Ethan: Lord of Scandals (10 page)

Ethan straightened and glared at his stable master. “That pony carries my son around. Thunder doesn’t need to be tough. He needs to be the safest mount I can provide for Joshua, and that means no gratuitous beatings.”

“I take your point.”

Ethan didn’t say another word, just led the big horse out to the mounting block and swung up. With his usual willingness to please, Waltzer cantered off, only kicking out behind once when he passed a paddock full of yearlings.

Having permitted the horse to express his good spirits, Ethan brought him back to the trot and turned him into the woods along a track that met up with the stream. A bridle path ran parallel to the far side of the water, so Ethan let the horse splash across then turn away from the house and grounds toward the cool of the deeper woods. The path would take him past several of his neighbors’ properties, and by agreement, was available for the enjoyment of all whose land bordered it.

“Well met, Grey,” a voice sang out on an approaching chestnut.

“Heathgate.” Ethan drew up as his neighbor approached him. The chestnut was as handsome as all of Heathgate’s mounts, but this one was also particularly elegant.

“Is that a
mare
?”

“You think your brother is the only one who can appreciate the fairer sex in another species?” Heathgate asked. He still had the same gimlet-hard blue eyes he’d had as a younger man, the same dark hair, and an even leaner, more unreadable face. Oh, and for the last fifteen years or so, he’d sported his grandfather’s lofty title too. Ethan might not have chosen to settle at Tydings had he known Gareth Alexander would be one of his neighbors.

He owed the man, owed him for intervening long ago in a situation most would have quietly run from, and owed him even more for never once bringing it up.

“Nicholas hasn’t the luxury of considering gender before size, sanity, and soundness in his personal mounts,” Ethan said. “She’s very pretty.”

“She is.” Heathgate’s smile was fleeting as he patted the horse’s neck. “And a lady of particulars. How fare your boys?”

Parenting was a useful source of small talk, though Ethan had never appreciated this before. “They are busy. We’ve just come back from several weeks with Nicholas and his countess at Belle Maison, and picked up a new governess in the process. I have only two children, and yet it seems they cause enough mayhem and activity to bring the entire house down on occasion.”

“It gets easier,” Heathgate said. “My last one was easier than the first one, and thank the gods she’s a girl, because my marchioness was determined Lady Joyce have a sister.”

“Two will be my limit. Your family thrives?”

“Loudly. Hence the appeal of a quiet hack. Constantina here could use a chance to catch her breath on the way home.”

The words held a careful invitation. “I’ll join you,” Ethan said, because to do otherwise would be rude. He liked Heathgate, had liked him before his acquisition of his grandfather’s title. The marquis cared not one whit for Society’s opinion, and he’d married where his heart led, despite his wife being merely a viscount’s spinster daughter. There was really nothing not to like.

Except Heathgate had seen Ethan in the worst, most vile, degrading moments of Ethan’s life. The knowledge lay between them, assiduously ignored every time they met.

So… onward to more small talk.

“My sons have recently demonstrated to me their affinity for jumping their ponies,” Ethan said. “At a dead run.”

“Of course. They’re boys.”

“And thank God,” Ethan went on, “they’re on a pair of game ponies. But Joshua and Jeremiah will soon acquire more of my height, and I was thinking something from your brother’s stable might serve as a next step.”

“Ladies’ mounts? I suppose the principles are the same. Greymoor found my son James’s first pony, as well as Pen’s. You might corner Greymoor at a gathering of the clan at his place on Wednesday. I’m sure his countess would be happy to send along an invitation.”

And just like that, another turning point loomed before Ethan. He’d owned Tydings for seven years, and yet he didn’t socialize, didn’t trade calls, didn’t expect to be invited to share a drink or a meal with his neighbors. First, he was of questionable
ton
, being illegitimate, but then he’d committed a far worse transgression by marrying his mistress. Even had the neighbors been amenable, the idea of turning Barbara loose on the unsuspecting gentry of Surrey had been unthinkable.

