The Heir

Five

“THE ESTATE IS CALLED WILLOW BEND,” THE EARL began as they tooled out of the mews in the gray predawn light. “We should be there in less than two hours, even giving Pericles a few chances to rest.”

“Have you seen it before?” Anna asked, enjoying the breeze on her face as the horse gained the street and broke to the trot.

“I have seen only sketches, hence the necessity for this trip. I should warn you I am inclined to buy it based on proximity alone. There is only so much land for sale around London, and the city grows outward each year.”

The miles fell away as they talked, occasionally challenging each other, more often just sharing viewpoints and observations. When they were well out of town, the earl pulled up his gig to let the horse rest.

“Shall we walk? Pericles will stand there until Domesday or he eats every blade of grass at his feet.” The earl handed her down then released the checkrein so the horse could graze for a few minutes.

“He takes his victuals seriously,” Anna said.

“To any Windham male, victuals are of significant import.”

“Good thing I brought a very full hamper, then, isn’t it?” The earl offered her his arm, and she took it, realizing they had never in the months she’d worked for him simply walked side by side like this.

“It’s a lovely morning,” Anna said, taking refuge in the weather. “After all the noise and wind, I was expecting we would get at least some rain last night.”

“A few drops. Val sleeps on his balcony these days and said that’s all he felt.”

“And where was he off to this morning?”

“To see our little niece, Rose,” the earl replied, pausing before a wooden stile. “Had I been able, I’d have moved this appointment to join him, but there are several people interested in Willow Bend.”

“Or so the land agent told you.”

“Repeatedly and emphatically. Had I coordinated more closely with Val, though, he could have at least escorted us for much of the distance. Welbourne is not far from Willow Bend.”

“Do you like children?” The stile was level at the top, so Anna settled on it, the better to watch his smile disappear at the question when he took a seat beside her.

“Babies rather intimidate me, as one can drop them, and they break, but yes, I like children. I am not particularly charming, as Val is, but children don’t mind that. They want honest regard, much like a good horse does.”

“But Rose was not much taken with you?”

“More to the point, Rose’s mother, to whom His Grace would have seen me wed, was not much taken with me, and in the way of children, Rose comprehended that as clearly as I did.”

They fell silent, sitting side by side, until Anna felt the earl’s hand steal over hers to rest there.

“Today, I am going to call you Anna, and you are going to permit me to do so, please? We will be congenial with each other and forget I am the earl and you are my housekeeper. We will enjoy a pleasant morning in the country, Anna, with none of your frowning and scolding. This is agreeable to you?”

“We will share a lovely morning in the country,” Anna agreed, wanting nothing so much as to start that morning by letting her head rest against his shoulder. It was a wicked impulse and would give him all the wrong ideas.

“And seal our agreement”—the earl shifted to stand before her—“with a kiss.”

He gave her time to wiggle off the hook, to hop down off the stile and dash past him, to deliver a little lecture even, but she sat, still as a mouse, while he framed her face with his bare hands and brought his lips to hers. He propped one booted foot on the stile and leaned over her as his mouth settled fully over hers.

While Anna’s common sense tried to riot, the earl was in no hurry, exploring the fullness of her lips with his own, then easing away to run his nose along her hairline, then cruising back over her mouth on the way to kissing the side of her neck.

Her common sense gave a last, despairing whimper and went silent, because Anna liked that, that business of him nuzzling and kissing at her neck, at the soft flesh below her ear, at the place where her neck met her shoulder. He must have liked it, too, as he spent long minutes learning the various flavors of her nape and throat, the spots that were ticklish and the spots he could soothe with his tongue and lips.

She swayed into him, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck for support, wishing she’d thought—as he had—to take off her gloves. Oh, she knew nothing of the details of being wicked, nothing at all except that with him, she liked it. She liked the way she felt more alive wherever he touched, liked the way her insides melted at the scent and taste of him. Liked the feel of his long, muscular body so close to hers.

Anna felt a hairpin plink against her cheek and made herself draw back.

“Oh dear.” She stared up at him, dumbstruck by the heat in his green eyes. “Dear, dear, dear.”

The earl looked down and traced a finger along the slope of her breast to pluck the hairpin from her dress. He held it out to her, smiling as if he were presenting her with a flower.

“I may be feeling winded,” he said, offering her his arm, “but by now Pericles should be well rested.”

