Page 24 of The Heir
Now that she was close enough to scrutinize him, Anna saw that the earl’s energy seemed to have been restored to him. He was in much better shape than he had been the previous evening, and—oh dear—the man was actually smiling, and at her.
“I did sleep well.” The earl bit into a muffin. “And he is dear, you know. Pericles, that is. And this”—he looked her right in the eye—“is a superb muffin.”
“Thank you, my lord.” She couldn’t help but smile at him when he was making such a concerted effort not to annoy her.
“Perhaps you’d like a bite?” He tore off a piece and held it out to her, and abruptly, he was being very annoying indeed.
“I’ll just have one of my own.”
“They are that good, aren’t they?” the earl said, popping the bite into his maw. “Where do you go this early in the morning, Mrs. Seaton?”
“I have some errands,” she said, pulling a crocheted summer glove over her left hand.
“Ah.” The earl nodded sagely. “I have a mother and five sisters, plus scads of female cousins. I have heard of these errands. They are the province of women and seem to involve getting a dizzying amount done in a short time or spending hours on one simple task.”
“They can,” she allowed, watching two sizeable muffins meet their end in mere minutes. The earl rose and gave her another lordly smile.
“I’ll leave you to your errands. I am fortified sufficiently for mine to last at least until breakfast. Good day to you, Mrs. Seaton.”
“Good day, my lord.” Anna retrieved her reticule from the table and made for the hallway, relieved to have put her first encounter of the day with his lordship behind her.
“Mrs. Seaton?” His lordship was frowning at the table, but when he looked up at her, his expression became perfectly blank—but for the mischief in his eyes.
“My lord?” Anna cocked her head and wanted to stomp her foot. The earl in a playful mood was more bothersome than the earl in a grouchy mood, but at least he wasn’t kissing her.
He held up her right glove, twirling it by a finger, and he wasn’t going to give it back, she knew, unless shemarchedup to him and retrieved it.
“Thank you,” she said, teeth not quite clenched. She walked over to him, and held out her hand, but wasn’t at all prepared for him to take her hand in his, bring it to his lips, then slap the glove down lightly into her palm.
“You are welcome.” He snagged a third muffin from the bread box and went out the back door, whistling some complicated theme by Herr Mozart that Lord Valentine had been practicing for hours earlier in the week.
Leaving Anna staring at the glove—the gauntlet?—the earl had just tossed down into her hand.
“Good morning, Brother!”
Westhaven turned in the saddle to see Valentine drawing his horse alongside Pericles.
“Dare I hope that you, like I, are coming home after a night on the town?” Val asked.
“Hardly.” The earl smiled at his brother as they turned up the alley toward the mews. “I’ve been exercising this fine lad and taking the morning air. I also ran into Dev, who seems to be thriving.”
“He is becoming a much healthier creature, our brother,” Val said, grinning. “He has this great, strapping ‘cook/housekeeper’ living with him. Keeps his appetites appeased, or so he says. But before we reach the confines of your domicile, you should be warned old Quimbey was at the Pleasure House last night, and he said His Grace is going to be calling on you to discuss the fact that your equipage was seen in the vicinity of Fairly’s brother yesterday.”
“So you might ply his piano the whole night through,” Westhaven said, frowning mightily at his brother. Val grinned back at him and shook his head, and Westhaven felt some of his pleasure in the day evaporating in the hot morning air. “Then what is our story?”
“You have parted from Elise, as is known to all, so we hardly need concoct a story, do we?”
“Valentine.” Westhaven frowned. “You know what His Grace will conclude.”
“Yes, he will,” Val said as he dismounted. “And the louder I protest to the contrary, the more firmly he’d believe it.”
Westhaven swung down and patted Pericles’s neck. “Next time, you’re walking to any assignation you have with any piece of furniture housed in a brothel.”
They remained silent until they were in the kitchen, having used the back terrace to enter the house. Val went immediately to the bread box and fished out a muffin. “You want one?”
“I’ve already had three. Some lemonade, or tea?”
“Mix them,” Val said, getting butter from the larder. “Half of each. There’s cold tea in the dry sink.”
