Ethan: Lord of Scandals (3 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the instant between losing her balance and knowing she was going to fall, Alice had time for thoughts.

Please, God, not this, not now, with the arrogant and condescending Mr. Grey on hand to witness it, and only him to help me. Please…

“I’ve got you.” The words were gruff, the grip on her arms ungentle, but the way Ethan Grey held her against his chest was secure and such a relief Alice hung there, catching her balance in something very like an embrace.

“I’ve got you,” Mr. Grey said again, his grip relaxing, though he didn’t step back.

And neither did Alice. The near fall had scared her; the near falls always scared her, had her heart hammering in her chest, her breath coming too quickly, and memories—the worst memories in her possession—obliterating rational processes.

Panic swirled close. Alice forced her breathing to slow rather than allow that panic any closer.

“Here.” Mr. Grey tugged at her, his arm slipping around her waist as he guided her to a fallen tree large enough to sit on. He tossed the folded blanket over the tree and urged her down, sitting beside her with his arm still around her waist.

Ethan Grey was an awful man. He beat his children, and Alice hadn’t once caught him smiling; but he was tall, strong, and solid, and he smelled of cedar and safety. When he urged her against him, she leaned just a little.

“You’re pale as a ghost,” he said, his tone displeased. “If I had smelling salts, I’d be waving them under your nose. Are you going to faint?”

She shook her head, though she had to swallow twice to find her voice.

“I have a bad hip,” she said, eyes on her lap so he couldn’t see her embarrassment. “When it gives out, it can lame me for a considerable time, and the house is not close.”

“As if I’d leave you here for the gamekeeper to discover on his fall rounds some months hence. Does your hip pain you now?”

“You caught me in time.” Though her hip did pain her. It pained her nigh constantly, and this little slip would mean a bad night at least. It could have been so very much worse. “My thanks.”

“Hmm.” He regarded her, no doubt seeing her lips pinched against pain, her complexion pale, and her composure—upon which she prided herself—eluding her. “Has your hip always been unreliable?”

He made it sound as if her hip was a shifty, shady sort of character, not a body part they shouldn’t even be alluding to.

“I wasn’t born this way.” She glanced up at him, some of her irritation coming back, and wasn’t that a relief, probably to them both. “It’s worse if I’m tired, or I try to move too quickly.”

“We’re about halfway between the house and the orchard. What’s your pleasure?” He stood with his hands on his hips, looking put out. That was some comfort.

“Press on,” she said, trying to rise, only to find Mr. Grey’s hand on her arm restraining her.

“Soon.” His eyes—a startlingly handsome blue—lit with what had to be his version of humor. “Rest a minute longer, Miss Portman. You can do it if you put your considerable will to it.”

She shot him a truculent glare, which caused his mouth—also curiously well formed—to quirk up in a smile. The expression was unexpectedly charming on him, taking years off his features and giving an astonishingly winsome aspect to her escort.

Manners compelled her to smile back.

“Is this hip of yours the reason you do not enjoy horses?” he asked, glancing around at the surrounding woods.

“In part,” she replied, thinking again he talked as if her joint were naughty. “I can sit a horse if I have to, but it’s very hard to get on and off, and I pay for the privilege.”

“This is why God invented coaches, perhaps. Though for my part, they are mortally stuffy and cramped.”

“One can see how this might be true for you.”

“I cannot help my height, Miss Portman.”

“I don’t refer to your height, Mr. Grey.” She shifted, testing her hip and wincing at the result. “I refer to what might be a familial tendency to take the reins rather than be a passenger.”

“You still hurt.” He treated her to a frown while some lunatic bird started chirping above them. “And yes, as a family we tend to charge forth rather than sit back. Shall I pass some time reading to you?”

“Fairy tales?” She resisted the temptation to smirk. “That might be entertaining.”

“Not nearly so much as it might be were you to read to me.”

“What?” She frowned right back at him, wondering if he was attempting to flirt with her in some backhanded way. “You could do better than Lord Androcles Wolfgang Poopoo Paws Wolfbottom Wolf the Fourth?”

“Not on my best day, but we might get the story actually read.”

“And then it would be bedtime, Mr. Grey. Were you truly never a child? Nicholas would have me believe you were, but he likes to tease.”