Anna took his arm, glancing over at him cautiously. The sensation of his finger sliding down her breast had been enough to make her heart kick against her ribs. God in heaven, he knew how to touch a woman, but it didn’t seem to wind him at all, contrary to his words.

“You are quiet, Anna,” he remarked as they climbed aboard and gained the road.

“I am overwhelmed,” she said. “I think I must be a very wicked woman, my… What do I call you?”

The earl urged Pericles to the trot. “Today, you call me whatever pleases you, but why do you say you are wicked?”

“I should be remonstrating you, making you behave, chiding you for your lapses,” Anna informed him, warming to her topic. “Our lapses. But my self-restraint has departed for the Orient, I suppose, and all I want…”

“All you want?” The earl kept his eyes on the empty road.

“Is to forget every pretense of common sense.” Anna completed the thought, and now—now that he was all cool composure beside her—she was uncomfortable with herself. “To share more lapses with you.”

“I would like that, Anna,” he replied simply. “If it would please you to lapse with me, then I would enjoy it, too.”

“It can’t lead to anything,” Anna said miserably, “except more and worse mischief.”

The earl glanced over at her but had to keep some focus on the road. “Why not just enjoy these hours as we choose to spend them? I will not take liberties you deny me, Anna, not today, not ever. But for today, I will enjoy your company to the fullest extent you allow, and I will do so without regard to whether today leads to something or merely rests in memory as a pleasurable few hours spent in your company.”

Anna fell silent, considering his words. If Westhaven’s brother Victor could have had such a morning, able to breathe without coughing, would he have fretted over a few kisses leading to nothing, or would he have seized the hours as a gift? Knowing he could well have been riding to his death in the next battle, would Lord Bartholomew have demurred, or would he have stashed a bottle of wine in the hamper?

“And now,” Anna said after a time, “you are quiet.”

“It is a pretty morning.” He smiled at her, including her in that prettiness. “I am in good company, and we are about a pleasant errand. Just to be away from Town, away from Tolliver’s infernal correspondence, and away from Stenson’s grasping fingers is reason to rejoice.”

“I could not abide the touch of someone I did not like,” Anna said, grimacing.

“So I do my best to stay out of his reach and to bellow like the duke when he transgresses,” Westhaven said. “He is getting better, but tell me, Anna, did you just indirectly admit to liking me?”

She drew in a swift breath and saw from his expression that while he was teasing, he was also… fishing.

“Of course I like you. I like you entirely too well, and it is badly done of you to make me admit it.”

“Well, let’s go from bad to worse, then, and you can tell me precisely why you like me.”

“You are serious?”

“I am. If you want, I will return the favor, though we have only several hours, and my list might take much longer than that.”

He is flirting with me, Anna thought, incredulous. In his high-handed, serious way, the Earl of Westhaven had just paid her a flirtatious compliment. A lightness spread out from her middle, something of warmth and humor and guilty pleasure in it.

“All right.” Anna nodded briskly. “I like that you are shy and honorable in the ways that count. I like that you are kind to Morgan, and to your animals, and old Nanny Fran. You are as patient with His Grace as a human can be, and you adore your brother. You are fierce, too, though, and can be decisive when needs must. You are also, I think, a romantic, and this is no mean feat for a man who spends half his days with commercial documents. Mostly, I like that you are good; you look after those who depend on you, you have gratitude for your blessings, and you don’t think enough of yourself.”

Beside her, the earl was again silent.

“Shall I go on?” Anna asked, feeling a sudden awkwardness.

“You could not possibly pay me any greater series of compliments than you just have,” he said. “The man you describe is a paragon, a fellow I’d very much like to meet.”

“See?” Anna nudged him with her shoulder. “You do not think enough of yourself. But I can also tell you the parts of you that irritate me—if that will make you feel better?”

“I irritate you?” The earl’s eyebrows rose. “This should be interesting. You gave me the good news first, fortifying me for more burdensome truths, so let fly.”

“You are proud,” Anna began, her tone thoughtful. “You don’t think your papa can manage anything correctly, and you won’t ask your brothers nor mother nor sisters even, for help with things directly affecting them. I wonder, in fact, if you have anybody you would call a friend.”

“Ouch. A very definite ouch, Anna. Go on.”

“You have forgotten how to play,” Anna said, “how to frolic, though I cannot fault you for a lack of appreciation for what’s around you. You appreciate; you just don’t seem to… indulge yourself.”

