Ethan: Lord of Scandals

One

“Where in the bloody, benighted, perishing hell are my sons?”

Rage and fear drove the exhaustion from Ethan Grey’s bones as he tore open closets and peered under beds in what had become the boys’ dormitory at Belle Maison.

“Jeremiah! Joshua!” He tried to keep the panic from his voice, but he’d just ridden through a gale-force storm, and it was no kind of night for two little boys to be abroad alone. A long, deafening crack of thunder drowned out Ethan’s bellows, and lightning illuminated the room.

All four little beds were empty, the sheets rumpled.

God in heaven, could his sons have taken off with John and Ford and decided to sleep in a tree house tonight of all nights? Ethan had seen a tree hit by lightning before his very eyes not an hour past, and the idea of his sons wandering around at this hour, in this weather…

“I thought I heard you,” came a pleasant baritone from the doorway.

Ethan crossed the room in three strides and glared at his younger brother. “I leave my children here with you, Nicholas, so they can get to know their uncle, and I come back to find it’s damned near midnight, they’re nowhere to be found, and you’ve lost not one but four little boys. Well?”

More thickly muscled and even taller than Ethan, Nick yet managed to project a benevolence Ethan would never possess. “The children are safe. Come, I’ll show you.”

Safe… The word registered, but the empty beds had registered first.

“The storm has all the children awake,” Nick went on easily, but he cast a curious glance over his shoulder at his older brother. “I’m surprised you decided to travel tonight.”

“I told you I’d be here tonight.” In truth, Ethan had told his sons he’d be back to Belle Maison on this specific date. At five and six, Joshua and Jeremiah were literalists with faultless memories. If Ethan expected them to keep their word—and he did—then he was hell-bent on keeping his word to them.

“You said you’d be back.” Nick paused outside another door on the third floor. He signaled Ethan to wait, conferred momentarily with the footman at the end of the corridor, then returned to the door. “But unless I miss my guess, you’ve ruined a fine pair of boots, put yourself in a foul humor, and are likely courting lung fever as well.”

Ethan’s retort was cut off by Nick’s motion for silence. Slowly, Nick opened the door then gestured for Ethan to peek through.

He saw a bedroom apparently used for nannies and governesses, but a well-appointed room nonetheless. The fire had been built up, and there on the hearth rug were his two sons, one on each side of some governess-type female. She sported a gray dress, a book in her lap, glasses on her nose, and a bunned-up coiffure that did not countenance disorder from a single dark hair.

Two more little boys flanked Joshua and Jeremiah. Nick’s wife sat across the rug from the governess, an arm around the Belmonts’ daughter, Priscilla.

“And the big, nasty wolf,” the governess said, “who had very malodorous breath from eating a deal of onions with his supper, said, ‘I shall bite off your toes and bite off your noses…’”

“Wolves don’t eat onions,” Jeremiah interjected.

“On their steaks, they do, and this wolf liked them in his lamb and mutton sandwiches too.”

“What was his name?” Joshua asked. “The wolf. He has to have a name.”

“We shall call him…” The governess—a drab creature with an unaccountably pretty voice—glanced up from her book at Ethan and Nick in the doorway. “Mr. Grey. Good evening.”

“Papa?” Joshua and Jeremiah were on their feet, and Joshua had even taken a few running steps toward Ethan when Jeremiah’s hand shot out and grabbed his little brother’s nightshirt.

“Hello, Papa,” Jeremiah said, his voice quavering. “Uncle Nick said we might have more stories because of the storm. Priscilla was frightened.”

“Of course you must have more stories tonight.” Nick ambled into the room and lowered himself to sit beside his countess. “Your aunt Leah wasn’t frightened, but I was a little nervous. She decided if she was going to read me stories, you children should have a few extra as well.”

Ethan realized his sons were watching him warily, as were the other boys, and the girl; even Nick and Leah seemed to be regarding him with some caution. The governess, however, merely blinked at him through her spectacles and bent her head to the book.

She ran her finger down the page. “This wolf with the predilection for onions, he might like us to get on with the story. We were reaching the part he likes best.”

“Papa?” Jeremiah stood before his father, back more militarily straight than any six-year-old should stand, his hand still clutching his brother’s nightshirt.

