Page 36 of The Heir
“I was not, though I often used to wish I had been.”
“Anna…” His tone was concerned, and she found it needful in that moment to study her empty wine glass.
“I have become maudlin by virtue of imbibing.”
“Hush,” Westhaven chided, crawling across the blanket. He wrapped her in his arms then wrestled her down to lie beside him, her head on his shoulder. She cuddled into him, feeling abruptly cold except where his body lay along hers.
“Val had a bout of the weeps the other day.” The earl sighed. “I forget he is so sensitive, because he hides with that great black beast of his and tries so hard not to trouble others. When Bart died, Val went for days without leaving the piano, and only Her Grace’s insistence that he be indulged preserved him from the wrath of the duke.”
“Your family has not had an easy time of it. One would think rank and riches would assure happiness, but by the Windham example, they do not.”
“Nor do they condemn one to misery,” the earl pointed out, his hand making circles on her back. “I, for one, do not relish the thought of being poor.”
“There is poor, and there is poor. In some ways, I have more freedom than you do, and freedom is a form of great wealth.”
“It is,” Westhaven agreed, “but I don’t see where you have it in such abundance.”
“Oh, but I do.” Anna sat up and put her chin on her drawn-up knees. “I can leave your employ tomorrow and hare off to Bath, there to keep house for any beldame who will have me. I can answer an advertisement to be a bride for an American tobacco farmer or go live with the natives in the American west. I can join a Scottish convent or journey to darkest Africa as a missionary to the heathen.”
“And I, poor fellow”—the earl smiled up at her—“have none of those options.”
“You do not,” Anna agreed, grinning at him over her shoulder. “You are stuck with Tolliver and Stenson and His Grace, and barely recalling what pleasure is when your housekeeper remembers to sweeten your lemonade.”
The earl folded his hands behind his head. “There is a pleasure you could allow me, Anna.” He kept using her name, she thought, using it like a caress, a reminder that he knew the taste of her.
“There are many pleasures I could allow you,” she said, caution in her tone, “few that I will.”
“So I’m to earn your favors?” He merely smiled. “Then, allow me this: The heat and our rambling are threatening the integrity of your coiffure. Let me brush your hair.”
“Brush my…?” Anna blinked and gave him a puzzled look.
“I used to brush Her Grace’s hair when I was small, then my sisters’. I’ve taken a turn or two with Rose, but she demands a certain dispatch only her step-papa and mama seem to have perfected.”
“You want to brush my hair,” Anna said, as if to herself. “That is an unusual request.”
“But not too unusual. It requires no removal of clothing nor touching of the hands nor lascivious glances.”
“All right,” Anna said, more perplexed than alarmed, but then, she was in the company of a man who scheduled his passions. She fished inside the hamper and withdrew her reticule, producing a small bone-handled brush.
“Pretty little thing,” the earl remarked, thumbing the bristles. “Now”—he sat up—“sit you here.” He thumped the blanket beside him, and Anna scooted, only to find that the earl had shifted so she sat between his bent knees.
“Is this decent?” she murmured.
“Have another glass of wine,” the earl suggested. “It will feel frustratingly decent.”
They fell silent, and Anna felt the earl’s fingers easing through her hair to find her hairpins. He slid them free carefully and began piling them to one side. When the bun at the nape of Anna’s neck was loosened, he let her thick plait tumble down her back.
“I like this part,” he said. “When you free up a braid, and a single shiny rope becomes skeins and curls and riots of silky, soft hair. How do you keep it so fragrant?”
She felt him lean in for a sniff, and her heart nearly skipped a beat.
“I make a shampoo scented with roses.” And ye gods, it had been a struggle to utter that single coherent sentence. His hands were lacing through her unbound hair to massage her scalp and the back of her neck. His touch was perfect—deliberate, knowing, and competent without using too much strength. He trailed her hair down her back, leaving little trickles of pleasure to skitter along her spine, and then she felt him gathering the mass of it, to move it to one side.
“It’s beautiful,” he murmured, his words breathed near her ear. “I’m going to forbid you to wear those hideous caps of yours when we return to Town.”
His thumb brushed along her nape, and then something softer, followed by a puff of breath.
God, yes, Anna thought, letting her chin drop forward. Westhaven scooted closer, the better to kiss her neck, and Anna tilted her head, the better to allow it.
