Page 52 of The Heir
“And I nominate you,” Val responded. “Shall we sit?”
“We shall. I find my energy greatly depleted; though rest is helpful, the effect is temporary. When I lie down, I go out like the proverbial candle.”
“I’ll get your boots.” Val pushed him into a wing chair, hauled off his brother’s boots, and ordered them up some breakfast.
“So you spent three nights with Mrs. Seaton,” Val said, apropos of nothing.
“I did,” the earl admitted, closing his eyes. “I behaved, Valentine.” Barely, but he did. “She is a decent woman, and I would not force my attentions on any female.”
“Your attentions?” Val’s eyebrows rose. “His Grace will be marching you both down the aisle posthaste if he learns of your folly.”
“She won’t be marched, and neither will I. He did that to me once before, Val, and I won’t let it happen again.”
“He did it to you, and he did it to Gwen, who had one hell of a lot more family at her back than Mrs. Seaton does. If he can outflank Heathgate, Amery, Greymoor, and Fairly, what chance would one little housekeeper stand against him?”
“You raise a disturbing point, Valentine”—the earl frowned—“though His Grace manipulated Gwen into accepting my proposal largely by threatening her family. If Mrs. Seaton has no family, then she is less vulnerable to His Grace’s machinations.”
“Talk to her, Westhaven.” Val rose and went to answer a tap on the door. “Make her understand what risks she’s dealing with, and just what a desperate duke will do to see his heir wed.” He opened the door, admitting a footman pushing a breakfast trolley.
As the earl joined his brother for tea, toast, and a few slices of orange, he considered that Val was right: If Anna Seaton had weaknesses or vulnerabilities, it was best she disclose them to the earl, for sooner or later, if the duke learned of them, he would be exploiting them.
And as much as Westhaven sensed they could make a good job of marriage to one another, the earl would not under any circumstances accept Anna Seaton served up as his wife, bound and gagged by the duke’s infernal mischief.
Westhaven healed, albeit slowly, and had to agree with Douglas that what was needed was mostly sleep. On the third day, the rain stopped, on the fourth, the earl slept through the night. On the fifth, he began to grouse about returning home and was marshaling his arguments in the solitude of his room when Rose cajoled him into a visit to the stables. He managed to groom his horse and entertain Rose with a few stories of her father.
But the outing, tame as it was, had been taxing and left him overdue for a stint in bed, much to his disgust. He parted company from Rose, sending her off to draw pictures of the stories he’d told her, and sank down on his bed.
He had a feeling something was off, not right somehow in a nagging way. He peeled out of his clothes and stretched out on the mattress, but still, the sense of something missing wouldn’t leave him.
Anna, he realized as he slipped between the freshly laundered sheets. He’d gone all of two or three hours without seeing her, and her absence was tolling in the back of his mind. All the more reason, he thought, closing his eyes, to get back to Town where his routine would prevent prolonged periods of proximity such as they’d had at Welbourne.
Wanting to bed the woman—even offering to wed her—wasn’t the same as wanting to live in her pocket, after all. A man would have to be besotted to allow feelings like that.
Nine
A week spent at Lord Amery’s had created definite changes in the way Westhaven went on with the object of his unbesottedness. By necessity, while in Surrey he’d kept his hands to himself, and the enforced discipline had yielded some odd rewards.
Anna, for example, had touched him, and in ways a housekeeper would never have touched her employer. She’d bathed him, shaved him, brushed his hair, dressed and undressed him, and even dozed beside him on the big bed. As soon as his fever had abated, she’d left his most personal care to others, but the damage had been done.
Or, Westhaven thought as he tugged on his boot, the ground had been gained.
He had also had a chance to observe her over longer periods of time and watch more carefully how she interacted with others. The more he saw, however, the more puzzled he became. The little clues added up… and not to the conclusion that she was a mere housekeeper.
“What on earth has put that frown on your face?” Devlin St. Just came strolling into the earl’s townhouse bedchamber, dressed to ride and sporting a characteristic charming grin.
“I am considering a lady,” the earl replied, scrounging under his bed for the second boot.
“And frowning. What seek you under the bed, Westhaven? The lady?”
“My damned boot,” Westhaven said, extracting the missing footwear. “I sent Stenson off to Brighton with Val, to assure myself some privacy, but the result is I must look after my own effects.” He pulled on the boot, sat back, and smiled. “To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit?”
“Val commissioned me to keep an eye on you,” Dev said, plopping down on the end of the bed. “Said he was decoying Stenson, so the state of your health would not become common knowledge in the ducal household.”
“I am still very obviously recovering from the chicken pox,” the earl admitted. “At least, it’s very obvious when I am unclothed; hence, Stenson was sent elsewhere.”
“His Grace came by to interrogate me.” Dev leaned back on his elbows. “Knowing nothing, I could, as usual, divulge nothing. He looked particularly choleric to me, Westhaven. Are you and he at outs?”
“I don’t think he tolerates the heat well,” Westhaven said, glancing around the room for his cravat. He’d ring for his housekeeper, who seemed to know where his clothing got off to better than he did, but with Dev on the bed, that wasn’t an option.
