* * *

Despite Joshua’s illness, despite the lateness of the hour and the relative crowd in the children’s room, Ethan watched Alice go.

Nick’s smile as Ethan’s gaze collided with his was sweet and knowing.

Well, what of it?

When the boys returned, Nick excused himself as well, muttering something about seeing how Alice fared in the kitchen.

Joshua peered at his father before climbing back into bed. “Are you leaving, Papa?”

“Good heavens,” the physician said, “he can’t leave, because then we’d have no one to make the introductions, and wouldn’t that be awkward?”

Joshua smiled tentatively at that sally, while Jeremiah’s expression was unconvinced.

“Viscount Fairly,” Ethan began, “may I make known to you my sons, Master Jeremiah Nicholas Grey, and your patient, Master Joshua Nicholas Grey. Boys, his lordship is a physician who was good enough to come here with Uncle Nick.”

Jeremiah took his father’s hand and aimed a worried look upward. “You won’t let him bleed Joshua?”

“I will not,” Ethan said. “No matter how Joshua begs and pleads and longs for a truly impressive scar. Now back into bed, both of you.”

“Yes, Papa.” Joshua’s voice conveyed fatigue, even in two little words.

The physician sat on the child’s bed. “Joshua, I must have your assistance if we’re to find an answer to what’s plaguing you. Will you give me your hand?”

Joshua complied and was taught how to feel a pulse by holding two middle fingers against Lord Fairly’s wrist. They compared pulses and tongues and heartbeats and breathing sounds, aches, and pains until Joshua was yawning again. All the while, Fairly had plied the child with questions, probed gently for soreness and swelling, and conducted a far more thorough examination than the interrogation-and-prescribing Ethan had usually seen pass for medical science.

“You’re tired now?” Fairly asked Joshua.

“Beat. I can’t stay up at all.”

“Then go back to sleep. You’ve been very patient with me, but I think you’re wise to be sleeping so much, Joshua.”

Joshua flopped down onto his bed. “I’m just tired.”

“You’re smart,” Fairly countered, pulling the covers up over the boy. “The more you sleep, the sooner you’ll heal, so sleep to your heart’s content.”

“G’night, Papa.” Joshua cracked his jaw and closed his eyes. “G’night, Doctor.”

“Good night, Son.” Ethan pressed a kiss to Joshua’s brow. “Sweet dreams. And you”—Ethan turned to spear Jeremiah with a look—“your brother is going to be fine, but he needs rest, so no keeping him up with your usual ruckus.”

“I don’t make a ruckus,” Jeremiah protested, but he was smiling bashfully. “Unless Joshua makes one with me.”

“Like the time you climbed down the tree in the middle of the night,” Ethan reminded him, “and tried to take your ponies for a romp when there was no moon at all. Dream of that, why don’t you?”

“Good night, Papa.” Jeremiah turned to his side, probably the better to keep an eye on his brother. “And good night, Lord Fairly.”

Ethan led the physician from the room, closed the door quietly, and rounded on him. “You’re sure of that? Sure Joshua just needs to rest?”

“As sure as a physician can be,” Fairly said, “which is short of certain but well past maybe.”

Relief coursed through Ethan, leaving a light, exhausted feeling and a need to see Alice and share the news with her. “Let’s go downstairs. Alice will have put together something to eat, and I don’t trust Nick not to be bothering her.”

“Bothering her? I understood your brother to be devoted to his countess.”

“He is, but he’s Nick, and he and Alice are friends of some sort, and those whom he cares for, Nick must bother, particularly the females.”

“I see.” Clearly, Fairly didn’t see, but he was too polite to comment further. Polite or exhausted.

“You must have ridden like demons,” Ethan said as they neared the kitchen.

“Nick lit out as soon as your pigeon landed. I live west of him, so I was on his way. Letty said I must come, because she would not fare well were illness to befall Danny or Elizabeth, and Nick would never ask if it weren’t important to him.”

“I gather Danny and Elizabeth are your children, and Letty your viscountess.”

“My wife. My goodness.” Fairly came to a halt before the tray Alice had sitting on the kitchen counter. “I had better be hungry.”

“No,” Alice said, “you had better be fast, or Nick will eat all of this before you can finish a proper grace. How is Joshua?”

“He’s a very interesting case study,” Fairly replied. “He will be fine, in my opinion, but he’s likely to be tired for weeks yet, if not months.”

Nick looked up from where he was slicing cheese at the long wooden counter. “Glandular fever? I didn’t know it afflicted children.”

“It isn’t supposed to,” Fairly said. “We know it as a young person’s disease, and being young people, those who fall ill try to bounce back too quickly and end up right back in bed. It will be interesting to see how Joshua recovers, but by all means, encourage him to rest at every opportunity.”

“We can do that,” Alice said, her gaze glancing off Ethan’s.

“And we can feed our guests,” Ethan said, “if you’ll stop slicing that entire wheel of cheese, Nicholas, and put that knife to use on the beef roast.”

“I’ve put on a pot of tea,” Alice said, “but I’m thinking you gentleman might want something stronger.”

Nick beamed his approval. “Excellent thought, lamby-pie. My tender parts were in the saddle too long, and I am in need of something medicinal.”

“You are in need of a spanking,” Alice said, “as usual. Ethan, if you will fetch some brandy, I will find us some plates.”

Lord Fairly and Nick exchanged bemused smiles as Ethan meekly left to do his governess’s bidding.

