetic without being patronizing. You are the closest thing I have here to an ally, and I would ask this small boon of you.”

He watched as she closed her eyes and waged some internal struggle, but in the anguish on her face, he suspected victory in this skirmish was to be his. She’d grant him his request, precisely because he had made it a request, putting a small measure of power exclusively into her hands.

She nodded assent but looked miserable over it.

“And you,” he said, letting concern—not guilt, surely—show in his gaze, “you must consider me an ally, as well, Anna.”

She speared him with a stormy look. “An ally who would compromise my reputation, knowing without it I am but a pauper or worse.”

“I do not seek to bring you ruin,” he corrected her. “And I would never force my will on you.”

Anna stood, and he thought her eyes were suspiciously bright. “Perhaps, my lord, you just did.”

He stared after her for long moments, wrestling with her final accusation but coming to no tidy answers. He could offer Anna Seaton an option, a choice other than decades of stepping and fetching and serving. He desired her and enjoyed her company out of bed, a peculiar realization though not unwelcome. But his seduction would be complicated by her reticence, her infernal notions of decency.

For now, he could steal some delectable kisses—and perhaps more than kisses—while she found the resolve to refuse him altogether and send him packing.

He was lingering over his lemonade when Val wandered out looking sleepy and rumpled, shirt open at the throat and cuffs turned back.

“Ye gods, it is too hot to sleep.” He reached over and drained the last of his brother’s drink. “You do like it sweet.”

“Helps with my disposition. And as I did indeed have to deal with His Grace this morning, I feel entitled.”

“How bad was he?” Val asked as he sat and crossed his long legs at the ankle.

“Bad enough. Wanted to chat about the scene at Fairly’s but left yelling about grandchildren and disrespect.”

“Sounds about like your usual with him,” Val said as John Footman brought out a second tray, this one bearing something closer to breakfast.

“Mrs. S said to tell you this one is sweetened, my lord.” John set one glass before the earl. “And this one, less so,” he said as he placed the other before Val.

“I think she puts mint in it,” Val said after a long swallow.

“Mrs. Seaton?” the earl asked, sipping at his own drink. “Probably. She delights in all matters domestic.”

“And she did not appear to be delighting in you, when she was out here earlier.”

“Valentine.” The earl stared hard at his brother. “Were you spying on me?”

Val pointed straight up, to where the balcony of his bedroom overlooked the terrace. “I sleep on that balcony most nights,” he explained, “and you were not whispering. I, however, was sleeping and caught the tail end of an interesting exchange.”

The earl had the grace to study his drink at some silent length.

“Well?” He met his younger brother’s eyes, awaiting castigation.

“She is a decent woman, Westhaven, and if you trifle with her, she won’t be decent any longer, ever again. What is a fleeting pleasure for you changes her life irrevocably, and you can never, ever change it back. I am not sure you want that on your appallingly overactive conscience, as much as I applaud your improvement in taste.”

The earl swirled his drink and realized with a sinking feeling Val had gotten his graceful, talented hands on a truth.

“Maybe,” Val went on, “you should just marry the woman, hmm? You get on with her, you respect her, and if you marry her, she becomes a duchess. She could do worse, and it would appease Their Graces.”

“She would not like the duchess part.”

“You could make it worth her while,” Val said, his tone full of studied nonchalance.

“Listen to you. You would encourage me into the arms of a pox-ridden gin whore if it would result in His Grace getting a few grandsons.”

“No, I would not, or you wouldn’t have gotten that little postscript from me regarding Elise’s summer recreation, would you?”

The earl rose and regarded his brother. “You are a pestilential irritant of biblical proportions. If I do not turn out to be an exact replica of His Grace, it will be in part due to your aggravating influence.”

Val was grinning around a mouthful of muffin, but he nonetheless managed to reply intelligibly to his brother’s retreating back. “Love you, too.”

Anna wasn’t fooled. Since their confrontation over the lunch table earlier in the week, the earl had kept a distance, but it was a thoughtful distance. She’d caught him eyeing her as she watered the bouquets in his library, or rising to his feet when she entered a room. It was unnerving, like being stalked by a hungry tiger.