Ethan: Lord of Scandals (5 page)

“A moment of accord,” he noted gravely. “How unusual.”

“I won’t make a habit of it. The books in your schoolroom being a case in point.”

“Oh?” Ethan resumed the demolition of his dinner.

“They are boring, for one thing,” she said, sitting back and watching him eat. “And they are far too advanced, for another, and lack anything like the breadth of subject matter little boys require.”

“You were a little boy once, perhaps, that you are expert on the matter?”

She leveled a reproving look at him, which he noted between bites of potato.

“There is more to a boy’s education than drilling into him the dates of ancient battles, Mr. Grey. More to history than the Greeks, the Romans, and the British. More to languages than five declensions and four classes of verbs.”

“You know Latin?” She was an intelligent woman—and he did not mean that insultingly, to his surprise—but Latin?

“Latin and Greek. Once you get the knack of the structure of the one, the other isn’t so difficult to grasp.”

“Good heavens.” Ethan set his utensils down again. “What else has been stuffed between those ears of yours?”

“Astronomy is among my favorites,” she confessed, casting a bashful glance at Ethan’s half-eaten potato. “Mathematics, of course, including geometry and trigonometry, though only the rudiments of calculus. History, though I fear European history defines the limits of my command of the subject at this point. I am competent in French, but my command of modern languages is lacking. I read voraciously when I’ve the time.”

“And what of needlepoint?” Ethan pressed, knowing he should have made these inquiries several days ago. “Tatting lace? Watercolors? A little piano or voice?”

She waved a dismissive hand. “I can mend what needs mending, and I’m a passable accompanist, but it hardly signifies.”

“And why should the refinements of a lady hardly signify?” This bluestocking quality made perfect sense, given what he knew of the woman, but it impressed him as well. He liked a woman who didn’t attempt to trade solely on her face and figure.

“They are not useful, Mr. Grey. The world does not need lace from me, though lace is charming. The world does not need a note-perfect rendition of the simpler Haydn sonatas at my hands, though music is a gift from God. The world does not need another vague rendition of some fruit and a towel, could I manage it, though painting is another gift from God.”

“What does the world need?” He genuinely wanted to know.

“From me,” she said, studying her plate this time, “it needs education. Were I proficient in those ladylike pursuits, I’d be a finishing governess. That is not my gift. I am far more interested in cultivating the minds of my charges than I am in assisting some schoolgirl in her quest to snatch up a spotty young swain of a few weeks’ acquaintance.”

Ethan propped his chin on his hand and surveyed her. “You are an anarchist, Miss Portman. And here I’ve placed the care of my sons in your rabble-rousing hands.”

Her blush was all the more enchanting for being unexpected.

“You are teasing. Do you have all those books in your library for show, then, Mr. Grey? I hadn’t taken you for a man driven by appearances.”

“I’m not. I love to read.” This was not a matter of pride; it was a simple truth. “One can’t be managing business affairs every hour of the day, and reading is a solitary pleasure, suited to my nature.”

“If you say so.”

That was a governess’s version of casting a lure. Even so, Ethan took the bait. “What?”

“You don’t live alone here, Mr. Grey.”

“Of course not. I dwell with my sons, and the servants and staff in my employ, and now—heaven be praised—with your very useful self.”

“Have you seen your sons since the coach pulled up here today?” she asked in the same peculiarly quiet voice.

“I did, actually.” He was pleased with himself to be able to say it. “Out the window, as they dragged you around the rose gardens. A charming tableau, made blessedly quiet by the distance involved. Better you than me, Miss Portman.”

“They miss you,” she said flatly. “Though God knows why, Mr. Grey, as the concept leaves me quite at a loss. Now, if you will excuse me, I find I am intolerably fatigued, and though the meal has been appreciated, I must seek my bed.”

She pushed back from the table and left the room before Ethan was halfway to his feet. He sat back down, his meal lying uneasily in his gut, and thought over the conversation.