Ethan tried for a smile, telling himself he was glad they were safe, glad there’d been an innocent explanation for his sons wandering the house at a late hour. “Of course you may finish the story. I’ll see you both in the morning. My regards to the wolf.” He nodded in the general direction of the women and children, then at Nick, and turned to leave.

“I’ll walk with you,” Nick said, rising in one smooth movement. “I am still afraid of the storm and require company on my way to my bed. Children, let Miss Portman get her rest; Leah, I will wait up for you, and I have sworn off onions for life.”

He blew his wife a kiss, growled at the boys, bowed to Priscilla, and waved to the governess. Had there been a dog in the room, Nick would likely have scratched its cheerfully proffered belly before he took his leave.

“My apologies for interrupting the fairy-tale festival,” Ethan said as they traversed the house to the second floor. His boots—a pair he’d just broken in to his satisfaction—were squishing. Walking the last two miles rather than riding a panicked horse was likely to ruin one’s footwear.

“You reassured your sons you were safely home,” Nick said, “and you would have been welcome to join us, you know. Miss Portman does the best job with the old standards. Makes me wish I were a little boy.”

“You are a little boy. You’re just the largest little boy in the realm.” He eyed Nick’s great golden length as they approached his bedroom, and got a complacent nod for his comment.

“Was there something you wanted, Nicholas?” Ethan asked, opening the door. He saw a footman setting up screens by the fire, indicating Nick had ordered him a bath.

“Some time with my brother, perhaps?” Nick suggested, following Ethan into the room uninvited. “There’s food on the way up, too, and you don’t need to tell me the roads were horrible.”

“A tree was hit by lightning not fifty feet from the road.” Ethan squished over to the fireplace and settled into a cushioned chair, which would no doubt bear stains from where his damp fundament came to rest. “Argus nearly tossed me in the ditch, and I walked him in hand from that point.”

He started tugging on his boots, only to feel a stabbing ache in his back brought on by walking in the mud, being cold and wet for hours, and having gone without decent sleep for more nights than he could count.

“Allow me.” Nick grasped the heel and toe of one boot and gave a stout tug. The boot barely moved, so Nick turned around, stepped over Ethan’s calf, and tugged more firmly. By degrees, the wet boot gave up its hold on Ethan’s equally soaked foot. The second boot was no easier, and in truth, Ethan wasn’t sure he could have gotten them off himself.

“My thanks.” Ethan rose—carefully—and hung his wet waistcoat over the back of a chair. “Shouldn’t you be in bed with your wife?”

“We were in bed, then we heard the patter of little feet—even over the thunder. Leah thought she heard Priscilla get out of bed. When we went to investigate, we found the boys were all awake, two to a bed, so Miss Portman hailed them across the hall for a story.”

None of which explained why a belted earl had troubled himself with the doings in the nursery.

“Doesn’t Leah need her rest?” Ethan asked, tugging his shirt over his head and glancing around for somewhere dry to hang it.

“Give it to me.” Nick hung the shirt over a bedpost, like a wet flag of surrender. “Your breeches too, and those stockings.”

“The stockings are beyond repair.” Ethan paused to yawn then stepped out of his remaining clothes and considered the tub. “I thought I was too tired to soak. I was wrong—you will note the occasion, it being a rarity.” He crossed the room and lowered himself into the steaming water with a grateful sigh.

Now if only Nicholas would take himself off.

“When did you get so cynical?” Nick asked, going to the wardrobe and extracting towels and a bar of hard-milled soap.

“When I was fourteen.”

Nick frowned but said nothing, passing Ethan the soap, which Ethan sniffed.

“Clove. This has to be expensive.”

“Not particularly.” Nick resumed his seat on the stool. “It lasts quite a while. So how is our dear brother Beckman?”

“This cannot wait until morning?” One very large male foot emerged from the water, was lathered, and subsided like a retreating sea monster.

“Morning.” Nick crossed his arms over his chest. “At the breakfast table we have my houseguests, the Belmonts, all three delightful people, but Priscilla’s voice when she’s trying to get attention would cut frozen glass. Then we have the real entertainment, as our nephew Ford and Leah’s brother John, both being five, still sport the peculiarly shrill voices of the very young. Your own two are models of decorum, of course, but often inspired by their confreres. Then we have Nita, Kirsten, and Suzannah, our sisters, whom we love to distraction even first thing in the morning, and let us not forget little sister Della, whose dramatics can be counted on to get the day off to a rollicking start.”

