The Duke’s Obsession Bundle (6 page)

She didn’t end it. She stood in the loose circle of his arms, letting him positively wallow in the clean summery scent of her, the soft curves fitting him in all the right places. He urged her with patient strokes of his hands on her back to rest more fully against him, to give him her weight. He wasn’t even aroused, he realized, he was just… consoled.

When he finally did step back, he placed a single finger softly against her lips to stop her from the admonitory and apologetic stammers no doubt damming up behind her conscience.

“None of that.” He shook his head, his expression solemn. “This wasn’t on my list either, Anna Seaton.”

She didn’t tarry to find out if he would say more, but shook her head in dismay, no curtsy, no
resounding whack to his cheek, no offer of resignation. She left him, heir to the dukedom, standing half dressed, bruised, and alone on his private balcony.

“His lordship begs the favor of yer comp’ny, mum,” John Footman informed the housekeeper. Except, Anna knew, the man’s name really was John, and his father and grandfather before him had also both, for a time, been footmen in the ducal household.

“He’s in the library?” Anna asked, putting her mending aside with a sigh.

“He is,” John replied, “and in a proper taking over summat.”

“Best I step lively.” Anna smiled at the young man, who looked worried for her. She squared her mental shoulders and adopted a businesslike—but certainly not anxious—gait. It had been a week since she’d clobbered the earl with a poker, a few days since that awkward scene on his balcony. She’d tended his bruises for the last time this morning, and he’d been nothing more than his usual acerbic, imperious self.

She knocked with a sense of trepidation nonetheless.

“Come.” The word was barked.

“Mrs. Seaton.” He waved her over to his desk. “Take a chair; I need your skills.”

She took a seat and reluctantly agreed with the footman. His lordship was in a taking, or a snit, or an upset over something. The faint frown that often marked his features was a scowl, and his manner peremptory to the point of rudeness.

“My man of business is unable to attend me, and
the correspondence will not wait. There’s paper, pen, and ink.” He nodded at the edge of the desk. “Here, take my seat, and I’ll dictate. The first letter goes to Messrs. Meechum and Holly, as follows…”

Good morning to you, too, Anna thought, dipping her pen. An hour and a half and six lengthy letters later, Anna’s hand was cramping.

“The next letter, which can be a memorandum, is to go to Morelands. A messenger will be up from Morelands either later today or tomorrow, but the matter is not urgent.” The earl let out a breath, and Anna took the opportunity to stand.

“My lord,” she interrupted, getting a personal rendition of the earl’s scowl for her cheek. “My hand needs a rest, and you could probably use some lemonade for your voice. Shall we take a break?”

He glanced at the clock, ready to argue, but the time must have surprised him.

“A short break,” he allowed.

“I’ll see about your drink,” Anna said. When she got to the hallway, she shook her poor hand vigorously. It wasn’t so much that the earl expected her to take lightning-fast dictation, it was more the case that he never, ever needed a pause himself. He gave her time to carefully record his every word, and not one tick of the clock more.

Sighing, she made her way to the kitchen, loaded up a tray, then added a second glass of lemonade for herself and returned to the library. She had been away from her post for twelve minutes but returned to find the earl reading a handwritten note and looking more thoughtful than angry.

“One more note, Mrs. Seaton,” he said, rummaging in the desk drawers, “and then I will have something to drink.”

He retrieved a scrap of paper from the back of a drawer, glaring at it in triumph when his fingers closed over it. “I knew it was in here.” As he was back in his rightful place behind the desk, Anna repositioned the blotter, paper, pen, and ink on her side of the desk and sat down.

“To Drs. Hamilton, Pugh, and Garner, You will attend Miss Sue-Sue Tolliver at your earliest convenience, on the invitation of her father, Marion Tolliver. Bills for services rendered will be sent to the undersigned. Westhaven, etc.”

Puzzled, Anna dutifully recorded the earl’s words, sanded the little epistle, and set it aside to dry.

“I see you have modified your interpretation of the rules of decorum in deference to the heat,” the earl noted, helping himself to a glass of lemonade. “Good God!” He held the glass away from him after a single sip. “It isn’t sweetened.”

“You helped yourself to my glass,” Anna said, suppressing a smile. She passed him the second glass, from which he took a cautious swallow. She was left to drink from the same glass he’d first appropriated or go back to the kitchen to fetch herself a clean glass.

Looking up, she saw the earl watching her with a kind of bemused curiosity, as if he understood her dilemma. She took a hefty swallow of lemonade—and it did have sugar in it, though just a dash—and set her glass on the blotter.

“Tolliver is your man of business, isn’t he?” she asked, the association just occurring to her.

“He is. He sent word around he was unavoidably detained and would not attend me this morning, which is unusual for him. I put one of the footmen on it and just received Tolliver’s explanation: His youngest is coming down with the chicken pox.”

“And you sent not one but three physicians for a case of chicken pox?” Anna marveled.

“Those three,” the earl replied in all seriousness, “were recommended by an acquaintance who is himself a physician. Garner and Pugh were instrumental in saving His Grace’s life this winter.”

“So you trust them.”

“As much as I trust any physician,” the earl countered, “which is to say no farther than I could throw them, even with my shoulders injured.”

“So if we ever need a physician for you, we should consult Garner, Pugh, or Hamilton?”

“My first choice would be David Worthington, Viscount Fairly, who recommended the other three, but you had better hope I die of whatever ails me, as I will take any quackery quite amiss, Mrs. Seaton.” The earl speared her with a particularly ferocious glare in support of his point.

“May I ask an unrelated question, my lord?” Anna sipped her drink rather than glare right back at him. He was in a mood this morning to try the patience of a saint.

“You may.” He put his empty glass on the tray and sat back in his chair.