He’d said something to push her past her limit, something… not funny. Cruel, perhaps, from her perspective. Well, there was no decoding the whims and fancies of females, bluestocking or otherwise. He eyed the table, intent on helping himself to more food, then changed his mind.

He’d been sitting too long, and this made for dyspepsia, so he took himself through the house, his wineglass in his hand, and headed for the back gardens. A man needed to stretch his legs from time to time if he was to have a prayer of remaining civilized.

Except his sons had been stuck in the coach for two days, and they had needed to stretch their legs. Alice Portman had reasoned that out; Ethan had not, and he wanted to smash the damned wineglass on the flagstones as a result. Because he was an adult, and civilized, he did not give in to the urge but wandered around in the moonlight until the shadows and breezes and pretty scents had soothed him past his anger.

Three floors above him, on her balcony, Alice watched the dark figure moving along the gravel paths. Moonlight suited him, though in daylight, he was deceptively golden. His hair was more burnished than Nick’s wheat blond, and his features more austere. Still, he gave the impression of light, with his blue, blue eyes, light hair, and quiet movement.

He wasn’t light, Alice concluded as she took down her hair. He was dark, inside, in his heart and soul. It still surprised her after she’d had days to observe him, but he looked so much like Nick, she still expected him to laugh like Nick, smile like Nick, flirt like Nick.

She missed Nick, and because it wasn’t any kind of sexual longing, she could admit it. She desperately, pitifully missed Priscilla, and worried for how the child was going on.

In years of governessing, Alice had dealt with enough overly tired, cranky, distraught, fractious children to know if she didn’t get herself to bed, posthaste, she was going to treat herself to an undignified, unproductive, useless crying spell. She was already hungry again, exhausted, in need of a bath, and facing a situation she should have examined more carefully before leaping into it.

“You’re just discouraged,” she told herself. “Braid your hair, get to bed. Things will look better in the morning.”

But in the morning, things didn’t look at all better.

In the morning, things looked much, much worse.

***

“You will leave in the morning, Hart, and you will not come back in my lifetime.” The Baroness Collins had never taken that tone with her son before. Not when he was a child, not when he’d been a young man, and not now, when inchoate middle age and a dissolute lifestyle were making him look like an old child, an aging boy becoming less and less attractive with the passing years.

Predictably, Hart bristled. “I’ll damned well come and go from my own property as I please, madam. You would do well to recall upon whose charity you survive.” He tossed back another glass of brandy, adding to the amazing amount that had disappeared in the course of the conversation already.

“You are not safe here.”

Somewhere in the depths of her maternal heart, the baroness could not allow her son to knowingly court danger, regardless that it was danger of his own making. “Your scheming and violence, your disregard for proper behavior, your disrespect of every woman you meet will be the end of you if you stay here in the North. I am not asking you to leave, Hart, I am insisting.”

He paused before putting his empty glass down on the harpsichord. That harpsichord had belonged to the baroness’s grandfather, and yet, she did not rise and remove the glass—not while Hart was in such a mood.

“You are insisting? How will you insist, dear Mama, when I cut off your allowance?”

Perhaps it was the French disease or the drink, but Hart’s memory was growing faulty. “You cut off my allowance years ago, Hart. I manage on my portion.” Which, thank her sainted papa’s shrewdness, no venal, grasping son could touch.

He turned his back on her, making the bald spot on the back of his head apparent. He’d hate that, if he knew she could see it. Hart Collins was so vain, so unhealthy, that he’d see even the normal impact of time as victimization.

She did not wish her son were dead. In the manner he went on, he’d meet his end soon enough.

“I’ll need money.”

Of course he would. The old baron’s solicitors were a pack of jackals well up to dealing with Hart’s tantrums and bullying. Not one penny of estate money would get into Hart’s hands until the very day it was due him.

“I have a few jewels.” Those had belonged to her grandmother. “You will leave in the morning, Hart, and I’ll write to some people I know in the South, who would welcome you to their house parties.”