Ethan regarded his brother with a slight smile, comforted to know not all the local miseries were born of wet boots and an aching back.

“Other than the assault to your ears at breakfast, does all go well for you?” With their father’s death less than three months previous, Nick had inherited the earldom of Bellefonte. He’d married mere days before the old earl’s passing, and had taken up residence at Belle Maison with his family only at the start of the summer.

“Well enough. There is a great deal to be done, of course, and Papa’s affairs are not yet entirely settled. You saw Beckman?”

“I did.” Ethan dunked and scrubbed his hair clean to give himself time to fashion a report. “Our brother is as brown as a savage and roundly displeased with Lady Warne for letting Three Springs get into such a sorry condition, but he’s doing a nice job with the place. He hasn’t entirely gotten things sorted out with the housekeeper, though.”

That should be enough of a hint without violating fraternal confidences.

“Oh?” Nick passed Ethan a glass of brandy, then rose to answer a knock at the bedroom door. When he returned, he was carrying a tray with meat, cheese, buttered bread, a bowl of strawberries, and a steaming bowl of soup.

Ethan regarded the tray and found the strength to dunk again and rise from the warmth and comfort of the tub. “Towel?”

“A moment.” Nick set the tray down and picked up one of the two ewers of rinse water. “Eyes closed.” With his superior height, Nick could pour the water directly over his brother’s head, sluicing Ethan clean from the crown downward.

“Your towel.” Nick passed Ethan a bath sheet and stepped back, taking both drinks and the tray over to the hearth while Ethan dried off. He stepped into the dressing gown Nick held for him and settled into a chair.

“You would make somebody a good wife, Nicholas.”

“Valeting my brother is hardly a difficult skill.” Nick passed Ethan the bowl of soup. “Finish this, or I will tattle to our sisters.”

“Beck sends them his love,” Ethan said after several spoonfuls of soup. He made and then devoured a sandwich, while Nick sipped his drink and watched the fire.

“Is there something you’re not telling me, Nicholas?” Ethan asked when the sandwich had also disappeared.

“I want you to think about something,” Nick said, still staring at the fire. “But just think about it. I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with it myself.”

“Think about what?” Growing up, the most harebrained schemes—also the most fun—were always Nick’s, but Nick’s tone was serious now.

“How would you feel about leaving your boys here, with me and Leah? We’ve offered to take her brother Trent’s children for the nonce, and all four boys are of an age. They’ve had great fun these past few weeks, and we’ve enjoyed having them.”

What the hell? “Leave Joshua and Jeremiah here? With you? You just met them, Nick, and why are you taking in Leah’s brother’s children? Belle Maison is large enough, I know, but it isn’t as if the place is empty. What makes you think you can have my sons too?”

Ethan was on his feet by the time he finished, and pacing in a rising temper. A throbbing started up at the base of his skull; an old rage at Nicholas and his high-handed notions throbbed along with it.

“When Ford goes back to his father’s house,” Nick said, “Leah’s brother John will have no company here his own age. I’m not asking that Josh and Jeremiah bide here permanently, but it might make sense in the near term.”

Ethan scowled at him. “You aren’t thinking. Of course they’re having a romping good time here this summer, of course the little boys are becoming fast friends, but what then? What about when Trent Lindsey recalls he has an heir, and Ford is whisked away? What about when they have a falling out, and Joshua and Jeremiah aren’t such good companions for John anymore? What about when we have to separate them again, when they’ve already grown as close as brothers?”

Old, old wounds—wounds that should have long since healed—lurked beneath Ethan’s volley of questions.

“I am only asking that you consider it,” Nick said mildly as he rose, “and it is an offer, not a request. I would not have raised it now, but my impression was you intended to repair to Tydings fairly soon.”

“Fairly.” Ethan made an effort to rein in his temper. “We can discuss this later, but I am their only parent, Nick. I have to decide what is best for them.”

Nick smiled at Ethan, all amiability, while Ethan wanted to wallop his brother, regardless of fatigue, headache, or backache. “Of course you do. Whether you want to or not. Good night, Ethan, and I’m glad you’re here, safe and sound.”

“Good night, Nicholas. You aren’t too afraid of the storm to walk back to your rooms alone?”

