Grace Burrowes - The Heir

He’d had few suggestions regarding the decorative schemes, predictably. “Avoid purple, if you please,” or “no flights of Egyptian fancy. My sisters are imaginative enough as it is.” He liked simple, cheerful, comfortable arrangements, which suited Anna just fine. They were easy to assemble, clean, and maintain, and better still, easy to live in.

And if she felt a pang of envy that some other woman, one dear to Westhaven, was going to be doing the living at Willow Bend, she smothered it. She smothered her anxieties regarding her grandmother’s warning and set to bargaining with herself fiercely instead: I’ll work on the Willow Bend interiors until the letters arrive from the agencies. I’ll enjoy the earl’s attentions until I have to leave. I’ll leave Morgan in peace until I know for certain when and where we’re going…

Her life, it seemed, had degenerated into a series of unenforceable bargains made with herself, while the business of the household moved along heedlessly.

The Windham males had taken to hacking in the park early in the morning, with Pericles sometimes escorting two of the younger stock or taking a day to enjoy his stall and hay. The men came back hungry and usually in high spirits.

When Devlin St. Just had moved in, he’d brought an ability to tease with him, and it was infectious. With only the earl and Lord Val in residence, it was as if their shared grief had pushed out all but the driest humor. With Dev underfoot, bad puns, jokes, ribbing, and sly innuendo cropped up among all three brothers. To Anna, the irreverent humor was the conversational equivalent of the occasional bouquet in the house. It pleased the eye and brought visual warmth and pleasure to the odd corner or bare table.

Nonetheless, Colonel St. Just watched her with a calculating gleam foreign to either the earl or Lord Val. St. Just was a bastard and half Irish. Either burden would have been a strike against him, but his papa was a duke, and so he was received.

Received, Anna thought, but not welcomed. That difference put a harder edge on St. Just than on either of his brothers. In his own way, he was an outsider, and so Anna wanted to feel some sympathy for him. But his green eyes held such a measure of distance when they looked at her, all she felt was… wary.

Still, he was supportive of the earl, proud of Val’s music, and well liked by the staff. He always cleaned his plate, flirted shamelessly with Nanny Fran, and occasionally sang to Cook in a lilting, lyrical baritone. He was, in a word, charming, even to Morgan, who usually left the room as quickly as she could when he started his blather.

“Hullo, my dear.” The earl strolled into Anna’s sitting room and glanced back at the door as if he wanted to close it.

“Good morning.” Anna rose, smiling despite herself, because here was the handsomest of the Windham brothers, the heir, and he wanted to marry her. “What brings you to my sitting room on this lovely day?”

“We have household matters to discuss.” His smile dimmed. “May I sit?”

“Shall I fetch the tea tray?” Anna frowned and realized he wanted to settle in, which would not do, for many reasons.

“No, thank you.” The earl took the middle of the settee, extended an arm across the back, and crossed one ankle over the other knee. “How are you coming with the Willow Bend project?”

“I’ve ordered a great deal in the way of draperies, rugs, mirrors, smaller items of furniture, such as night tables, footstools, and so forth,” Anna replied, grateful for a simple topic. “It is going to cost you a pretty penny, I’m warning you, but the results should be very pleasing.”

“Pleasing is good. When will it be ready?”

“Much has already been delivered. The rest should arrive in the next few days. I understood there was some urgency about this project.”

“There is. I want it done before fall, when I’m likely to be dragooned into the shires by my dear papa for some hunting.”

“If you don’t want to go hunting, you’d best arrange something with your brothers, so when Papa issues his summons, you are otherwise occupied.”

“I’ll get right on it.”

“And have you gotten right on finding us a butler? Stenson is more in need of stern guidance than ever.”

The earl burst out laughing at that image and shook his head as he rose.

“Send me some candidates,” he said. “Their most important qualification must be their ability to withstand the duke’s inveigling. I should be on hand Monday and Wednesday next week, though I have appointments back-to-back on Tuesday. I’ll expect you to accompany me to Willow Bend on Thursday.”

“Me?” Anna rose, as well, memories assaulting her: The earl drinking champagne from the bottle on the library floor, his hand slipping over her bare buttocks in the dark of night, the single rose he’d brought her… “I don’t believe that’s wise.”

“Of course it’s wise,” the earl said. “How else am I to know which table goes in what room, and which drapes to hang where?”

