The Duke’s Obsession Bundle (9 page)

“Up early, aren’t you, Mrs. Seaton?” the earl greeted her.

“As are you, my lord,” she replied casually, sliding the letter into her reticule.

“I am off to let Pericles stretch his legs, but I find myself in need of sustenance.”

“Would you like a muffin, my lord? I can fix you something more substantial, or you can take the muffin with you.”

“A muffin will do nicely, or perhaps two.” He
narrowed his eyes at her. “You aren’t going to be shy with me, are you, Mrs. Seaton?”

“Shy?” And just like that, she blushed, damn him. “Why ever would I…? Oh, shy. Of course not. A small, insignificant, forgivable indiscretion on the part of one’s employer is hardly cause to become discomposed.”

“Glad you aren’t the type to take on, but I would not accost you where someone might come upon us,” the earl said, pouring himself a measure of lemonade.

“My lord,” she shot back, “you will not accost me
anywhere
.”

“If you insist. Some lemonade before you go out?”

“You are attempting to be charming,” Anna accused. “Part of your remorse over your misbehavior last evening.”

“That must be it.” He nodded. “Have some lemonade anyway. You will go marching about in the heat and find yourself parched in no time.”

“It isn’t that hot yet,” Anna countered, accepting a glass of lemonade, “And a lady doesn’t march.”

“Here’s to ladies who don’t march.” The earl saluted with his drink. “Now, about those muffins? Pericles is waiting.”

“Mustn’t inconvenience dear Pericles,” Anna muttered loudly enough for the earl to hear her, but his high-handedness did not inspire blushes, so it was an improvement of sorts. She opened the bread box—where anybody would have known to look for the muffins—and selected the two largest. The earl was sitting on the wooden table and let Anna walk up to him to hand over the goodies.

“There’s my girl.” He smiled at her. “See? I don’t bite, though I’ve been known to nibble. So what is in this batch?”

“Cinnamon and a little nutmeg, with a caramel sort of glaze throughout,” Anna said. “You must have slept fairly well.”

Now that she was close enough to scrutinize him, Anna saw that the earl’s energy seemed to have been restored to him. He was in much better shape than he had been the previous evening, and—oh dear—the man was actually smiling, and at her.

“I did sleep well.” The earl bit into a muffin. “And he is dear, you know. Pericles, that is. And this”—he looked her right in the eye—“is a superb muffin.”

“Thank you, my lord.” She couldn’t help but smile at him when he was making such a concerted effort not to annoy her.

“Perhaps you’d like a bite?” He tore off a piece and held it out to her, and abruptly, he was being very annoying indeed.

“I’ll just have one of my own.”

“They are that good, aren’t they?” the earl said, popping the bite into his maw. “Where do you go this early in the morning, Mrs. Seaton?”

“I have some errands,” she said, pulling a crocheted summer glove over her left hand.

“Ah.” The earl nodded sagely. “I have a mother and five sisters, plus scads of female cousins. I have heard of these errands. They are the province of women and seem to involve getting a dizzying amount done in a short time or spending hours on one simple task.”

“They can,” she allowed, watching two sizeable
muffins meet their end in mere minutes. The earl rose and gave her another lordly smile.

“I’ll leave you to your errands. I am fortified sufficiently for mine to last at least until breakfast. Good day to you, Mrs. Seaton.”

“Good day, my lord.” Anna retrieved her reticule from the table and made for the hallway, relieved to have put her first encounter of the day with his lordship behind her.

“Mrs. Seaton?” His lordship was frowning at the table, but when he looked up at her, his expression became perfectly blank—but for the mischief in his eyes.

“My lord?” Anna cocked her head and wanted to stomp her foot. The earl in a playful mood was more bothersome than the earl in a grouchy mood, but at least he wasn’t kissing her.

He held up her right glove, twirling it by a finger, and he wasn’t going to give it back, she knew, unless she
marched
up to him and retrieved it.

“Thank you,” she said, teeth not quite clenched. She walked over to him, and held out her hand, but wasn’t at all prepared for him to take her hand in his, bring it to his lips, then slap the glove down lightly into her palm.

“You are welcome.” He snagged a third muffin from the bread box and went out the back door, whistling some complicated theme by Herr Mozart that Lord Valentine had been practicing for hours earlier in the week.

Leaving Anna staring at the glove—the gauntlet?—the earl had just tossed down into her hand.

“Good morning, Brother!”

Westhaven turned in the saddle to see Valentine drawing his horse alongside Pericles.

“Dare I hope that you, like I, are coming home after a night on the town?” Val asked.

“Hardly.” The earl smiled at his brother as they turned up the alley toward the mews. “I’ve been exercising this fine lad and taking the morning air. I also ran into Dev, who seems to be thriving.”

“He is becoming a much healthier creature, our brother,” Val said, grinning. “He has this great, strapping ‘cook/housekeeper’ living with him. Keeps his appetites appeased, or so he says. But before we reach the confines of your domicile, you should be warned old Quimbey was at the Pleasure House last night, and he said His Grace is going to be calling on you to discuss the fact that your equipage was seen in the vicinity of Fairly’s brother yesterday.”

“So you might ply his piano the whole night through,” Westhaven said, frowning mightily at his brother. Val grinned back at him and shook his head, and Westhaven felt some of his pleasure in the day evaporating in the hot morning air. “Then what is our story?”

“You have parted from Elise, as is known to all, so we hardly need concoct a story, do we?”

“Valentine.” Westhaven frowned. “You know what His Grace will conclude.”

“Yes, he will,” Val said as he dismounted. “And the louder I protest to the contrary, the more firmly he’d believe it.”

Westhaven swung down and patted Pericles’s neck. “Next time, you’re walking to any assignation you have with any piece of furniture housed in a brothel.”

They remained silent until they were in the kitchen, having used the back terrace to enter the house. Val went immediately to the bread box and fished out a muffin. “You want one?”

“I’ve already had three. Some lemonade, or tea?”

“Mix them,” Val said, getting butter from the larder. “Half of each. There’s cold tea in the dry sink.”

“My little brother, ever the eccentric. Will you join me for breakfast?” Westhaven prepared his brother’s drink as directed then poured a measure of lemonade for himself.

“Too tired.” Val shook his head. “I kept an eye on things at the Pleasure House until the wee hours then found myself fascinated with a theme that closely resembles the opening to Mozart’s symphony in G minor. When His Grace comes to call, I will be abed, sleeping off my night of sin with Herr Mozart. You will please inform Papa of this, and with a straight face.”

His Grace presented himself in due course, with appropriate pomp and circumstance, while Val slept on in ignorant bliss above stairs. The footman minding the door, cousin to John, knew enough to announce such an important personage, and did so, interrupting the earl and Mr. Tolliver as they were wrapping up a productive morning.

“Show His Grace in,” the earl said, excusing Tolliver and deciding not to deal with his father in a parlor, when the library was likely cooler and had no
windows facing the street. Volume seemed to work as well as brilliance when negotiating with his father, but sheer ruthlessness worked best of all.

“Your Grace.” The earl rose and bowed deferentially. “A pleasure as always, though unexpected. I hope you fare well?”

“Unexpected.” His Grace snorted, but he was in a good mood, his blue eyes gleeful. “I’ll tell you what’s unexpected is finding you at a bordello. Bit beneath you, don’t you think? And at two of the clock on a broiling afternoon! Ah, youth.”

“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.”