Ethan: Lord of Scandals

Twenty-one

“She asked about you,” Heathgate said, apropos of nothing. His mare walked along the bridle path beside Ethan’s golden gelding, the leaves crunching underfoot in a sound characteristic of the woods in autumn.

“And what did you tell her?” Ethan had no dignity where Alice was concerned, hadn’t had any for weeks.

“I told her a pack of lies,” Heathgate said. “You’re hiring trollops from London, becoming a drunken sot, carrying on with the tweenie.”

“That is not humorous.

“The two of you aren’t humorous.” Heathgate brought his horse to a halt. “Talk to the woman. She mopes around Willowdale like a ghost, smiling only at the children. Lady Heathgate is concerned she’s going into a decline, and she catches your Alice crying at odd moments. She doesn’t eat much, save her desserts, and she spends a prodigious amount of time in bed.”

“She’s had a blow,” Ethan said. “Seeing Collins, much less being taken by him at gunpoint, will put her off her feed.” Finding out that the man she’d taken to her bed had been intimate with Hart Collins was more than a blow.

“She isn’t a damned broodmare. At least call upon her, wish her well before she departs for London.”

Ethan sustained a blow, another blow, at that pronouncement. “She’s going to London? To live with her brother?”

“She does not confide in me, but she did speak of traveling to London tomorrow, and thanked me for my hospitality.”

Ethan nudged his horse back to a walk. “Give her my… best.”

Gareth Alexander, Marquis of Heathgate, held his tongue when he wanted to shout that Alice Portman was likely already carrying the consequences of being given Ethan Grey’s best. But then he caught sight of Grey’s sons, regarding him solemnly from the backs of their ponies.

“Did you say Miss Alice was leaving tomorrow?” Joshua spoke up, his tone oddly adult.

“I did,” Heathgate replied, feeling strangely on trial.

Jeremiah scowled, looking very like his father. “And Papa didn’t say anything?”

“Nothing of consequence.”

“That’s stupid.” Joshua glanced over at his brother, who nodded. “Really stupid.”

Heathgate glared down at them. “If it’s so stupid, why don’t you prodigies do something about it? God knows I’ve tried and gotten no damned where at all.”

He twirled his horse in a walk pirouette and trotted off, only a little chagrined that he’d spoken thusly to mere children.

“You have callers.” The marchioness’s gaze traveled over the possessions Alice had spread out on her bed, then went to the two portmanteaus already waiting beside the door.

Alice paused while folding up a green-and-blue cashmere shawl. “Callers?” The vicar and his wife, maybe? Lord and Lady Greymoor?

“They’re waiting in the family parlor, and I’ve ordered tea.”

“Thank you.” Alice ceased her packing—she still hated to pack but doubted it would ever inspire her to panic again—and took in her ladyship’s guarded expression. The marchioness wasn’t offering to chaperone in the parlor, so it couldn’t be Ethan and Nick waiting for her, and besides, Nick was in Kent with his wife where he belonged. Would Reese and Matthew have come to fetch her? Might Nick have sent for them?

Mind whirling, Alice took herself to the family parlor, glancing around for her visitors.

Joshua grinned at her bashfully. “Hullo, Miss Alice.”

“Oh, Joshua.” Alice went to her knees and held out her arms. “Jeremiah, my favorite gentlemen, it is so good to see you.” They burrowed against her, all elbows and chins and cold, fresh air. Tears sprang to Alice’s eyes as she hugged them to her, and only by force of will did she let them go. “You both look so very well.” She rose to her feet and waved a hand at the sofa. “Won’t you join me for tea, gentlemen?”

“Told you she’d cry,” Joshua muttered at his brother. “There are chocolates too. Lady Heathgate said to tell you. She’s nice.”

“She is.” Alice swiped at her eyes with her knuckles. “You boys are nice too, to come calling like this. I hope you brought a groom.”

“We told Davey where we were going, because he likes to visit his brother,” Jeremiah said, “but after we have some tea and chocolates, we’re not calling on you.”

“You’re not?” Alice set down the teapot, her governess instincts picking up on little-boy mischief in the making. “What are you about?”

“We’re kidnapping you,” Jeremiah said. “We thought about kidnapping Papa, but he’s bigger than you, and he’s already home. You’re not home.”

“I don’t have a home.” This was one of the more painful realizations she’d come to in recent days.

“Yes, you do,” Jeremiah insisted as he helped himself to three chocolates then obligingly held the box for his brother to plunder similarly. “Tydings is your home. We talked about it.”

