Ethan: Lord of Scandals (15 page)

Though whatever passed between the two men, it hadn’t been about imports or commerce. The rising moon revealed Ethan’s features to be cast in granite, as remote and cool as a statue’s. The horses were back on Tydings land before Ethan bestirred himself to speak, and while Alice was concerned for him, she also had to marvel that she was happy—happy, content, and relaxed—to be on a horse’s back.

“Tell me you at least had a pleasant time, Alice.”

“Pleasant enough. The ladies are nice, if a bit fierce.”

“I’m to join them again on Saturday,” Ethan said, “for dinner. I wish I could take you along. I found them a rather intimidating lot myself.”

He was being honest. Perhaps it was the spirits consumed in some quantity earlier in the day, but Alice found that honesty touching. “And yet they’re friendly, and their regard for Nick sincere.”

“I cannot decide if Nick and the countess were lovers. Greymoor is extraordinarily tolerant, if that’s the case.”

“Not tolerant,” Alice said. “The earl and the countess are close and devoted, and she’s quite young. I doubt Nick would have dallied with her, but I doubt even more strongly she would have permitted it.”

“I cannot picture it,” Ethan said. “She’s barely five feet tall, while he’s six and a half feet plus. I can’t think it would be a comfortable union.”

“Do all men think in such blunt terms?”

“Yes, we absolutely do, about four hundred times a day. And I am not a particularly lusty fellow.”

This too was honesty, which Alice found… appalling. “I disagree, sir. I’ve kissed you, and I pronounce you very, very lusty, but also very discriminating.”

By the light of the rising moon, he turned in the saddle to regard her. “That is one of the nicest things anybody has said to me.”

“So it must ring true.” And she must not belabor the point and spoil the moment. “This isn’t the way we came.”

“It’s another path.” He drew rein as they gained a little clearing with a gazebo in it. “Let’s enjoy the night for a moment, shall we?”

Men. Their stratagems never ceased, and they called women calculating. “You’ll behave?”

“Get off your horse, Alice.” Ethan put his hands around her waist and lifted her easily to the ground. He didn’t let her go, but held her against him until her arms stole around his waist. “Let’s get something clear between us: I will not ever press my advances on you without your willingness. I could not, in fact.”

In contrast to his stern tones, his hands on her back were gentle.

“What does that mean?”

“Kiss me,” Ethan whispered, sealing his lips over hers. He took his time, but it wasn’t a cheerful little good-night indulgence. He brought her body close against his and angled her head with one large hand so she could not have avoided his kiss. His tongue was in her mouth, coaxing and teasing and implying a carnal rhythm that set up a low hum of need beneath the pit of Alice’s belly.

“Touch me, Alice,” Ethan whispered. “Put your hands on me.”

God above, it was a timely invitation. Alice wanted to burrow into him but settled for running her hands over his shoulders and arms. She swept her fingers through his hair, cradled his jaw in her palm, and rubbed her body along the length of his.

“Feel this.” Ethan took her hand and brought it to the evidence of his arousal. “This is proof I want you, and badly. But, Alice?”

She looked up at him in the moonlight, knowing if he took his hand away, she’d indulge the dangerous desire to shape and stroke him through his clothes.

“If you show me you don’t want me,” Ethan said, letting his hands fall to his sides, “I can’t sustain this. My flesh softens. I cannot consummate the deed. I am incapable of joining with you without your consent.”

“You’re capable now,” Alice said, trying to make sense of his words as she explored his length. “And other men don’t require consent.”

“I’m not other men. I have to know you’re not just willing, Alice, but enthusiastic about becoming intimate with me.”

Alice gave up the fascinating feel of him and stepped back. This topic was awkward and one he apparently needed to belabor. “I think we need to talk.”

“Come.” Ethan held out a hand and led her up the steps to the bench inside the gazebo. “We’ll talk.”

Something about him was off, not quite distracted, but not at ease. “Are you angry?”

“I’m… upset. Heathgate imparted some disturbing news, and I’m aroused, as proximity to you does that for me. But my ears function, and Nick understood my admonition to seek his bed.”