“Go to hell, Ethan.” Nick turned to leave but not before Ethan saw his smile. “And sweet dreams.”

“Scream if you see the wolf,” Ethan rejoined. Nick blew him a kiss and left, closing the door softly behind him.

Ethan sat by the fire, running a hand through his damp hair. He made himself another sandwich and lounged back, realizing part of his headache—not all—had been derived from hunger.

And some from fatigue. Ethan’s mind, however, was still slogging through storms, including the hail of correspondence he’d picked up at Tydings after his visit with Beck. There were all manner of memoranda, letters, and reports from his factors and agents, but there was also a letter of resignation from the boys’ latest tutor, who had been ostensibly holidaying with his sister in Bath.

Of course he was. Ethan gave a mental snort. More likely, Mr. Harold had been looking for a new position, somewhere far from Ethan Grey, bastard firstborn of the late Earl of Bellefonte, and his hellion offspring. It was a pity, too, because Harold had been making some progress with the boys academically.

Maybe Nick was right, Ethan thought as he negotiated the steps up to the bed. Maybe the boys should stay here. Ethan didn’t like the idea, but he’d accommodated ideas he hated, and survived.

As his tired mind slowed then began to drift toward sleep, Ethan’s last thought was neither of commerce, correspondence, his feelings for his younger brother, his station in life, nor the prospect of parting from his children. His last thought as he drifted off was worthy of Nick prior to that fellow’s recent marriage.

It would have been deuced pleasant to snuggle up to a warm, sweet-scented governess and let her spin tales of ferocious wolves and brave little porkers, rather than battle storms in the mud, rain, and dark of night.

When the sun rose on a glorious summer morning, Ethan rode out with Nick to survey the storm damage. While the horses splashed along muddy lanes, Nick commenced the interrogation Ethan had no doubt been spared the previous night:

What was Nick to do with their dear brother George, whose left-handed tendencies were ever a worry?

Ethan suggested foreign service, the Continent being more enlightened in at least a few regards.

Would Ethan attend Nick’s investiture in the autumn?

Ethan replied in the affirmative, not feeling it necessary to add that the request touched him.

And why wasn’t a man as good looking and wealthy as Ethan Grey remarried?

Argus had shied spectacularly at that query, almost as if the beast perceived his master’s reaction to the question.

Ethan was equally leery of the afternoon’s planned diversion—a picnic involving women, children, and all manner of noise, bother, and uninvited insects. Rather than subject himself to same, Ethan decided on the more familiar torment of dealing with his correspondence.

He opened the door to the library, thinking it would almost be a relief to bury himself in commerce, when he heard an odd, muffled sound from the couch over by the hearth. A dog, perhaps, having a dream, but Nick didn’t have house dogs—he had house cats, instead, claiming they were prettier, quieter, better smelling, and capable of placating women and eradicating mice.

Ethan closed the door behind him and crossed the room, only to find the Belmonts’ small daughter hugging a pillow, obviously in distress.

“I beg your pardon?” Ethan wasn’t sure how one dealt with a balled-up little girl who had a death grip on a pillow. “It’s Priscilla, isn’t it?”

Big teary brown eyes peered up at him. The child whipped her braids over her shoulder and clung to her pillow. “Go away, please.”

“I’d like to,” Ethan said, lowering himself to the couch, “or better still, I’d like you to find somewhere else to wax lachrymose, but you are a lady, and I am a gentleman, so we’ll have to muddle through. Here.”

She glared at him past his monogrammed handkerchief, then sat up, scrubbed at her eyes, honked into the handkerchief, and proffered it to Ethan.

“You’re to keep it, child.”

“Is it a token?” Priscilla looked at the damp linen. “It smells ever so lovely, like fresh trees and Christmas. I’m too young to accept tokens, except from family.”

So young and so artlessly charming. Thank God he had only sons. “It’s a handkerchief. Now, why were you crying?”

“My heart is breaking.” She sighed a larger sigh than one little girl ought to contain. “I will write much better stories after this.”

“You will divulge the particulars of this tragedy, if you please. I have correspondence to tend to.”

“Miss Portman is leaving me. She’s says I have grown too smart for her, and it’s time I had tutors, not just a governess.”

Ethan settled in more comfortably on the couch, though the need to deal with his correspondence nagged at him. “You are suffering a consequence of growing up. These are ever more inconvenient than adults might represent.”