And then the boys had come along, his marriage had gone utterly to hell, and a couple of years later, Barbara was gone.

“It’s just some food and drink with the neighbors, Grey,” Heathgate said. “A picnic, with children rocketing about, pall-mall balls whacking into the dessert table, babies needing attention at inopportune moments, and papas being told to wipe cake off that one’s mouth or put it on this one’s plate. We do it mostly for the ladies, but also for the cousins.”

“How old is your oldest?” Ethan asked.

“He looks to be the same age as yours,” Heathgate replied, his expression patient.

“Joshua and Jeremiah haven’t been in company much,” Ethan said. “They did fairly well at Belle Maison.”

“So bring as many footmen and nannies and dogs as you need to keep them in line, or try to. Each of my children has a separate nanny. They spell each other, the nannies, that is, but the happiness of my entire kingdom turns on the morale of my nannies.” The marquis sounded absolutely sincere.

“One understands, sometimes, why women can be hysterical.”

“One does. So you’ll bring the boys? We gather around four, when the heat starts to fade and the babies have had their naps, and we don’t stay late, because the older ones get cranky if they’re out too long.”

That a marquis should know these things was reassuring.

“I’ll have to bring their governess, Miss Portman.” For any number of reasons. “She will enjoy getting acquainted with the neighbors, I think.”

“Your governess has some odd connections,” Heathgate observed as his horse stepped carefully over a fallen log.

This oh-so-casual comment crossed over from small talk to something more significant.

“Her last position was with some squire’s daughter down in Sussex for five years. How could her path have crossed yours?”

“Not mine. I don’t know if she told you, but her brother is Benjamin Hazlit.”

And how did Heathgate know such a thing? “Your snoop of choice. Nick’s too.”

Heathgate did not dignify that with confirmation. “Hazlit spent the night with us last night, as he sometimes does when he and I have much to discuss. Felicity likes him, and he told her he was calling on his sister, Miss Portman, this morning. Her ladyship dug in, as she will, and extracted from him his sister’s location.”

“Impressive, your marchioness.” Was this why there was a neighborly invitation now, after seven years? The titled neighbors wanted to look over Hazlit’s sister? Had Hazlit put them up to it? “I think Alice likes her privacy, and I know I like mine.”

“We all appreciate privacy. Hazlit more than any of us.”

“He said there was scandal.” Ethan paused, not sure how much to say. “He didn’t ask for me to keep it in confidence, so I don’t suppose there’s harm in telling you.”

Heathgate waved a gloved hand in impatient circles. “Out with it, Grey. I’ve known you half your life, and you know my discretion is reliable.”

An oblique reference, but valid.

“I don’t know what the scandal involved, except that both sisters were affected, and the siblings not at the family seat all use different names to avoid the repercussions of the scandal. There is wealth of some sort, and an estate in the North, but Hazlit told me only that much.”

“He’s a closemouthed devil, but there are more scandals hanging on my family tree than Hanover has princes, Ethan. Let sleeping dogs lie, and all that.”

That Heathgate would use Ethan’s name was a slip. They hadn’t ever assumed such familiarity and probably never would, out of consideration, not for Heathgate’s great title and consequence, but for Ethan’s dignity.

Heathgate smiled. “Have I offended? You can be honest, you know. My wife always is, and it has toughened me considerably.”

“You have not offended. You do surprise me, though.”

“Probably for the first and only time. I will tell Greymoor and his countess to expect you with your entourage on Wednesday, rain or shine.”

“My thanks.” Ethan nodded by way of a mounted bow, and let his companion take the branch of the path that would lead back to Willowdale, while Ethan turned around, overdue to investigate Wellington’s progress against Bonaparte.

“You are comfortable with Wednesday’s outing?” Ethan asked Alice at breakfast the next morning. The boys had taken off with Davey to try to dig a pond suitable for the reenactment of Trafalgar, though Davey was under strict orders to keep the ocean blue smaller than the size of two horse troughs.