“I see. And in what should I indulge myself?”

“That is for you to determine,” she replied. “Marzipan has gone over well, I think, and sweets in general. You have indulged your love of music by having Val underfoot. As to what else brings you pleasure, you would be the best judge of that.”

The earl turned down a shady lane lined with towering oaks and an understory of rhododendrons in vigorous bloom.

“It was you,” he said. “Before Val moved in, I thought it was a neighbor playing the piano late in the evenings, but it was you. Were you playing for me?”

Anna glanced off to the park beyond the trees and nodded.

“It seemed somebody should. Nanny Fran said you have a marvelous singing voice, and you play well yourself, but you’d stopped playing or singing when Bart died.”

“Life did not change for the better for anyone when Bart died.”

They pulled up to a pretty Tudor manor house, complete with fresh thatch on the roof and gleaming mullioned windows. Pericles blew out a horsy breath that sounded suspiciously like a sigh, but the earl did not climb down.

“Before Bart left,” the earl said, fiddling with the reins, “he told me he wouldn’t go if I forbade it. That was the word he used… forbid. He asked my permission, and knowing his temper and his penchant for dramatics, I had misgivings about his joining up, but I did not stop him. I could see that battling the duke day after day was killing them both. Bart was getting wilder, angrier, and the duke was becoming so bewildered by his cherished heir it was painful to watch.”

“If you had to do it again, would you still give your permission?”

“I would.” The earl nodded after a moment. “But first I would have told my brother I loved him, and then, just maybe, he would not have had to go.”

“He knew,” Anna said. “Just as you know he loved you, but he was coping as well as he could in a situation where every option came with significant costs.”

A considering silence stretched between them, while Anna marveled that the man beside her was so given to introspection and so adept at hiding even that.

“Let’s put away this difficult topic,” the earl suggested, “and look over the property, shall we?” Because the place was uninhabited, it fell to them to lead Pericles to a roomy stall in the carriage house cum stable and see him tucked in with hay and water.

They made their way to the back terrace of the house, where the earl set down the wicker hamper he’d carried from the gig, and bent to loosen a particular brick from the back stoop. He produced a key from under the brick, opened the back door, and gestured for Anna to precede him.

“I like what I see,” Anna said, folding her shawl on the kitchen counter. She turned to put her gloves on top of the shawl, only to find the earl had been standing immediately behind her.

“As do I,” he said, looking directly down at her. His eyes were steady, even searching. Looking into those eyes, Anna admitted she’d been deceiving herself. She was a good girl, but at least part of her was here to be wicked with him—maybe just a little wicked by his standards but more wicked than Anna had ever wanted to be before.

He made no move to touch her, though, and so she frowned until insight struck: He was waiting for her to touch him, to do as she pleased.

He merely stood there, hands at his sides, watching her, until she closed the distance between them, slid both hands around his waist, and rested her forehead against his collarbone.

“Is this all you want, Anna?” He brought his arms around her and urged her to lean into him. “Merely an embrace? I’ll understand it, if you do.”

“It isn’t merely an embrace,” she replied, loving the feel of his lean muscles and long bones against her body. “It is your embrace, and your scent, and the cadence of your breathing, and the warmth of your hands. To me, there is nothing mere about it. ”

She remained in his arms, feeling the way his hands learned the planes and angles of her back, feeling his mind absorb and consider her words.

“Let’s explore the house,” he suggested, “then poke around the grounds and outbuildings before it gets too hot.”

She nodded, feeling a hint of wariness.

“Anna.” He smiled faintly as he stepped back. “I am not going to maul you, ever. And I did bring you out here for the purpose of evaluating this property, not becoming my next mistress.”

“Your next…?”

“Badly put.” The earl took her hand. “Forget I said it.”

She let him tow her along out of the kitchen and through the various pantries, cellars, laundries, and servants’ quarters on the ground floor. Not until he led her up the stairs to the main floor and she was standing beside him in the library did Anna find the words she needed.

“This was the former owner’s pride and joy,” the earl said, “and I must admit, for a country library, it is a magnificent room.” The ceilings were twelve feet at least, with windows that ran the entire height of the room on two walls. Two massive fieldstone fireplaces sat one on each outside wall, both with raised hearths and richly carved chestnut mantels.