“Who is this ‘we’?” Alice asked, thinking in some corner of her mind her charges needed to learn proper tea etiquette. Her former charges.

“Both of us,” Joshua chimed in, helping himself to more chocolate. “We love you, so you have to come home with us.”

“Davey isn’t with you, is he?” She did love them—them too.

“We told him we were going to kidnap you,” Jeremiah replied. “He probably followed us.”

“You’re going to get in such trouble,” Alice warned them. “Your father will be beside himself.”

Jeremiah paused between chocolates to spear her with a look. “He doesn’t know we’re gone. He rides with us, and he comes to the table, but he’s in his stupid library all day, and when we tickle him, he only pretends to laugh. It’s stupid.”

“Really stupid.” Joshua sighed dramatically and took yet another chocolate.

“That’s enough, Josh. Miss Alice is getting peevish.”

“Peevish.” Alice rose and wanted to be peevish, but mostly, she was touched and uncertain and worried—worried about Ethan, who needed very much to laugh when he was tickled, and worried she ought to at least say her good-byes to him in person.

She owed him that much.

“Well, then.” Alice held out her hands. “I give up. Kidnap me, gentlemen, or you’ll make that poor box of chocolates walk the plank, right?”

“Right into Davy Jones’s locker!” Joshua crowed, thumping his tummy. He eyed the chocolates, met Alice’s frown, and took one of her outstretched hands. Jeremiah took the other, and when they passed Lord Heathgate on the front stairs, his lordship arched a fine dark eyebrow.

“Going somewhere with my guest, gentlemen?”

“Nope,” Joshua said. “We’re kidnapping her.”

Heathgate nodded his approval. “That’s all right, then. Have a pleasant crime, Miss Portman.”

She managed a weak smile and let the boys tow her right out the door. Waltzer stood solid and handsome at the lady’s mounting block. Alice climbed aboard, arranging her skirts in a semblance of modesty.

“This kidnapping will take place at a dignified walk,” Alice warned her escorts.

“Alice!” The marchioness hurried down the steps to the front terrace. “Take your shawl, my dear. When the clouds cover the sun, it isn’t the least warm today.”

“You are abetting a pair of felons, you know,” Alice said, taking the shawl and wrapping it around her shoulders.

“And such handsome felons, too.” Lady Heathgate beamed a smile at each of the boys where they sat on their ponies. “Come again soon, gentlemen, and perhaps I can talk you into kidnapping Joyce.”

“No, thank you, Lady Heathgate,” Jeremiah managed. “Joshua?”

“I’m ready.” His brother waved to the marchioness. “Thanks for the chocolates!”

Her ladyship waved them cheerily on their way, while Alice felt as if she were riding to the gallows. She wanted to see Ethan again, wanted it desperately, but she did not want to see cool tolerance in his blue eyes, or worse—pity.

Still, she needed to thank him. If nothing else, she needed to thank him for bringing about the death of the man who’d destroyed her sister’s life and a fair portion of Alice’s own health and happiness. Ethan would not want her gratitude; he’d probably not want anything from her ever again.

Inevitably the little cavalcade of two ponies and the captive on her gelding made its way to Tydings. Alice caught a glimpse of Davey following at a discreet distance, and he too waved at her with great good cheer.

They were daft, the cheerful, waving lot of them.

“We’re here!” Joshua announced to the stables at large. Miller appeared and took Waltzer’s reins.

“If it isn’t Miss Alice, come back to us after all the commotion last week. Well done, lads. Down you go, Miss, and I’ll see to his nibs here.”

“You have to come,” Joshua reminded her. “You’re kidnapped now.” He grabbed her hand again, while Jeremiah was content to skip along beside them.

“Your brig can be the library,” Jeremiah decided. “It has lots of books, and you like books, right?”

“I do like books,” Alice said, feeling doom settle around her heart. She was going to see Ethan, after days of not seeing him, but it would be for the last time. Her heart was going to break, and then she honestly did not know how she’d go on, much less why she’d try to.

In no time, she was marched to the library and thrust inside by a pair of self-satisfied, giggling little boys. They banged the door shut behind her and ran off, squealing with laughter.

“I did not ring for tea.” Ethan was at his desk, shirtsleeves rolled up, one finger running down a list of figures, the other hand holding a pen. He did not look up, which gave Alice a moment to study him.

He was gaunt. The bones of his handsome face were more prominent, the lines at the corners of his eyes deeper, and there was a tension in his big frame Alice hadn’t seen since she’d first met him—fatigue, she guessed. A succession of bad nights.

“Ethan?”

He glanced up sharply and was on his feet in an instant.