“What I want doesn’t matter,” Alice said. “My charges will go off to socialize with the neighbors, and I will attend them.” Her lips were compressed into a prim line, and she was taking only the smallest sips of her tea.

This testiness on Alice’s part wasn’t about an invitation to picnic with the neighbors, though she was probably not looking forward to that. Ethan regarded his boys’ governess and concluded she was unhappy with her employer, and maybe, were she honest, a little bit with herself. Ethan was unhappy with himself, too.

Alice was under his protection, plain and simple. In the dark hours after midnight, he’d decided he wasn’t to be kissing her, importuning her, or—if he could even figure out how to manage such a thing—flirting with her. She seemed to be sending him the same message, not in so many words.

“I’ve known Heathgate since well before he succeeded to the title,” Ethan said. “We’ve been neighbors for years, but this is the first invitation I’ve been issued. Refusing would have been unpardonably rude.”

Alice sipped her tea, not meeting his eyes. “I understand, Mr. Grey.”

Mr. Grey.
To hear her address him thus in that tone of voice rankled exceedingly. “There will be other boys to play with. I’d think you’d see that as a good thing, Alice.”

She closed her eyes at his use of her name, and Ethan felt his temper spike.

“Good God.” Ethan covered her teacup with his hand when she would have raised it to her mouth again. “It was one harmless, albeit passionate, kiss, Alice. Will you punish my children as well as me for that single lapse?”

“I’m not punishing anybody,” Alice said, drawing her hand away from the teacup. “I’m simply not looking forward to being amidst a bunch of twittering ladies and their titled menfolk.”

Ethan considered that and turned loose of her tea.

“They were thoroughgoing rascals as younger men, but both of the Alexander brothers have settled down in recent years. They tend to their business and their land. They raise their children and dote on their wives. They’re domesticated, Alice. They won’t, unlike your employer, be stealing kisses from you in bushes. And for the record, I married my mistress. Some would say that makes me the biggest rascal in the shire.” More fool he.

“You didn’t steal that kiss.”

“I am heartened to hear it. Even such a one as I frowns upon larceny.”

“Stop it.” Alice tossed her napkin on the table and got up, pacing over to the window.

“Stop what?” Ethan rose and stood just behind her. Kissing and taking advantage were deplorable and inexcusable, and he would never do such things again. Probably. There was nothing in the code of gentlemanly behavior to prohibit inhaling a woman’s fragrance though, or admiring the slope of her breast from a discreet angle.

“You refer to yourself as if you’re some reprobate off the hulks.” Alice crossed her arms over her chest, still facing away from him. “In the company you describe, you will be among the better behaved, I’m sure.”

Ethan took a step away as a disturbing notion got hold of him. “You’re not sure at all. Are you ashamed to be seen with me, Alice? Or with my children?”

“Of course not,” she shot back, expression gratifyingly horrified. “How could you think that?”

“Because others have been. If you aren’t concerned about being seen in our company, then what on earth is the problem?” She turned her back again, and Ethan had to strain to hear her.

“How will we get there?”

What queer start was this? “It’s within walking distance, if we take the bridle path. The boys would likely take their ponies, and were I left to my own devices, I’d ride Waltzer.”

Ah, but walking was hard for her, and so was riding.

Ethan almost smiled with relief. “I’ll help you. You can take Waltzer, and I’ll be up on Argus, how’s that? Waltzer is a capital fellow, very willing to please, and as solid as a plow horse.”

“A plow horse?” Alice’s cheeks lost color.

“Yes. Very docile, biddable, sensible, that sort of plow horse.”

Was
this
what had her in such a taking? She was afraid to ride?

“We could send you in the coach,” Ethan said, “along with whatever contribution we’re making to the picnic, and extra clothes for the boys, in case they should spill their lemonade, for example.”

“Would anybody notice?” Alice asked, her voice small.

“Nobody will think twice about it,” Ethan lied glibly. “If we bring along some blankets, the boys’ hoops, a pillow or two, it will not be remarked. But, Alice?”

“Ethan?”

He was back to Ethan, and that was good.