He was no longer welcome in Rome, and neither was he safe in Paris or Marseilles. His duns in London had already found him at the family seat in Cumbria and were becoming impatient.

The baroness unfastened the pearl necklace her grandmother had given her upon her come out and held it out to her son. In the flickering candlelight of the once-elegant parlor, the jewels looked like a noose.

Perhaps the English countryside would shelter him for a time. It was just a thought, not a wish, not even a prayer.

***

Ethan slept badly, but got up early and heeded the impulse to get out of the house. Confinement never improved his mood, so he made for the stables after a quick breakfast. Miss Portman and her charges were not in evidence at breakfast, which suited him splendidly.

As he took his second-favorite mount out for a bracing hack in the cool of the earliest morning, Ethan forced himself to consider he might owe Miss Portman an apology. On general principles, it irked him to apologize to anyone, particularly when he wasn’t quite sure where he’d transgressed.

One thing he’d realized as he surveyed the remains of supper: there had been nothing to drink except wine, and Miss Portman did not enjoy wine. He should have seen to it she was offered something else. Had she not been so provoking, he might have been a better host.

He let his gelding come down to the trot after they’d cleared every stile and fence between the house and the home farm. Maybe Miss Portman was peeved at him because he’d teased her for her degree of education.

But that explanation didn’t feel quite right.

The horse halted without Ethan cuing him, as the realization sank in that Miss Alice Portman did not care one bean—a vegetable, mind you—how much Ethan teased her. She minded bitterly the way Ethan disregarded his children.

Bloody, bleeding hell.

He did not know what they ate.

He did not know what they learned.

He did not know how they passed their days.

He had not known his youngest had been harshly beaten, or why.

As the horse started walking forward, Ethan knew in his bones he was facing an opportunity—a challenge. He could continue as he’d gone on, largely trying to ignore that his wife had borne two sons, or he could transcend his pique and be the kind of parent his sons deserved.

The kind of father he himself had not had.

Which decided the matter, foot, horse, and cannon.

He did not want to be a father at all, but he was damned if he would do to his children what the old earl had done to him. The man had presided over his family as a benevolent dictator, but had been so badly informed regarding his own children he’d tossed Ethan away on the strength of ill-founded suspicion alone. Banished him.

That line of thought was worse than bleak, so Ethan patted his horse, turned for the stables, and mentally rearranged his day. He’d start with the nursery and find some way to talk to his children. It couldn’t be that hard, after all. Miss Portman did it easily, didn’t she?

But as he made his way through the house, he was accosted by a chambermaid hurrying down the stairs, eyes wild, cap askew.

“Oh, Mr. Grey, I don’t mean to be getting above myself, but you best come quick. Mrs. B. is off to the village and Cook’s abed and Mr. B. is down to the mill.” She reached for Ethan’s arm, then dropped her hand and dipped a little at the knees, as if she were resisting an urgent call from nature.

“I’m coming,” Ethan said, keeping the irritation from his voice. “What exactly is the problem?”

“It’s the new governess,” the girl moaned as she turned back up the steps toward the nursery wing. “I think Miss Portman is dying!”

Ethan didn’t even knock. He opened the door to Miss Portman’s bedroom and was hit immediately with a blast of warm, stale air. The curtains were opened, but the windows, which should have been cracked to let in some of the breeze, were closed tightly.

But he knew this scene—the bedclothes badly tangled; the air uncomfortably still; a hot, painful tension in the room.

“Close the drapes all but a little,” he quietly directed the maid. “Open the windows, then bring me up some lavender water with ice, and a pitcher of cold mint tea. Sugar the tea. We’ll need clean sheets as well, and some buttered toast, and the laudanum. Move quietly, or I’ll know the reason why.”

On the bed, Miss Portman tried to roll away from the sound of his voice.

“Miss Portman?” Ethan approached the bed soundlessly and kept his voice down. “Alice?”

