Ethan: Lord of Scandals

Three

Argus churned along ahead of the dust and racket of the coach, no doubt sensing the approach of home even though Tydings was still at least an hour distant. With luck, they’d beat the inevitable thunderstorm building up to the north.

Ethan had not slept well the previous night, his mind a welter of thoughts and feelings left over from his visit to Belle Maison. When he was a boy exiled from his home, he’d missed Nick so badly he’d cried at first, and a six-foot-plus fourteen-year-old male did not cry easily. Now that the old earl was dead, and he and Nick were free to be family to each other again, Ethan hadn’t been able to get away fast enough.

And Nick had been hurt.

For all of Nick’s glee over his new wife, all of his excitement at the prospect of having a family with his Leah, Nick had still known Ethan was dodging, and had let him go without a word. He’d merely hugged his brother tightly, then patted Argus and told the horse to take good care of his precious cargo.

Well, life wasn’t a fairy tale, Ethan reasoned when more of the same kind of musings finally brought him to the foot of the long driveway leading to Tydings.

“Papa!” Joshua was standing on the box, the groom’s hands anchored around his waist. “We’re home! I can see the house, and there goes Mrs. Buxton to fetch the footmen.”

Ethan’s housekeeper, Mrs. Buxton—Mrs. Buxom, among the footmen—was indeed bustling down the long terrace at the side of the house.

“Sit down, Joshua,” Ethan called back. “Standing up there is dangerous, and Andrews will need to hold the horses. He can’t be holding you as well.”

Joshua dropped like a rock but bounced on the seat like any small boy would upon sighting his home. When the coach pulled into the circular drive in front of the house, footmen trotted up to lower the steps and begin moving the luggage. The groom scrambled down to grab the leaders’ bridles, and a stable boy come bouncing out of the carriage house to take Argus.

“Welcome home, Mr. Grey,” the senior groom called cheerily, “and welcome, young masters. Did you have a grand time with your uncle in Kent?”

Joshua was jumping around on the box again. “Miller, we had the best time, and Uncle Nick is even taller than Papa, and he has a huge horse named Buttercup, and a huge house, and his cook makes huge muffins. Enorm…” Joshua paused and looked to his brother.

“Enormous,” Jeremiah supplied. “And he let us ride his mare once, because we were very good, and we picked raspberries with Uncle Nick, and Aunt Leah is very nice, and there were other boys there, and they were all littler than us, but very nice, and we played Indians in the trees, and everything.”

“Gentlemen.” Alice Portman’s pleasant tones glided into the ensuing silence. “I’m sure your papa will help you down now that we’re safely home. Please don’t run until you’re away from the horses, and then I will expect you to give me a tour of your rooms once you’re settled. What do you say to John?”

“Thank you, John Coachman!” both boys chorused. Ethan had swung off Argus, intending to get to his library with some cold, spiked lemonade and a small mountain of correspondence. Footmen were capable of getting the boys down from the high seat. Hearing both boys extol Uncle Nick’s huge, tall, enormous virtues grated, though, so Ethan plastered a pleasant expression on his face and turned back to the coach.

“Here you go, Joshua.” He held up his arms and hoisted the first child to the ground. “Up to the house, as Miss Portman said. Time to pester the grooms later. Jeremiah, down you go.”

“Yes, Papa.” Jeremiah stepped back as soon as his feet hit the ground. “Joshua, let’s go. Miss Portman wants a tour.”

“But I want to go see Lightning and Thunder,” Joshua retorted, his chin jutting.

“Later, Joshua,” Jeremiah said through clenched teeth. “We have to go to the house now.”

Joshua’s lips compressed into mutinous lines, but before Ethan could assert paternal rank, Miss Portman extended a hand in Joshua’s direction.

“Come along, Joshua, or I shall get lost in a house as grand as this.” She wrapped her hand around his. “And if I get lost, well then, I might not be found in time to read a couple of perfect gentlemen, and very fine singers, their bedtime story.”

Joshua brightened. “We sang really loudly. I bet the horses’ ears flippered around.”

“I’m sure horses all over the shire were flippering their ears.” Miss Portman slipped her other hand into Jeremiah’s and led them off, chattering about horses in China and flippering ears.

“Prettier than old Harold,” the groom remarked with the familiarity of long service. “Bet she reads a mean bedtime story.”

“See to the horse,” Ethan replied, watching as Miss Portman sauntered along with the boys toward the house. She should have waited for Ethan to escort her, but the view of her retreat was most pleasant, so Ethan kept his disgruntlement to himself. Joshua stopped, dropped her hand, and crouched to study the dirt—an insect, most likely, since Joshua was apparently going through a bug-studying phase—and Miss Portman crouched down to peer at the dirt right beside him, her skirts pooling on the dusty ground.

Argus, after balking for form’s sake, let himself be led to the stables. The coach clattered away toward the carriage bays while the small parade of footmen hefted the luggage off to the house.

Still Ethan stood in the drive, wondering if he’d ever seen Mr. Harold once pause to study a bug? Seen him take either boy by the hand? Heard the man sing?

Had Ethan ever done those things with the boys himself? Even once?

The questions were vexing him several hours later as he made his way to the family parlor where Miss Portman would join him prior to the evening meal. Perhaps it was the effect of several hours at his desk, but Ethan realized he was looking forward to the next hour. Food was always a pleasure, but Miss Portman’s presence was the added spice that had him glancing at the clock and wondering what she’d wear to the table.