“I hate it. Next I’ll have to wear a corset, curl my hair, and learn to flirt.”

Her tone suggested a worse fate had never befallen a young lady. “Don’t panic. I think you have some time before those miseries beset you.”

“Papa says the same thing, but he never wants me to grow up. He had only boys with his other wife, and I am his only girl.”

“His only daughter for now.” Ethan’s eyes had told him Mrs. Reese Belmont was in anticipation of a happy event. “You will correspond with Miss Portman when she moves to her next post, will you not?”

“I don’t know.” The girl smoothed out the linen on her lap. She had a grass stain on one bony little knee, and her pinny was hopelessly wrinkled. “I am not too smart for her, and she can be my tutor. She just wants to go, is all. I am mad at her for that.”

Children were horrendously canny when it came to sniffing out adult prevarications. Little Priscilla’s governess might well be simply tired of the child.

“Maybe she wants to leave while you still think she’s smart and you still like her. She doesn’t want you to be smarter than she is. Word of advice, though?”

Priscilla nodded, apparently willing to entertain a confidence from a man who looked like her friend Wee Nick.

“You can be angry any time you please,” Ethan said, “but it could be that you are only picking a fight because you’re hurt, and maybe a little scared—scared because you like Miss Portman and you might not like your tutors as much.”

Priscilla kept her gaze on her lap. “I’ll miss her.”

And a child could miss loved ones passionately. A man, thank God, knew better.

“She’ll miss you too,” Ethan said, hoping it was true for the child’s sake. “If you’re really her friend, though, you want her to be happy. And I think you can trust your mama and papa to find you tutors you get along with.”

Outside the door, a herd of small feet thundered past, young voices shrieking about pony carts, kites, and a race to the orchard.

“I have to go now.” Priscilla scrambled off the couch, flung a curtsy toward Ethan, and raced to join in the happy affray.

Ethan closed the door as a rankling notion stole into his brain: Nick would see to it Joshua and Jeremiah had the best of tutors and nannies. He’d also play with them, as Ethan most assuredly did not. Ethan shoved that thought back into whatever mental dungeon it had sprung from and turned his attention to a pile of letters, some water stained around the edges. He was halfway through a reply to the steward of his sheep farms in Dorset when the library door again opened.

“Excuse me.” The governess—Miss Porter? no, Miss Portman—admitted herself to the room and closed the door behind her. “I’m returning one book and fetching another. My pardon for disturbing you, Mr. Grey.”

Ethan half rose from his seat and gestured toward the shelves. “Help yourself.” He paused to rub his eyes. They’d been stinging more and more of late, and sometimes watered so badly he had to stop what he was doing altogether and rest them. He rose from the desk and came around to lean against the front of it, watching as the governess bent to put the large volume of fairy tales on the bottom shelf.

“It’s Miss Portman, isn’t it?”

She rose slowly, as if feeling Ethan’s gaze on her, and turned. “Alice Portman.” She bobbed a hint of a curtsy. “You are Nicholas’s brother, Mr. Ethan Grey, father to Joshua and Jeremiah.”

“You call the earl Nicholas?” Ethan concluded she was one of those plain women who’d grown fearless in her solitary journey through life. He respected that, even as he had to concede there was something about Alice Portman’s snapping brown eyes he found… compelling. Her shape was indeterminate, owing to the loose cut of her gown, her dark brown hair was imprisoned in some kind of chignon, and her gaze had an insect-like quality as a result of the distortion of her spectacles. All in all, Ethan suspected she was a woman of substantial personal fortitude.

She held his gaze with a steadiness grown men would envy. “When I met your brother, he was mucking stalls in Sussex and content to be known as Wee Nick. I do not use his title now, because he has insisted it would make him uncomfortable were I to do so.”

This recitation was a scold. Ethan mentally saluted her for the calm with which she delivered it. “No doubt it would.”

She turned back to the books, but rather than bend down to the lower shelf, she sat on the floor cross-legged, as she’d sat on the rug the previous night. Then, she’d been swaddled in another plain, unremarkable dress, and banked with children on either side. For all her primness, she’d looked comfortable with the informality, if a little disgruntled to be interrupted.

Ethan’s correspondence started whining at him, but his eyes still stung too.