“It’s such a pretty wood,” the earl remarked, stroking a hand across one mantel. “Warmer to the eye than oak, and lighter in weight, but almost as strong.” Anna watched that hand caressing the grain of the carved surface and felt an internal shiver.

“I would never be a man’s mistress, you know.” She sat on the hearth and regarded him. Somewhere in their travels through the house, he had taken off his jacket and waistcoat, and turned back his cuffs. He had dispensed with a neckcloth altogether in deference to the heat, but the informality of his attire only made him handsome in a different way.

“Why not?” The earl didn’t seem surprised nor offended, he just sat himself beside her on the cool, hard stones and shot her a sidewise glance.

“It isn’t my precious virtue, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Anna wrapped her arms around her knees.

“The thought had crossed my mind you might set store by a chaste reputation.”

“Of course I do.” She laid her cheek on her knees and regarded him with a frown. “Though only up to a point. Being a mistress has no appeal, though, because of the money.”

“You eschew good coin?” the earl said, and though his tone was casual, Anna detected a hint of pique in it.

“I most assuredly do not, but how can a man accept intimacies from a woman who is paid to pretend she cares for his attentions? It seems to me an insupportable farce and as degrading to the man as the woman.”

“Degrading how?” He was amused now, or at least diverted.

“If a woman will allow you liberties only if you pay her,” Anna explained, “then it’s your coin she treasures, not your kisses or caresses or whatnot.”

He was trying not to smile now. “Most men care only for the whatnot, Anna. They trouble themselves little about what they parted with or put up with to procure it.”

“Then most men are easily manipulated and to be pitied. One begins to suspect holy matrimony was devised for the protection of men, and not the fairer sex after all.”

“So you have no more regard for being a wife than you do being a mistress?”

“It depends entirely on whose wife we’re talking about.” Anna rose and went to look out the windows. “This room is so pretty and light and inviting. I could particularly see curling up on one of these window seats with Sir Walter Scott or some John Donne.”

“Let’s assess some more of the house,” the earl said, lacing his fingers with hers. As they wended their way from room to room, Anna noted that the earl, away from his townhouse at least, was a toucher. She’d seen the same tendency when he was with his brother. He laid a hand on Val’s sleeve, straightened Val’s collar, patted his back, and otherwise treated his brother with affection. It was the same with Nanny Fran, whom he kissed on the cheek, hugged, and allowed to treat him with similar familiarity.

With Anna, he took her hand, offered his arm, put his hand on the small of her back, brushed aside her hair, and otherwise kept up a steady campaign of casual touches.

Casual to him, Anna thought, knowing she was being sillier than any woman of five and twenty had a right to be. To her, these little gestures were sweet and attractive, that is, they fascinated her and made her want to stand too close to him.

Outside, he assisted her over stiles and fences, picked her a daisy and positioned it behind her ear, stole a little kiss under the rose arbor, and tucked her against his side while they explored the garden walks.

“Were you like this with Elise?” Anna asked when they’d found a wooden bench in some shade near the roses.

“Good God, Anna.” The earl looked over at her in consternation. “A man does not discuss his mistress with decent women.”

“I am not asking about Elise. I am asking about you.”

“When I saw Elise in social settings,” the earl replied, eyes on the house across the gardens, “we were cordial. I occasionally danced with her, but she did not enjoy my partnering, as I am too tall.”

“You are too…?” Anna scowled at that. “You are not too tall.”

“Perhaps you can prove that point by dancing with me sometime?”

She cocked her head at him and decided he was teasing. “So when you met socially, you behaved as acquaintances. What about when you were simply whiling away a morning?”

“When I did not run into Elise at an evening gathering of polite society, I saw her by appointment, in the afternoon,” the earl said, resting an arm along the back of the bench with a sigh.

“By appointment, only?” Anna’s surprise seemed to perplex him.

“You know my week included visits to her,” the earl replied mildly. “Regular visits allowed her to schedule the rest of her affairs, so to speak.”

“The rest of her affairs? And is this all you wanted? An hour of her attention twice a week, scheduled in advance so as to only minimally inconvenience her?”

“Well, more or less,” the earl admitted, clearly puzzled by Anna’s indignation.

“And that is how you go about passion? I suppose you left her free to pursue any other pair of broad shoulders she pleased when you were not bothering her?”