He eyed her up and down, his disapproval now encompassing her entire corpus. “I can see Wee Nick taking on the challenge of teasing you with some degree of relish, but yes, I was once upon a time a child, though it was long ago and far away, and a folly briefly concluded. I am debating fetching my horse to ferry you to our destination.”

Alice waved a hand that had lost its glove—drat the luck. “No horses, please. If we take our time and avoid steep cliffs and earthquakes, I can manage.”

“Very well.” He rose, looking none too happy with her decision, which yielded a measure of satisfaction in itself. “If you please?” He extended his bare hand, and when Alice laced her fingers through his, he drew her to her feet, tucked his arm around her waist, and held her to his side.

“We are to promenade?”

“Let’s see how you fare through the woods. If you’re foot-sound, you can charge across the orchard at a dead run.” She stiffened, contemplating a rousing good argument, then realized their verbal altercation would take place with his arm about her waist.

As that would hardly serve—and her hip hurt, and her escort was tall and strong—Alice set off at a sedate pace.

***

As he guided Miss Portman along through the sunlight and shadows of the old woods, Ethan had an odd sense of pleasurable discovery.

Alice Portman was in disguise. She looked all prim and tidy, not a hair out of place, but she smelled delectable—not just lemons, but something more too—spices both soothing and intriguing. And against a man’s body, she felt quite… feminine. She was apparently wearing only country stays—a married man learned of these things, will he, nil he—and her breasts were pleasingly full. Then too, no corset on earth could disguise the feminine swell of a woman’s hips.

“Are you in pain?” Ethan asked as they strolled along.

“A little,” she admitted, but he wasn’t fooled, so he moved slowly with her, mindful of her steps, and while his grip was snug, it was also careful.

“We’re almost out of the woods,” Ethan said, forcing himself to adopt a more conventional escort’s stance. “You will take my arm, Alice Portman, and you will behave.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Grey.” She rolled her eyes, likely forgetting her straw hat had fallen down her back, revealing her face to Ethan’s view. Nonetheless, she wrapped her hand into the crook of his elbow and honestly let him take some of her weight.

Priscilla spotted them first and came gamboling over to grab her governess’s free hand. “We’ve made you a necklace of clover, and Papa showed me how to skip rocks, because Wee Nick was tossing the boys into the water, and boys don’t skip as well as rocks, at least our boys.”

“Ethan!” Nick’s voice rang with pleasure as they crossed the green to the grassy bank of the stream. “You honor us. Now get out of those boots and help me repel the pirates trying to board my ship. Alice, release the prisoner into my custody. He’ll be a good boy, or we’ll make him walk the plank.”

A chorus of juvenile voices took up the cry, “Walk the plank!” which Nick quelled by slapping water in the direction of the four sopping-wet boys trying to splash him back from the shallows.

For a total of five boys, if one included the earl.

There was no hope for it. Ethan aimed a scowl at the child capering around on Miss Portman’s other side. “Miss Priscilla, you will not yank on Miss Portman’s arm. We are setting a dignified example for my hopeless little brother.”

“Younger brother,” Priscilla corrected him. “I still have your handkerchief, Mr. Grey.”

“Pleased to hear it,” Ethan said, wondering if he could get out of joining Nick and his band of cutthroats in the stream.

“Go on.” Miss Portman dropped his arm. “If you take Nick down, you will be a hero in the eyes of little boys throughout the realm.”

And perhaps in the eyes of one governess. The notion had peculiar appeal.

“Until he takes me down,” Ethan muttered. Nothing would do but that he spread the blanket, sit, and pull off his boots. “And his countess will fuss at him, but she’ll be wroth with me.”

“Whining, Mr. Grey?” Miss Portman offered him another one of the dazzling, heart-stopping smiles.

“Absolutely.” Ethan stood up. “Can you manage?” He glanced down at the blanket meaningfully. When she only frowned, he offered his arm and got her settled on the blanket before pulling his shirt over his head and striding off for the water.

“Stand down, Wee Nick,” Ethan bellowed. “I’ll not have you terrorizing the peasants.”

“We’re not peasants,” John said. “We’re tars.”

“Them either.” Ethan winked at John, whom he hadn’t said two words to in the previous three weeks. “Prepare to meet your doom, Wicked Nick.”