“I would like to teach you to ride.”

She drew in one shaky breath and shook her head.

“No.” She shook her head again. “No and no. It is good of you, and I appreciate your generosity, and you have my thanks, but no. Absolutely not.”

“What if I rode with you,” Ethan posited carefully, “and we took the stirrups off the saddle?”

“Removed the stirrups? How would that help?”

“I assume you were dragged because your foot caught in the stirrup. No stirrup, no getting caught.”

“How can you teach me to ride sidesaddle? Do you even own ladies’ saddles?”

“I own several,” Ethan said. “I’d hoped, at one point, to at least be able to hack out with my wife. She ordered a number of habits, for riding both to the left and to the right, but never wore a one of them.”

“That is a waste. But no, I cannot imagine I would survive five minutes in the saddle without having a breathing spell.”

“You didn’t have a spell the last time you rode with me,” Ethan said. “We covered nearly a mile on Argus. It isn’t much farther than that to Willowdale.”

She turned to face him, her expression troubled. “I know you want to do this for me, and I appreciate it more than I can say. But once I get on that horse, I will feel like you are inflicting torture on me. It feels so high up, and all I can recall is bouncing against the ground, the horrible pain, and knowing I was going to die.”

That was not all she recalled. Ethan knew she recalled all manner of odd details, and each one could trigger an entire panorama of awful memories.

“In the intervening years, Alice, you haven’t died. You didn’t die then.”

“I wanted to.”

And in her mind, Ethan knew, the bad fall was part and parcel of the scandal Hazlit had alluded to. God above, he knew what that was like. Ever since his first week at boarding school, Ethan had been unable to stomach the smell of a barrel of pickles. If the scent hit him without warning, he’d still become ill. When he met people named Hart or Collins, he flinched mentally and tried not to shake their hands.

Pathetic, but after all this time, he no longer castigated himself for these weaknesses. They were the instincts of a man who wanted to live to see his children grown, and that was a good thing.

Ethan turned Alice by the shoulders then dropped his hands. “You will be safe on any horse I put you on. I promise you that.”

“You can’t promise me that. Nobody can promise that. The most competent rider in the world can be tossed when his horse steps in a rabbit hole or takes a bad spot in the hunt field.”

“Your brother said there was a scandal.” Ethan kept his gaze on hers and let the words stand alone, an invitation for Alice to say more.

She paced away from him. “Estrangement from one’s brothers might not be entirely bad. Why on earth would Benjamin burden you with such a confidence?”

“Two reasons.” Ethan watched as Alice drew in on herself, arms wrapped around her middle. “First, he wanted to explain the different last names, though he might have simply allowed me to conclude you are half siblings, as it’s common enough. Second, and I think it the more compelling concern for him, he demanded that should this scandal erupt anew, I give him a chance to ride to your rescue before I toss you over the transom to whatever wolves and vultures are waiting to devour you.”

She wrinkled her nose. “And you didn’t call him out?”

“I have siblings, Alice. For several years I could barely learn how they went on, or let them know the same regarding me. Your brother cares about you.”

Alice dropped her arms and marched back to the window. Outside across the gardens, Davey, sans livery and flanked by a boy on each side, a shovel over his shoulder, ambled toward the stream. “I suppose now you want to know the whole of it?”

“Not unless you want to tell me. I’ve endured scandals of my own, Alice, and telling you about them would neither abate the pain of those memories nor raise me in your esteem.”

“It might.” Alice smiled the faintest, sad smile. “Just to know you didn’t die either, it might.”

“I haven’t yet.” Ethan’s smile matched hers for sadness.

“Was Barbara the reason you didn’t reconcile with Nick?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.” He thought for a moment, trying to choose words and sort out how much to tell her. “When I met Barbara, it was nearly eight years ago. I’d been down from university for several years, but I spent my time on my commercial endeavors, crass as that might seem. I wanted to be able to support a family in appropriate style, and quite honestly, I enjoy commerce.” He flicked a glance at Alice’s face but saw no judgment there. Yet.

