The Heir

“So are you wearing drawers and petticoats?” the earl asked, waggling his eyebrows.

“No more champagne for you, if only two sips make you lost to all propriety.”

“You’re not wearing them,” he concluded, making himself a sandwich. “Sensible of you, as it seems even more oppressively hot today than yesterday.”

“It is warming up. It also looks to be clouding up.”

“More false hope.” He glanced at the sky. “I can’t recall a summer quite so brutal and early as this one. Seems we hardly had a real spring.”

“It’s better in the North. You get beastly winters there, but also a real spring, a tolerable summer, and a truly wonderful autumn.”

“So you were raised in the North.”

“I was. Right now, I miss it.”

“I miss Scotland right now, or Stockholm. But this food is superb and the company even better. More champagne?”

“I shouldn’t.” Her eyes strayed to the bottle, sweating in its linen napkin. “It is such a pleasant drink.”

The earl topped off both of their glasses. “This is a day for pleasant, not a day for shoulds and should nots, though I am thinking I should buy the place.”

“It is lovely. The only thing that gives me pause are the oaks along the lane. They will carpet the place with leaves come fall.”

“And the gardeners will rake them.” The earl shrugged. “Then the children can jump in the piles of leaves and scatter them all about again.”

“A sound plan. Are you going to eat those strawberries?”

The earl paused, considered his plate, and picked up a perfect red, juicy berry.

“I’ll share.” He held it out to her but withdrew it when A

“I really did not pack that champagne,” she said when she’d savored the wine.

“I did,” the earl confessed. “Na

“She adores you.” A

“I know.” The earl lounged back, resting on his elbows. “When Bart died and she’d launch into a reminiscence, I used to have to leave the room, so angry was I at her. Now I look for the chance to get her going.”

“Grief changes. I recall as a child sitting for hours in my mother’s wardrobe after she died; that was where I could still smell her.”

“I recall you lost both parents quite young.”

“I was raised by my father’s father. He loved us as much as any parent could, probably more, because he’d lost his only son.”

“I am sorry, A

“It was a long time ago,” A

“Dear God.” The earl shuddered. “Were you in that carriage, as well?”

“I was not, though I often used to wish I had been.”

“A

“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.” A

“And I, poor fellow”—the earl smiled up at her—“have none of those options.”

“You do not,” A

The earl folded his hands behind his head. “There is a pleasure you could allow me, A

“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…?” A

“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,” A

“But not too unusual. It requires no removal of clothing nor touching of the hands nor lascivious glances.”

“All right,” A

“Pretty little thing,” the earl remarked, thumbing the bristles. “Now”—he sat up—“sit you here.” He thumped the blanket beside him, and A

“Is this decent?” she murmured.

“Have another glass of wine,” the earl suggested. “It will feel frustratingly decent.”

They fell silent, and A

“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.