Nick grinned an evil, piratical grin and dove for his brother. The water was only about two feet deep, perfect for making a huge ruckus without any risk of harm. The little boys squealed and hopped around, calling encouragement to their pirate of choice; the big boys bellowed and splashed and dunked each other repeatedly, until Nick and Ethan were both sitting on a log downed in the shallows, panting and licking knuckles scraped on the bottom of the stream.

“Now look what we’ve done,” Nick said as the smaller boys began to roughhouse in earnest. “The seven seas will never be safe again.”

“True, but at least our breeches stayed on.”

The boys had been wading in their smalls, and when waterlogged and held around slippery little bodies by only a drawstring, Joshua’s and John’s clothing was being dragged into the briny deep.

“What on earth has Joshua done to his backside?”

Ethan slogged across the water toward his son, his brain taking a moment to comprehend what his eyes insisted was fact. He discreetly pulled up Joshua’s sagging drawers and did the same for John before turning a thunderous expression on his brother.

“Nicholas Haddonfield, did you beat my son?” He kept his voice down, while both hands curled into tight fists.

“I did not,” Nick said, keeping his voice as low as Ethan’s. “He came to us like that, Ethan. Alice noticed it when she gave them a bath the first night, and brought it to my attention.”

Nick’s disclosure made Ethan want to hit someone—something—all the more. “
That
has been healing all this time? He never said a word.”

Nick eyed Ethan’s hand. “I asked him if he fell. He said he was bad and he deserved it.”

“He’s five,” Ethan shot back. “How could he deserve a hiding like that?”

“So you didn’t do it.”

“You thought…” Ethan dropped Nick’s gaze, his eyes going to his youngest son. “It had to hurt like hell, Nick.”

“If you didn’t do it, then who did?”

“I am ashamed to say I do not know.” Ethan watched as Joshua’s backside peeked into view again. “I suspect it was Mr. Harold, their tutor, but until I talk to Joshua, I can’t say. I feel sick.”

“I feel relieved,” Nick said. “A man’s children are his own business, but to think you might have done that to your son did not sit well with me or my countess. They’re good boys, Ethan. If anything, they’re too good.”

Ethan wasn’t listening. A muscle worked in his jaw, and he could feel the vein just beyond his hairline throbbing. His eyes were fixed on his sons, sturdy little men having a grand time on a summer day. To appearances, all was well with them, but Ethan still felt the urge to kill whoever had hurt one of his boys.

“Come on.” Nick prodded him with an elbow. “I brought spare breeches, and you can borrow a pair. Into the bushes with us. Beware the savages, as we’re fair game for attack.”

When they’d changed their clothes, they returned to the blankets to find the boys still cavorting in the water—though their lips were blue and their teeth were chattering.

“Joshua and Jeremiah, out!” Ethan barked. “Now!”

They came right out of the water and presented their shivering little selves to their father, while John and Ford whined and dallied and made excuses to Nick.

Ethan bent down and wrapped each boy in a towel. “You will be dried off and dressed and eating yourselves sick while John and Ford are still dripping on their blankets.” He grabbed for Joshua and rubbed the child briskly all over with the towel, until the shivering had subsided.

And if he stole a surreptitious hug in the process, he was the only one who knew.

***

Alice glanced up from where she was reading the children a story, to see a groom leading an enormous golden gelding from the direction of the house.

“It’s Argus,” Jeremiah informed her in a whisper. “Papa’s horse. Is Papa going somewhere?”

“I am not.” Mr. Grey spoke from where he stood towering above the children. “Miss Portman requires escort back to the house, and Argus volunteered.”

“Your horse?” Alice tried to scramble to her feet, but found she was lifted there instead by Mr. Grey’s hands under her elbows. “What about the story?”

“Mrs. Belmont?” Mr. Grey’s smile sported an alarming complement of perfect white teeth. “Can you or Priscilla finish the story?”

“Let me!” Priscilla yelled before her mother could respond. Mr. Grey passed the girl the book.

“We’ve no mounting block,” Alice said. Also no sense, for the last thing, the very last thing she was going to do was climb onto that enormous golden beast. The idea of it made her chest pound and sent Hart Collins’s taunts skittering through her memory.

“No problem.” Nick appeared at her elbow, oozing friendly concern, the wretch. “We’ll get you on board easily enough, provided you’re willing?”