“Alice?” He came around the desk, gaze fixed on her as if he were afraid she’d disappear. A large, elegant hand reached out toward her, then dropped. “May I take your shawl?”

She said nothing, merely stood there, drinking in the dear, handsome, hopelessly unavailable sight of him. Gently, he eased her shawl from her shoulders, folded it neatly, and offered it back to her.

He’d done this once before, after one of their walks, a small intimate consideration so characteristic of him it had melted her heart. She burst into tears and stood there like a complete fool, clutching her shawl to her middle.

“Don’t cry.” Ethan stepped closer. “Alice, please don’t cry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Alice?”

He did not want to touch her, Alice concluded miserably. He was such a gentleman, but he could not stand to touch her now, knowing what he did about her.

“Come sit.” He steered her by the shoulders to the sofa. “I’ll ring for tea, and you can tell me what has you so upset.”

“No tea,” Alice choked out. “I don’t want another blessed cup of blessed tea.”

Gingerly, Ethan sat beside her, taking one of her hands in his. “No tea then.” All it took was the touch of his hand on hers, and Alice lost any pretense of composure. She went from an inconvenient case of the sniffles to full out sobbing, clutching his hand to her with desperate strength.

“I miss you,” she managed. “Ethan, I’m sorry, but I miss you so. I ache with it. I don’t want to go.”

“Go?” Ethan edged closer. “You just got here.” Her nails were digging into his hand, gripping him for dear life. “No one will make you go anywhere.” He tucked a lock of her hair back around her ear, and it was all the invitation she needed to pitch herself hard against his chest.

“I just won’t go.” She clamped her arms around him. “It wasn’t my fault, what I saw. I tried to get help, Ethan. That’s how I got hurt, and it was too late, anyway, and he had a knife, and I was too scared to think.”

Slowly, Ethan’s arms closed around her. Alice inhaled his evergreen scent, and she felt a wave of calm envelop her. Whether he was merely being gentlemanly or not, she was in his arms again, and it felt right.

Absolutely right.

“Tell me,” Ethan murmured, his lips close to her ear. “Tell me what you want me to know, Alice.”

“I don’t want to tell you.” Alice gulped and accepted his handkerchief. “It’s awful.”

“It might be awful”—Ethan kissed her cheek—“but you are not awful. Tell me.”

Alice closed her eyes, tears leaking from the corners, while she tried to find words for something she hadn’t mentioned to anybody in twelve years.

“Hart Collins was engaged to my sister.” She tucked her face to Ethan’s neck and would have climbed inside him if she’d been able. “He put on the pretty for her. Then we began to hear rumors. I barely understood them, but Avis is a little older than me, and she was much more worldly, not buried in books. Hart was always getting sent down and into trouble. His papa was a baron, though, so the trouble was kept quiet. Still, Avis had second thoughts and decided to break the engagement. There was another fellow who caught her eye—a worthy fellow. The day before our papa was to call on the baron to explain Avis’s change of heart, Collins and his friends snatched her from her horse and made off with her. I was so foolish…”

“You were fourteen,” Ethan said gently. “Fourteen is still a child.”

“I should have gotten help right then,” Alice said miserably. “We were on our own property, and Papa never made us take a groom if we were riding on Blessings land. I trailed after them and rode right into a trap, with Hart’s cronies pulling me off my horse as easily as Hart had taken Avis. They’d been drinking, and when Hart dragged Avie, screaming, into a gamekeeper’s cottage, they cheered and tossed me in after.”

“Go on.”

“He cut her clothes right off her, laughing all the while,” Alice went on, her voice dropping to a near whisper. “When Avie screamed at me to get out, he noticed I was there and held the knife to her throat.”

“I’m listening.” Ethan’s hand went to her hair. “I’m right here.”

“She stopped struggling,” Alice said, voice catching. “She motioned me to leave, and I knew she was trading her virtue for mine. When he started rutting on her, I bolted. I jumped on the first horse at the hitching rail and took off at a gallop.”

“You did the right thing,” Ethan said swiftly, before she could say another word. “You tried to go for help and made your sister’s sacrifice worth something.”

“He hurt her,” Alice wailed softly. “He hurt her terribly, Ethan, and all I did was run, and even then, I couldn’t control the horse. I ended up coming off, getting dragged, and taking forever to get her help. When the neighbors found her, Collins was long gone, and Avie was a wreck. He assumed no other man would have her, and he’d get her and her dowry despite her change of heart.”

In the safety of Ethan’s arms, Alice realized something else: Collins had hurt Avis, abominably, terribly, unforgivably, but he’d hurt Alice too.

