The Heir

by Grace Burrowes

“And how is Her Grace?” the earl asked, going to the sideboard. “Brandy, whiskey?”

  “Don’t mind if I have a tot,” the duke said. “Damned hot out, and that’s a fact. Your mother thrives as always in my excellent and devoted care. Your dear sisters are off to Morelands with her, and I was hoping to find your brother here so I might dispatch him there, as well.”

  The earl handed the duke his drink, declining to drink spirits himself at such an early hour.

  The duke sipped regally at his liquor. “I suppose if Valentine were about, I’d be hearing his infernal racket. Not bad.” He lifted his glass. “Not half bad, after all.”

  Mrs. Seaton’s words returned to the earl as he watched his father sipping casually at some of the best whiskey ever distilled: You fail to offer a civil greeting upon seeing a person first thing in the day… You can’t be bothered to look a person in the eye when you offer your rare word of thanks or encouragement…

  And it hit him like a blow to the chest that as much as he didn’t want to be the next Duke of Moreland, he very especially did not want to turn into another version of this Duke of Moreland.

  “If I see Val,” Westhaven said, “I will tell him the ladies are seeking his company at Morelands.”

  “Hah.” The duke set aside his empty glass. “His mother and sisters, you mean. They’re about the only ladies he has truck with these days.”

  “Not so,” the earl said. “He is much in demand as an escort and considered very good company by many.”

  The duke heaved a martyr’s sigh. “Your brother is a mincing fop, but word is you at least had him in hand at Fairly’s whorehouse. Have to ask, how you’d do it?”

  Now that was rare, for the duke to ask a question to which he sought an answer. Westhaven considered his reply carefully.

  “I had heard Fairly has an excellent new Broadwood on the premises, which, in fact, he does.” A truth, as far as it went.

  “So all I have to do,” the duke said with sudden inspiration, “is find some well-bred filly of a musical nature, and we can get him leg-shackled?”

  “It might be worth considering, but I’d be subtle about it, ask him to escort Her Grace to musicales, for example. He won’t come to the bridle if he sees your hand in things.”

  “Damned stubborn,” His Grace pronounced. “Just like his mama. A bit more to wet the whistle, if you please.” Westhaven brought the decanter to where his father sat on the leather couch, and poured half a measure into the glass. On closer inspection, the heat was taking a toll on His Grace. His ruddy complexion looked more florid than usual, and his breathing seemed a trifle labored.

  “Speaking of stubbornness,” the earl said when he’d put the decanter back on the sideboard, “I no longer have an association with the fair Elise.”

  “What?” His Grace frowned. “You’ve lost your taste for the little blonde?”

  “I wouldn’t say I’ve lost my taste for the little blonde, so much as I’ve never had a taste for my privacy being invaded nor fancied the Moreland title going to somebody who lacks a drop of Windham blood.”

  “What are you blathering on about, Westhaven? I rather liked your Elise. Seemed a practical woman, if you know what I mean.”

  “Meaning she took your bribe, or your dare,” the earl concluded. “Then she turned around and offered her favors elsewhere, to at least one other tall, green-eyed lordling that I know of, and perhaps several others, as well.”

  “She’s a bit of a strumpet, Westhaven, though passably discreet. What would you expect?” The duke finished his drink with a satisfied smack of his lips.

  “She’s Renfrew’s intended, if your baiting inspired her to get with child, Your Grace,” the earl replied. “You put her up to trying to get a child, and the only way she could do that was to pass somebody else’s off as mine.”

  “Good God, Westhaven.” The duke rose, looking pained. “You aren’t telling me you can’t bed a damned woman, are you?”

  “Were that the case, I would not tell you, as such matters are supposed to be private. What I am telling you is if you attempt to manipulate one more woman into my bed, I will not marry. Back off, Your Grace, or you will wish you had.”

  “Are you threatening your own father, Westhaven?” The duke thumped his glass down, hard.

