Page 86 of The Heir
“It is too hot to go about in your finery,” Anna said, “and too late.”
He’d stood there in the foyer like a tired little boy, and let her fuss with his clothing. She piled his clothing over one arm, laced her fingers through his, and towed him unresisting into the peaceful confines of his home.
The warmth of Anna’s hand in his felt like the first good news Westhaven had heard all day.
“My grandfather died just a couple of years ago,” Anna said as she led him through the darkened house. “I was so lucky to have him that long, and he was the dearest man. But he suffered some wasting disease, and in the end, it was a relief to see him go, but he held on and held on for my grandmother.”
“I can see His Grace doing the same thing,” the earl said, squeezing Anna’s fingers slightly.
“I recall that sense of dread,” Anna continued, “dread that every time Grandpapa dozed off, he was actually dead. He looked dead, sometimes, or I thought he did until I actually saw him pass. Three weeks after he left us, my grandmother had an apoplexy and became quite invalided herself.”
“She suffered a serious blow,” the earl said as they gained the kitchen.
“We all had,” Anna said, sitting him down at the work table. “I recall the way the whole household seemed strained, waiting but still hoping. We were… lost.”
He watched her moving around the kitchen to fetch his lemonade, watched her pour a scandalous amount of sugar into it then assemble him a tray. Something in the practical competence of her movements reassured him, made him feel lesslost. In the ducal household, his mother and sisters, the servants, the physicians,everybody, looked to him for guidance.
And he’d provided it, ordering the straw spread on the street, even though the mansion sat so far back from the square the noise was unlikely to disturb his father. The need was for the staff to do something—anything—to feel like they were contributing to the duke’s welfare and comfort.
So Westhaven had issued orders, commandeering a sick room in the ducal chambers, sending word down to Morelands, setting Nanny Fran to inventorying the medical supplies, directing his sisters to pen notes to the family’s closest acquaintances and extended family, and putting Her Grace to extracting a list from the duke of the cronies he wanted notified and the terms of the notice. He’d conferred with the doctors, asked them to correspond with Fairly on the case, made sure Dev was off to inform Maggie, and finally, when there were no more anxious faces looking to him for direction, let himself come home.
And it was home, he thought, not because he owned the building or paid the people who worked there, nor even because he dwelled here with his brothers.
It was home because Anna was here, waiting for him. Waiting to care for him, not expecting him—hell, not really even allowing him—to care for her, solve her problems, and tell her how to go on.
I love you, he thought, watching her pull a daisy from the bouquet in the middle of the table and put it in a bud vase on his tray. When she brought the tray to the table and set it down, he put his arms around her waist and pressed his face to her abdomen.
“I used to look at your scalp wound this way,” Anna mused, trailing her finger through his hair to look for a scar. “I am lucky I did not kill you.”
“My head is too hard,” he said, sitting back. “I am supposed to eat this?”
“I will wallop you again if you don’t,” Anna said firmly, folding her arms. “And I’ll tattle to Pericles, who seems to have some sort of moral authority over you.”
“Sit with me,” he said, trying to muster a smile at her words.
She settled in beside him, and he felt more at peace.
“What do the physicians say?” Anna asked, laying her head on his shoulder.
“Odd,” the earl said, picking up a sandwich. “Nobody has asked me that, not even Her Grace.”
“She probably knows, even if she doesn’t admit it to herself, just how serious this is. My grandparents were like that, joined somehow at the level of instinct.”
“They loved each other,” the earl said, munching thoughtfully. Were he and Anna joined at the level of instinct? He thought so, or she wouldn’t be sitting here with him, feeding him, and offering him company when his own family did not.
“They surely did,” Anna said. “My grandfather grew his flowers forher. For me and Morgan, too, but mostly for his bride.”
“Morgan is your sister,” the earl concluded as his sandwich disappeared. Beside him, Anna went still.
“I know you are related,” he said, sipping his lemonade then offering it to Anna. “You care for her, and she is much more than a cousin to you.”
“You know this how?”
“I know you,” he said simply. “And we live under the same roof. It’s hard to hide such a closeness. You were willing to murder me for her safety.”
“She is my sister.”
“Val guessed it,” the earl said, biting into an apple slice. “He’s a little in love with her, I think.”
