his fingers aside and put both hands on his shoulders.
“Steady on.” She looked him right in the eye. “It’s only a silly committee, and you need only leave a bank draft then be about your day. How elegant do you want to look?”
“I want to look as plain as I can without being a Quaker,” the earl said. “My father loves this sort of thing, back-slapping, trading stories, and haggling politics.”
Anna finished a simple, elegant knot and took the stickpin from the earl’s hand. “Once again, you find yourself doing that which you do not enjoy, because it is your duty. Quizzing glass?”
“No. I do put a pair of spectacles on a fob.”
“How many fobs, and do you carry a watch?” Anna found a pair of spectacles on the escritoire and waited while the earl sorted through his collection of fobs. He presented her with one simple gold chain.
“I do not carry a time piece to Carlton House,” he explained, “for it serves only to reinforce how many hours I am wasting on the Regent’s business.” Anna bent to thread the chain through the buttonhole of his waistcoat and tucked the glasses into his watch pocket, giving the earl’s tummy a little pat when the chain was hanging just so across his middle.
“Will I do?” the earl asked, smiling at her proprietary gesture.
“Not without a coat, you won’t, though in this heat, no one would censor you for simply carrying it until you arrived at your destination.”
“Coat.” The earl scowled, looking perplexed.
“On the clothespress,” Anna said, shaking her head in amusement.
“So it is.” The earl nodded, but his eyes were on Anna. “It appears you’ve put me to rights, Anna Seaton, my thanks.”
He bent and kissed her cheek, a gesture so startling in its spontaneity and simple affection, she could only stand speechless as the earl whisked his coat across his arm and strode from his room. The door slammed shut behind him as he yelled for Lord Valentine to meet him in the mews immediately or suffer a walk in the afternoon’s heat.
Dumbstruck, Anna sat on the stool the earl had used for his trimming. He had a backward sort of charm to him, Anna thought, her fingers drifting over her cheek. After four days of barking orders, hurling thunderbolts, and scribbling lists at her in Tolliver’s absence, he thanked her with a lovely little kiss.
She should have chided him—might have, if he’d held still long enough—but he’d caught her unawares, just as when he’d frowned at her hand and seen she had no wedding ring.
Her pleasure at the earl’s kiss evaporating, Anna looked at her left hand. Why hadn’t she thought of this detail, for pity’s sake? Dress the part, she reminded herself.
She hung up some discarded ensembles of court-worthy attire, straightened up both the escritoire and the earl’s bureau, which looked as if a strong wind had blown all into disarray. When she opened his wardrobe, she unashamedly leaned in and took a big whiff of the expensive, masculine scent of him while running her hand along the sleeve of a finely tailored dark green riding jacket.
He was a handsome man, but he was also a very astute man, one who would continue to spot details and put together facts, until he began to see through her to the lies and deceptions. Before then, of course, she would be gone.
When he finally returned to his townhouse that evening, the earl handed his hat, gloves, and cane to a footman then made his way through the dark house to the kitchens, wanting nothing so much as a tall, cold glass of sweetened lemonade. He could summon a servant to fetch it but was too restless and keyed up to wait.
“My lord?” Mrs. Seaton sat at the long wooden table in the kitchen, shelling peas into a wooden bowl, but stood as he entered the room.
“Don’t get up. I’m only here to filch myself some cold lemonade.”
“Lord Valentine sent word you’d both be missing dinner.” She went to the dry sink and retrieved the pitcher. The earl rummaged in the cupboards and found two glasses, which he set down on the table. Anna glanced at him curiously but filled both, then brought the sugar bowl to the table.
Westhaven watched her as she stirred sugar into his glass, his eyebrows rising in consternation.
“I take that much sugar?”
Anna put the lid back on the sugar bowl. “Either that, or you curse and make odd faces and scowl thunderously at all and sundry.” She pushed his glass over to him, and took a sip out of hers.
“You don’t put any in yours?” he asked, taking a satisfying swallow of his own. God above, he’d been craving this exact cold, sweet, bracing libation.
“I’ve learned not to use much,” Anna said, sipping again. “Sugar is dear.”
“Here.” He held up his glass. “If you enjoy it, then you should have it.”
Anna leaned back against the sink and eyed him. “And where is that sentiment in application to yourself?”
He blinked and cocked his head. “It’s too late in the day for philosophical digressions.”
“Have you even eaten, my lord?”
“It appears I have not.”
“Well, that much of the world’s injustices I can remedy,” she said as she rinsed their glasses. “If you’d like to go change out of those clothes, I can bring you up a tray in a few minutes.”
“If you would just get me out of this damned cravat?” He went to stand near her at the sink, waiting while she dried her hands on a towel then nudged his chin up.
“The cravat is still spotless,” she informed him, wiggling at the clasp on the stickpin, “though your beautiful shirt is a trifle dusty and wilted. Hold
He obligingly sat on the long bench at the table, chin up.
“That’s it,” she said, freeing the stickpin and peering at it. “You should have a jeweler look at this.” She set it on the table as her fingers went to the knot of his neckcloth. “There.” She loosened the knot until the ends were trailing around his neck, and a load of weariness abruptly intensified low down, in his gut, where sheer exhaustion could weight a man into immobility. He leaned in, his temple against her waist in a gesture reminiscent of when she tended his scalp wound.
“Lord Westhaven?” Her hand came down to rest on his nape, then withdrew, then settled on him again. He knew he should move but didn’t until she stroked a hand over the back of his head. God in heaven, what was he about? And with his housekeeper, no less. He pushed to his feet and met her eyes.
“Apologies, Mrs. Seaton. A tray would be appreciated.”
Anna watched him go, thinking she’d never seen him looking quite so worn and drawn. His day had been trying, it seemed, but it struck her that more than the challenge of a single meeting at Carlton House, what likely bothered him was the prospect of years of such meetings.
When she knocked on his door, there was no immediate response, so she knocked again and heard a muffled command of some sort. She balanced the tray and pushed open the door, only to find the earl was not in his sitting room.
“In here,” the earl called from the bedroom. He was in a silk dressing gown and some kind of loose pajama pants, standing at the French doors to his balcony.
“Shall I put it outside?”
“Please.” He opened the door and took half a step back, allowing Anna just enough room to pass before him. “Will you join me?” He followed her out and closed the door behind him.
“I can sit for a few minutes,” Anna replied, eyeing the closed door meaningfully.
If he picked up on her displeasure, he ignored it. Anna suspected he was too preoccupied with the thought of sustenance to understand her concern, though, so she tried to dismiss it, as well.
He was just in want of company at the end of a trying day.
He took the tray and set it on a low table then dragged the chaise next to it. “How is it you always know exactly what to put on a tray and how to arrange it, so a man finds his appetite perfectly satisfied?”
“When you are raised by a man who loves flowers,” Anna said, “you develop an eye for what is pleasing and for how to please him.”
“Was he an old martinet, your grandfather?” the earl asked, fashioning himself a sandwich.