The sound she made when she tried to draw in a breath was terrible, a wheezy bleat that struggled against itself.

He did not sit on the bed, as he knew all too well that giving Miss Portman any cause for anxiety would only exacerbate the situation. He did, however, note the location of the nearest pitcher and basin. And by the scant light coming through the drawn drapes, he saw Miss Portman had had a bad night.

Her braid was a disaster, her skin was pale, and beneath her closed eyes, there was still that grayish, drawn look of extreme fatigue.

“Alice?” He sat carefully on the bed, and her hand appeared from the covers to rest over her stomach.

Another horrible indrawn breath, and then, “No.” It meant, he knew, no talking, no moving, no company. No hope, too, when the fear was at its worst. He reached out a hand, just to be sure, and laid the back of it to her forehead.

No fever, thank God, because this much discomfort might also signal some physical ailment.

“Alice?” He smoothed her hair back, noting she tolerated that well enough. “Alice, can you talk to me?”

“Go away.” She tried to roll away, to draw her knees up, but then her eyes flew open. “Oh no…”

Ethan’s wife had not fared easily early in her pregnancy with Jeremiah. He knew what that particular variety of “oh no” presaged, and in an instant had her sitting up beside him.

“Look at me,” Ethan ordered. “You’re at Tydings, you’re safe, and your charges are likely stirring across the hall.”

Another breath, just as tortured. “Want to die,” Miss Portman murmured to her knees.

“I know.” Ethan settled a hand on her nape and took a more soothing tone. “Look around you, Alice. You’re having a bad moment, but it will pass. Don’t try to breathe, just let it happen. See your things there on the desk, your robe across the foot of the bed. Your spectacles are here on the night table. I expect you picked this rose when you were out strolling with Joshua and Jeremiah.”

As he spoke, Ethan rubbed his thumb slowly across her nape. He matched his breathing to hers and felt her gradually calming. “Better?” Ethan asked.

She nodded, her gaze on the single red rose in a bud vase near her spectacles. He did not take his hand away. Soon, she might start to shake or weep, if her bad moments resembled his.

“Humiliated, but better.”

“Was it the wine?”

“Spirits don’t help.” She tried to move, but he prevented it. “Nothing else on the table. Thirsty. Mostly, it’s being in a strange place and being overly tired. I woke up…”

“You’re safe, Alice. Tydings is boringly, unendingly safe.”

Though he’d never thought of it that way before. As Ethan remained beside her, his fingers massaging her nape, he realized Alice hadn’t been assessing his silver pattern or his table linen the night before. She’d been looking for a simple glass of water. She could have rung for it…

But she’d been running all afternoon, and she was new to the household, and she was Alice Portman.

“You need fluids,” he said, again being careful to keep his voice down, and to fill a water glass only half-full. He propped an arm under her shoulders and held the glass to her lips, finding it worrisome—bothersome—that she didn’t protest the proximity or the assistance.

“More.”

“Soon. We have to accommodate your tentative digestion. Will laudanum help?”

“God, no. Laudanum makes everything strange, and that is worse than a spell of anxiety.”

And her with that creaky hip. No wonder she had to be so careful with it, if she could not relieve her pain in the usual fashion.

“The breeze feels wonderful.” She addressed her observation to the half-full water glass. “Thank you.”

“It’s still too hot in here.” Ethan retrieved a tray from the chambermaid, then closed the door. He shouldn’t be in Miss Portman’s room, of course, but she shouldn’t be having a damned spell of nerves because she’d overdone and awoken in strange surroundings.

“This is mint tea.” He poured a glass half-full from a ceramic pitcher. “When my digestion is tentative, it seems to help.” He put a basin on the night table. “This is lavender water, with ice. I don’t know if it truly helps, but the scent is soothing, and I don’t think it will hurt.”

“You are prone to unprovoked sensations of dread?”

She lay back on her pillows, sounding hopeful, as if wishing she were not isolated in her misery—except when it came to this ailment, each sufferer was profoundly isolated.

