The Heir (13 page)

“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.

“C
OME
.” T
HE EARL HELD OUT A HAND AND GRABBED
the hamper, putting the blankets on top. “We need to talk, and the library will be less gloomy than the kitchen.”

They’d had to sprint for the kitchen when a summer squall had caught them napping on their blankets, and the rapid shift from pleasantly dozing to a dead run still had Anna disoriented. She put her hand in his but found she dreaded this talking he wanted. Words could land with the force of a blow, and she was going to hurt herself with what must be said, and very likely anger him, as well.

When they arrived at the library, he pulled the cushions from the window seats and fashioned a nest on the floor with those and the blankets. Retrieving the champagne bottle from the hamper and cracking one window, he settled cross-legged on the blanket and watched her as Anna moved restlessly around the room.

“Have some.” He held up the bottle. “We can swill from the bottle like heathens if it won’t offend you.” She joined him and took a pull from the bottle.

“You are sworn to secrecy,” she warned him. “Mrs. Seaton does not tipple.”

“Neither does Westhaven.” He followed her example. “Heir to a bloody duke, you know.”

In that moment, she lost a piece of her heart to him. His hair was curling damply against his neck, his clothing was in disarray, and he was sitting cross-legged on the floor of an empty room, swilling champagne. In that posture, in his dishevelment, with grave humor dancing in his green eyes, the Earl of Westhaven was impossibly dear to her.

“I like that look in your eye, Anna,” he said. “It bodes well for a man housebound with little to do.”

“You are lusty,” she said, not a little surprised.

“Not particularly,” the earl said, passing her the bottle. “Or not any more than others of my age and station. But I am lusty as hell with you, dear lady.”

His expression softened, the humor shifting to a tenderness she hadn’t seen in him before.

She put aside the bottle. “That look does not bode well for a mere housekeeper who wants to preserve her paltry little reputation.”

He reached into the hamper to retrieve her hairbrush, untying a hair ribbon from its handle. “We traveled in an open carriage, Anna, and when this rain blows over, I’ll have you directly back to Town. You never even let me get a hand on your delicate ankles.”

“That isn’t the magnitude of the problem, and you know it.”

“I can see we are going to have a substantial discussion. At least let me put your hair to rights so you can’t glare at me while we do.”

“I do not reproach you for what happened outside,” Anna said, scooting around to present him her back.

“Good.” The earl kissed her neck. “I want to reproach myself, but at present, I just feel too damned pleased with life, you know? Perhaps in a day or two I will get around to being ashamed, but, Anna, I would not bet on it.”

She could hear the uncharacteristic smile in his voice, and thought: I put that smile there, just by sharing with him a few minutes of self-indulgence.

“I am not ashamed, either.” Anna tried on the lie. “Well, only a little, but this direction could easily become shameful, and I would not want that. For you or for me, as we are not shameful people.”

“You will not be my mistress,” Westhaven said, sifting his hands through her hair in long, gentle sweeps. “And you did not sound too keen on being a wife.”

Anna closed her eyes. “I said it depended on whose wife, but no, in the general case, taking a husband does not appeal.”

“Why not?” He started with the brush in the same slow, steady movements. “Taking a husband has some advantages, you know.”

“Name one.”

“He brings you pleasure,” the earl said, his voice dropping. “Or he damned well should. He provides for your comfort, gives you babies. He grows old with you, providing companionship and friendship; he shares your burdens and lightens your sorrows. Good sort of fellow to have around, a husband.”

“Hah.” Anna wanted to peer over her shoulder at him, but his hold on her hair prevented it.

“He
owns
you and the produce of your body,” she retorted. “He has the right to demand intimate access to you at any time or place of his choosing, and strike you and injure you should you refuse him, or simply because he considers you in need of a beating. He can virtually sell your children, and you have nothing to say to it. He need not be loyal or faithful, and still you must admit him to your body, regardless of his bodily or moral appeal, or lack thereof. A very dangerous and unpleasant thing, a husband.”

