“He was being protective, or so I tell myself.”

“He was being an ass,” Alice hissed, hand fisting. “If ever there’s a man who could protect himself from unwarranted advances, it’s your dear little brother, particularly by the time he was sixteen or seventeen years old.” She reined in her temper, since she had no business making such pronouncements. “With respect to French, I find the verbal nuances are better—”

Ethan stood quite near her, his expression amused. “You’re very fierce, Alice Portman. I wish the earl were alive so you might blister his ears with your observations.” He took her hand, and there in the lovely morning air, kissed her knuckles, as a knight might kiss the hand of a lady whose favor he wore into the lists.

This flummery provoked a blush and put all thoughts of primers to rout. “I am not fierce, Mr. Grey.”

He smiled at her, likely for resorting to more formal address. And oh, that smile sent common sense gamboling after the errant primers. He was a handsome man in any mood, but distant, reserved, and safe. When he smiled, all the warmth in him was briefly visible, all the dearness that made him fret for his children and for his younger brother.

Maybe even a little for a governess. “I am not fierce,” Alice said again, feeling an awkward confession looming far too closely.

“Will you elaborate on your supposed meekness, Miss Portman? I confess, my own conjectures cannot encompass such a flight.”

He drew her by the hand toward a wooden bench in the dappled shade, and when he seated her, he did not drop her hand. Maybe he sensed the confession as well.

“Nick once told me your youngest sister, Della, is prone to breathing spells.”

“She is.” He seemed to have forgotten that their hands were joined. “They didn’t start until after I left.”

“If I were fierce, I would not be prone to spells when I can’t breathe, I can’t think, and every particle of my mind is filled with dread at my certain and imminent death. I don’t even like talking about such moments, I get so anxious.”

“And you suffered these spells at Belle Maison.”

“Only two,” Alice said, resisting the compulsion to take deeper breaths. She focused instead on the warmth—the improper and comforting warmth—of Ethan’s fingers closed around hers. “Mrs. Belmont was with me, and she knows I’m prone to them, but Nick has seen me through one too, and it’s unusual for me to have two in two weeks.”

“I am making a list, Alice Portman, that starts with megrims, progresses to a bad hip, and includes these breathing spells. You have nightmares too, don’t you?”

He spoke gently, but he knew. Somehow, this great, strapping, self-possessed man knew what it was to be reduced to an animal, cataleptic with fear and pain.

Alice managed a nod.

“I have gone for as long as three years without a spell.” And even longer without discussing this nuisance with anybody. She focused her gaze on the patterns of sunlight and shadow dancing on the grass rather than stare at her hand enveloped in his. “I used to have nightmares.”

Bringing up the topic had put a pinch in her breathing and a knot of unease in her belly. She leaned into him, just a little, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

His arm settled around her shoulders, suggesting her hope had been in vain. “Before you came here, when was the last breathing spell, Alice? And don’t think to dissemble.”

She didn’t dissemble, but she hesitated long enough to take a fortifying whiff of cedar, to concentrate on being this close to a man and wanting to be closer.

Surely that was a good thing? “In my room, after you’d offered me this post and I’d ridden the horse.”

“Because,” he said, his voice close to her ear, “any change brings with it anxiety and loss, even a change for the better. If you have more of these spells, Alice, what shall I do?”

She almost told him she wouldn’t have a spell if he were in the vicinity, but here she was, dragging in slow breaths, even as she was tucked against him.

“It helps to be warm and to put my head down, and it helps if you can talk to me slowly and quietly, exactly as you did. You can’t get anxious, and you shouldn’t be anxious. The worst thing that will happen is I’ll faint for a few minutes, and when I faint, I can breathe.”

He was quiet for a moment, his fingers drawing a pattern on her shoulder.

“But until you faint, you will be certain the entire world is coming to a horrible, unstoppable end. You might do stupid things—run from friends when in unfamiliar surroundings, draw a weapon for no reason, cower in corners gulping for breath and awaiting certain death.”

More awful knowledge. Thank God he didn’t mention the worst of it. She might lose control of bodily functions. She had, for the first two years.

He shifted then and wrapped his arms around her, abandoning all pretense that his proximity was a casual misstep by an otherwise unassuming gentleman. The tension in her belly quieted; the hitch in her breathing eased. Her conscience fell silent as well, because the comfort—the sheer, glorious comfort—of his embrace was too precious.

“It might help too,” he said, “if you put in your mind a picture of something good, something beloved and dear, and when you feel your breathing seize up and you sense your reason is deserting you, you bring that image to your mind and hold it hard.”

She nodded against his shoulder while his hand traced the line of her hair where it smoothed past her ear.

“I will do my best to make sure you are not plagued with frightening thoughts or frightening people, Alice. I’ve found a lot of peace here at Tydings, and despite the racket and mayhem created by my sons, I think it’s still a peaceful place.”

He made no move to shift away, to end this unlooked-for familiarity. Instead, he repeated that caress in a slow, soothing rhythm, until the pleasure of it and the warmth of his body seeped into Alice’s soul.

Her brothers were fiercely devoted, kindhearted men who would do anything for her, and yet she hadn’t allowed them this. When Ethan Grey said he would do his best to shield her from upset, it was as if he took a vow, and the sense of sanctuary Alice felt was a steady flame in an oppressive darkness.

Because he knew. Somehow, without being aware of any of the details of her ordeal, Ethan Grey knew what she had suffered.