“Not as often as I used to.” Ethan wrung out a cloth in the lavender water and folded it across her forehead. “I’ve learned to dodge much of what causes them.”

“Which would be?” From the expression on her face, the cold cloth was a bit of divine relief.

Ethan frowned at her from his perch at her hip. “Any extreme can set me off. Too little sleep, too little activity, too little food, too little drink, too much exertion, too much change of company or conditions. I expect in your case, you needed fluids and rest, and you ignored those needs for two days. You’re away from all that’s familiar, and the change was not one you had much chance to contemplate.”

Because he hadn’t wanted her to have the opportunity for reflection.

“Perhaps.” She took a sip of her mint tea. “I hate when this happens.”

“I know.” She would hate the indignity far more than the suffering. “But these moments pass, and then one is so pathetically grateful.”

The maid appeared, having the sense to knock softly and close the door softly when Ethan permitted her to enter. She bore clean sheets and some buttered toast.

“No food.” Miss Portman waved a hand weakly when the maid had left again. “I cannot, Mr. Grey.”

“Yes, you can,” he corrected her, taking the cloth from her forehead. “Just a bite or two, washed down with some tea. I’ll help.” She managed a very weak glare at him, which suggested the patient would live. He gently hefted her up, and while holding her forward against his shoulder, he arranged pillows at her back.

He straightened, looking her over as he did. “You did not threaten me with dire punishments for my presumptions, so you must allow you are not yet feeling quite the thing.”

“I am making allowances for your unfamiliarity with compassionate impulses.” The words held only a fraction of her usual starch.

“Two sips.” Ethan held the glass to her lips, thinking it odd that now that he had a moment to order her around, he dearly wished she wasn’t permitting it.

“I’ll do it,” she muttered against the rim of the glass, wrapping her hand around his much-larger one.

“And now your toast.” He set the glass down and picked up the plate, tearing her off a bite right over the plate so the crumbs wouldn’t get on the bedclothes. He held it to her lips, and she took it from him with her hand.

“You are surprisingly solicitous,” she said, munching the toast, “if inclined to managing.”

“Chew,” he ordered, smiling slightly. “To be accounted managing by one of your standards makes my day complete. Two more sips.”

She complied without argument. He suspected she knew that goaded him too.

“The maid will be back shortly to do up your braid, change these sheets, and remove the tray. Remain silent, Alice Portman, and do not fuss.”

He reached for her hand, which was cool in his grasp.

“Now,” he went on, keeping his fingers wrapped around hers, “you will not exert yourself for at least the rest of this day. I will keep the boys out of trouble, but I will also check on you, to make sure you are sipping your tea, resting, and eating enough to keep a bird alive. If that featherbrained young lady serving you does not report to my satisfaction, you will find yourself bearing more of my company.

“You are a disgrace, Alice Portman,” Ethan informed her, “to get into such a state and not even ring for a damned maid. I am not happy with you.”

He was pleased, though, for some unfathomable reason. He was pleased she was tolerating his fussing and scolding. Pleased to be of some
usefulness
to her. Pleased he knew what to do.

“You are excused from tonight’s meal,” he said very sternly. “And henceforth we will have water on the table at all times. You will rest, and you will acquaint yourself with your surroundings. Write the loved ones you miss, and otherwise take one day to adjust to your new surroundings. Do I make myself understood?”

She nodded when she probably wanted to dump her tea over his head. It was time to go, before he provoked her into a display of vinegar for his own reassurance. Still, he held her hand a moment longer.

It would be a good moment to tell her about his willingness to give parenting his children another try—a better try—but he kept his peace, even as he marveled at the delicacy of the bones of her hand. All women were small to him, given his height and muscle. Alice was taller than most, and yet to him, she was delicate and diminutive. And up close, she smelled good, of lemons and sunshine.

“I’ll leave you in peace now.” Ethan turned her hand loose and wrung out another cold cloth. “You sip tea, nibble toast, and let the maid brush your hair for hours on end. If you don’t behave, I’ll thrash you silly.”