“So what did you name him?” Ethan asked. “The wolf with the unfortunate predilection for onions, that is.”

“That was a challenge,” Miss Portman said as she surveyed the children’s books on the bottom shelf. “Pris, being of a dramatic frame of mind, wanted to name him Sir Androcles of Lobo.”

“Wasn’t Androcles a lion?”

The governess turned her head and beamed a full-blown, pleased smile at Ethan. “Why, Mr. Grey, I am impressed, but Androcles was the young man who took the thorn from the lion’s paw. The lion never earned his own sobriquet.”

“Lobo is Spanish for wolf,” Ethan said, his gaze straying around the room lest he betray a reaction to that smile. Ye gods, the plain, prim, buttoned-up Miss Portman had the smile of a benign goddess, so warm and charming it hurt to see.

“Pris is learning Spanish, French, and Italian from her uncle Thomas, who is a noted polyglot.” Miss Portman chose a book, frowned at it, and put it right back.

“What’s wrong with that one?” Ethan asked, amused at her expression.

“No pictures,” she explained. “Who in their right mind prints a storybook for children without pictures?”

“Somebody trying to save money on production costs. Did the wolf acquire a name?” He was asking to be polite, to make small talk with somebody who was likely not much befriended below stairs.

“He acquired various names.” Miss Portman chose another book and opened it for perusal. “Wolfgang Wolf was John’s nomination. Ford, being our youngest, voted for Poopoo Paws Wolfbottom.”

She said this with a straight face, which had probably made the children laugh all the harder.

“And the winner was?” Ethan hopped off the desk and crossed the room to help the lady to her feet. She frowned delicately—a puzzlement rather than a rebuke, Ethan surmised—then put her bare hand in his and let him draw her up from the floor.

“Lord Androcles Wolfgang Poopoo Paws Wolfbottom Wolf the fourth,” she recited. “Children like anything that makes the telling of a story longer and are ever willing to mention certain parts of the anatomy.”

“I see.” What he saw was a flawless complexion, velvety brown eyes staring up at him in wary consternation, and a wide, full mouth that hid a gorgeous smile. He stepped back and dropped her hand accordingly.

“I am off.” Miss Portman edged around him in the confines of the shelves, and Ethan caught a whiff of lemons. Of course she’d wear lemon verbena. This was probably a dictate in some secret manual for governesses.

“You haven’t joined the cavalcade of pony carts making for the scene of this bacchanal?” Ethan asked, standing his ground.

“I am not fond of equines,” Miss Portman replied. “Nor of animals in general, though I can appreciate the occasional cat. I choose to walk instead. The exercise is good for me, and I am less likely to be ridiculed by the children for my fears.”

“Shall I provide you escort?” Ethan heard himself ask.

Now where in the bloody, benighted hell had that come from? “It’s a pretty day,” Ethan went on, the same imp of inspiration not yet done with him. “I’ve missed my family, and I can work on correspondence any time.”

She wanted to refuse him. From the fleeting look in her eyes, Ethan deduced that his company ranked below that of Mr. Wolfbottom Wolf after a large meal of mutton and onion sandwiches.

And wasn’t that cheering, to find one’s company distasteful to a mere governess?

“Don’t let me impose, Miss Portman.” Ethan offered her a polite retreat. A bastard, even a wealthy one with passable looks, learned the knack of polite retreats. “I can always saddle my gelding and join the party later.” He saw his mistake when her eyes narrowed, saw she took the reference to his horse as a personal taunt.

“My apologies.” He was not sorry, he was behind in his correspondence. “I meant no offense, but you do not seem at a loss for company.”

“I am not,” she replied, peering at him. “Your children need to spend time with you outside this house, and you can carry the blanket and the book. Shall we?”

Oh, she was good, reducing him to the status of her bearer and making him work for even that privilege. An idea blossomed in the back of Ethan’s mind, borne of the realization she’d tamed the precocious Priscilla and could likely handle younger children even more easily. He let this idea unfurl in his awareness, where he could consider it from several angles at his leisure.

“Let me tidy up the desk,” he said, “while you find us that blanket, and I’ll join you in the kitchen momentarily.”

“As you wish.” She whisked off, her words implying Ethan had arranged matters to his own satisfaction, when in fact, he was at a loss to explain what he was doing trundling after a prim spinster to spend hours swatting flies and trying not to let the shrieks of children offend his beleaguered ears.