  “I am assuring him,” the earl replied softly, “if he attempts even once more to violate my privacy, I will make him regret it for all of his remaining days.”

  “Violate your…? Oh, for the love of God, boy.” The duke turned to go, hand on the door latch. “I did not come here to argue with you, for once. I came to tell you it was well done, getting your brother to Fairly’s, reminding him what… Never mind. I came with only good intentions, and here you are threatening me. What would your dear mama think of such disrespect? Of course I am concerned; you are past thirty, and you have neither bride nor heir nor promise thereof. You think you can live forever, but you and your brother are proof that even when a man has decades to raise up his sons, sometimes the task is yet incomplete and badly done. You aren’t without sense, Westhaven, and you at least show some regard for the Moreland consequence. All I want is to see the succession secured before I die, and to see your mother has some grandchildren to spoil and love. Good day.”

  He made a grand, door-slamming exit and left his son eyeing the decanter longingly. When a soft knock came a few minutes later, the earl was still so lost in thought, he barely heard it.

  “Come in.”

  “My lord?” Mrs. Seaton, looking prim, cool, and tidy, strode into the room and gave him her signature brisk curtsy. “The luncheon hour approaches. Shall we serve you on the terrace, in the dining parlor, or would you like a tray in here?”

  “I seem to have lost my appetite, Mrs. Seaton.” The earl rose from his desk and walked around to sit on the front of it. “His Grace came to call, and our visit degenerated into its usual haranguing and shouting.”

  “One could hear this,” Mrs. Seaton said, her expression sympathetic. “At least on His Grace’s part.”

  “I was congratulated on dragging my little brother to a brothel, for God’s sake. The old man would have fit in wonderfully in days of yore, when bride and groom were expected to bed each other before cheering onlookers.”

  “My lord, His Grace means well.”

  “He will tell you he does,” the earl agreed. “Just being a conscientious steward of the Moreland succession. But in truth, it’s his own consequence he wants to protect. If I fail to reproduce to his satisfaction, then he will be embarrassed, plain and simple. It’s not enough that he sired five sons, three of whom still live, but he must see a dynasty at his feet before he departs this earth.”

  Mrs. Seaton remained quiet, and the earl recalled he’d sung this lament in her hearing before.

  “Is my brother asleep?”

  “He is, but he asked to be awakened not later than two of the clock. He wants to put in his four hours before repairing again to Viscount Fairly’s establishment.”

  “I do believe my brother is studying to become a madam.”

  Again, his housekeeper did not see fit to make any reply.

  “I’ll take a tray out back,” the earl said, “but you needn’t go to all the usual bother… setting the table, arranging the flowers, and so forth. A tray will do, as long as there’s plenty of sweetened lemonade to go with the meal.”

  “Of course, my lord.” She bobbed her curtsy, but he snaked out a hand to encircle her wrist before she could go.

  “Are you unhappy with me?” he asked, eyeing her closely. “Bad enough His Grace finds fault with me at every turn, Mrs. Seaton. I am trying very hard not to annoy my staff as much as my father annoys me.”

  “I do not think on your worst day you could be half so annoying to us as that man is to you. Your patience with him is admired.”

  “By whom?”

  “Your staff,” she replied. “And your housekeeper.”

  “The admiration of my housekeeper,” the ea
rl said, “is a consummation devoutly to be wished.”

  He brought her wrist to his lips and kissed the soft skin below the base of her thumb, lingering long enough that he felt the steady beat of her pulse.

  She scowled at him, whirled, and left without a curtsy.

  So much, the earl thought as he watched her retreat, for the admiration of his housekeeper.

  Four

  “I NEVER DID ASK IF YOU SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED your errands this morning.” Westhaven put aside his copy of The Times as Anna set his lunch tray before him.

  “I did. Will there be anything else, my lord?”

  He regarded her standing with her hands folded, her expression neutral amid the flowers and walks of his back garden.

  “Anna,” he began, but he saw his use of her name made her bristle. “Please sit, and I do mean will you please.”