The earl was silent behind her, winding her hair into a long braid.

“Were your parents happy?” he asked at length.

“I believe they were, and my grandparents were.”

“As are mine, as were mine,” the earl said, fishing her hair ribbon out of his pocket and tying off her braid. “Can you not trust yourself, Anna, to choose the kind of husband I describe rather than that nightmare you recount?”

“The choice of a woman’s husband is often not hers, and the way a man presents himself when courting is not how he will necessarily behave when his wife is fat with his third child a few years later.”

“A housekeeper sees things from a curious and unpleasant perspective.” He hunched forward to wrap his arms around her shoulders. “But, Anna, what about the example of our parents? The duke and duchess when they open an evening with the waltz still command every eye. They dance well, so well they move as one, and they function that way in life, too. My father adores my mother, and she sees only the best in him.”

“They are happy,” Anna said, “but what is your point? They are also very lucky, as you and I both know.”

“You will not be my mistress,” the earl said again, “and you are very leery of becoming a wife, but what, Anna, would you think of becoming a duchess?”

He said the words close to her ear, the heat and scent of him surrounding her, and she couldn’t stop the shudder that passed through her at his question.

“Most women,” she said as evenly as she could, “would not object to becoming a duchess, but look at your parents’ example. Had I to become your father’s duchess, I would likely do the man an injury.”

“And what if you were to become my duchess?” the earl whispered, settling his lips on the juncture of her shoulder and neck. “Would that be such a dangerous and unpleasant thing?”

She absorbed the question and understood that he was asking a hypothetical question, not offering a proposal. In that moment, her heart broke. It flew into a thousand hurting pieces, right there in her chest. Her breath wouldn’t come, her lungs felt heavy with pain, and an ache radiated out from her middle as if old age were overcoming her in the space of an instant.

And even if it had been a proposal, she was in no position to accept.

“Anna, love?” He nuzzled at her. “Do you think I would be such a loathsome, overbearing lout?”

“You would not,” she said, swallowing around the lump in her throat. “Whomever you took to wife would be very, very blessed.”

“So you will have me?” He drew her back against him, resting an arm across her collarbones.

“Have
you
?”Anna sat up and slewed around. “You are proposing to
me
?”

“I am proposing to you,” he said. “If you’ll have me as your husband, I would like you to be my duchess.”

“Oh, God help us,” Anna said under her breath, rising abruptly, and going to a long window.

He rose slowly. “That is not an expression of acceptance.”

“You do me great honor,” Anna said mechanically, “but I cannot accept your generous offer, my lord.”

“No my lording,” he chided. “Not after the way we’ve been behaving, Anna.”

“It will have to be my lording, and Mrs. Seatoning, as well, until I can find another post.”

“I never took you for a coward, Anna,” he said, but there was more disappointment than anger in his voice.

“Were I free to accept you,” she said, turning to face him, “I would still be hesitant.” She left the
my lord
off, not wishing to anger him needlessly, but it was there in her tone, and he no doubt heard it.

“What would cause your hesitation?”

“I’m not duchess material, and we hardly know each other.”

“You are as much duchess material as I am duke material,” he countered, “and few titled couples know each other as well as we already do, Anna Seaton. You know I like marzipan and music and my horse. I know you like flowers, beauty, cleanliness, and pretty scents.”

“You know you like kissing me, and I…”

“Yes?”

“I like kissing you, as well,” she admitted on a brittle smile.

“Give me some time, Anna,” he said, the aristocrat stooping to bargain, not the importuning suitor. “You think you’d not make a suitable duchess, and you think we don’t know each other well. Give me the opportunity to convince you of your errors.”

“You want me for a mistress,” she said, “but I will not take your coin.”

“I am
asking
,” he said with great patience, “the opportunity to gain a place in your affections, Anna. Nothing more.”

Was he asking for an affair? She should refuse him even that, but it was all too tempting.

“I will think about it, though I believe it best if I pursue another position. And no matter what, you mustn’t be seen to embarrass me with your attentions.”