Men did not lightly admit to being upset. “Will I get another lecture from Nick in the morning about the need to tread lightly with his dear brother?”

That earned her a smile, bashful and a little exasperated. Alice catalogued it with the other smiles she’d hoarded up. “He lectured you? I would have liked to have seen that.”

“I’ll summon you next time. Greymoor preached at me too.”

The smile turned a trifle irritated. “I hardly know the man. What sermon could he possibly deliver when he’s hardly been a saint himself?”

“Your late wife was a trial,” Alice explained gently. “I am not to put you through that again. He was very oblique, all ‘one would be disappointed’ and ‘one observes,’ but I was given to understand that dealing with you dishonorably would be frowned upon. Your neighbors are protective of you.”

And the man’s eyebrows were every bit as fierce as his brother’s, despite his tendency to smile often when in company with his countess.

“You couldn’t deal dishonorably, not if you sprouted horns and a tail, you couldn’t. Still, I’m surprised Greymoor said anything.”

“He assumed the rights of a protective brother.” Alice reached a hand toward Ethan’s thigh then dropped it. “Your wife must have been quite something.”

She wanted to touch him, not simply sit beside him in the moonlight, and yet, she wanted to hear what he had to say, too.

“I chose very, very poorly, as did she. I like where your hands were, Alice Portman, so why don’t you touch me while you talk to me?”

He took her hand again, but only set it over his groin, then let his own hands fall away. Alice traced the considerable length of him, the breadth, trying to visualize what her hand stroked.

“I want to see you,” Alice said. “Really see you.”

He said nothing. Just unbuttoned his falls and then let his hands return to his sides. How long had he been waiting for her to ask?

“Look your fill. Some women find the sight alarming.”

“I’m not some women,” Alice said, regarding his lap dubiously. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Though why she’d bring up the topic now was a puzzle.

“You told me you’re not without experience, Alice.” Ethan stroked his knuckles over her cheek. “I couldn’t consider joining with you, otherwise.”

“I have more experience than I wanted,” Alice said on a sigh. “Or the wrong experience.” Her hand shaped him again, but still only through the loosened fabric of his breeches. “That scandal we haven’t talked about? I need to let you know the particulars.”

“If you need to.
Only
if you need to.”

The words caused her heart to lurch painfully but sweetly too. She could love a man who placed entire authority over such a topic in her hands, one who cared not one whit how wicked and sorry her past had been.

“You really don’t want to know, do you?” Alice drew her hand away, only to find Ethan’s fingers closing around her own and bringing it back.

“I have suffered some scandal,” he replied, closing his eyes as if to savor her touch. “And once somebody knows those things about you, it can become a burden between you. Heathgate…” He paused while Alice slowly drew down the flap of his falls then eased him out of his smalls. “Heathgate has that kind of knowledge of me. I’d relieve him of it if I could.”

“You’ll tell me.” Alice stroked a finger over the velvet head of his member. God in heaven, he was magnificent. “Someday?”

“If you want to hear.” He kept his eyes closed as Alice’s finger—just her finger—circled the soft, soft skin of his crown. Gently, Alice’s hand closed over his shaft.

“Tell me how to please you, Ethan,” Alice whispered. “I want to know how to please you.”

This was not what Ethan had planned when he’d brought Alice here, though it was what his body had planned the moment he’d laid eyes on her. Ethan closed his hand over Alice’s and taught her the easy, loose stroke that pleased and aroused in equal measures.

“But not faster or tighter, or I’ll spend.” He was going to spend, but he’d rather not lose control until he had the privacy of his rooms. Alice was a lady, not some doxy, and while not a virgin, she apparently lacked experience.

“This feels good to you?” she asked, shifting her grip slightly.

“Divine, but slow down, Alexandra. It can be too good.”

A considering silence, while Ethan’s arousal strained at the leash of his self-discipline.

“There is no such thing as too good. Let me pleasure you, Ethan. I want to.”

