The Heir Read online

  He paused again, his arm around her shoulders, catching his breath.

  “My correspondence,” he reminded her.

  She gave him a dubious scowl but nodded. “Don’t move, your lordship. You don’t want to fall and hit your head again.”

  She took her leave at the stirring pace Westhaven associated with her, leaving him to admire the view again and consider her advice—were he to die, his brother Valentine would not forgive him. Carefully, he toed the chamber pot from under the bed, made use of it, replaced the lid as quietly as he could by hooking the handle with his toes, then pushed it back out of sight.

  God, he thought as he gave his cock a little shake, his housekeeper had seen the ducal family jewels…

  He should have been wroth with indignation, to be subjected to her perusal, but all he felt was amusement and a vague gratitude she would provide him the care he needed. She could have sent for a physician, of course, but Westhaven hated doctors, and his housekeeper must have known it.

  Reaching across the bed carefully, he rearranged pillows so he could rest on his side. That movement so pained his back, that when his housekeeper returned, he was still sitting on the bed.

  He arched an eyebrow. “Tea?”

  “It can’t hurt,” she replied, “and I brought iced lemonade, as well, as the warehouse just stocked your icehouse this morning.”

  “Lemonade, then.”

  His rooms were at the back of the house, heavily shaded and high-ceilinged. They remained particularly comfortable, probably because the clerestory windows had been left open, the better to draw the heat up and out.

  Mrs. Seaton handed him a tall, sweating glass, which he sipped cautiously. She’d sugared it generously, so he took a larger sip.

  “You aren’t having any?” he asked, watching as she moved around the room.

  “You are my employer.” She went to the night table and retrieved a pitcher, giving the little bouquet in the window a drink. “Your roses are thirsty.”

  “So is it you who has turned my house into a flower shop?” Westhaven asked as he finished his drink.

  “I have. You have a very pretty house, my lord. Flowers show it to advantage.”

  “You will waken me if I fall asleep for more than an hour or so?” he asked, unable to reach the nightstand to place his glass on the tray. She took the glass from his hand and met his eyes.

  “I will check on you each hour until daybreak, my lord, but as you had neither tea nor supper, I think you had best try a little food before you lie down.”

  He eyed the tray whereupon Mrs. Seaton had set a plate sporting a big, sugary muffin that looked to be full of berries.

  “Half of that.” He nodded warily. “And sit if you please.” He thumped the mattress. “I cannot abide a fluttering female.”

  “You sound like your father sometimes, you know,” she said as she sliced the muffin in half and took her place beside him. “Imperious.”

  “Ridiculous, you mean,” he said as he glanced skeptically again at the muffin then tried a bite.

  “He is not ridiculous, but some of his machinations are.”

  “My housekeeper is a diplomat”—the earl sent her a sardonic smile—“who makes passably edible muffins. Might as well eat the whole thing rather than waste half.”

  “Would you like some butter on this half?”

  “A touch. How is it you know of my father’s machinations?”

  “There is always gossip below stairs.” She shrugged, but then must have realized she was perilously close to overstepping. She paused as she slathered butter on his muffin. “It is said he spies on you at your regular appointments.”

  “What is ridiculous,” the earl retorted, “is to think the old rascal is tricking the young ladies who waylay me at every social function, Mrs. Seaton. Those lambs go willingly to slaughter in hopes of becoming my duchess. I won’t have it.” And as for spies in his mistress’s house, Westhaven thought darkly… Ye gods. “Despite my father’s scheming, I will choose my own duchess, thank you very much. Did you bring up only one of these things?” He waved his last bite of muffin at her.

  “On the off chance that they were passably edible, I brought up two. A touch more butter?” She withdrew the second muffin from the linen lining a little basket at the side of the tray.

  He caught her eye, saw the humor in it, and found his own lips quirking.

  “Just a touch. And perhaps a spot more lemonade.”

  “You aren’t going to have me brought up on charges, are you?” She posed the question casually then frowned, as if it had come out of her mouth all unintended.