  She sat, perched like an errant schoolgirl on the very edge of her chair, back straight, eyes front.

  “You are scolding me without saying a word,” the earl said on a sigh. “It was just a kiss, Anna, and I had the impression you rather enjoyed it, too.”

  She looked down, while a blush crept up the side of her neck.

  “That’s the problem, isn’t it?” he said with sudden, happy insight. “You could accept my apology and treat me with cheerful condescension, but you enjoyed our kiss.”

  “My lord,” she said, addressing the hands she fisted in her lap, “can you not accept that were I to encourage your… mischief, I would be courting my own ruin?”

  “Ruin?” He said with a snort. “Elise will be enjoying an entire estate for the rest of her days as a token of ruin at my hands—among others—if ruin you believe it to be. I did not take her virginity, either, Mrs. Seaton, and I am not a man who casually discards others.”

  She was silent then raised her eyes, a mulish expression on her face.

  “I will not seek another position as a function of what has gone between us so far, but you must stop.”

  “Stop what, Anna?”

  “You should not use my name, my lord,” she said, rising. “I have not given you leave to do so.”

  He rose, as well, as if she were a lady deserving of his manners. “May I ask your permission to use your given name, at least when we are private?”

  He’d shocked her, he saw with some satisfaction. She’d thought him too autocratic to ask, and he was again reminded of his father’s ways. But she was looking at him now, really looking, and he pressed his advantage.

  “I find it impossible to think of you as Mrs. Seaton. In this house, there is no other who treats me as you do, Anna. You are kind but honest, and sympathetic without being patronizing. You are the closest thing I have here to an ally, and I would ask this small boon of you.”

  He watched as she closed her eyes and waged some internal struggle, but in the anguish on her face, he suspected victory in this skirmish was to be his. She’d grant him his request, precisely because he had made it a request, putting a small measure of power exclusively into her hands.

  She nodded assent but looked miserable over it.

  “And you,” he said, letting concern—not guilt, surely—show in his gaze, “you must consider me an ally, as well, Anna.”

  She speared him with a stormy look. “An ally who would compromise my reputation, knowing without it I am but a pauper or worse.”

  “I do not seek to bring you ruin,” he corrected her. “And I would never force my will on you.”

  Anna stood, and he thought her eyes were suspiciously bright. “Perhaps, my lord, you just did.”

  He stared after her for long moments, wrestling with her final accusation but coming to no tidy answers. He could offer Anna Seaton an option, a choice other than decades of stepping and fetching and serving. He desired her and enjoyed her company out of bed, a peculiar realization though not unwelcome. But his seduction would be complicated by her reticence, her infernal notions of decency.

  For now, he could steal some delectable kisses—and perhaps more than kisses—while she found the resolve to refuse him altogether and send him packing.

  He was lingering over his lemonade when Val wandered out looking sleepy and rumpled, shirt open at the throat and cuffs turned back.

  “Ye gods, it is too hot to sleep.” He reached over and drained the last of his brother’s drink. “You do like it sweet.”

  “Helps with my disposition. And as I did indeed have to deal with His Grace this morning, I feel entitled.”

  “How bad was he?” Val asked as he sat and crossed his long legs at the ankle.

  “Bad enough. Wanted to chat about the scene at Fairly’s but left yelling about grandchildren and disrespect.”

  “Sounds about like your usual with him,” Val said as John Footman brought out a second tray, this one bearing something closer to breakfast.

  “Mrs. S said to tell you this one is sweetened, my lord.” John set one glass before the earl. “And this one, less so,” he said as he placed the other before Val.

  “I think she puts mint in it,” Val said after a long swallow.

  “Mrs. Seaton?” the earl asked, sipping at his own drink. “Probably. She delights in all matters domestic.”

  “And she did not appear to be delighting in you, when she was out here earlier.”

  “Valentine.” The earl stared hard at his brother. “Were you spying on me?”