* * *

Holding Alice Portman on a shady bench in the middle of a pleasant summer morning, Ethan felt as if he’d stepped off a cliff into some other morning in some other man’s life. Women were no more than fixtures to him. As an adolescent, they’d fascinated him; in his marriage they’d horrified him; and he counted himself lucky to be largely indifferent to sexual desire in recent years. His sisters, Lady Warne, and Leah, they were women to be admired and protected.

As was Alice Portman, maybe more than any of the others, maybe more than all of them put together.

Alice had been wronged somewhere in her past, egregiously wronged, and while Ethan’s mind knew that, his body was taking note of other things: Alice fit in his embrace wonderfully, like she wanted to be there, not like she had to tolerate this closeness. She had a pleasing shape, a pleasing scent, and soft, silky hair. He could feel the slow heave of her breathing against his chest.

The confluence of protectiveness and desire was disorienting. This was how one ought to feel about a wife perhaps, or so Ethan had once thought.

With an effort of will and the feel of Alice’s soft curves burning into his memory, Ethan decided it was a good thing for a man in his prime to feel desire. It was in accordance with the plan of God and Nature, and no reason to be alarmed. Were he honest, he’d admit that not feeling desire for the past few years had been more alarming.

He could desire Alice Portman. This had to do not just with her steady brown eyes, well-disguised curves, and pleasant, tart scent, but also with her breathing spells and bad hip and nightmares.

He bent his head toward her, inhaled the fragrance of flowers and lemons, and idly—in a purely theoretical way—wondered if she could desire him.

* * *

“Are you gentlemen trying to spook my horse?” Ethan inquired as both boys happened to pause for breath in the same moment.

“He dragged me off!” Jeremiah shouted, a note of hysteria in his voice. “He should have let go, and he bloody wouldn’t, and he made me fall off, the sodding little bugger.”

“You didn’t hold on!” Joshua shot back, hands fisting. “You had the mane, and I didn’t, you should have caught me, and you let me slide right off all the way down. You’re a sodding little pismire.”

Ethan lip’s twitched, to hear the word fired off with such vehemence. He gestured to Miller, who nodded and came to stand beside Ethan, then trotted off in search of more tack when he’d gotten his instructions.

“Gentlemen.” Ethan kept his voice quiet. “If you would kindly shut the hell up for one moment, I will tender my apologies.”

Joshua cocked his head. “Huh?”

“Papa is going to apologize,” Jeremiah said. “I think.”

“He is,” Ethan said, “for not warning you Argus sometimes kicks out when schooling piaffe in hand, and for putting you on double. Has no one taught you how to fall off?”

The boys exchanged glances when Miller appeared with a long lead line.

“No, sir,” Jeremiah said. “I thought one didn’t want to fall.”

“Sometimes one does,” Ethan countered. “For example, if Argus bolted with me and was heading for a low branch or a cliff, I might want to part company with him. Or if by chance I should become unseated and a fall is inevitable, then one wants to fall as safely as possible. I will demonstrate.”

“You’re going to fall off Argus?” Joshua goggled. “On purpose?”

“I am, but perhaps my waistcoat need not participate.” He shrugged out of it, removed the surcingle from around the horse’s belly, passed the saddle to Miller, grabbed a hank of mane, and swung up.

“How’d he do that?” Joshua asked Jeremiah. “Argus is tall, and Papa didn’t use a mounting block or stirrups or anything.”

Miller stood in the center of the arena, the horse circling him on the long lead, while Ethan got his seat at the trot bareback.

“All right, you lot.” Ethan kept his eyes front, settling into the rhythm of the trot. “Spook him.”

Miller nodded at the boys. “You heard your papa. Spook that big golden devil, and unseat your papa.”

“How?” Jeremiah asked as Joshua bolted past him.

“Pismire pony!” Joshua bellowed, waving his arms and charging right at the horse. Argus, true to his delicate sensibilities, shied mightily, giving Ethan the pretext he needed to slide gracefully over the horse’s shoulder. Argus came to an immediate halt, allowing Ethan to swing back on.

“Again.” Ethan nodded at Miller. “And put some effort into it, gentlemen. Argus will go to sleep otherwise, and so shall I.”

It took a few more tries before Jeremiah got into the spirit of the game, but Argus got into it too, spooking horrifically, only to stand stock still as soon as Ethan had decamped. Ethan demonstrated both an emergency dismount, which ideally left the rider on his feet, and the less graceful variations thereon.

Ethan beat at the dust on his once-pristine shirt. “I think we can commend Argus on a job well done and turn our attention to your ponies.” The boys turned to see grooms holding both ponies, and neither pony sporting a saddle.

“Up you go.” Ethan hoisted Joshua onto his pony, then Jeremiah.

“I don’t want to do this,” Jeremiah said, staring sullenly at his pony’s mane. Ethan considered his older son and those few brave words.

“C’mon, Jeremiah,” Joshua said. “We’ll get dirty, and we can scream like girls.”

“He doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to,” Ethan said. “My intention was to have you practice only at the halt, and if you felt up to it, at the walk.”

“It’s stupid,” Jeremiah declared, defiant eyes raised to his father’s. “Why would you fall off on purpose if falling off is how you get hurt?”

“Am I hurt?” Ethan asked, holding his son’s gaze.

“No,” Jeremiah admitted. “But if Argus stepped on your head or your guts, you could be dead.”

Death. Again.

Ethan wanted to shake the boy but kept his voice calm. “Do you think I would do anything to intentionally put you in harm’s way?”