“In retrospect, one can admit there were a few subtle indicators the situation was not ideal, but we are not discussing this further, Anna Seaton. And for your information, that is not how I prefer to go about passion.” He folded her hand between both of his and fell silent. Topic closed.

“You deserve more than to be tolerated for a few hours a week in exchange for parting with your coin. Any good man does.”

“Your sentiments are appreciated,” the earl said, amusement back in his tone. “Shall we see what we can find in that hamper you brought? The thing weighed a ton, which is good, as my appetite is making itself known.”

Topic closed, subject changed.

“We’ll need the blanket from the gig, I think,” Anna said, willing to drop the discussion of his former mistress. “I saw no dining table nor much in the way of chairs inside.”

“I gather the matched sets and so forth were auctioned this spring,” the earl said, tugging Anna to her feet. “What do you think of the place so far?”

“It’s pretty, peaceful, and not too far from Town. So far I love it, but who are your neighbors?”

“Now that is not something I would have considered, except that you raise it, and to a widow, such a thing would matter. I will make inquiries, though I know my niece dwells less than three miles farther up the road we came in on.”

“Her aunt would like that, I’m sure, being close to Rose,” Anna said as they walked back into the kitchen.

“Rose wouldn’t mind, either. She gets on with everybody, even His Grace.”

“You see him only as a father. As a grandpapa, he may be different.”

They retrieved the blankets—two of them—and strolled through the lawns toward the spot for which the property was named, a grassy little knoll overlooking a wide, slow stream. Weeping willows grew on both banks, their branches trailing into the slow-moving water and giving the little space a private, magical quality.

“Perfect for wading,” Anna said. “Will you be scandalized?”

“Not if you don’t mind my disrobing to swim,” the earl replied evenly.

“Naughty man. I bet you and your brothers did your share of that, growing up at Morelands.”

“We did.” The earl unfolded a blanket and flapped it out onto a shady patch of ground. “Morelands has grown, generation by generation, to the point where it’s tens of thousands of acres, complete with ponds, streams, and even a waterfall. I learned to hunt, fish, swim, ride, and more just rambling around with my brothers.”

“It sounds idyllic.”

“So where did you grow up, Anna?” The earl sat down on the blanket. “You aren’t going to loom over me, are you?”

Anna folded to the blanket beside him, realizing how vague her notion of the day had been. A few kisses, a tour of the property, and back to the realities of their lives at the townhouse. She hadn’t considered they would talk and talk and talk, nor that she would enjoy that as much as the kissing.

“Hand me the hamper,” she ordered. “I will make us up plates. There is lemonade and wine, both.”

“Heaven forefend! Wine on a weekday before noon, Mrs. Seaton?”

“I love a good cold white,” Anna admitted, “and a hearty red.”

“I hope you put some of what you love in that hamper. This is a long way to come for bannocks.”

“Not burned bannocks, please,” she said, pawing carefully through the hamper. When she finished, Westhaven was presented with sliced strawberries, cheese, buttered slices of bread, cold chicken, and two pieces of marzipan.

“And what have we here?” The earl peered into the hamper and extracted a tall bottle. “Champagne?”

“What?” Anna looked up. “I didn’t put that in there.”

“I detect the subtle hand of Nanny Fran. A glass, if you please.”

Anna obligingly held the glass while the earl popped the cork. She shamelessly sipped the fizzy overflow and held the glass out to him. He drank without taking the glass into his own hand and smiled at her.

“That will do,” he declared. “For a hot summer day, it will do splendidly.”

“Then you can pour me a glass, as well.”

“As you wish,” he replied, accommodating her order and filling a glass for himself, too. To Anna’s surprise, before either drinking or diving into his meal, the earl paused to wrench off his boots and stockings.

“I have it on good authority extreme heat is dangerous and one shouldn’t wear clothes unnecessarily, or so my footmen tell me when I catch them only half liveried.” He sipped at his wine, hiding what had to be a smile.

“I did not precisely tell them that, though it’s probably good advice.”

“So are you wearing drawers and petticoats?” the earl asked, waggling his eyebrows.

“No more champagne for you, if only two sips make you lost to all propriety.”

“You’re not wearing them,” he concluded, making himself a sandwich. “Sensible of you, as it seems even more oppressively hot today than yesterday.”

“It is warming up. It also looks to be clouding up.”