“Shouldn’t,” he muttered, letting his head fall back and his hips move in counterpoint to Alice’s strokes. “Kiss… Please, kiss—” He opened his eyes, searching for her. Thank all the gods of the night, she knelt up beside him and gave him her mouth. More roughly than he intended, he palmed the back of her neck and opened his mouth beneath hers, devouring her as his free hand cupped her breast.

She returned his kiss fiercely, growling at him as she knelt above.

That growl sang like an angel chorus through Ethan’s body.

A man gave up hope sometimes, because it was the only way to preserve his sanity. Ethan Grey had long since given up hope that desire might ever again be driven by not just his body, but also his heart.

When he kissed Alice, when he gloried to feel her hands upon him, he kissed hope itself. She was not simply a woman to him; she was Alice. She was all manner of pleasures and possibilities long since forsworn, and her touch said he could be that for her too.

“Holy…” His hand fell away, fumbling in his pocket for a handkerchief. “Perishing… Almighty… Alexandra…” His hips shoved hard against Alice’s grip, and his fingers closed over hers, forcing her to hold him snugly. His last coherent thought was that he should have tried harder to make this moment last.

“Oh, God… love.” His hips went still, but he kept his hand wrapped around hers, while his forehead fell to Alice’s shoulder. “Forgive me.”

“Hush.” He felt her lips against his hair. “Just hush.” She used her free hand to locate his handkerchief. Male passion was not a tidy business, and it took her handkerchief as well as his to deal with the aftermath.

“Was that comfortable, to be held so tightly at the end?”

Ethan gave her a weak smile. “Pray God you hold me that tightly often and soon.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “Do you forgive me?”

Her expression shuttered as she folded up the handkerchiefs. She wasn’t overly fastidious—one more thing to treasure about her. “Forgive you? I do not comprehend the transgression.”

“I was selfish and vulgar and grossly… ungentlemanly,” Ethan began. “I did not plan this, Alice.” His hand traced her jaw. “I want it to be perfect for you. I want to be perfect for you.” That was a troubling realization, for he was doomed in every attempt at the goal.

“Perfect would be boring. This wasn’t boring.” She slipped her hand over his cock where it lay meek and receding against his groin. “I coupled with Mr. Durbeyfield once,” she said, her voice detached. “It did not
stir
me. He hiked my skirts and pushed around a bit while breathing leeks on my person. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it was awkward, and hardly worth marrying for.”

He should be incapable of responding, given how she’d sated him, and given this peculiar turn of conversation. He was a brute, a boor… a man sharing the summer moonlight with his lady. “If you keep that up, you’ll be stirring me.”

“I would like to stir you.” Alice gripped him more firmly. “For it stirs me to see you so… overwrought.”

Spare
me
from
determined
women, Lord, but not quite yet.
“I should have more control next time,” Ethan said, “and you should have less.”

“Less?” Alice cocked her head. “Control over what?”

“Slow down, sweetheart,” Ethan said, bringing her closer for a kiss. “At least let me pet you a little.”

“Pet me?” She drew back. “I’m not a cat.”

“No, but I want you to purr like one. Put away your toy for now, and let me have some time with mine.” Even in the shadowed moonlight, Alice’s features were fraught with misgiving.

Ethan spelled it out for her. “You wanted to give me pleasure. Will you allow me the same?” Fairness apparently won him what coaxing might not have, because Alice nodded once then drew in a breath, as if he’d called upon her to recite.

“What must I do?”

Trust
me.
“You must be honest with me. I want to learn what touches you like more, which you like less. I want to learn how to please you, and how to not offend you.”

How to
pleasure
her
. He wanted to learn that more than he’d wanted to learn anything, ever.

“Offend me?” Alice regarded him curiously.

“Leeks,” Ethan said. “Leeks can offend.”

“I see.” She shifted and rested her back along the wall of the gazebo. Ethan sat beside her, his genitals half-exposed in his rumpled clothing. He started to tuck himself up, when Alice’s hand on his stayed him.