“Avis couldn’t contemplate marriage to anyone, and you could no longer walk,” Ethan concluded. “Alice, you did the best you could, and you have to forgive yourself for not being older, wiser, stronger, and meaner. You have to. You were just a girl, a child, just… Good God, you were just fourteen…”

Ethan fell silent, and Alice let him hold her in that silence for a small, fraught eternity. At that moment, she didn’t care why he was holding her; she only knew she needed his arms around her for as long as he would spare her an embrace. She needed that gentle caress of his hand in her hair, needed the scent and heat and strength of him.

And then his hand stilled, and the silence shifted.

“I was fourteen,” Ethan said, surprising her enough that she pulled back to see his face. His voice was calm, almost meditative. “Collins’s modus operandi was already established. He gathered his little mob, plied them with liquor, ambushed me, and had his pleasure violating me. Because Heathgate came upon the scene, we were able to do some damage to Collins and his thugs, but nothing permanent. He went on to rape others, including your sister, and for that, I will always, always be sorry.”

Alice wrapped her arms around him. “You were only a boy, and so far from home, and it was just wrong.”

“It was wrong.” Ethan repeated her words quietly. “What happened to you and your sister was wrong too, Alice. I let Collins’s brutality limit who I was and whom I allowed to love me for a long, long time. I am unwilling to give him that control any longer.”

She blinked up at him, but burrowed back into his embrace without saying a word. As her mind calmed and she absorbed the quality of his embrace—sure, uncompromising, and snug—she realized something else: Ethan wasn’t disappointed in her. His words assured her of it, but more fundamentally, so did the quality of his touch.

“Why did you stay away, Ethan? I waited for you to fetch me home, and you didn’t.” She’d been waiting years for somebody to fetch her home, in fact.

He brought her knuckles to his lips for a lingering kiss. “Why didn’t you come home? I waited for you to come to me, and you didn’t.”

Alice nodded, accepting the validity of his point.

“Heathgate asked me if I’d heard what Collins said,” she offered. “I did, but it hardly registered. You seem so… in charge of your own life, not knocking about from one obscure post to another just to hide from your past.”

“Sometimes, we need privacy to get our bearings. We each hid differently, but I was as determined to have my obscurity as you were.”

“Thank goodness for little boys and their games,” Alice said. “They consumed more chocolate in five minutes than I’ve had since leaving Sussex.”

Ethan brushed a kiss to her temple. “They play kidnapping a lot. I’ve decided, because they always vanquish their foes, not to forbid it.”

“They’ve gotten good at it,” Alice observed wryly. “I sit before you, thoroughly kidnapped.”

“And it must be a tiring experience,” Ethan countered, running a finger down her cheek. “Are you resting, Alice?”

“Not well. You?”

He shook his head, his expression grave.

Alice had already, with no dignity whatsoever, told him she missed him, and she didn’t want to leave. Her recent confessions notwithstanding, his recent confessions notwithstanding, she still didn’t know where she stood with him.

Ethan rose and went to the window. “I want to put a question to you.”

“Ask me anything.” She didn’t like that he’d moved away, but framed by the window light, she could see he’d dropped some weight too, and there hadn’t been any fat on him to lose.

“It’s uncomfortable to ask this,” Ethan said, glancing over his shoulder at her. “I’d rather put it off.”

“Ask, Ethan. You put Hart Collins where I needed him to be, and for that, I would grant you any request.”

He turned and frowned at her in earnest.

“That won’t do,” he murmured. “You see, I want to ask you to marry me, and I am not jesting, Alice. I cannot have you marrying me out of some misplaced gratitude, or you’d be better off accepting Argus’s hoof in marriage. He’s the one who sent Collins to his Maker.”

“You want me to marry your horse?” Alice sat on the couch, trying to understand what he was asking, but a buzzing had started up in her ears.

Ethan shook his head. “No, love. I want you to marry me. I want you to belong to me and to the boys and to Tydings. I want…” He sighed and offered her a crooked smile. “I want children with you, little girls who look like you and peer down their noses at all things male and silly. I want babies, and great strapping lads who tease their sisters and drive us to distraction with their noise and ruckus. I want to someday drag my family off to Belle Maison in a parade of carriages and take over every inn we stay at along the way. I want you in my bed every night for the rest of our lives. I want you…”

She still said nothing but watched his mouth as if she could see his words.

“But most of all, Alexandra, I want you to be happy.” Ethan paused and swallowed. “I stayed away because I thought that’s what would make you happy. But you’re here now, and I don’t… I can’t… Don’t go, Alice. I’ll never bother you again. Please, just… don’t go.”

