Grace Burrowes - The Heir

So I, Anna thought, will spend the next half hour setting up a table where his lordship will likely sit for all of twenty minutes, dining in solitary splendor on food he doesn’t even taste, because he must finish reading The Times while at table.

His crabby mood had rubbed off on her, she thought as she spread a linen cloth over a wrought-iron table. Well, that wouldn’t do. Mentally, she began making her list of things to send over to Tolliver’s for the little girl, Sue-Sue.

“You look utterly lost in thought,” the earl pronounced, causing Anna to jump and almost drop the basket of cutlery she was holding.

“I was,” she said, blushing for no earthly reason. “I have yet to see to your request to send some supplies around to Tolliver and was considering the particulars.”

“How is it you know how to care for a case of chicken pox?” The earl grabbed the opposite ends of the tablecloth and drew them exactly straight.

“It’s a common childhood illness,” Anna said, setting the basket of cutlery on the table. “I came down with it myself when I was six.” The earl reached into the basket and fished out the makings of a place setting. Anna watched in consternation as he arranged his cutlery on the table, setting each piece of silverware precisely one inch from the edge of the table.

“Don’t you want a linen for your place setting?” Anna asked, unfolding one from the basket and passing it to him.

“Well, of course. Food always tastes better when eaten off a plate that sits on both a linen and a tablecloth.”

“No need to be snippy, my lord.” Anna quirked an eyebrow at him. “We can feed you off a wooden trencher if that’s your preference.”

“My apologies.” The earl shot her a fulminating look as he collected the silverware and waited for Anna to spread the underlinen. “I am out of sorts today for having missed my morning ride.”

He was once again arranging his silverware a precise distance from the edge of the table while Anna watched. He would have made an excellent footman, she concluded. He was careful, conscientious, and incapable of smiling.

“In this heat, I did not want to tax my horse,” the earl said, rummaging in the basket for salt and the pepper. He found them and eyed the table speculatively.

“Here.” Anna set a small bowl of daisies and violets on the table. “Maybe that will give you some ideas.”

“A table for one can so easily become asymmetric.”

“Dreadful effect on the palate.” Anna rolled her eyes. “And where, I ask you, will we hide his lordship’s marzipan?”

“Careful, Mrs. Seaton. If he should come out here and overhear your disrespect, I wouldn’t give two pence for your position.”

“If he is so humorless and intolerant as all that,” Anna said, “then he can find somebody else to feed him sweets on the terrace of a summer’s day.”

The earl’s gaze cooled at that retort, and Anna wondered at her recent penchant for overstepping. He’d been annoying her all morning, though, from the moment she’d been dragooned into the library. It was no mystery to her why Tolliver would rather be dealing with a sick child than his lordship.

“Am I really so bad as all that?” the earl asked, his expression distracted. He set aside the pepper but hefted the salt in one hand.

“You are…” Anna glanced up from folding the linen napkin she’d retrieved from her basket.

The earl met her gaze and waited.

“Troubled, I think,” she said finally. “It comes out as imperiousness.”

“Troubled,” the earl said with a snort. “Well, that covers a world of possibilities.” He reached into the basket and withdrew a large glazed plate, positioning it exactly in the center of his place setting. “I tried to compose a letter to my father this morning, while you beavered away on my mundane business, and somehow, Mrs. Seaton, I could not come up with words to adequately convey to my father the extent to which I want him to just leave me the hell alone.”

He finished that statement through clenched teeth, alarming Anna with the animosity in his tone, but he wasn’t finished.

“I have come to the point,” the earl went on, “where I comprehend why my older brothers would consider the Peninsular War preferable to the daily idiocy that comes with being Percival Windham’s heir. I honestly believe that could he but figure a way to pull it off, my father would lock me naked in a room with the woman of his choice, there to remain until I got her pregnant with twin boys. And I am not just frustrated”—the earl’s tone took on a sharper edge—“I am ready to do him an injury, because I don’t think anything less will make an impression. Two unwilling people are going to wed and have a child because my father got up to tricks.”

“Your father did not force those two people into one another’s company all unawares and blameless, my lord, but why not appeal to your mother? By reputation, she is the one who can control him.”

The earl shook his head. “Her Grace is much diminished by the loss of my brother Victor. I do not want to importune her, and she will believe His Grace only meant well.”

Anna smiled ruefully. “And she wants grandchildren, too, of course.”

“Why, of course.” The earl gestured impatiently. “She had eight children and still has six. There will be grandchildren, and if for some reason the six of us are completely remiss, I have two half siblings, whose children she will graciously spoil, as well.”

“Good heavens,” Anna murmured. “So your father has sired ten children, and yet he plagues you?”

“He does. Except for the one daughter of Victor’s, none of us have seen fit to reproduce. There was a rumor Bart had left us something to remember him by, but he likely started the rumor himself just to aggravate my father.”

“So find a wife,” Anna suggested. “Or at least a fiancée, and back your dear papa off. The right lady will cry off when you ask it of her, particularly if you are honest with your scheme from the start.”

“See?” The earl raised his voice, though just a bit. “Honest with my scheme? Do you know how like my father that makes me sound?”

“And is this all that plagues you, my lord? Your father has no doubt been a nuisance for as long as you’ve been his heir, if not longer.”