“I didn’t really look at you before. Mr. Durbeyfield wasn’t so obliging.”

“I can be very obliging.” If it killed him, he could be as obliging as she needed him to be. Slowly, Alice drew him from his clothing again. “If you tell me Mr. Durbeyfield taught you how to bring a man off, I’ll kill him. I won’t call him out, I’ll flat murder him.”

And this was not hyperbole.

“You taught me to do that, to
bring
a
man
off
.” Alice stroked over him with curious, delicate touches. He was rapidly growing hard again, despite his every attempt to think of… the smell of wet chickens, tomato aspic, the feasibility of growing peaches commercially.

“Where are you in your cycle, Alice?”

He should not have asked that. Should not. Next he’d be asking her if she knew what a sheath was.

“I would need to consult a calendar. Did you like it when I brought you off?” She used the vulgar term as if trying to decide how it translated into Latin.

“Did I like it?” Ethan looped an arm around her shoulders and stilled her hand by virtue of closing his fingers around hers. “No. I did not
like
it. If I live to be a hundred… Stop squirming, woman. I did not like it. I have no words for the degree to which I will humble myself for the honor of repeating that intimacy with you. No one has seen fit to bestow it on me, and really, Alice…”

“Are you lecturing me?”

Ethan gave up on a sigh. “I am goddamned babbling. You have reduced me to babbling. You’ve pleasured my brains out. Kiss me.”

She did. By God, she did, and not with the sleepy contented passion of a woman whose desire had been sated.

“You astound me, Alexandra.” Ethan pushed her head to his shoulder and withdrew a small silver flask from his waistcoat pocket. “My pocket pistol is loaded with peach brandy, so sip carefully, and spare a nip for a poor undone fellow, if you please.”

She took a cautious sip. “I like it.”

“The brandy, of course.” Ethan took a heftier swallow and passed it back to her. “One more, for you anyway.”

Her gaze went to the part of him most pleased with life at the moment. “I like touching you, but you seem upset.”

Precious, perceptive woman.

Ethan took the flask from her, capped it, and returned it to his pocket. “I am simply stunned you would be so generous, so bold, so unbelievably… ah, love.” He gathered her to him, burying his face against her hair as inspiration struck. “Thank you. It isn’t enough, but I mean it. Thank you.” And to himself he added a vow that she’d know equal pleasure from him, and soon. He would have said as much, but his throat had developed a tickle, and his eyes were stinging from the brandy.

When those annoyances had receded, he managed to ask, “More brandy?”

“Not just this moment.” She settled more comfortably against his side. “For this moment, I have all I want and all I need.”

Ethan could not have agreed more, so he closed his eyes and sent up a prayer of thanks. Tomorrow he’d start worrying over how selfish he’d been; tomorrow he’d consider the news Heathgate had given him; tomorrow he’d deal with sending his brother back to Belle Maison; tomorrow he’d brace himself for Alice’s inevitable second thoughts and regrettable bouts of common sense.

Tonight, Alice had bestowed such a gift of pleasure, trust, and intimacy on him, he could only be grateful and at peace.

***

Dealing with illiterates was inconvenient, requiring that a man frequent awkward locations after dark. A baron should not have to trouble himself thus, but it seemed Ethan Grey—yes, the same Ethan Grey who had authored much of what discommoded Hart Collins to this very day—had grown wealthy and respectable in recent years.

Collins was inclined to renew his acquaintance with dear Ethan, or at least with a substantial portion of Ethan’s money, and so he waited for Thatcher in the trees behind the village green.

When that worthy came lumbering out of the shadows, bringing the scent of horse and ignorance with him, his question was predictable. “You’ve the money, then, Baron?”

Always the money.

“You’ll get your money when I see results. Now, tell me about these little boys and how I might best avail myself of one of them.”

***

“By God, they got up.” Nick’s tone was pleased as he spied his nephews coming down the path to the stables.

Ethan was not pleased. “I was hoping they’d sleep in. They were up quite late last night. Miller”—Ethan turned to find his stable master at hand—“if you’d saddle up the ponies and Argus?”

