Page 67 of The Heir
“Not yet,” she replied, staring at the closed lid of the bench. “I heard once before,” she said, her voice dropping back to a whisper so he had to lean in close to hear her. “We crossed the Penines, and something changed, in here.” She pointed to her left ear. “But the next morning, I woke up, and it had changed back. Can we try the tube again tomorrow?”
“We can.” Val smiled, comprehension dawning. “Your ear opened up because of the altitude. When you descended, it closed up again.”
Morgan looked puzzled and turned her face away.
“Even if I can’t hear tomorrow”—she hunched her shoulders against that terrible possibility—“thank you, Lord Valentine, for today. I will never forget your kindness.”
“It was most assuredly my pleasure.” He beamed at her. “Will you let Lord Fairly take a peek at you?”
“Look only,” she said, her shoulders hunching more tightly still. “No treatments. And you will come with me?”
“I will. Westhaven trusts the man, and that should tell you worlds.”
“It has to be soon,” Morgan said, biting her lip.
“I’ll track him down in the next few days. He’s almost always at home these days, and I run tame around his pianos.”
Morgan nodded and took her leave of him, her joy in the day colored by her recall of Anna’s plans. It had been almost a week since Anna had gotten Grandmama’s letter, and a perfectly pleasant if hot week, too. Morgan knew the earl had something to do with Anna’s lighter moods. Oh, Anna still fretted—Anna was born to fret—but she also occasionally hummed, and she hugged Morgan when no one was about, and she smiled—when she wasn’t staring off into space, looking worried.
Good Lord. Morgan stopped in her tracks. What was she going to tell Anna? When was she going to tell Anna? Not for a day or two, Morgan knew, as improvement could be deceptive. Her hearing sometimes got better during really bad storms, only to disappear when the weather moved. Worse than the loss of hearing, though, was the loss of speech.
She’d never realized how the two were related until she couldn’t hear. She lost her ability to gauge the volume of her voice and found she was whispering—or worse, shouting—when she thought her tone was conversational. Eventually, she’d just given up, until she was afraid to attempt speech again, the patterns not even feeling familiar to her lips, teeth, and tongue anymore.
But that could all change, she thought. If the speaking tube still worked tomorrow, it could all change.
The week had gone so well, Anna thought as she rose from her bed. It was another beautiful—if sweltering—summer day, and she’d enjoyed her efforts to complete the Willow Bend interiors. The earl had chosen surprisingly pretty and comfortable furniture, suited to a country home, and to a country home that wouldn’t be simply a gentleman’s retreat from the city.
He’d had few suggestions regarding the decorative schemes, predictably. “Avoid purple, if you please,” or “no flights of Egyptian fancy. My sisters are imaginative enough as it is.” He liked simple, cheerful, comfortable arrangements, which suited Anna just fine. They were easy to assemble, clean, and maintain, and better still, easy to live in.
And if she felt a pang of envy that some other woman, one dear to Westhaven, was going to be doing the living at Willow Bend, she smothered it. She smothered her anxieties regarding her grandmother’s warning and set to bargaining with herself fiercely instead: I’ll work on the Willow Bend interiors until the letters arrive from the agencies. I’ll enjoy the earl’s attentions until I have to leave. I’ll leave Morgan in peace until I know for certain when and where we’re going…
Her life, it seemed, had degenerated into a series of unenforceable bargains made with herself, while the business of the household moved along heedlessly.
The Windham males had taken to hacking in the park early in the morning, with Pericles sometimes escorting two of the younger stock or taking a day to enjoy his stall and hay. The men came back hungry and usually in high spirits.
When Devlin St. Just had moved in, he’d brought an ability to tease with him, and it was infectious. With only the earl and Lord Val in residence, it was as if their shared grief had pushed out all but the driest humor. With Dev underfoot, bad puns, jokes, ribbing, and sly innuendo cropped up among all three brothers. To Anna, the irreverent humor was the conversational equivalent of the occasional bouquet in the house. It pleased the eye and brought visual warmth and pleasure to the odd corner or bare table.
Nonetheless, Colonel St. Just watched her with a calculating gleam foreign to either the earl or Lord Val. St. Just was a bastard and half Irish. Either burden would have been a strike against him, but his papa was a duke, and so he was received.
Received, Anna thought, but not welcomed. That difference put a harder edge on St. Just than on either of his brothers. In his own way, he was an outsider, and so Anna wanted to feel some sympathy for him. But his green eyes held such a measure of distance when they looked at her, all she felt was… wary.
Still, he was supportive of the earl, proud of Val’s music, and well liked by the staff. He always cleaned his plate, flirted shamelessly with Nanny Fran, and occasionally sang to Cook in a lilting, lyrical baritone. He was, in a word, charming, even to Morgan, who usually left the room as quickly as she could when he started his blather.
“Hullo, my dear.” The earl strolled into Anna’s sitting room and glanced back at the door as if he wanted to close it.
“Good morning.” Anna rose, smiling despite herself, because here was the handsomest of the Windham brothers, the heir, and he wanted to marryher.“What brings you to my sitting room on this lovely day?”
“We have household matters to discuss.” His smile dimmed. “May I sit?”
“Shall I fetch the tea tray?” Anna frowned and realized he wanted to settle in, which would not do, for many reasons.
“No, thank you.” The earl took the middle of the settee, extended an arm across the back, and crossed one ankle over the other knee. “How are you coming with the Willow Bend project?”
“I’ve ordered a great deal in the way of draperies, rugs, mirrors, smaller items of furniture, such as night tables, footstools, and so forth,” Anna replied, grateful for a simple topic. “It is going to cost you a pretty penny, I’m warning you, but the results should be very pleasing.”
“Pleasing is good. When will it be ready?”
“Much has already been delivered. The rest should arrive in the next few days. I understood there was some urgency about this project.”