“More false hope.” He glanced at the sky. “I can’t recall a summer quite so brutal and early as this one. Seems we hardly had a real spring.”

“It’s better in the North. You get beastly winters there, but also a real spring, a tolerable summer, and a truly wonderful autumn.”

“So you were raised in the North.”

“I was. Right now, I miss it.”

“I miss Scotland right now, or Stockholm. But this food is superb and the company even better. More champagne?”

“I shouldn’t.” Her eyes strayed to the bottle, sweating in its linen napkin. “It is such a pleasant drink.”

The earl topped off both of their glasses. “This is a day for pleasant, not a day for shoulds and should nots, though I am thinking I should buy the place.”

“It is lovely. The only thing that gives me pause are the oaks along the lane. They will carpet the place with leaves come fall.”

“And the gardeners will rake them.” The earl shrugged. “Then the children can jump in the piles of leaves and scatter them all about again.”

“A sound plan. Are you going to eat those strawberries?”

The earl paused, considered his plate, and picked up a perfect red, juicy berry.

“I’ll share.” He held it out to her but withdrew it when Anna extended her hand. Sensing his intent, she sat back but held still as he brought it to her mouth. She bit down, then found as the sweet fruit flavor burst across her tongue that her champagne glass was pressed to her lips, as well.

“I really did not pack that champagne,” she said when she’d savored the wine.

“I did,” the earl confessed. “Nanny Fran is sworn to secrecy as my accomplice.”

“She adores you.” Anna smiled. “She has more stories about ‘her boys’ than you would recognize.”

“I know.” The earl lounged back, resting on his elbows. “When Bart died and she’d launch into a reminiscence, I used to have to leave the room, so angry was I at her. Now I look for the chance to get her going.”

“Grief changes. I recall as a child sitting for hours in my mother’s wardrobe after she died; that was where I could still smell her.”

“I recall you lost both parents quite young.”

“I was raised by my father’s father. He loved us as much as any parent could, probably more, because he’d lost his only son.”

“I am sorry, Anna. I’ve talked about losing two brothers, both during my adulthood, and I never considered that you have losses of your own.” He did not raise the issue of the departed Mr. Seaton, for which Anna was profoundly grateful.

“It was a long time ago,” Anna said. “My parents did not suffer. Their carriage careened down a muddy embankment, and their necks were broken. The poor horse, by contrast, had to wait hours to be shot.”

“Dear God.” The earl shuddered. “Were you in that carriage, as well?”

“I was not, though I often used to wish I had been.”

“Anna…” His tone was concerned, and she found it needful in that moment to study her empty wine glass.

“I have become maudlin by virtue of imbibing.”

“Hush,” Westhaven chided, crawling across the blanket. He wrapped her in his arms then wrestled her down to lie beside him, her head on his shoulder. She cuddled into him, feeling abruptly cold except where his body lay along hers.

“Val had a bout of the weeps the other day.” The earl sighed. “I forget he is so sensitive, because he hides with that great black beast of his and tries so hard not to trouble others. When Bart died, Val went for days without leaving the piano, and only Her Grace’s insistence that he be indulged preserved him from the wrath of the duke.”

“Your family has not had an easy time of it. One would think rank and riches would assure happiness, but by the Windham example, they do not.”

“Nor do they condemn one to misery,” the earl pointed out, his hand making circles on her back. “I, for one, do not relish the thought of being poor.”

“There is poor, and there is poor. In some ways, I have more freedom than you do, and freedom is a form of great wealth.”

“It is,” Westhaven agreed, “but I don’t see where you have it in such abundance.”

“Oh, but I do.” Anna sat up and put her chin on her drawn-up knees. “I can leave your employ tomorrow and hare off to Bath, there to keep house for any beldame who will have me. I can answer an advertisement to be a bride for an American tobacco farmer or go live with the natives in the American west. I can join a Scottish convent or journey to darkest Africa as a missionary to the heathen.”

“And I, poor fellow”—the earl smiled up at her—“have none of those options.”

“You do not,” Anna agreed, grinning at him over her shoulder. “You are stuck with Tolliver and Stenson and His Grace, and barely recalling what pleasure is when your housekeeper remembers to sweeten your lemonade.”

The earl folded his hands behind his head. “There is a pleasure you could allow me, Anna.” He kept using her name, she thought, using it like a caress, a reminder that he knew the taste of her.