  “Oh, that’s a splendid notion,” the earl said as he accepted the second muffin. “Tell the whole world the Moreland heir was subdued by his housekeeper who thought he was trying to molest a chambermaid in his own home.”

  “Well, you were. And it wasn’t well done of you, my lord.”

  “Mrs. Seaton.” He glared down his nose at her. “I do not accost women under my protection. Her buttons were caught in the mesh of the screen, and she could not free herself. Nothing more.”

  “Her buttons…?” Her hand went to her mouth, and in her expression, Westhaven could see his explanation put a very different light on her conclusions. “My lord, I beg your pardon.”

  “I’ll mend, Mrs. Seaton.” He almost smiled at her distress. “Next time, a simple ‘My lord, what are you about?’ might spare us both a great lot of indignity.” He handed her his glass. “I will have my revenge, though.”

  “You will?”

  “I will. I make a terrible patient.”

  Anna was dozing off after dark when she heard the earl call her from the other room.

  “My lord?”

  “In here, and I will not shout in my own home for the attention of my own staff.”

  Oh, he was going to make a perfectly insufferable duke, she fumed as she got to her feet and crossed to his bedroom. “What can I do for you?” she asked as pleasantly as she could.

  “I am loathe to attempt the use of pen and ink while recumbent,” he said, peering at her over wire-rimmed spectacles. “If you’d please fetch the lap desk and attend me?”

  “Of course.” Anna disappeared into the sitting room to retrieve the lap desk, but returned to the bed only to realize there was no chair for her to sit upon.

  “The end of the bed will do.” The earl gestured impatiently. Anna permitted herself to toss him a peevish look—a very peevish look, given the impropriety—but scuffed out of her slippers and climbed on the bed to sit cross-legged, her back against a bedpost.

  “You are literate?” the earl asked, inspecting her again over his glasses.

  “In French, English, and Latin, with a smattering of German, Gaelic, Welsh, and Italian.”

  His eyebrows rose momentarily at her tart reply, but he gave her a minute to get settled then began to slowly recite a memorandum to one of his land stewards, commending the man for progress made toward a sizeable crop of hay and suggesting irrigation ditches become a priority while the corn was maturing.

  Another letter dealt with port sent to Morelands at the duke’s request.

  Yet another went to the widow of a man who’d held the living at one of the estate villages, expressing sorrow for her loss. And so it went, until a sizeable stack of correspondence was completed and the hour approaching midnight.

  “Are you tired, Mrs. Seaton?” the earl asked as Anna paused to trim the pen.

  “Serving as amanuensis is not that taxing, my lord,” she said, and it hadn’t been. His voice was beautiful, a mellifluous baritone that lost its habitual hauteur when he was concentrating on communication, leaving crisp consonants and round, plummy vowels redolent of education and good, prosperous breeding.

  “Would that my man of business were so gracious,” the earl said. “If you are not fatigued, then perhaps I can trouble you to fetch some libation from the kitchen. Speaking at such length tires the voice, or I wouldn’t ask it.”

&nbs
p; “Is there anything else I could get you from the kitchen?” she asked, setting the desk on the night table.

  “Perhaps one of those muffins,” he allowed. “My digestion is tentative, but the last one stayed down easily enough.”

  “The last two,” she said over her shoulder.

  He let her have the last word—or two—and also let himself enjoy the sight of her retreating backside again. He’d put her age well below thirty. The Corsican’s years of mischief had left a record crop of widows in many lands, perhaps including his housekeeper.

  And more than just young, he was seeing for the first time that she was pretty. Oh, she didn’t emphasize it, no sane woman in service would. But to the earl’s discerning eye, her drab gowns hid a marvelous figure, one enforced proximity had made all too apparent to him. Her hair was a lustrous shade of dark brown, shot with red and gold highlights, and her eyes a soft, luminous gray. The cast of her features was slightly exotic—Eastern, Mediterranean, or even Gypsy. She was the antithesis of his mistress, a petite, blond, blue-eyed woman who circulated easily on the fringes of polite society.