“I can write it out,” Anna suggested, “or go when you’re not there.”

“I am the owner, Anna.” He peered down at her in consternation. “What if I take issue with your decisions? Are we to trundle out there on alternate days until all our quibbling is resolved?”

She admitted the silliness of that but not out loud.

“You aren’t afraid, are you?” He cocked his head, frowning. “It isn’t likely we’ll be stuck in a second monsoon, but we can take the coach if you’d feel better about it.”

“Let’s see what the weather portends.” Anna did want to see the place put to rights. “Who will be doing all of the stepping and fetching?”

“The property is now swarming with locals ready to do the earl’s bidding for a bit of the earl’s coin. Much of the work should be done before we arrive, but I want your eye on the finished product.”

“Very well, then. Thursday.”

“And I’ve been meaning to ask you why you always fall silent when St. Just is in the room.” He sidled a little closer and waited for her reply.

“The colonel doesn’t particularly care for me. It’s merely his tacitly stated and perfectly legitimate opinion.”

“He likes you.” The earl dipped his head and kissed her cheek. “It might be he doesn’t trust you. More likely, he simply envies me, because I saw you first.”

Anna’s eyebrows shot up in astonishment, but the earl was gone in an instant, no doubt drawn into the breakfast parlor by the scent of bacon, scones, omelets, and—more especially—by the sound of his brothers’ laughter.

“GOOD MORNING, YOUR GRACE.”

Anna swept the deep, deferential curtsy required in the presence of a lady of high rank. “Would you like to wait in the formal parlor, the breakfast parlor, the family parlor, or the library?”

“It’s such a pleasant morning,” the duchess said. “Why not in the gardens?” Anna found herself returning her smile, as the gardens were the better choice. After several days of increasingly miserable weather, the humidity had dropped in the night, making the morning air delightful.

“Can I bring you some iced lemonade?” Anna asked when she’d seen the earl’s mother ensconced on a shady bench. “The earl and his brothers usually return from their morning ride about this time and go directly in to breakfast.”

“His brothers?” The duchess paused in the arrangements of her skirts and blinked once. “Can you spare a few minutes to sit with me, Mrs. Seaton?”

“Of course.” Anna assumed a seat on the same bench as the duchess. There was a subtle, pleasant scent to the woman, a gracious but simple hint of rose with a note of spice. It didn’t fit with what Anna thought a duchess should smell like; it was much less formal, prettier, more sweet and loving.

“Westhaven’s brothers join him regularly for breakfast? I was aware Lord Valentine was a guest here, but you include St. Just in this breakfast club?”

“I do,” Anna said, feeling cornered. Would the earl want his mother knowing St. Just lived here?

“Is St. Just another guest in the earl’s home?” the duchess asked, frowning slightly at the roses. She was a pretty woman, even when she frowned: willowy, hair going from golden to flax, and green eyes slightly canted in a face graced with elegant bones.

“I would be more comfortable, Your Grace, did you put that question to your sons,” Anna said. A small, surprised silence followed her comment, and the duchess’s frown became a smile.

“You are protective of him,” she observed. “Or of them. That is admirable and a trait we share. Can you tell me, Mrs. Seaton, how Westhaven is going on?”

Anna considered the question and decided she could answer it, honestly if somewhat vaguely.

“He is a very, very busy man,” Anna said. “The business of the duchy is complicated and demands much of his time, but for the most part, I think he enjoys getting matters under control.”

“His Grace did not always see to the details as conscientiously as he should. Westhaven does much better in this regard.” As understatements went, that one was worthy of a duchess, Anna thought, and the duchess was loyal to her duke, which was no surprise.

“And how is Westhaven’s health?”

“He enjoys good health,” Anna said, thinking that was honest at least in the present tense. “He has an active man’s appetite, much to Cook’s delight.”

“And is he treating you well, Mrs. Seaton?” The duchess turned guileless eyes on Anna, but the question was sincere.

“He is a very good employer,” Anna said, feeling an abrupt, inconvenient, and wholly out-of-character wish that she had someone to talk to. The duchess was as pretty and gracious as an older woman could be, but she struck Anna as first, last, and always, a woman who had borne eight children, taken in two of her husband’s by-blows, and buried two of her sons. She was a mother, a mama, and Anna sorely, sorely missed her mother. It had taken this conversation to remind her of it, and the realization brought an unwelcome lump to her throat.