  Val pointed straight up, to where the balcony of his bedroom overlooked the terrace. “I sleep on that balcony most nights,” he explained, “and you were not whispering. I, however, was sleeping and caught the tail end of an interesting exchange.”

  The earl had the grace to study his drink at some silent length.

  “Well?” He met his younger brother’s eyes, awaiting castigation.

  “She is a decent woman, Westhaven, and if you trifle with her, she won’t be decent any longer, ever again. What is a fleeting pleasure for you changes her life irrevocably, and you can never, ever change it back. I am not sure you want that on your appallingly overactive conscience, as much as I applaud your improvement in taste.”

  The earl swirled his drink and realized with a sinking feeling Val had gotten his graceful, talented hands on a truth.

  “Maybe,” Val went on, “you should just marry the woman, hmm? You get on with her, you respect her, and if you marry her, she becomes a duchess. She could do worse, and it would appease Their Graces.”

  “She would not like the duchess part.”

  “You could make it worth her while,” Val said, his tone full of studied nonchalance.

  “Listen to you. You would encourage me into the arms of a pox-ridden gin whore if it would result in His Grace getting a few grandsons.”

  “No, I would not, or you wouldn’t have gotten that little postscript from me regarding Elise’s summer recreation, would you?”

  The earl rose and regarded his brother. “You are a pestilential irritant of biblical proportions. If I do not turn out to be an exact replica of His Grace, it will be in part due to your aggravating influence.”

  Val was grinning around a mouthful of muffin, but he nonetheless managed to reply intelligibly to his brother’s retreating back. “Love you, too.”

  Anna wasn’t fooled. Since their confrontation over the lunch table earlier in the week, the earl had kept a distance, but it was a thoughtful distance. She’d caught him eyeing her as she watered the bouquets in his library, or rising to his feet when she entered a room. It was unnerving, like being stalked by a hungry tiger.

  And as the week wore on, the heat became worse, with violent displays of lightning and thunder at night but no cooling rains to bring relief. The entire household was drinking cold tea, lemonade, and cold cider by the gallon, and livery was worn only at the front door. Everybody’s cuffs were turned back, collars were loosened, and petticoats were discarded.

  Anna heard the front door slam and knew the earl had returned after a long afternoon in the City, transacting business
of some sort. She assembled a tray and waited to hear which door above would slam next. She had to cock her head, because Valentine was playing his pianoforte. The music wasn’t loud, but rather dense with feeling, and not happy feeling at that.

  “He misses our brothers,” the earl said from the kitchen doorway. “More than I realized, as, perhaps, do I.”

  The music shifted and became dark, despairing, all the more convincingly so for being quiet. This wasn’t the passionate, bewildered grief of first loss; it was the grinding, desolate ache that followed. Anna’s own losses and grief rose up and threatened to swamp her, even as the earl moved into the kitchen and eyed the tray on the counter.

  His eyes shifted back up just in time for Anna to be caught wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.

  “Come.” He took her hand and led her to the table, sitting her down, passing her his handkerchief, fetching the tray, then taking the place beside her, hip to hip.

  They listened for long moments, the cool of the kitchen cocooning them both in the beauty and pain of the music, and then Val’s playing shifted again, still sad but with a piercingly sweet lift of acceptance and peace to it. Death, his music seemed to say, was not the end, not when there was love.

  “Your brother is a genius.”

  The earl leaned back to rest his shoulder blades along the wall behind them. “A genius who likely only plays like this late at night among whores and strangers. He’s still a little lost with it.” He slipped his fingers through Anna’s and gently closed his hand. “As, I suppose, am I.”

  “It has been less than a year?”

  “It has. Victor asked that we observe only six months of full mourning, but my mother is still grieving deeply. I should have offered Valentine a bunk months ago.”

  “He probably would not have come,” Anna said, turning their hands over to study his brown knuckles. “I think your brother needs a certain amount of solitude.”

  “In that, he and I and Devlin are all alike.”

  “Devlin is your half brother?” Ducal bastards were apparently an accepted reality, at least in the Windham family.