Ethan: Lord of Scandals

His voice told her he’d come closer. If he touched her again…

“I was crying, and then I plastered myself all over you, and I know men are prone to… well, no, we need not parse this quite yet.”

“Good. I really would not want to cause you hurt, Alice. If you’re offended, you must tell me, and I will take myself off to Town or go sea bathing or something until we can pretend this kiss did not happen.”

That he could pretend any such thing was lowering in the extreme. Alice reached for pride but found only rueful humor. “I don’t think a single unexpected kiss merits anything so drastic as sea bathing.”

She risked a glance at him to find he was smiling crookedly.

“No sea bathing then. Will you come inspect the battle with me?”

“I think not.” Alice tugged her floppy straw hat up from her back to her head. “Today is Friday, so we will have the children to join us at dinner. I will spend the afternoon writing out next week’s lesson plans, though, and hope we can proceed with a bit more structure starting Monday.”

“A little more,” Ethan said. “I don’t think the boys have had a real break here at home for at least a year, when I hired Harold’s predecessor.”

“They had a nanny before that?”

He looked pained, which was fine. Alice was pained, to be kissing him one minute and then find he was happy to discuss his children the next. While she wanted to… to climb him, to knock him flat on his back and kiss him for the rest of the summer.

“They had nannies.” He lifted a hand and traced his finger along her hairline. “You’ll be all right?”

Maybe he wasn’t so happy to discuss his children.

“I will be fine,” Alice said, going up on her toes to brush her lips against his. “Just fine.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything more. Alice turned and made her way up to the house and left Waterloo for Ethan to deal with.

* * *

Where did a governess learn to kiss like that?

Was this raging, pounding need what had driven Nick from one bed to the next with any willing female?

What if the boys had seen them?

What had he been thinking?

And when could he get his hands on her again?

Ethan did not turn directly for the stream, but took a circuitous path that kept to the shade of the home wood and took him farther from his children’s shouts and battle cries. He came to a clearing, one graced with a little gazebo, and sat himself down on the steps to consider the developments of the past hour.

What he wanted—besides the freedom to plunder his governess’s charms without any consequences—was to talk to his brother. Nick wouldn’t laugh, and he would understand, and if there were answers to be had from greater experience of women and intimacies with them, Nick would share the answers.

But Nick was far away, and Ethan had imposed on him enough for one summer.

God in heaven, what a lovely, lovely kiss.

Ethan’s steps took him to the Tydings stable, where he busied himself saddling one of his spare mounts. Waltzer was a big, muscular dark bay, with the personality of a puppy dog.

“He’ll be fresh,” Miller said. “Mind you walk him out in this heat, guv.”

“I’ll be careful,” Ethan replied, securing the girth. “I’m not out for any great feats of athleticism, but it’s been a trying day.”

“You didn’t let Thatcher go,” Miller said as he handed Ethan the bridle.

“I should have.” Ethan took off the headstall, and had to smile as the horse obligingly dipped his big Roman nose, trying to find the bit. “I shall, if you see him so much as forgetting to scrub a bucket.”

“Ponies are tough.”

Ethan straightened and glared at his stable master. “That pony carries my son around. Thunder doesn’t need to be tough. He needs to be the safest mount I can provide for Joshua, and that means no gratuitous beatings.”

“I take your point.”

Ethan didn’t say another word, just led the big horse out to the mounting block and swung up. With his usual willingness to please, Waltzer cantered off, only kicking out behind once when he passed a paddock full of yearlings.

Having permitted the horse to express his good spirits, Ethan brought him back to the trot and turned him into the woods along a track that met up with the stream. A bridle path ran parallel to the far side of the water, so Ethan let the horse splash across then turn away from the house and grounds toward the cool of the deeper woods. The path would take him past several of his neighbors’ properties, and by agreement, was available for the enjoyment of all whose land bordered it.

“Well met, Grey,” a voice sang out on an approaching chestnut.

“Heathgate.” Ethan drew up as his neighbor approached him. The chestnut was as handsome as all of Heathgate’s mounts, but this one was also particularly elegant.

“Is that a mare?”

“You think your brother is the only one who can appreciate the fairer sex in another species?” Heathgate asked. He still had the same gimlet-hard blue eyes he’d had as a younger man, the same dark hair, and an even leaner, more unreadable face. Oh, and for the last fifteen years or so, he’d sported his grandfather’s lofty title too. Ethan might not have chosen to settle at Tydings had he known Gareth Alexander would be one of his neighbors.

He owed the man, owed him for intervening long ago in a situation most would have quietly run from, and owed him even more for never once bringing it up.

“Nicholas hasn’t the luxury of considering gender before size, sanity, and soundness in his personal mounts,” Ethan said. “She’s very pretty.”

“She is.” Heathgate’s smile was fleeting as he patted the horse’s neck. “And a lady of particulars. How fare your boys?”

Parenting was a useful source of small talk, though Ethan had never appreciated this before. “They are busy. We’ve just come back from several weeks with Nicholas and his countess at Belle Maison, and picked up a new governess in the process. I have only two children, and yet it seems they cause enough mayhem and activity to bring the entire house down on occasion.”

“It gets easier,” Heathgate said. “My last one was easier than the first one, and thank the gods she’s a girl, because my marchioness was determined Lady Joyce have a sister.”

“Two will be my limit. Your family thrives?”

“Loudly. Hence the appeal of a quiet hack. Constantina here could use a chance to catch her breath on the way home.”

The words held a careful invitation. “I’ll join you,” Ethan said, because to do otherwise would be rude. He liked Heathgate, had liked him before his acquisition of his grandfather’s title. The marquis cared not one whit for Society’s opinion, and he’d married where his heart led, despite his wife being merely a viscount’s spinster daughter. There was really nothing not to like.

Except Heathgate had seen Ethan in the worst, most vile, degrading moments of Ethan’s life. The knowledge lay between them, assiduously ignored every time they met.

So… onward to more small talk.

“My sons have recently demonstrated to me their affinity for jumping their ponies,” Ethan said. “At a dead run.”

“Of course. They’re boys.”

“And thank God,” Ethan went on, “they’re on a pair of game ponies. But Joshua and Jeremiah will soon acquire more of my height, and I was thinking something from your brother’s stable might serve as a next step.”

“Ladies’ mounts? I suppose the principles are the same. Greymoor found my son James’s first pony, as well as Pen’s. You might corner Greymoor at a gathering of the clan at his place on Wednesday. I’m sure his countess would be happy to send along an invitation.”

And just like that, another turning point loomed before Ethan. He’d owned Tydings for seven years, and yet