“Is this how you work with Mr. Tolliver?” she asked. “Dictating correspondence word-for-word?”

“Sometimes,” the earl replied, frowning. “He’s been with me several years, though, and more often than not, I simply scratch a few notes, and he drafts the final missive for my signature.”

“Can we try that approach? It sounds like my grandfather’s way of doing business, and so far, your correspondence has been perfectly mundane.”

“We can try it, but I am reminded of another matter I wanted to raise with you, and I will warn you in advance I won’t have you sniffing your indignation at me for it.”

“Sniffing my indignation?”

The earl nodded once, decisively. “Just so. I told you the other night I have parted company with my current
chere amie
. I inform you of this, Mrs. Seaton, not because I want to offend your sensibilities, but because I suspect the duke will next turn his sights on my own household.”

“What does His Grace have to do with your… personal associations?”

“Precisely my question,” the earl agreed, but he went on to explain in terse, blunt language how his father had manipulated his mistress, and how Elise had altered the plan in its significant details. “My father will likely try to find a spy on my own staff to inform him of when and with whom I contract another liaison. You will foil his efforts, should you learn of them.”

“My lord, if you wanted to elude your father’s scrutiny, then why would you hire half your footmen from his household and give him exclusive access to your valet for weeks on end?”

The earl looked nonplussed as he considered the logic of her observation.

“I made those arrangements before I comprehended the lengths to which my father is prepared to go. And I did so without knowing he already had spies in Elise’s household, as well.”

Anna said nothing and resumed her seat across the desk from the earl. He shuffled the stack, put two or three missives aside, then passed pen and paper to Anna.

“To Barstow,” he began, “a polite expression of noninterest at this time, perhaps in future, et cetera. To Williams and Williams, a stern reminder that payment is due on the first, per our arrangements, and sword-rattling to the effect that contractual remedies will be invoked.” He passed over the first two and went on in that vein until Anna had her orders for the next dozen or so letters.

“And while you obligingly tend to spinning that straw into gold”—the earl smiled without warning—“I will fire off the next salvo to His Grace.”

For the next hour, they worked in companionable silence, with Anna finding it surprisingly easy to address the tasks set before her. She’d spent many, many hours in this role with her grandfather and had enjoyed the sense of partnership and trust such a position evoked.

“Well, what have we here?” Lord Valentine strode into the library, smiling broadly at its occupants. “Have I interrupted a lofty session of planning menus?”

“Hardly.” The earl smiled at his brother. “Tolliver’s absence has necessitated I prevail on Mrs. Seaton’s good offices. What has you up so early?”

“It’s eleven of the clock,” Val replied. “Hardly early when one expects to practice at least four hours at his
pianoforte.” He stopped and grimaced. “If, that is, you won’t mind. I can always go back to the Pleasure House if you do.”

“Valentine.” The earl glanced warningly at Mrs. Seaton.

“I’ve already told your housekeeper I am possessed of a healthy affection for pianos of easy virtue.” Val turned his smile on Anna. “She was shocked insensible, of course.”

“I was no such thing, your lordship.”

“A man can take poetic license,” Val said, putting a pair of Westhaven’s glasses on his nose. “If you will excuse me, I will be off to labor in the vineyard to which I am best suited.”

A little silence followed his departure, with the earl frowning pensively at the library door. Anna went back to the last of her assigned letters, and a few minutes later, heard the sound of scales tinkling through the lower floors of the house.

“Will he really play for four hours?” she asked.

“He will play forever,” the earl said, “but he will practice for at least four hours each day. He spent more time at the keyboard by the age of twenty-five than a master at any craft will spend at his trade in his lifetime.”

“He is besotted,” Anna said, smiling. “You really don’t mind the noise?”

“It is the sound of my only living little brother being happy,” the earl said, tossing down his pen and going to stand in the open French doors. “It could never be noise.” The earl frowned at her over his shoulder. “What? I can see you want to ask me something. I’ve worked you hard enough you deserve a shot or two.”

“What makes you happy?” she asked, stacking the completed replies neatly, not meeting his eyes.

“An heir to a dukedom need not be happy. He need only be dutiful and in adequate reproductive health.”

“So you are dutiful, but that evades the question. Your father manages to be both duke and happy, at least much of the time. So what, future Duke of Moreland, makes you happy?”

“A good night’s sleep,” the earl said, surprising them both. “Little pieces of marzipan showing up at unlikely spots in my day. A pile of correspondence that has been completed before luncheon, thank ye gods.”

“You still need to read my efforts,” Anna reminded him, pleased at his backhanded compliment, but troubled, somehow, that a good night’s sleep was the pinnacle of his concept of pleasure.

The earl waggled his fingers at her. “So pass them over, and I will find at least three misspellings, lest you get airs above your station.”

“You will find no misspellings, nor errors of punctuation or grammar.” Anna passed the stack to him. “With your leave, I will go see about luncheon. Would you like to be served on the terrace, my lord, and will Lord Valentine be joining you?”

“I would like to eat on the terrace,” the earl said, “and I doubt my brother will tear himself away from the piano, when he just sat down to his finger exercises. Send in a tray to him when you hear him shift from drills to etudes and repertoire.”

“Yes, my lord.” Anna bobbed a curtsy, but his lordship was already nose down into the correspondence, his brow knit in his characteristic frown.

“Oh, Mrs. Seaton?” The earl did not look up.

“My lord?”

“What does a child suffering chicken pox need for her comfort and recuperation?”

“Ice,” Anna said, going on to name a litany of comfort nursing accoutrements.

“You can see to that?” he asked, looking up and eyeing his gardens. “The ice and so forth? Have it sent ’round to Tolliver’s?”

“I can,” Anna replied, cocking her head to consider her employer. “Regularly, until the child recovers.”