“The ponies are saddled up, and Argus is already groomed, but he’s fresh,” Miller cautioned.

“He’s always fresh. I’ll take the boys for a hack this morning when we’ve seen Nick off. It will take their minds off the departure of their dear uncle.”

Nick turned a glower on his brother. “And who will comfort me? I’ll be traveling clear to Kent all by my little lonesome.”

“Leah,” Ethan retorted. “It’s part of those vows, best as I recall. Gentlemen, good morning. Can we assume you want to ride as far as the village with me and Uncle Nick?”

“Can we?”

“May we?”

“Of course, and we’ll keep an eye out for the foxes coming home from their night of hunting. Of course, Argus might want to stretch his legs a little.” Miller’s cursing could be heard peppering the morning air.

“Or stretch his legs a lot,” Nick surmised. “Does he bite, Ethan?”

“Of course not,” Ethan scoffed. “But he and Miller have a certain good-natured antagonism that involves threatening to bite, and nearly stomping on feet, and narrowly pulled punches with cursing and dirty looks all around. If I die, Miller gets the horse.”

“I understand,” Nick said. “And if Miller died, the horse would be inconsolable.”

“Who’s dying?” Jeremiah asked, leading his pony out.

“I’m dying to get home,” Nick said, “but I will miss my favorite nephews. When next I visit, I expect to see a tree house or two gracing the property.”

“When will you come again?” Joshua asked, leading his pony.

“Soon. My friend Lord Val has asked me to attend the opening night of the symphony, and that’s little more than a month away. Up you go.” He swung each boy onto a pony, checked his mare’s girth one more time, then climbed aboard Buttercup. “Ethan, you’re holding us up.”

“Apologies for the inconvenience,” Ethan replied as Argus curvetted around on the end of his reins. “My boy is feeling frisky today.”

“A coincidence,” Nick muttered. “This boy misses his countess, and he’s feeling frisky too.”

Ethan took the reins, slipped them over the gelding’s head, and swung up in the single instant during which Argus held still. Immediately, the horse began to prop and spin and misbehave.

“Nicholas”—Ethan’s tone was bored—“lead us down the driveway. If he thinks his audience is leaving, he’ll settle right down.”

Nick obliged; his expression was disgruntled.

“I like a horse with spirit, Ethan,” Nick said as Argus settled down to merely passaging, “but that one looks like a lot of work.”

“He is,” Ethan said, sitting the prancing horse easily, “but he’ll jump anything, he’s never taken a lame step, and when it comes down to dicey moments, he makes sensible choices.”

“Still, I’ve no doubt your grooms won’t ride him, so he likely gets rank as hell when you’re gone for any length of time.”

“Uncle Nick said hell,” Joshua crowed from behind them.

“I sure as hell did.”

“Damn, my ears are good,” Joshua recited his part of the litany.

“My grooms won’t ride him.” Ethan ignored an uncle’s willingness to corrupt his nephews’ manners, because revenge was a certainty when Nick’s children were old enough. “Greymoor has taken note of him and offered to keep him for me if I need to travel. If I can stick on this horse, Greymoor can do it while taking tea.”

“Generous of him, and the horse would benefit.”

“Your friends are being kind,” Ethan said quietly, because the village was only a few minutes’ ride, and some things needed to be said. “To me and to mine.”

“My friends, your neighbors. They’ll be your friends if you let them, Ethan.”

“We’ll see,” Ethan replied as Argus finally settled into an honest trot. “Friendships take time.”

“And you’ve such a busy calendar?” Nick pinned his brother with a look. Right there in front of the children, he pinned Ethan with a visual dire warning.

“No, but I had a thought for you to ponder.”

Nick turned his attention back to his mare. “I’m listening.”

“The Bellefonte earldom owns a vineyard in France, as I recall, and properties in both Spain and Portugal. I suspect George would look in on them for you, if you asked. I own either land or businesses in Switzerland, Germany, and Denmark, as well as France, and I’m thinking of asking him to add them to his itinerary.”