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 he didn’t socialize, didn’t trade calls, didn’t expect to be invited to share a drink or a meal with his neighbors. First, he was of questionable ton, being illegitimate, but then he’d committed a far worse transgression by marrying his mistress. Even had the neighbors been amenable, the idea of turning Barbara loose on the unsuspecting gentry of Surrey had been unthinkable.

And then the boys had come along, his marriage had gone utterly to hell, and a couple of years later, Barbara was gone.

“It’s just some food and drink with the neighbors, Grey,” Heathgate said. “A picnic, with children rocketing about, pall-mall balls whacking into the dessert table, babies needing attention at inopportune moments, and papas being told to wipe cake off that one’s mouth or put it on this one’s plate. We do it mostly for the ladies, but also for the cousins.”

“How old is your oldest?” Ethan asked.

“He looks to be the same age as yours,” Heathgate replied, his expression patient.

“Joshua and Jeremiah haven’t been in company much,” Ethan said. “They did fairly well at Belle Maison.”

“So bring as many footmen and nannies and dogs as you need to keep them in line, or try to. Each of my children has a separate nanny. They spell each other, the nannies, that is, but the happiness of my entire kingdom turns on the morale of my nannies.” The marquis sounded absolutely sincere.

“One understands, sometimes, why women can be hysterical.”

“One does. So you’ll bring the boys? We gather around four, when the heat starts to fade and the babies have had their naps, and we don’t stay late, because the older ones get cranky if they’re out too long.”

That a marquis should know these things was reassuring.

“I’ll have to bring their governess, Miss Portman.” For any number of reasons. “She will enjoy getting acquainted with the neighbors, I think.”

“Your governess has some odd connections,” Heathgate observed as his horse stepped carefully over a fallen log.

This oh-so-casual comment crossed over from small talk to something more significant.

“Her last position was with some squire’s daughter down in Sussex for five years. How could her path have crossed yours?”

“Not mine. I don’t know if she told you, but her brother is Benjamin Hazlit.”

And how did Heathgate know such a thing? “Your snoop of choice. Nick’s too.”

Heathgate did not dignify that with confirmation. “Hazlit spent the night with us last night, as he sometimes does when he and I have much to discuss. Felicity likes him, and he told her he was calling on his sister, Miss Portman, this morning. Her ladyship dug in, as she will, and extracted from him his sister’s location.”

“Impressive, your marchioness.” Was this why there was a neighborly invitation now, after seven years? The titled neighbors wanted to look over Hazlit’s sister? Had Hazlit put them up to it? “I think Alice likes her privacy, and I know I like mine.”

“We all appreciate privacy. Hazlit more than any of us.”

“He said there was scandal.” Ethan paused, not sure how much to say. “He didn’t ask for me to keep it in confidence, so I don’t suppose there’s harm in telling you.”

Heathgate waved a gloved hand in impatient circles. “Out with it, Grey. I’ve known you half your life, and you know my discretion is reliable.”

An oblique reference, but valid.

“I don’t know what the scandal involved, except that both sisters were affected, and the siblings not at the family seat all use different names to avoid the repercussions of the scandal. There is wealth of some sort, and an estate in the North, but Hazlit told me only that much.”

“He’s a closemouthed devil, but there are more scandals hanging on my family tree than Hanover has princes, Ethan. Let sleeping dogs lie, and all that.”

That Heathgate would use Ethan’s name was a slip. They hadn’t ever assumed such familiarity and probably never would, out of consideration, not for Heathgate’s great title and consequence, but for Ethan’s dignity.

Heathgate smiled. “Have I offended? You can be honest, you know. My wife always is, and it has toughened me considerably.”

“You have not offended. You do surprise me, though.”

“Probably for the first and only time. I will tell Greymoor and his countess to expect you with your entourage on Wednesday, rain or shine.”

“My thanks.” Ethan nodded by way of a mounted bow, and let his companion take the branch of the path that would lead back to Willowdale, while Ethan turned around, overdue to investigate Wellington’s progress against Bonaparte.

Eight

“You are comfortable with Wednesday’s outing?” Ethan asked Alice at breakfast the next morning. The boys had taken off with Davey to try to dig a pond suitable for the reenactment of Trafalgar, though Davey was under strict orders to keep the ocean blue smaller than the size of two horse troughs.

“What I want doesn’t matter,” Alice said. “My charges will go off to socialize with the neighbors, and I will attend them.” Her lips were compressed into a prim line, and she was taking only the smallest sips of her tea.

This testiness on Alice’s part wasn’t about an invitation to picnic with the neighbors, though she was probably not looking forward to that. Ethan regarded his boys’ governess and concluded she was unhappy with her employer, and maybe, were she honest, a little bit with herself. Ethan was unhappy with himself, too.

Alice was under his protection, plain and simple. In the dark hours after midnight, he’d decided he wasn’t to be kissing her, importuning her, or—if he could even figure out how to manage such a thing—flirting with her. She seemed to be sending him the same message, not in so many words.

“I’ve known Heathgate since well before he succeeded to the title,” Ethan said. “We’ve been neighbors for years, but this is the first invitation I’ve been issued. Refusing would have been unpardonably rude.”

Alice sipped her tea, not meeting his eyes. “I understand, Mr. Grey.”

Mr. Grey. To hear her address him thus in that tone of voice rankled exceedingly. “There will be other boys to play with. I’d think you’d see that as a good thing, Alice.”

She closed her eyes at his use of her name, and Ethan felt his temper spike.

“Good God.” Ethan covered her teacup with his hand when she would have raised it to her mouth again. “It was one harmless, albeit passionate, kiss, Alice. Will you punish my children as well as me for that single lapse?”

“I’m not punishing anybody,” Alice said, drawing her hand away from the teacup. “I’m simply not looking forward to being amidst a bunch of twittering ladies and their titled menfolk.”

Ethan considered that and turned loose of her tea.

“They were thoroughgoing rascals as younger men, but both of the Alexander brothers have settled down in recent years. They tend to their business and their land. They raise their children and dote on their wives. They’re domesticated, Alice. They won’t, unlike your employer, be stealing kisses from you in bushes. And for the record, I married my mistress. Some would say that makes me the biggest rascal in the shire.” More fool he.