Ethan: Lord of Scandals

No, not with him, for him.

“You enjoyed people,” Nick said. “You joked with the stable boys, flirted with the dairymaids. The little girls wanted you to read them their stories and braid their hair and check under their beds at night. You beat Papa at cribbage and led me into one silly prank after another. And now…”

“Now?”

“You accomplish a great deal,” Nick said in exasperation. “You may not write to your brother but once in seven years, but you accomplish a lot. You’ll take your boys cubbing so they learn their manners, but you don’t call on your neighbors, nor they on you. You’re a good-looking, wealthy widower, but you won’t stand up at the assemblies. You probably make more money year by year, but you couldn’t be bothered to tell me you were married, much less widowed, much less a father twice over. What happened, Ethan? What on earth happened to you?”

Nick’s tone was so bewildered, Ethan couldn’t have been offended if he’d wanted to be, and he did not want to be.

Nor would he tell Nick what had happened. Not ever. For his own sake, but equally for Nicholas’s sake.

“I grew up, Nick. It wasn’t my choice, entirely, but I’m doing the best I can with it.”

“Is this how you felt about me, when all the wild talk circulated about my womanizing?”

Ethan pursed his lips. “Felt how?”

“Like some strange man was using your brother’s name,” Nick said. “Doing things your brother wouldn’t, and saying things he’d never dream of uttering?”

“No.” Was that how Nick felt? “I worried, Nick. That much carrying on isn’t about having the occasional recreational tumble.”

“It wasn’t.” Nick scrubbed a hand over his face. “How did we ever get onto such gloomy topics?”

“You are disappointed in me,” Ethan suggested gently. “I am socially backward, reclusive, and much preoccupied with my commerce.”

“And all of that”—Nick waved his big hand again—“would be of no moment, Ethan, but are you happy?”

Ethan had stopped asking himself this question at the age of fourteen. It had no bearing on anything.

“Happiness is a luxury,” Ethan said, staring at his empty glass. “If it comes to pass, it should be appreciated, but life doesn’t owe us happiness. I am content, Nick, and much less unhappy than I was when Barbara was alive. If that makes me evil, then so be it. Before she died, we learned what it meant to hate each other, though fortunately that was not the last page of our dealings. I did not marry well, and you did. Can we leave it at that?”

“For now.” Nick looked mightily disgruntled at the idea. “It isn’t that simple.”

“No,” Ethan agreed, rising, “it isn’t, but you are my first houseguest in the seven years I’ve been here, and I am not inclined to spend your afternoon rehashing ancient history. How long can you stay?”

“Miller mentioned that George might be out this way,” Nick said, getting to his feet.

“I’ve invited him and Adolphus both. We’ll see if he accepts.”

“Let’s say I’ll head back to Kent on Thursday morning. My business in London is done, and if I can spend time with George, I’ll consider my travels a success.”

“You may already consider your travels a success,” Ethan said, pausing with the pitcher in one hand and the wine bottle in the other. “I am glad you’re here, Nick.”

“I’m glad to be here.” His tone and his expression suggested this was not an entirely genuine sentiment.

Ethan set his burdens on the counter. As younger men, they might have settled this—whatever this was—with a round of fisticuffs. “I know you mean well, Nicholas, but please bear in mind, I am not you, and I am not the affable, innocent boy with whom you shared your childhood.”

This was an understatement the proportions of which defied description. Ethan wasn’t going to tell Nick that, either.

Nick sidled along the counter and hooked a beefy arm around his brother’s shoulders. “You are my brother, and if you are not happy, it’s hard for me to be happy.”

“We aren’t boys anymore.” Ethan wanted to pull away, but that would hurt Nick’s feelings. “You can’t create happiness out of a long summer afternoon, two boys, bare feet, and a cold stream.”

Nick didn’t say anything. He just put his other arm around Ethan and hugged him until Ethan stepped back and resumed tidying up their lunch.

* * *

“It’s Sunday,” Ethan said as he crossed the threshold to Alice’s room. “You cannot be working, Alice.”

“Says who?” Alice put down her pen and capped her inkwell. Why was it that Ethan Grey in riding breeches, boots, and waistcoat looked handsomer than any man she’d laid eyes on? His sleeves were rolled back to the elbow, exposing tan muscle dusted with golden hair. She wanted to lay her cheek against that forearm, taste the strength in his wrists.

“Almighty God gave us the example of resting on the Sabbath.” Ethan ambled over to her escritoire and peered over her shoulder. “Because I am the almighty lord of this property, I condone the notion. What are you about?”

“Making a list of Latin aphorisms,” Alice said as Ethan leaned over and scanned her work. Her imagination suggested he inhaled through his nose, but then, so had she.

“Why do you laugh?” Ethan quoted. “Change the name and the same can be said of you.”

“That one’s too long, though your boys do a great deal of laughing.”

“More lately.” He remained half-bent over her while Alice tried to lecture herself into ignoring him. “This is an interesting collection, Alice Portman. Is Hazlit’s Latin as facile?”

Ethan straightened and crossed to sit on her bed. The door was open, and nobody was about, but still, sitting on her bed was intimate, and Alice liked the look of him there—heaven help her.

“It is not, and neither is Vim’s.”

“What of your sister, the one you haven’t seen for five years?”

“Avis.” Alice’s smile dimmed. “She was neither a bluestocking nor given to competing with our brothers.” She did, however, run the entire estate of Blessings so their brothers could lark about all over the realm.

Ethan ran a hand over her pillow, and Alice’s insides became muddled. Just like that, drat him. “Have you made up your mind about going to visit her?”

“You were serious when you said I might?”

He did it again—ran his palm over the linen and wreaked havoc with Alice’s composure. “We can agree, I think, I am generally serious.”

Not as serious as he wanted people to think. “I’ve written to Avis, suggesting she might come south, and I could come north, and we’d meet in the Midlands, but there hasn’t been time for a reply.”

Another stroke over her pillow, over the very spot where she laid her head. “Can’t your brother send one of his famous pigeons? He must have some flying between Blessings and his southern residence.”

“I hadn’t considered Benjamin’s pigeons. Even if he has such, they can carry only very brief messages.”

He rose and turned to smooth over the covers where he’d sat, and the back of him was no less unsettling to look upon than the front. “You should send such an invitation. I am here, in fact, to issue a summons to you.”

“To me?” Alice tidied her papers and set her pen in its stand. “It’s Sunday. One may not be summoned.”

“Nicholas has taken it into his head to make muffins and has asked you to attend him and the boys in the kitchen.”

Alice rose, relieved—truly and honestly relieved—to be getting Ethan out of her bedroom. “If I have to go, then you have to as well.”

“Nick didn’t include me on the writ,” Ethan said as they made their way down the back stairs. “You are female, so he assumes you will know where things go in the kitchen.”

“I avoid the kitchen. Your cook is a cantankerous and territorial old dame. Mrs. Buxton made it clear Cook is not to be trifled with.”

“Valid point, but Cook also consumes a fair amount of the cooking sherry and takes her Sundays off to heart.” Ethan lowered his voice and bent near as they walked along. “I think she has a follower.”

“Or a drinking companion.”