and enjoyed her company out of bed, a peculiar realization though not unwelcome. But his seduction would be complicated by her reticence, her infernal notions of decency.
For now, he could steal some delectable kisses—and perhaps more than kisses—while she found the resolve to refuse him altogether and send him packing.
He was lingering over his lemonade when Val wandered out looking sleepy and rumpled, shirt open at the throat and cuffs turned back.
“Ye gods, it is too hot to sleep.” He reached over and drained the last of his brother’s drink. “You do like it sweet.”
“Helps with my disposition. And as I did indeed have to deal with His Grace this morning, I feel entitled.”
“How bad was he?” Val asked as he sat and crossed his long legs at the ankle.
“Bad enough. Wanted to chat about the scene at Fairly’s but left yelling about grandchildren and disrespect.”
“Sounds about like your usual with him,” Val said as John Footman brought out a second tray, this one bearing something closer to breakfast.
“Mrs. S said to tell you this one is sweetened, my lord.” John set one glass before the earl. “And this one, less so,” he said as he placed the other before Val.
“I think she puts mint in it,” Val said after a long swallow.
“Mrs. Seaton?” the earl asked, sipping at his own drink. “Probably. She delights in all matters domestic.”
“And she did not appear to be delighting in you, when she was out here earlier.”
“Valentine.” The earl stared hard at his brother. “Were you spying on me?”
Val pointed straight up, to where the balcony of his bedroom overlooked the terrace. “I sleep on that balcony most nights,” he explained, “and you were not whispering. I, however, was sleeping and caught the tail end of an interesting exchange.”
The earl had the grace to study his drink at some silent length.
“Well?” He met his younger brother’s eyes, awaiting castigation.
“She is a decent woman, Westhaven, and if you trifle with her, she won’t be decent any longer, ever again. What is a fleeting pleasure for you changes her life irrevocably, and you can never, ever change it back. I am not sure you want that on your appallingly overactive conscience, as much as I applaud your improvement in taste.”
The earl swirled his drink and realized with a sinking feeling Val had gotten his graceful, talented hands on a truth.
“Maybe,” Val went on, “you should just marry the woman, hmm? You get on with her, you respect her, and if you marry her, she becomes a duchess. She could do worse, and it would appease Their Graces.”
“She would not like the duchess part.”
“You could make it worth her while,” Val said, his tone full of studied nonchalance.
“Listen to you. You would encourage me into the arms of a pox-ridden gin whore if it would result in His Grace getting a few grandsons.”
“No, I would not, or you wouldn’t have gotten that little postscript from me regarding Elise’s summer recreation, would you?”
The earl rose and regarded his brother. “You are a pestilential irritant of biblical proportions. If I do not turn out to be an exact replica of His Grace, it will be in part due to your aggravating influence.”
Val was grinning around a mouthful of muffin, but he nonetheless managed to reply intelligibly to his brother’s retreating back. “Love you, too.”
Anna wasn’t fooled. Since their confrontation over the lunch table earlier in the week, the earl had kept a distance, but it was a thoughtful distance. She’d caught him eyeing her as she watered the bouquets in his library, or rising to his feet when she entered a room. It was unnerving, like being stalked by a hungry tiger.
And as the week wore on, the heat became worse, with violent displays of lightning and thunder at night but no cooling rains to bring relief. The entire household was drinking cold tea, lemonade, and cold cider by the gallon, and livery was worn only at the front door. Everybody’s cuffs were turned back, collars were loosened, and petticoats were discarded.
Anna heard the front door slam and knew the earl had returned after a long afternoon in the City, transacting business of some sort. She assembled a tray and waited to hear which door above would slam next. She had to cock her head, because Valentine was playing his pianoforte. The music wasn’t loud, but rather dense with feeling, and not happy feeling at that.
“He misses our brothers,” the earl said from the kitchen doorway. “More than I realized, as, perhaps, do I.”
The music shifted and became dark, despairing, all the more convincingly so for being quiet. This wasn’t the passionate, bewildered grief of first loss; it was the grinding, desolate ache that followed. Anna’s own losses and grief rose up and threatened to swamp her, even as the earl moved into the kitchen and eyed the tray on the counter.
His eyes shifted back up just in time for Anna to be caught wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.
“Come.” He took her hand and led her to the table, sitting her down, passing her his handkerchief, fetching the tray, then taking the place beside her, hip to hip.
They listened for long moments, the cool of the kitchen cocooning them both in the beauty and pain of the music, and then Val’s playing shifted again, still sad but with a piercingly sweet lift of acceptance and peace to it. Death, his music seemed to say, was not the end, not when there was love.
“Your brother is a genius.”
The earl leaned back to rest his shoulder blades along the wall behind them. “A genius who likely only plays like this late at night among whores and strangers. He’s still a little lost with it.” He slipped his fingers through Anna’s and gently closed his hand. “As, I suppose, am I.”
“It has been less than a year?”
“It has. Victor asked that we observe only six months of full mourning, but my mother is still grieving deeply. I should have offered Valentine a bunk months ago.”
“He probably would not have come,” Anna said, turning their hands over to study his brown knuckles. “I think your brother needs a certain amount of solitude.”
“In that, he and I and Devlin are all alike.”
“Devlin is your half brother?” Ducal bastards were apparently an accepted reality, at least in the Windham family.
“He is.” Westhaven nodded, giving her back her hand. “Tea or cider or lemonade?”
“Any will do,” Anna said, noting that Val’s music was lighter now, still tender but sweetly wistful, the grief nowhere evident.
“Lemonade, then.” The earl sugared his, added a spoonful to Anna’s, and set it down before her. “You might as well drink it here with me, and I’ll tell you of my illustrious family.” He sat again, but more than their hips touched this time, as his whole side lay along hers, and Anna felt heat and weariness in his long frame. One by one, the earl described his siblings, both deceased and extant, legitimate and not.
“You speak of each of them with such affection,” Anna said. “It isn’t always so with siblings.”
“If I credit my parents with one thing,” the earl said, running his finger around the rim of his glass, “it is with making our family a real family. They didn’t send us boys off to school until we were fourteen or so, and then just so we could meet our form before we went to university. We were frightfully well educated, too, so there was no feeling inadequate before our peers. We did things all together, though it took a parade of coaches to move us hither and thither, but Dev and Maggie often went with us, particularly in the summer.”
“They are received, then?”
“Everywhere. Her Grace made it obvious that a virile young lord’s premarital indiscretions were not to be censored, and the die was cast. It helps that Devlin is charming, handsome, and independently wealthy, and Maggie is as pretty and well mannered as her sisters.”
“That would tend to encourage a few doors to open.”
“And what of you, Anna Seaton?” The earl cocked his head to regard her. “You have a brother and a sister,