The earl glanced sharply at his housekeeper, then his lips quirked, turned back down, and then slowly curved back up.

“Why are you smiling?” she asked, his smiles being as rare as hen’s teeth.

“I found your little parlor maid in the hay loft,” the earl said, setting out his water glass and wine glass precisely one inch from the plate. “She discovered our mouser’s new litter, and she was enthralled with the cat’s purr. She could feel it, I think, and understood it meant the cat was happy.”

“She would,” Anna said, wondering how this topic was related to providing the duke his heirs. “She loves animals, but here in Town, she has little truck with them.”

“You know Morgan that well?” the earl asked, his tone casual.

“We are related,” she replied, telling herself it was a version of the truth. A prevaricating version.

“So you took pity on her,” the earl surmised, “and hired her into my household. Has she always been deaf?”

“I do not know the particulars of her malady, my lord,” she said, lifting the basket to her hip. “All I care for is her willingness to do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. Shall we serve you tea or lemonade with your luncheon?”

“Lemonade,” Westhaven said. “But for God’s sake don’t forget to sugar it.”

She bobbed a curtsy so low as to be mocking. “Any excuse to sweeten your disposition, my lord.”

He watched her go, finding another smile on his face, albeit a little one. His housekeeper liked having the last word, which was fine with him—usually. But as their conversation had turned to the question of her relation, she had dodged him and begun to dissemble. It was evident in her eyes and in the slight defensiveness of her posture.

A person, even one in service to an earl, was entitled to privacy. But a person with secrets could be exploited by, say, an unscrupulous duke. And for that reason—for that reason—the earl would be keeping a very close eye on Anna Seaton.

“BEG PARDON, MUM.” JOHN FOOTMAN BOBBED A BOW. “His lordship’s asking fer ya, and I’d step lively.”

“He’s in the library?” Anna asked with a sigh. She’d spent three of the last four mornings in the library with his lordship, but not, thank the gods, today.

“In his chambers, mum.” John was blushing now, even as he stared holes in the molding. Anna grimaced, knowing she’d sent a bath up to the earl’s chambers directly after luncheon, which was unusual enough.

“Best see what he wants.” Anna rose from the kitchen table, got a commiserating look from Cook, and made her way up two flights of stairs.

“My lord?” She knocked twice, heard some sort of lordly growl from the other side, and entered the earl’s sitting room.

The earl was dressed, she noted with relief, but barely. His shirt was unbuttoned, as were his cuffs, he was barefoot, and the garters were not yet closed on his knee breeches.

He did not glance up when she entered the room but was fishing around on a bureau among brushes and combs. “My hair touches my collar, at the back.” He waved two fingers impatiently behind his right ear. “As my valet continues to attend His Grace, you will please address the situation.”

“You want me to trim your hair?” Anna asked, torn between indignation and amusement.

“If you please,” he said, locating a pair of grooming scissors and handing them to her handles first. He obligingly turned his back, which left Anna circling him to address his face.

“It will be easier, my lord, if you will sit, as even your collar is above my eye level.”

“Very well.” He dragged a stool to the center of the room and sat his lordly arse upon it.

“And since you don’t want to have stray hairs on that lovely white linen,” Anna went on, “I would dispense with the shirt, were I you.”

“Always happy to dispense with clothing at the request of a woman.” The earl whipped his shirt over his head.

“Do you want your hair cut, my lord?” Anna tested the sharpness of the scissor blades against her thumb. “Or perhaps not?”

“Cut,” his lordship replied, giving her a slow perusal. “I gather from your vexed expression there is something for which I must apologize. I confess to a mood both distracted and resentful.”

“When somebody does you a decent turn,” she said as she began to comb out his damp hair, “you do not respond with sarcasm and innuendo, my lord.” She took particular care at the back of his head, where she knew he was yet healing from the drubbing she’d given him.

“You have a deft touch. Much more considerate than my valet.”

“Your valet is a self-important little toady,” Anna said, working around to the side of his head, “and that is not an apology.”

“Well, I am sorry,” the earl said, grabbing her hand by the wrist to still the comb. “I have an appointment at Carlton House this afternoon, and I most petulantly and assuredly do not want to go.”

“Carlton House?” Anna lowered her hand, but the earl did not release her. “What an important fellow you are, to have business with the Regent himself.”

He turned her hand over and studied the lines of her palm for a moment.

He smoothed his thumb over her palm. “Prinny will likely stick his head in the door briefly, tell us how much he appreciates our contributions to this great land, and then resume his afternoon’s entertainments.”

“But you cannot refuse to go,” Anna said, taking a guess, “for it is a great honor, and so on.”

“It is a tiresome damned pain in my arse,” the earl groused. “You have no wedding ring, Mrs. Seaton, nor does your finger look to have ever been graced by one.”

“Since I have no husband at present,” Anna said, retrieving her hand, “a ring is understandably absent also.”

“Who was this grandfather,” the earl asked, “the one who taught you how to do Tolliver’s job while smelling a great deal better than Tolliver?”

“My paternal grandfather raised me, more or less from childhood on,” Anna said, knowing the truth would serve up to a point. “He was a florist and a perfumer and a very good man.”

“Hence the flowers throughout my humble abode. Don’t take off too much,” he directed. “I prefer not to look newly shorn.”