“There are many pleasures I could allow you,” she said, caution in her tone, “few that I will.”

“So I’m to earn your favors?” He merely smiled. “Then, allow me this: The heat and our rambling are threatening the integrity of your coiffure. Let me brush your hair.”

“Brush my…?” Anna blinked and gave him a puzzled look.

“I used to brush Her Grace’s hair when I was small, then my sisters’. I’ve taken a turn or two with Rose, but she demands a certain dispatch only her step-papa and mama seem to have perfected.”

“You want to brush my hair,” Anna said, as if to herself. “That is an unusual request.”

“But not too unusual. It requires no removal of clothing nor touching of the hands nor lascivious glances.”

“All right,” Anna said, more perplexed than alarmed, but then, she was in the company of a man who scheduled his passions. She fished inside the hamper and withdrew her reticule, producing a small bone-handled brush.

“Pretty little thing,” the earl remarked, thumbing the bristles. “Now”—he sat up—“sit you here.” He thumped the blanket beside him, and Anna scooted, only to find that the earl had shifted so she sat between his bent knees.

“Is this decent?” she murmured.

“Have another glass of wine,” the earl suggested. “It will feel frustratingly decent.”

They fell silent, and Anna felt the earl’s fingers easing through her hair to find her hairpins. He slid them free carefully and began piling them to one side. When the bun at the nape of Anna’s neck was loosened, he let her thick plait tumble down her back.

“I like this part,” he said. “When you free up a braid, and a single shiny rope becomes skeins and curls and riots of silky, soft hair. How do you keep it so fragrant?”

She felt him lean in for a sniff, and her heart nearly skipped a beat.

“I make a shampoo scented with roses.” And ye gods, it had been a struggle to utter that single coherent sentence. His hands were lacing through her unbound hair to massage her scalp and the back of her neck. His touch was perfect—deliberate, knowing, and competent without using too much strength. He trailed her hair down her back, leaving little trickles of pleasure to skitter along her spine, and then she felt him gathering the mass of it, to move it to one side.

“It’s beautiful,” he murmured, his words breathed near her ear. “I’m going to forbid you to wear those hideous caps of yours when we return to Town.”

His thumb brushed along her nape, and then something softer, followed by a puff of breath.

God, yes, Anna thought, letting her chin drop forward. Westhaven scooted closer, the better to kiss her neck, and Anna tilted her head, the better to allow it.

“Ah, Anna,” he whispered before pressing his lips to her cheek and letting them drift to her throat. His mouth was open on her skin, as if he’d consume her or sink his teeth into her flesh. Then he paused and scooped her against his chest, dropping one knee and angling her legs across his thigh.

Anna blinked up at him, her back supported by his one upraised knee.

“None of that,” he scolded. “I can see you preparing to think, Anna Seaton, and this is not a moment for thinking.”

Before she could blink again, his mouth came down on hers in a voluptuously ravenous kiss. His tongue was in her mouth, plundering and demanding and promising. Oh, God, the things his kiss was promising.

His hand slipped down her arm to close around her fingers where they lay limp in her lap. He brought up her hand and put it around his neck, giving her a place to hold on as he gathered her more closely against him. His scent was all around her, and Anna felt heat, not the sweltering summer’s heat but something clean and fiery and new singing through her veins. With it came desire—desire for him and desire for closeness with him. She clung and kissed him back, imitating the thrust and drag of his tongue with her own.

And then his lips were gone, leaving his forehead pressed to hers, his breath fanning against her cheek.

“God, Anna.” He took a slow inhale then breathed out. “Almighty, everlasting God.”

“What?” She felt suddenly unsure, wondering if she’d done something wrong.

“Lie back,” he said, easing her to her back and stretching out on his side beside her. He laced his fingers through hers and squeezed. “I just need to catch my breath.”

But he didn’t catch his breath, instead he frowned down at her, as if trying to puzzle out some frustrating mystery.

“Anna.” His frown deepened. “I want to make love with you.”

“Isn’t that what that was, lovemaking?”

“Let me be blunt: I want to fornicate with you. Urgently.”

“Urgently,” Anna repeated, still perplexed.

“Here.” He took her hand in his and rolled to his back, putting her palm over his very evident erection. “I want you.”

She didn’t pull away as she should have but gently shaped him along his length.

“This does not feel very comfortable,” she said, knowing exactly what was beneath her fingers. She should be repulsed, but with him, she was fascinated.