“I’ll behave,” she replied, smiling at him faintly. “My thanks for your assistance, Mr. Grey.”

He rose from the bed and glared down at her. “Would you call me Ethan if I asked you to?” He should not ambush her in a weak moment, but there was no point trying to ambush her in any other kind of moment.

He’d asked. He’d actually put his wishes into the form of a question. This was a measure of his panic at seeing her ailing, though try as he might, he couldn’t resent her for it.

“I would allow it, under certain circumstances, if you asked politely. Any governess worth her salt knows to reward proper manners, particularly when the result is such a marvelously nonplussed expression.”

Her smile had nothing in it of buns, spectacles, or sensible shoes. Her smile was pure, lovely female benevolence, and it inspired Ethan to a reckless display of his best manners.

“I am asking, most politely, for the honor of my given name from you.”

Because she’d back down. He knew she’d back down, plead her diminished capacity, and otherwise let him call her bluff.

Her smile grew yet more brilliant. “When circumstances don’t require otherwise, I shall call you Ethan.”

He smiled back—let her have a taste of her own good manners rewarded—then made a bid to knock her off her governess pins by leaning over and brushing a kiss to her cheek. “I’ll stop by after lunch, and you had best be napping, or at least on the mend, or there will be unpleasant consequences.”

He finished with an admonitory scowl, thinking this scolding business was almost fun. No wonder Miss Portman—who was looking gratifyingly, no,
marvelously
nonplussed—seemed to enjoy it so much.

***

“Papa?”
Jeremiah scrambled to his feet, dragging Joshua upright with him, their astonishment at seeing their father in the nursery suite plain on their faces.

“Good morning.” Ethan frowned down at them. “Gentlemen.” He added it as an afterthought, and it earned him a wary exchange of looks from his sons. “Miss Portman is not faring well today, so we are cast upon one another’s company. I am charged to get the both of you outside before it gets too hot, and then we will visit Miss Portman at midday. Now then…” Ethan’s sons were gazing at him with disconcerting stillness. “What had you planned for the day?”

Joshua shrugged his little shoulders. “Nothing.” He shot a puzzled look at his older brother. “Well, we didn’t.”

“Miss Portman said we’d have to see where we were,” Jeremiah offered hesitantly. “She said there should be time for a ride and would discuss it with you.”

“A ride might be just the thing.” He’d ridden with them before, though the last time was months ago, and it was by happenstance. Still, it was a good place to start.

And it went surprisingly well, the ponies having been kept in work by the grooms during the boys’ absence. Ethan rode Argus, who was too tired from his travels to provide his usual brand of entertainment, and the boys largely absorbed each other’s attention as they walked and trotted their mounts through the woods. They were all headed back to the barn at the walk, the heat building, when Joshua turned to his brother with a questioning look, though no inquiry had been voiced.

Jeremiah shook his head emphatically, which inspired Joshua to stick out his tongue then whack his pony one stout blow with his crop. The little beast shot forward, Jeremiah’s mount did the same, and Ethan and Argus were left to bring up the rear at a canter.

Shouting wasn’t going to help. Ponies were wily little things, and these two were both sane, sittable, and sure-footed. His sons were standing in their stirrups, clearly accustomed to a hearty gallop from time to time. When Joshua aimed his pony at a stile, though, Ethan felt his heart rise up in his throat.

“Joshua, no!” Ethan bellowed, but the pony had seen the objective and wasn’t to be pulled off his fence. At a dead run, the animal charged up to the fence and sailed over, Joshua grinning like a fiend on his back. Jeremiah cleared the same obstacle, but had the sense to shoot worried glances over his shoulder as Ethan popped the jump easily behind them.

Only when Joshua drew his pony up did he glance at his father. His grin evaporated as he recalled who their groom was that morning, though he patted his pony, who was rudely cropping grass after its exertions.