* * *

Ethan hadn’t meant to bother Alice, but the silky curve of her bottom snuggled against his groin bore predictable results. He was half-asleep when he realized he was already shifting his hips lazily against her, seeking entrance, seeking the comfort and joy of intimate union with her. He gathered Alice in his arms and adjusted the angle of her hips, nuzzling her sex with his cock even as he buried his lips against her neck.

It was relaxing in a way he hadn’t experienced before, to join like this, letting arousal seep into all the tired and worried parts of him. He tried to find the same pleasure for Alice, stroking her back and arm and shoulders and hips with his hand, keeping his rhythm lazy and peaceful. After long, sweet minutes of that, she put his hand on her breast and began to shift with him.

“Easy,” Ethan whispered. “Let it steal up on you, like sleep.” Her grip on his hand loosened, her hips became less urgent, and she brought his hand to her mouth to kiss his palm. A few minutes later, Ethan felt her sex drawing on him in long, intensely pleasurable pulls. When he was sure she’d had her satisfaction of him, he let himself go in a similarly gratifying yet oddly peaceful orgasm.

He lay with her in his arms, gratitude nearly making him weep. Alice tucked his hand around her breast and squeezed his fingers gently. Hold me.

He’d like nothing better, for the rest of his life. He untangled his fingers from hers and patted her behind gently.

“I’ll be right back.”

As he tended to their ablutions, Ethan considered what lay between him and taking Alice as his wife. It was true he was illegitimate, but he was also the son of an earl, and wealthy. The stigma of his bastardy hardly seemed to matter, at least to those whose opinion mattered to him.

It was also true, though, Alice didn’t entirely trust him. He’d offered to listen to whatever scandal haunted her past, and she had declined to tell him. Scandals that sent a woman hundreds of miles from home, drove her from her only sister, and made her seek obscurity for the rest of her days were serious business. Ethan sensed without being told Alice would not marry anybody without confiding the details of her past. She would be honest both to assure herself her prospective spouse could weather the consequences, but also to give that man the last chance to betray her trust.

Ethan would not betray her trust. She could have ten children out of wedlock or have attempted to assassinate Wellington, and he would not betray her trust. Barbara had betrayed his trust as intimately and permanently as a wife could, and still, Ethan had understood, eventually, what she’d done and why.

He was already back in bed, arms around his prize, when he realized, in the twilight between sleeping and waking, the greatest barrier between him and a future with Alice was his trust of her.

Before he proposed in earnest—again in earnest—he’d have to tell her exactly what went on with Hart Collins all those years ago. Heathgate’s lectures to the contrary, reality to the contrary, Ethan still felt in his weaker moments responsible for what had happened to him and shamed by it. He should have been more careful; he should have never antagonized such a petty bully; he should have fought all six of them off.

He should have killed himself rather than live with the shame of surviving.

Old, hopeless thoughts, but they were losing their power over him. He breathed in lemon verbena and hope, and let sleep claim him.

* * *

At breakfast, Fairly had confirmed a diagnosis consistent with a version of glandular fever, and prescribed unlimited rest and comfort nursing. Jeremiah had towed Alice out to the stables to tell the ponies this good news, leaving Ethan to regard his brother.

The brother whom he had never been so glad to see as he had the previous night.

“Come with me, Nicholas. There are some things I want to show you, and I think I left them in the corner parlor.”

Still munching on a piece of buttered toast, Nick ambled along at Ethan’s side. “When are you going to marry Alice?”

“When she’ll have me,” Ethan said. “One doesn’t want a woman to get notions about repairing to the North because her employer can’t stop proposing to her.”

“Have you tried proposing to her? I don’t think many have.”

“Have you?” The question was out of Ethan’s mouth before he could stop it, and he really did not want to know the answer.

“I have not. She’s far too managing for me, meaning no disrespect to my countess, who had to sneak up on me from behind, so to speak. I would not have married Leah, either, had I been of sound mind.”

“Let’s be grateful she did sneak up on you.” Ethan opened the door, went to the middle of a small parlor finished in green décor and slightly musty with disuse, and swung his gaze in a circle. “I want you to have these.” He collected the miniatures from a quarter shelf and held them out to Nick, but Nick’s attention was riveted on the portrait hanging over the fireplace.

Nick cocked his head to study the portrait. “Is this your late wife? She was very attractive, but I have to admit she looks more than passingly familiar.”

Seeing the shrewd light of curiosity in Nick’s eyes, the strength of the intelligence with which he studied Barbara’s portrait, Ethan felt despair flooding all the relief and pleasure the day—the season, his life—had held.

How could he have been so stupid? He’d kept that portrait for his sons, and to remind himself of his own folly, but he’d come haring up here, intent only on giving Nick some symbol of his unconditional welcome into Ethan’s family.

And one brief moment of thoughtlessness was going to cost him most of what mattered to him—Nick, their siblings at Belle Maison, and possibly the son who even now battled to overcome a frightening illness.

How could he have been so damnably, utterly, unforgivably stupid?

Nineteen

“She has the look of the boys about her.” Nick went on peering at Barbara’s image, ignorant of Ethan’s world crashing to pieces. “I’m sure I was introduced to her, wasn’t I? Did she mention it?”

Ethan could say nothing, could do nothing save stand there with two little portraits clutched in his hands.

“Ethan?” Nick took a step toward him. “Are you all right?”

Ethan shook his head, his eyes on the portrait of his late wife. He’d paid well for it, and it was a good likeness, the lady’s gaze conveying a kind of brittle, mocking gaiety. At one side of the portrait a blond man stood, his back to the viewer, only a portion of his head and shoulder visible. The lady smiled at him, but also at the viewer, and the overall impression was one of irony, despite the subject’s compelling blond beauty.