“If you keep that up,” the earl cautioned, “the urgency will only become greater.”

She did keep it up but rolled to her side to peer at his face.

“And then what?” Anna asked, wanting badly to undo his breeches, knowing she could never manage it.

“I am not a rapist,” the earl said, closing his eyes. “But I will want badly to spend. Very badly.” Anna passed a long, thoughtful moment, stroking at him lazily. His hips began to undulate minutely as she mentally rooted around and tried to find the reasons why she should get up and walk straight into the nice, cold stream.

“What does that mean?” Anna said, using her nails to scratch along the rigid length of him through the fabric.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” He closed his eyes then pushed her hands away. She thought he was going plunge into the stream, or at least get up and stomp away, but instead, he undid the fall of his breeches and shoved them down over his hips then hiked up his shirt to his ribs.

“Please, love.” He took her hand and wrapped it around his erection. “Just bring me off and have done with it.”

To her shock, his hand was moving hers, stroking it along this very odd part of him, while Anna watched, shamelessly inspecting something she hadn’t seen by the light of day at this range ever before. His skin was soft, smooth, and slightly pink, particularly around the head of his penis. The actual length of him, though, was surprisingly thick, rigid, and hot.

“Like that,” he rasped. “Jesus, yes, just like that.”

His hips moved in counterpoint to the way she was stroking him, and his fingers closed more tightly around hers. This had to be hurting him, she thought distractedly, as his back was arched, his jaw clenched, and the muscles of his neck taut.

“God, Anna, don’t stop,” he warned just when she would have said something. “That feels too good… Jesus Christ.” His breath soughed out on a long, groaning sigh as a milky liquid spurted rhythmically over their fingers and onto the bare flesh of his stomach.

His hand went still over hers, but he kept their fingers laced.

“Dear, sweet, merciful God.” He sighed, opening his eyes. “I did not plan for this to happen, Anna. Have we a napkin to hand?”

Dumbly, she handed him one, her eyes fixed on his softening penis.

“Can I let go now?”

“You may,” he replied, frowning at her. He swiped at himself with the napkin and then tossed it aside.

“Does it hurt?” Anna nodded at him, and he regarded her carefully.

“You haven’t done this before.”

“I didn’t know one could,” she said, not taking her eyes off his groin. “Or two could. It looked uncomfortable for you.”

“Arousal has an element of discomfort to it, until satisfied, and then it is pleasurable beyond description.” He did not move to tuck himself up, and she did not stop looking.

“One would not necessarily reach that conclusion, watching you,” Anna said. “But you are not… aroused now?”

“No.” His smile was sweet, pleased. “If you keep looking at me like that, I will be again soon.”

“May I touch you?”

“Just be gentle, but indulge your curiosity however you please.”

Anna didn’t want to ask any more questions, feeling she’d revealed quite enough ignorance to a man who was utterly blasé about something so odd she could barely comprehend it.

So she let her fingers ask the questions, traveling along the softening length of him, lifting him this way and that, manipulating his foreskin and exploring his testicles, all with a frown of deepest puzzlement on her face, while he obligingly kept his eyes closed and gave every appearance of a man dozing off.

“You are…”—she waved a hand over his genitals—“becoming unrelaxed again.”

He opened his eyes and smiled. “You are a treasure. Let me hold you.”

When Anna hesitated, he tugged her down to his side, tucking her under his arm, her head on his shoulder. He lifted his hips to tug up his breeches but left the falls open and himself half exposed.

“If I touched you again,” Anna asked, “would you do that a second time?”

“With you? At least three times, eventually. A man does need some time to recover, though. Anna…?”

“Hmm?” Her hand was resting over his cock, but just that, not moving him nor attempting any further exploration.

“Thank you.” The earl’s eyes drifted shut. “There’s a great deal more to be said, of course, and soon, but for now, thank you.”

Anna didn’t know what to say to that, for she felt like thanking him, too. She had shared something with him, something wicked and dear and dangerous, and yet it was as he’d said. Her clothes were on and her physical virtue uncompromised. He had given her knowledge, of his body and of him, but he had not demanded comparable knowledge of her.

Maybe he would, Anna thought. Maybe that was the “great deal more” yet to be discussed. She hoped not, because as much as she might want to, she could not afford to allow him those liberties, not if she valued her freedom.