He turned his back, leaving Alice bereft of the truths in his eyes. He’d no sooner braced his hands on the windowsill than a missile pounded into his back in the form of a silent, fierce Alice, intent on getting her arms around him.

“I won’t go,” she said, holding him tightly. “And you won’t send me away.”

“Never.” Ethan turned and caught her to him. “Not ever. You belong to us, Alice, and I desperately want us to belong to you.”

“You do.” Alice laughed a little through her tears. “Oh, Ethan, you do. You and Joshua and Jeremiah and their ponies and Waltzer and Argus and Tydings and all of it. You’re mine, and I will never let you go.”

His chin came to rest on her crown, and they stood there, holding each other, until a solid knock on the door disturbed them.

She was going to stay. This fact alone allowed Ethan to step back when some fool who did not value his wages knocked on the library door.

“I did not ring for tea.” Ethan kissed Alice’s nose before he let her go. “Come in.”

Joshua barreled in. Jeremiah followed more cautiously.

“You found our prisoner.” Joshua beamed. “Hullo, Miss Alice.”

Jeremiah frowned up at his papa. “You made her cry. She won’t like us if you do that.”

Ethan’s instinct was to sweep both children up in a hug and not let them go until Christmas.

And yet, being a father called for discipline of one’s impulses.

“I do not like little boys who ride off without supervision,” Ethan said in his most imposing-papa tone. “I do not like little boys who turn a game into more than it should be. I do not like little boys who make hogs of themselves at the neighbor’s tea table.”

He stared down at his sons, who looked abruptly shy and uncertain, but then Jeremiah’s jaw set, and he put his hands on his hips.

“I do not like papas who mope around all day,” Jeremiah announced, “and Miss Alice was moping too—Heathgate said, and he wouldn’t lie. I do not like that you were going to get us a different governess, and you didn’t even ask us. I do not like that you were packing up to go to London, and you didn’t even give us your ‘behave while I’m gone’ lecture.”

Ethan’s brows rose, and from the corner of his eye, he saw Alice was just as surprised as he.

And that—the wonderful, unthinking, reflexive gift of being able to measure this moment with a woman who cared as much for his children as he did—warmed his heart beyond words.

“Apologize to Miss Alice for kidnapping her.”

“You apologize to her for making her cry.”

Ethan took Alice’s hand and discarded the notion of going down on one knee before his children, lest there be weeks of imitation. “I am humbly and sincerely sorry for making you cry. For any time I’ve made you cry. Hurting you is the last thing I want to do, ever.”

“Apology accepted,” Alice said softly, leaning in to kiss his cheek.

Ethan quirked a brow at his sons. “Jeremiah?”

“I’m sorry we kidnapped you,” Jeremiah said, his gaze on Alice’s face in exact imitation of his father. “But you were going away, and Papa was going away, and Heathgate said we should do something, so we did. And Davey went to visit his brother, so we were supervised, and Lady Heathgate offered the chocolates, and we said please and thank you.”

“We’ll have a word with the marquis,” Ethan said. “And his lady.”

“Apology accepted.” Alice spoke over him, suppressing a smile.

“I’m sorry too,” Joshua said.

“So you’ll stay?” Jeremiah asked, bravado gone. “Even if Papa made you cry?”

“Sometimes a lady cries not because her heart is broken, but because it’s mending.” The look she sent Ethan would have illuminated the dimmest corners of the coldest heart—and his was by no means cold. “I will stay, and I will marry your papa, if I have permission from my favorite gentlemen.”

Jeremiah sent his father a very stern look. “You won’t make her cry?”

“Never on purpose.”

“You’ll read us stories?” Joshua asked Alice, his tone wistful. “Papa tries, but he just can’t get the wolf quite right.”

“I will read you stories.”

The boys exchanged brother-looks, and Jeremiah spoke for the pair of them. “That’s all right, then. You marry Papa, but Joshua and I aren’t wearing any stupid Sunday clothes and carrying around flowers and nonsense like that.”

“I believe we have an agreement.” Ethan’s eyes lit with humor as he gazed at his prospective wife. “And we also have at least one little kidnapper who’s overdue for his nap.”

“C’mon, Joshua.” Jeremiah pulled his brother by the arm. “They’re going to kiss and carry on. Aunt Leah explained it to me when we visited Belle Maison.”

Joshua let himself be pulled from the room, and Ethan and his bride did, indeed, kiss and carry on, every day and night for the rest of their lives.