Ethan: Lord of Scandals

Five

Alice stopped abruptly and felt her balance weave. “I did not know we would be sharing the room.”

“It’s a large room.” His lips were moving soundlessly as he ran his finger down a column on a page. “A moment, if you please.” He scratched something on the page then got to his feet.

“Ciphering appeals to me,” he said with a slight smile. “There is one right answer, and when things balance out, one has a sense of satisfaction about one’s work. The pen, ink, and paper are in here.” He opened a drawer on the desk, coming near enough that Alice got a whiff of cedar. “The sand is in here, and wax and seal are here. I’ve rung for tea, but with lemon and honey, because you’re probably ready for a change from the mint.”

“Thank you. That was considerate of you.”

“It was not.” He set a penknife on the desk. “I was thirsty, but I am not intentionally rude.”

Her smile widened to a grin.

“Well, not all the time,” he amended, his lips quirking up. “I’ll leave you to your correspondence.” He was back at his figuring, while Alice mused that he was intentionally rude, frequently, but acts of consideration and kindness, those he seemed to produce only with a struggle.

But produce them, he did. Alice settled at the desk and bent to her task, but she recalled the sensation of Mr. Grey’s large hand on her nape, his body supporting hers while he rearranged the pillows, his voice low and soothing as he did what was needed to ease Alice’s discomfort. He wasn’t a flirt like Nick—thank God—but he knew his way around a female body, and for the first time, Alice wondered what sort of man he’d be in intimate circumstances.

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.”

This explained much, all of it bitter and dreadful. Her instinct was to protect the boy he’d been, the boy who might somewhere still lurk inside him. She shifted, so her arms went silently around his waist and her head came to rest on his chest, hugging him as she would one of her charges. “I am so sorry, Ethan. For you, for Nick, and for your father. Did he ever apologize?”

“For his mistake, yes.” His arms closed around her slowly, slowly. “He never knew all the consequences of his error, and I let him die in ignorance.”

“That was kind of you,” Alice murmured against his chest. “What an awful thing to do to one’s children. You and Nick must have been devastated, and I’m sure your father lived to regret his decision.”

She spoke in the plural, regretting the consequences for him, for his brother and father too, but she kept her arms around the man with her.

“It’s in the past,” Ethan said, and still he didn’t let her go.

“Our entire lives are in the past,” Alice snapped. “Your papa might have been a good man, Ethan. I hope he was, but he was terribly wrong.”

“He was.” Alice felt him take a deep breath. “He was about as wrong as a father can be. I loved Nick. I do love Nick, and I’d never…”

“You wouldn’t,” Alice agreed, stepping back and slipping her arm through his. “You absolutely would not, and neither would Nick. Your father was simply wrong, and we must allow that this happens with human beings, but we don’t have to like it one bit or pretend it wasn’t such an egregious error. I suppose you wanted to bellow at him in righteous anger, and he deserved at least that.”

They paced along the path for a few yards while Alice seethed with upset for the man beside her. Fourteen was not so very old, especially not for a boy raised in the sheltered environs of an earl’s country seat.

Ethan paused beside her and cocked his head. “I hear the boys. Shall we leave them in peace or find out how goes the war?”

“You are a man,” Alice said, allowing the change in topic. “War will fascinate you. I am a female. It will appall me. Why don’t you see to the boys and I will return to the house? I think I’m due for another nap.”

“I should escort you,” he said, hesitating. His scowl was aimed briefly at her hip. “Come.” He started to turn them around, to return to the house.

“Don’t be silly. I am well enough to stroll through the shade back to the library. You’ll tend to the letter to Nick for me?”

“Of course.” He let her slip her hand from his arm. “And to the vanquishing of the Corsican and any chance-met dragons.”

Ethan found a dry, shady spot between the battlefield and the water, and sank to the grass to watch his children. They had such energy in their play, such unstinting commitment to the joy of having fun. And yet, they were mindful of each other. He and Nick had been like that. Ethan knew it; he just could not recall the experience of it. He let the boys frolic and splash and dunk each other for a good half hour in the name of washing off the mud of battle.

“Gentlemen!” Ethan rose to his feet when Joshua’s teeth were chattering. “Time to report to headquarters!”

The splashing stopped, and the boys slogged up the bank, with Joshua walking right up to his father’s leg and leaning on it, panting.

“Water is heavy,” Joshua observed.

“But you are not.” Ethan picked up the cool, slippery weight of his youngest, and swung him toward the pile of clothes. “We’ll use your shirts to dry you off. Come along, Jeremiah. You’re probably going to want to look in on Miss Portman.”

“We are?” Jeremiah looked confused as he scrubbed at himself with his shirt.

“Of course you are. You must report your history lessons to her, just as you did your earlier efforts regarding the fable of the heroic pismire.”

“Pismire!” Joshua exploded into peals of laughter. “You’re a pismire. Jeremiah Pis-a-miah Nicholas Grey!”

“Hush.” Ethan tossed Joshua’s shirt gently at the child’s face.

“Or you’ll thrash him silly,” Jeremiah suggested, not just smiling but grinning.

Ethan nodded gravely. “I’ll thrash him hysterical and change his name to Pismire Nicholas Grey.”

“Oooh.” Jeremiah pointed at his little brother. “Now who’s a pismire?”

“You’re both pismires.” Ethan did not smile, though it was a near thing. “And you make too much noise. Gather up your shoes, and let’s storm the fortress yonder. They’re bound to have some victuals for a couple of weary soldiers like yourselves.”

“I’m thirsty, too,” Joshua said, gathering up two shoes and his shirt. “I forget where my smalls are.”

“Here.” Jeremiah tossed them to him. “But they might have ants in them—pismires for a pismire.”

“Do they?” Joshua looked at his father worriedly, unwilling to touch the offending clothing at his feet.

“Hardly matters.” Ethan snatched up the tiny underclothes. “You aren’t in them. Now can we please move along?”

He shooed the boys into the house through the kitchen, pausing to make sure they got some lemonade and buttered bread, then had them stop off in the laundry for a quick, hot bath. Both boys occupied the same tub, to save time heating water and to encourage them to soak long enough to get some dirt off. By the time Ethan ushered them up the steps to their suite, they were both considerably more subdued than they’d been earlier.

“Shall we stop off to see Miss Portman?” Ethan suggested, knowing he at least was going to make a call.

“Let’s,” Jeremiah said. “She will want to know we went swimming, and saved the empire, and ate raspberries.”

“Not in that order.” Ethan did smile at the business of a boy’s summer day. “But she will want to know.”

They found her in her room, addressing a stack of correspondence. She was in her comfortable dress, her braid a little less tidy, her eyes tired but devoid of the choking worry Ethan had seen in them earlier.

“We’ve come to see how you fare,” Ethan said, “and to regale you with tales of the day.”

She smiled and sank onto her settee, patting the cushions on either side of her. “Come and tell me what has passed this day while I’ve languished for lack of the company of my dearest little gentlemen.”

The boys gamboled over like the puppies they were, leaving Ethan to lower himself to the delicate chair behind Miss Portman’s escritoire. Even on short acquaintance, his sons were comfortable with her. They tucked right up against her sides, cuddling in as if she were a favorite aunt—or uncle.

Absently, Ethan’s eyes strayed to the letters stacked on the corner of the blotter. There were a half dozen or so, addressed in a tidy, flowing hand. His gaze fell on the top one, and he wasn’t meaning to read, much less pry, but the name on the envelope was familiar to him.

So what, what in the bloody blue blazes, was Alice Portman doing writing to the private investigator kept on Nicholas Haddonfield’s personal payroll?