  He wondered on a frown why he’d chosen a diminutive woman for his intimate attentions, as tall women fit him better. But then, finding a mistress of any description was no easy feat. Given his station, the earl was unwilling to frequent brothels. He was equally loathe to take his chances on the willing widows, knowing they would trap him in marriage just as quickly as their younger counterparts would.

  So that left him with Elise, at least when she was in Town.

  Still frowning, he picked up an epistle from his brother, who was standing guard at Morelands while the duke and duchess enjoyed a two-week holiday there. Valentine was happiest in the country, playing his piano at all hours and riding the countryside.

  The man was no fribble, though, and he’d appended a little postscript to his report: “The land you rent on Tambray is being ploughed, if not planted, by Renfrew in your absence. One wonders to whom the harvest will fall.”

  Elise’s rented house was on Tambray Street, and Baron Renfrew was one of those fun-loving, randy young lords the ladies doted on. Well, let Elise have her fun, the earl mused, as his arrangement with her was practical. When they were both in Town, he expected her to be available to him by appointment; otherwise, she was free to disport where she pleased, as was he.

  If he had the time—and the inclination—which, lately anyway, he did not.

  “Your drink, my lord.” Mrs. Seaton placed a tray on the foot of the bed and held a glass out for him.

  He glanced at the tray then regarded her thoughtfully. “I believe it might be more comfortable on the balcony, Mrs. Seaton.”

  “As you wish, my lord.” She set the glass back on the tray, opened the French doors, and shifted to stand beside his bed. Carefully, he levered himself over to the side of the bed and waited for her to sit beside him and slip an arm around his waist.

  “What is that scent?” he asked, pausing when she would have risen.

  “I make my own,” she said, glancing over at him. “Mostly lavender, with a few other notes. It turned out particularly well this year, I think.”

  He leaned in and sniffed at her, assessing.

  “Lavender and something sweet,” he decided, ignoring the presumptuousness of his gesture. “Lilies?”

  “Perhaps.” Mrs. Seaton was blushing, her gaze on her lap. “The details will shift, depending on one’s sense of smell, and also with the ambient scents.”

  “You mean with what I’m wearing? Hadn’t thought of that. Hmm.”

  He gave her another little sniff then squared his shoulders to rise. To his unending disgust, he had to steady himself momentarily on his housekeeper’s shoulder. “Proceed,” he said when his head had stopped swimming. They were soon out in the silky summer darkness of his balcony.

  “Honeysuckle,” he said, apropos of nothing but the night air.

  “There is some of that,” Mrs. Seaton said as they closed in on a padded wicker chaise. His balcony overlooked the back gardens, and a soft breeze was stirring the scents from the flowers below.

  “Sit with me,” the earl said as he settled onto the chaise. Mrs. Seaton paused in her retreat, and something in her posture alerted him to his overuse of the imperative. “Please,” he added, unable to keep a hint of amusement from his tone.

  “You were not born to service,” the earl surmised as his housekeeper took a seat on a wicker rocking chair.

  “Minor gentry,” she concurred. “Very minor.”

  “Brothers and sisters?”

  “A younger sister and an older brother. Your lemonade, my lord?”

  “Please,” he replied, recalling he’d sent her down two flights in the dark of night to fetch it.

  But it was a moonless night and dark as pitch on the balcony, so when Mrs. Seaton retrieved the drink, she reached for his fingers with her free hand and wrapped his grip around the glass.

  “You are warm,” she said, a frown in her voice. She reached out again, no doubt expecting to put the back of her hand against his forehead but instead connecting with his cheek. “I beg your pardon.” She snatched back her hand. “Do you think you are becoming fevered?”

  “I am not,” he replied tersely, setting down his drink. He reached for her hand and brought it to his forehead. “No warmer than the circumstances dictate.”

  He felt—or thought he felt—her fingers smooth back his hair before she resumed her seat. The gesture was no doubt intended as maternal, and it was likely Elise’s protracted absence that had him experiencing it as something much less innocent.