“I will draft you a glowing character,” the earl said, his eyes hooded, “but you must agree to give me at least the summer to change your mind.”

“Write the character.” Anna nodded, heart shattering all over again. “Give it to Lord Valentine for safekeeping, and I will promise not to seek other employment this summer, unless you give me cause.”

“I would not disrespect you, and I would never get a bastard on any woman, Anna.” The earl leveled a look of such frustration at her that Anna cringed.

“Were you to get a bastard on me, we would be forced to wed. I cannot see either of us inviting such circumstances.”

His expression changed, becoming thoughtful.

“So if I were to get you pregnant, you would marry me?”

Anna realized too late the trap she had set for herself and sat on the window seat with a sigh. “I would,” she admitted, “which only indicates how unwilling I will be to permit the occasion to arise.”

He sat down beside her and took her hand, and she sensed his mind beginning to sift and sort through the information she’d disclosed and the information she’d withheld.

He drew a pattern over her knuckles. “I am not your enemy, and I never will be.”

She nodded, not arguing. He slipped an arm around her shoulders and hugged her to his side.

“You are not my enemy,” Anna said, letting him tuck her against him. “And you cannot be my husband nor my keeper.”

“I will be your very discreet suitor for the summer, and then we will see where we are. We are agreed on this.” He voice was purposeful, as if he’d finished exploring the challenge before him and was ready to vanquish it.

“We are agreed,” Anna said, knowing his best efforts would in a few weeks time put them no closer to his goals than they were in that moment. But she needed those weeks, needed them to plan and organize and regroup.

And in the alternative, she needed the time to grieve and to hoard up for herself the bittersweet procession of moments like this, when he held her and comforted her and reminded her of all she could not have.

They stayed like that, sitting side by side for a long time, the only sound the rain pelting against the windows. After a time, Westhaven got up and looked around the room.

“I will go check on Pericles. I am thinking I should also lay a fire in here, as the rain does not appear to be moving off.”

“Lay a fire? We have hours of light yet,” Anna said, though in truth they’d had more than a nap outside by the stream, and the afternoon was well advanced. “We could make it back to Town were we to leave in the next couple of hours.”

He pursed his lips, obviously unwilling to argue. Anna let him go, knowing it would ruin his gig were they to try to get it back to Town in this downpour. He came back soaked to the skin but reporting the horse was contentedly munching hay and watching the rain from his stall.

They spent the next hour retrieving more blankets and the medical bag kept in the gig, then, as the rain had not let up, filling up the wood boxes in the library. The earl split logs from a supply on the back porch, and Anna toted them into the house. They continued in that fashion, until the wood boxes built beside the library hearths were full and the earl had left a tidy pile of logs split for the next time somebody needed a fire.

He returned to the library where Anna had laid a fire but not lit it.

“I should not be chilled,” he mused. “I’ve just hefted an ax for the first time in several years, but I find I am a trifle cold.”

Unusual, Anna thought, as she herself was not cold, and she hadn’t split wood, but then, the earl had gotten wet tending to his horse and Anna was quite dry. She’d found flint and steel in the wood box, thank heavens, or the earl would have had to get another soaking just as his clothing was drying.

“I’ll light your fire,” Anna said, missing entirely the smile her comment engendered on the earl’s face.

“And I will forage for a piece of marzipan.”

“There should be plenty,” Anna said from the hearth, “and some lemonade, though it isn’t likely very cold.”

He found the marzipan, taking two pieces, and then the lemonade.

“So where should we sleep?” he asked, glancing around the room as he chomped on his candy.

“At home, I hope.”

The earl gave her a quelling look. “I did not plan this weather.”

“No, you did not, but if we stay here alone overnight, my reputation will be in tatters.”

“And you still would not marry me?”

“England is a big place. A tattered reputation in London can easily be mended in Manchester.”

“You would flee?”

“I would have to.”

“I would not allow that, Anna.” The earl frowned at her as he spoke. “If you come to harm as a result of this situation, you will permit me to provide for you.”