“Barbara approached me at some function where I was escorting Lady Warne. I’d never go about in society unless Grandmother inveigled me into it. Lady Warne suggested Barbara was exactly the kind of diversion I needed, and I’ve never regretted an impulsive decision more.”

“You didn’t care for her?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Ethan said, and what was he doing, imposing his past on her, when she was the one who was supposed to be confiding in him? “I had kept very much to myself, at school, at university. There were reasons, and they seemed like good ones at the time, though it left me appallingly unsophisticated with respect to the ladies and Society in general. But she was persistent, available, and physically appealing.”

And this characterization of his past was not mendacious, but it was different from any previous descriptions he might have given of it.

“You were besotted.”

He’d been horny, plain and simple, and wretchedly, painfully inexperienced with women. “Parts of me were besotted, perhaps, and Barbara was adept at reading people and being what they wanted, for a time anyway.”

“Do you suppose she intended to conceive your child?” It was a bold, personal question, but the whole discussion was outside the bounds of propriety, and Ethan rather liked it there.

“She admitted as much on many occasions,” Ethan said, wincing in memory of the way Barbara had laughed at his incredulity over her conniving. “I was the most gullible fool ever to stumble up a church aisle.”

“That is…” Alice sank back down onto a seat at the table—Ethan’s seat, in fact. “That is the most heinous, despicable… that is like rape, but worse, because in addition to a betrayal of one’s vows, it’s willfully inflicting on a child enmity between the parents. It’s an abysmal… I am so sorry.”

In a few words, she’d gotten to the heart of years of misery and conflict, summing up even more heartache than she knew. He wanted to kiss her again.

“I was sorry too, for a while, but now I have the boys, and I consider I got the better of the bargain.”

There was no sadness in her smile now. She beamed radiant approval at him, and that made him want to kiss her too. “Oh, you did. You very certainly did, Ethan. They are wonderful boys, and you will always be glad they are yours.”

Ethan saw such a light of longing in Alice’s eyes, he had to look away. God above, the woman wanted children. She wanted children of her own, and she’d be a wonderful mother. And yet Barbara, to whom children had been merely pawns, was given two, while Alice was denied any of her own.

“You’ll ride with me.” Ethan patted her hand briskly. “Say you will, just once, to give it a try and shut me up.”

“You won’t let this alone, will you?”

Never.
Maybe he couldn’t give her children, but he could give her this. “I’ve told you more about my wicked past than I’ve told my own brother. I’m not asking you to trust me with the details of your own unhappy history, Alice, I’m asking you to trust me to keep you safe for a few minutes on a very reliable horse.”

The two were related. He’d bet Argus on it.

“Very well, but I have no proper attire.”

Victory without bloodshed, the best kind. “That’s my girl. You won’t need it, because we’ll start off astride.”

“You won’t take me up like you did before?”

“That has to be the worst way to ride a horse,” Ethan scoffed. “Yes, I get to put my arms around a pretty lady, but you are trying to balance contrary to the movement, which makes no sense.”

“You did not think I was pretty.” Alice snorted, then put a hand over her mouth as if to recall the words.

“You are pretty.” Ethan had never been more sincere. “And your scent is delightful, as is your form. And while you went above stairs and couldn’t catch your breath, I went above stairs and thanked the Almighty for a governess with a bad hip.”

So to speak.

Ethan saw he’d silenced her, and shut his maw before he said even more. When had he become so damned loquacious?

He tapped her nose with a single finger. “Go put on some half boots. Meet me in the stables in thirty minutes.”

She could change her shoes in five minutes, and what Ethan had planned behind the privacy of his locked bedroom door would also take about five minutes—all three times.

***

Alice’s mind went in two directions at once. Part of her was preparing for a nasty breathing spell; another part was suggesting if she’d just glance down at the horse’s neck, she could find the reins to pick them up.

But that she could
not
do, lest she see the ground yards and yards away, so she fished with her fingers in the thick mane until she encountered leather. “I’ve got them.”