  “How is your head, my lord?”

  “Hurts like blue blazes. My back is on fire, and I won’t be wrestling my chestnut geldings any time soon, either. You pack quite a wallop, considering the worst I could have done in broad daylight was perhaps grope the girl.”

  This recitation inspired his housekeeper to a very quiet yawn.

  “Is my company that tiresome, Mrs. Seaton?” He wasn’t offended, but neither had he intended his tone to come out sounding so wistful.

  “My day is long in your service, my lord. We do a big market on Wednesday, and Cook and I spend much of the day laying it in, as the men aren’t underfoot to bother us.”

  “So you are tired,” he concluded. “Go rest, Mrs. Seaton. The settee in my sitting room will do, and I’ll call when I need your assistance.” She rose but hesitated, as if filling her sails for a lecture about propriety and decency and other virtues known mostly to domestics.

  “Go, Mrs. Seaton,” he urged. “I treasure my solitude, and I have much to think about. I will not fall asleep out here, and you need to at least nap. Were you anybody but my housekeeper, you’d know the Earl of Westhaven has no need to bother his help.”

  That must have appeased her or spiked her guns, for she departed, leaving Westhaven to sip his tea and enjoy his thoughts.

  Her scent, he reflected, blended beautifully with the summer night air. It made a man want to nibble on her, to see if she tasted of lavender, roses, and honeysuckle. He cast back, trying to recall when he’d hired the pretty, younger-than-she-should-be, more-protective-than-she-needed-to-be, Mrs. Seaton. Early spring, perhaps, when he’d made the decision to leave the ducal townhouse, lest he strangle his dear papa and the endless parade of shirttail cousins his mama trooped past him for consideration as his broodmare.

  The whole business was demeaning. He understood his parents, having lost two sons, were desperate for progeny from their two remaining legitimate sons. He understood Val affected a preference for men—at least he claimed it was an affectation—rather than suffer the duke’s importuning. He understood Devlin would be years recovering from Waterloo and the Peninsular War.

  He did not understand though, how—given that the ducal responsibilities took every spare hour and minute—he was going to find the time to locate a woman he could tolerate not just in his bed but as the mother of his children and his companion at the breakfast t
able.

  “Westhaven!” Elise flew across her sitting room, arms outstretched to envelope him in an enthusiastic hug. “Did you miss me?” She squeezed him to her ample bosom and kissed his cheek. “I have expired for lack of you, Westhaven.” She kept her hands wrapped around his arm, pressing her breast to his bicep as she did. “A month is too long, isn’t it? I’m sure you were very naughty in my absence, but I’m here now, and you needn’t go baying at the moon for lack of me.”

  She was tugging at his clothing, her mouth chattering on, and Westhaven knew a moment’s impatience. Desire was a bodily craving, like fatigue or hunger or physical restlessness. He tended to it, usually twice a week, sometimes more, and lately less. It had been mildly alarming to find Elise’s departure for a month-long house party had inconvenienced him not one bit.

  But she was back, and it had been a month, and his clothes were rapidly accumulating in a pile on the floor.

  “Elise,” he said, stilling her hands, “you know I don’t like to be untidy.”

  “But you do like to be naked,” Elise quipped, bending to scoop up his shirt, waistcoat, and cravat. She dumped them over the back of a chair and pushed him onto her fainting couch, the better to extricate him from his boots. “And I like to get you naked.” Like a small, blond fury, Elise finished peeling him out of his clothes, showing an enthusiasm he didn’t usually find in her.

  “You’ve added flesh,” she observed when she’d thrown his breeches onto the chair, as well. “You aren’t as skinny, Westhaven. Oh, and look, you are glad to see me.”

  His cock was glad to see her, anyway. Glad enough that when she pushed him onto his back on her silly red bed, he could concede a month of celibacy had been enough.

  “Let me taste you.” Elise was still in her dressing gown, but she climbed onto the bed and knelt at his hip.