excuse me?”
“I will not,” St. Just replied. He emphasized his response by putting a hand on Anna’s arm. She met his eyes, looked pointedly down at his hand, and back up at his face, arching a brow in question.
“You need not like me,” Anna said, “but you will respect me.”
“Or what, Anna Seaton?” He leaned in, giving Anna a hint of his aftershave, a minty scent with a blend of meadow flowers. Anna went still, knowing if she made a fuss, the earl would appear, likely with his mother at his side.
“You are not a bully, Colonel, whatever else may trouble you.”
He stepped back, frowning.
“You aggravate me, Mrs. Seaton,” he said at length. “I want to assure myself you are a scheming, selfish, vapid little tramp with airs above your station, but the assurance just won’t ring true.”
Anna flashed him a look of consternation. “Why on earth would you attempt to make such a nasty prejudgment? You yourself have no doubt been subject to just the same sort of close mindedness.”
“Now, see?” St. Just almost smiled. “That’s what I mean. You don’t bother to deny the labels, you just hand them back to me in a neat, tidy little package of subtle castigation. Perhaps I’m only wishing you were venal, so I might poach on my brother’s preserves with moral impunity.”
“You would not poach on your brother’s preserves,” Anna said, beginning to see how much of the man was a particularly well-aimed type of bluster. “You are not as wicked as you want the world to think, sir.”
“Happens”—he did smile—“I am not, but it also happens you are not just the simple, devoted housekeeper you would have the world think you are, either.”
“My past is my own business. Now have you business with me, Colonel, or are you being gratuitously unpleasant?”
“Business,” he said shortly. “You have rightly surmised I brood and paw and snort at times for show, Mrs. Seaton. It keeps His Grace from getting ideas, for one thing. But make no mistake on this point: I will defend my brother’s interests without exception or scruple. If I find you are playing him false in any sense or trifling with him, I will become your worst enemy.”
Anna smiled at him thinly. “Do you think he’d appreciate these threats you make to his housekeeper?”
“He might understand them,” St. Just said. “For the other message I have to convey to you is that to the extent you matter to my brother, you matter to me. If he decides he values you in his life, then I will also defend
“What is it you are saying?”
“You are a woman with troubles, Anna Seaton. You have no past anyone in this household knows of, you have no people you’ll admit to, you have the airs and graces of a well-born lady, but you labor for your bread instead. I’ve seen you conferring with Morgan, and I know you have something to hide.”
Anna raised her chin and speared him with a look. “Everybody has something to hide.”
“You have a choice, Anna,” St. Just said, her given name falling from his lips with surprising gentleness. “You either trust the earl to resolve your troubles, or you leave him in peace. He’s too good a man to be exploited by somebody under his own roof. He’s had that at the hands of his own father, and I won’t stand for it from you.”
Anna hefted her basket and flashed St. Just a cold smile. “Like the duke, you’ll wade in, bully and intimidate, and jump to conclusions regarding Westhaven’s life, telling yourself all the while you do it because you love him, when in fact, you haven’t the first notion how to really go about caring for the man. Very impressive—if one wants proof of your patrimony.”
She bobbed him a curtsy with fine irony and walked off, her skirts twitching with her irritation.
As he pasted the requisite smile on his face and went in to breakfast, St. Just reflected he hadn’t been wrong: Anna Seaton had secrets; she’d all but acknowledged it.
But his approach had been wrong. A woman who attached Westhaven’s interest was going to have backbone to spare. He should not have threatened; he should not have, to use her word, bullied. Well, that could be remedied just as soon as he got through breakfast with Her Grace.
“You are quiet,” the earl remarked as they tooled along toward Willow Bend.
“If I am quiet enough, I can fool myself into thinking I am still abed, dreaming on my nice cool sheets.” Dreaming of him, most nights.
“Am I working you too hard?” the earl asked, glancing over.
“You are not. The heat can disturb one’s rest.”
“Are my brothers behaving? Dev is tidy, but Val can be a slob.”
“Lord Val’s only crime is that he commandeers Morgan for a couple of hours each afternoon and lets her join him in the music room while he works on his repertoire.”
“You can trust Val to be a gentleman with her.”
“And can I trust you to be a gentleman?”
“You can trust me,” the earl replied, “to stop when you tell me to, to never intentionally hurt you, to listen before I judge, and to tell you the truth as far as I know it. Will that do?” It was all he was going to give her, but Anna reflected on how much more he offered than other men in her life were willing to.
“It will do.” It would have to.
He turned the conversation to the practicalities of the situation at Willow Bend. There was a temporary crew of day laborers on hand from the local village, and they’d been busily moving furniture, hanging drapes, unpacking the crates of linens and flatware. The scene was very different from their previous visit to the place, with wagons, people, and noise everywhere.
A young boy emerged from the stables to take Pericles, and the earl escorted Anna to the front door.
“I want you to see it the way my sister might,” he said, “not as the servants and tradesmen do. So…” He opened the front door, and led her through. “Welcome to Willow Bend, Mrs. Seaton.”
She appreciated the public nature of the greeting and appreciated even more that there was a public on hand to witness it. Carpenters, glaziers, laborers, and apprentices were bustling to and fro; hammers banged, the occasional yell sounded above stairs, and boys were scurrying everywhere with tools and supplies.
“Yer lordship!” A stocky man of medium height made his way to their side.
“Mr. Albertson, our pleasure. Mrs. Seaton, my foreman here, Allen Albertson. Mr. Albertson, Mrs. Seaton is the lady in charge of putting the finishing touches on all your work.”
“Ma’am.” Albertson smiled and tugged his forelock. “You been finishing the daylights out of this place, if I do say so. Where shall we start, milord?”
“Ma’am?” The earl turned to her, his deference bringing an inconvenient blush to her cheeks.
“The kitchen,” Anna said. “It’s the first room you’ll want functional and a very important room to people both upstairs and below.”
“To the kitchen, Mr. Albertson.” Westhaven waved a hand and offered Anna his arm.
Room by room, floor by floor, they toured the house. Shelves that had been bare now held neat rows of cups and glasses, or stacks of dishes, toweling, table linen, and candles. Anna asked that the spice rack be moved closer to the work table and suggested a bench be added along the inside kitchen wall. She had a bench put into the back hallway, as well, and a pegged board nailed to the wall for jackets, capes, and coats.
“You need a boot scrape, too,” she pointed out, “since this is the entrance closest to the stables and gardens.”
“You will make a note, Mr. Albertson?” the earl prompted.
“Aye.” Albertson nodded, rolling his eyes good-naturedly to show what he thought of feminine notions.
They went on through the house as the morning got under way, finding a set of drapes needing to be switched, some tables that had ended up in the wrong parlors, and a pair of carpets that should have gone in opposite bedrooms. In the music room, she had the harp covered and the piano’s lid closed.
“You may leave us now, Mr. Albertson,” Westhaven said as they approached the last bedroom. “I take it the men will soon break for their nooning?”
“They will. It be getting too hot to do the heavy work, but we’ll be back when it cools. Ma’am.” He bowed and took his leave, bellowing for the water dipper before he’d gained the stairs.
“He may lack a certain subtlety,” the earl said, “but he’s honest, and he’s getting the job done.”
“And a lovely job it is,” Anna said. “The place is looking wonderful.”