When he met Miss Portman in the kitchen, she sported a wide, floppy straw hat on her head, a blanket over her arm, and the book in her hand. She wore gloves as well, which should not have surprised Ethan, but disappointed him for some reason.

“There’s a shortcut to the orchard through the home wood,” Ethan said as they left the house. He’d rolled the book into the blanket and tucked the blanket under his right arm, leaving his left free for escort duty.

Except the lady was striding off across the terrace like she was intent on storming the Holy Land single-handedly.

Ethan waited by the back door. “Miss Portman?”

“Sir?” She perfectly matched his condescending tone. His own children could not have mimicked him more precisely.

“When one escorts a lady,” he said, “one generally offers the lady his arm.” He winged his elbow at her and waited. He was disproportionately gratified to see Alice Portman blush to the roots of her lovely dark hair. Petty of him, but there it was.

“My apologies.” Alice strode back to his side, put her hand on his arm as if he were clothed with venomous snakes, and fixed her bespectacled gaze straight ahead. Had she started singing some stalwart old hymn, he would not have been surprised.

“Is it really so distasteful, Miss Portman, to stroll with a gentleman on a pretty day?” Ethan asked, setting a deliberate pace.

“I am not used to the company of gentlemen.” Gentlemen might have been “grave robbers” or “highwaymen” in the same inflection. “Most men don’t know what to do with me if they know I’m a governess. I’m considered above the maids, but certainly not family. I’m not spoken for, but I’m not fair game, rather like taking holy orders. It can be awkward.”

She was blunt, which he liked. At the rate they were going, their progress would take some time. “I have the impression this might be awkward for the gentlemen, but not particularly so for you.”

“I am content to be what I am,” Miss Portman said, her posture unbending a little.

“So content”—Ethan’s tone was as mild as the breeze—“that I found little Priscilla crying into her pillow in the library this morning, for her friend Miss Portman is abandoning her.”

Miss Portman paused minutely in her forward progress, and Ethan regretted his comment. Her feet hadn’t stumbled, but he sensed her resolve momentarily wavering.

“Priscilla is dramatic,” she said at length. “She will learn one can survive the comings and goings of others in one’s life.”

“Not an easy lesson for a girl. Has she really outgrown you?”

Miss Portman turned her head to glare at him. “Yes, she has, Mr. Grey. Priscilla has her uncle’s facility for languages, and while I can teach her some drawing-room French, I cannot by any means provide what she needs. She shows an equal propensity for mathematics, which I believe she sees as just another language, and she needs a teacher who cannot simply keep up with her but who can challenge and guide her. The intellect of a child must be nurtured carefully if learning is to be made a lifelong habit.”

“Even the intellect of a girl child?” He said it to goad her, to keep the fire in her brown eyes and the animation in her expression. If his sisters could have heard him, though, he’d be minced meat. He should be minced meat, in fact.

She would have stomped off had Ethan not caught her hand.

“My apologies.” He bowed slightly over her hand. “The question was unworthy of me, and you are right to take umbrage.”

“Umbrage?” Miss Portman snatched back her hand. “Umbrage is taken by vicars and duchesses, Mr. Grey. I am offended you would question the appropriateness of developing a mind as talented as little Priscilla’s. Given the unfortunate circumstances of her birth, her education might someday be all she has to fall back on.”

“Mr. Belmont wouldn’t allow that,” Ethan said. Hell, Nick wouldn’t allow that. “I wouldn’t allow it.”

“You barely know her,” Miss Portman shot back, but her tone had taken on an edge of curiosity.

“I don’t know her well, personally,” Ethan said, “but I do know, personally, what it’s like to be raised with only immediate family for company, Miss Portman. I know what it’s like to have my mother’s name as my own, what it’s like to require letters and dispensations to be able to claim any tie to my titled father. Priscilla’s parents can love her—mine loved me, after their fashion—but they cannot ease her path through life once she leaves their care.”

She stomped along in silence beside him, and Ethan could only guess at the thoughts rocketing around behind her grim expression.

He was about to open his mouth to stumble through further apologies, when a rabbit bolted from the undergrowth, followed closely by a second of the same species. His companion startled, gave a muffled shriek, and then toppled sideways, her gloved hand slipping from his grasp as she fell.