“You deserve more than to be tolerated for a few hours a week in exchange for parting with your coin. Any good man does.”
“Your sentiments are appreciated,” the earl said, amusement back in his tone. “Shall we see what we can find in that hamper you brought? The thing weighed a ton, which is good, as my appetite is making itself known.”
Topic closed, subject
“We’ll need the blanket from the gig, I think,” Anna said, willing to drop the discussion of his former mistress. “I saw no dining table nor much in the way of chairs inside.”
“I gather the matched sets and so forth were auctioned this spring,” the earl said, tugging Anna to her feet. “What do you think of the place so far?”
“It’s pretty, peaceful, and not too far from Town. So far I love it, but who are your neighbors?”
“Now that is not something I would have considered, except that you raise it, and to a widow, such a thing would matter. I will make inquiries, though I know my niece dwells less than three miles farther up the road we came in on.”
“Her aunt would like that, I’m sure, being close to Rose,” Anna said as they walked back into the kitchen.
“Rose wouldn’t mind, either. She gets on with everybody, even His Grace.”
“You see him only as a father. As a grandpapa, he may be different.”
They retrieved the blankets—two of them—and strolled through the lawns toward the spot for which the property was named, a grassy little knoll overlooking a wide, slow stream. Weeping willows grew on both banks, their branches trailing into the slow-moving water and giving the little space a private, magical quality.
“Perfect for wading,” Anna said. “Will you be scandalized?”
“Not if you don’t mind my disrobing to swim,” the earl replied evenly.
“Naughty man. I bet you and your brothers did your share of that, growing up at Morelands.”
“We did.” The earl unfolded a blanket and flapped it out onto a shady patch of ground. “Morelands has grown, generation by generation, to the point where it’s tens of thousands of acres, complete with ponds, streams, and even a waterfall. I learned to hunt, fish, swim, ride, and more just rambling around with my brothers.”
“It sounds idyllic.”
“So where did you grow up, Anna?” The earl sat down on the blanket. “You aren’t going to loom over me, are you?”
Anna folded to the blanket beside him, realizing how vague her notion of the day had been. A few kisses, a tour of the property, and back to the realities of their lives at the townhouse. She hadn’t considered they would talk and talk and talk, nor that she would enjoy that as much as the kissing.
“Hand me the hamper,” she ordered. “I will make us up plates. There is lemonade and wine, both.”
“Heaven forefend! Wine on a weekday before noon, Mrs. Seaton?”
“I love a good cold white,” Anna admitted, “and a hearty red.”
“I hope you put some of what you love in that hamper. This is a long way to come for bannocks.”
“Not burned bannocks, please,” she said, pawing carefully through the hamper. When she finished, Westhaven was presented with sliced strawberries, cheese, buttered slices of bread, cold chicken, and two pieces of marzipan.
“And what have we here?” The earl peered into the hamper and extracted a tall bottle. “Champagne?”
“What?” Anna looked up. “I didn’t put that in there.”
“I detect the subtle hand of Nanny Fran. A glass, if you please.”
Anna obligingly held the glass while the earl popped the cork. She shamelessly sipped the fizzy overflow and held the glass out to him. He drank without taking the glass into his own hand and smiled at her.
“That will do,” he declared. “For a hot summer day, it will do splendidly.”
“Then you can pour me a glass, as well.”
“As you wish,” he replied, accommodating her order and filling a glass for himself, too. To Anna’s surprise, before either drinking or diving into his meal, the earl paused to wrench off his boots and stockings.
“I have it on good authority extreme heat is dangerous and one shouldn’t wear clothes unnecessarily, or so my footmen tell me when I catch them only half liveried.” He sipped at his wine, hiding what had to be a smile.
“I did not precisely tell them that, though it’s probably good advice.”
“So are you wearing drawers and petticoats?” the earl asked, waggling his eyebrows.
“No more champagne for you, if only two sips make you lost to all propriety.”
“You’re not wearing them,” he concluded, making himself a sandwich. “Sensible of you, as it seems even more oppressively hot today than yesterday.”
“It is warming up. It also looks to be clouding up.”
“More false hope.” He glanced at the sky. “I can’t recall a summer quite so brutal and early as this one. Seems we hardly had a real spring.”
“It’s better in the North. You get beastly winters there, but also a real spring, a tolerable summer, and a truly wonderful autumn.”
“So you were raised in the North.”
“I was. Right now, I miss it.”
“I miss Scotland right now, or Stockholm. But this food is superb and the company even better. More champagne?”
“I shouldn’t.” Her eyes strayed to the bottle, sweating in its linen napkin. “It is such a pleasant drink.”
The earl topped off both of their glasses. “This is a day for pleasant, not a day for shoulds and should nots, though I am thinking I should buy the place.”
“It is lovely. The only thing that gives me pause are the oaks along the lane. They will carpet the place with leaves come fall.”
“And the gardeners will rake them.” The earl shrugged. “Then the children can jump in the piles of leaves and scatter them all about again.”
“A sound plan. Are you going to eat those strawberries?”
The earl paused, considered his plate, and picked up a perfect red, juicy berry.
“I’ll share.” He held it out to her but withdrew it when Anna extended her hand. Sensing his intent, she sat back but held still as he brought it to her mouth. She bit down, then found as the sweet fruit flavor burst across her tongue that her champagne glass was pressed to her lips, as well.
“I really did not pack that champagne,” she said when she’d savored the wine.
“I did,” the earl confessed. “Nanny Fran is sworn to secrecy as my accomplice.”
“She adores you.” Anna smiled. “She has more stories about ‘her boys’ than you would recognize.”
“I know.” The earl lounged back, resting on his elbows. “When Bart died and she’d launch into a reminiscence, I used to have to leave the room, so angry was I at her. Now I look for the chance to get her going.”
“Grief changes. I recall as a child sitting for hours in my mother’s wardrobe after she died; that was where I could still smell her.”
“I recall you lost both parents quite young.”
“I was raised by my father’s father. He loved us as much as any parent could, probably more, because he’d lost his only son.”
“I am sorry, Anna. I’ve talked about losing two brothers, both during my adulthood, and I never considered that you have losses of your own.” He did not raise the issue of the departed Mr. Seaton, for which Anna was profoundly grateful.
“It was a long time ago,” Anna said. “My parents did not suffer. Their carriage careened down a muddy embankment, and their necks were broken. The poor horse, by contrast, had to wait hours to be shot.”
“Dear God.” The earl shuddered. “Were you in that carriage, as well?”
“I was not, though I often used to wish I had been.”
“Anna…” His tone was concerned, and she found it needful in that moment to study her empty wine glass.
“I have become maudlin by virtue of imbibing.”