She wore a frown and the same dusty traveling dress she’d had on all day.

While Ethan had bathed and changed into clean clothes.

“I see you did not change for dinner,” Ethan remarked as the footman closed the door behind her.

Miss Portman eyed him up and down. “I was told you keep country hours and you do not change, when you bother with sitting at the table at all.”

Ethan gave her the same up and down perusal she’d given him, though compared to a governess’s virtuosic ability to communicate disapproval at a glance, he was a mere tyro. “I gather you would prefer to be spared this ordeal?”

She peered around the room. “Honestly, the chance to sit down and eat something appeals greatly.”

“You’ve been standing the livelong day? I should offer you a drink, at least some wine.”

She shook her head. “No wine. It does not agree with me, but thank you. And yes, I have been on my feet.”

“If you’re to forgo your gustatory glass,” Ethan said, “why don’t we go in to dinner, and you can regale me with the details of your day while we dine?”

“Because that would be unappetizing,” Miss Portman informed him, her tone so wistful, Ethan felt his lips trying to quirk up. He offered his arm, keeping his eyes on the door instead of Miss Portman’s face.

“As bad as all that?” he asked, leading her toward the folding doors to the informal dining room.

“As tiring. What have you done with yourself since abandoning your children in the driveway this afternoon?” A small silence followed, while Ethan observed the courtesy of seating a woman who delivered scolds as casually as others might offer pleasantries.

“Forgive me.” Miss Portman closed her eyes and blew out a breath. “I am fatigued, and therefore cranky.”

“And here I go, demanding you put up with me when all you want is to climb into bed. Are your rooms acceptable?” He poured her a glass of wine as he spoke, and passed it to her.

“They are lovely.” She offered a tired smile, and Ethan noticed she had smudges of shadow under each eye and a slight droop to her shoulders. “The view of the back gardens is wonderful, and the balcony is a luxury this time of year.”

“All the bedrooms at the back of the house have balconies.” He gestured to the footman, who served the soup, then waved the man away. The remaining courses were put in the center of the table so the diners might serve themselves. When the footman had retreated and closed the door behind him, Ethan found a familiar frown on Miss Portman’s face.

“You are going to be difficult because I dismissed the footman,” he surmised. “You would rather have us discussing the weather all evening than allow us the privacy of a single meal?”

She answered him with a measuring look. “I would rather you had asked me if I were comfortable dining en famille.”

Ethan sipped his wine and waited for her to take the first taste of her soup. “How did you spend your initial hours here at Tydings?”

“Chasing your offspring.”

“You were touring the premises?”

“The grounds first.” Miss Portman kept glancing around the table, as if looking for something or finding fault with the settings. “After two days of travel, the boys needed to stretch their legs, and then too, you’ve gone and gotten them ponies, whose acquaintance I had to make or civilization would crumble. When they’d burned off the worst of their mischief, we inspected the house from top to bottom, with particular attention paid to all the best hiding places for when Papa goes on a tear.”

Ethan set his wineglass down. “I beg your pardon?”

“I gather it’s a rare occurrence and mostly consists of a lot of yelling at solicitors and stewards, and cursing, and stomping about, followed by a slammed door or two and the sound of Argus’s hoofbeats tearing off at a gallop.”

“They told you this?”

“With great relish. You had best eat your soup, Mr. Grey. I do not intend to consume mine.”

“Whyever not?” Ethan picked up his spoon, manners be damned.

“It has onions in it. They do not agree with me.”

“And you are probably not partial to mutton sandwiches, either,” Ethan remarked. He hadn’t noticed the onions in the soup until she’d pointed it out. He liked onions in his soup, and if he were to eat mutton sandwiches, he’d probably like onions on them too.

“Nobody from the North is partial to mutton. But by all means, enjoy yourself.”

Ethan put his spoon down, certain she was teasing—rudely, of course—but unable to detect a hint of it in her expression.

“It’s gotten a bit too cool,” he decided. “Shall we see what else the kitchen has prepared?”

Miss Portman’s brows flew up. “Who sets the menus?”

“Haven’t the foggiest.” Ethan lifted the lid of a warming dish and found a tidy little quarter of a ham, with potatoes arranged around it. “The food shows up when I’m hungry, and the dishes disappear when I’m done. Ham, Miss Portman?”

“Please.” She watched as he sliced her a generous portion, chasing little boys being a tiring proposition. “A bit less, if you please?”

“Less?” He cut off a corner of her intended portion.

“Even less. About half that, in fact.”

He complied without comment and deftly moved it to her plate. “Potatoes?”

“One,” she instructed, so he chose the largest one.

“Well, then.” Ethan served himself portions that made his guest quite frankly goggle, a lapse in her manners he noted and politely ignored.

“Let’s see what else awaits us.” He uncovered a plate of roast beef. Another platter held a small roasting hen complete with bread stuffing, a basket of bread, and a tureen of dumplings swimming in more gravy.

“This will do for me,” Miss Portman said, putting a bite of ham into her mouth.

“You’re not having anything else? Nothing?” He had the oddest sense she wasn’t being rude.

“This will do.” She took a sip of her wine, grimaced, then set the glass down.

“Suit yourself.” Ethan proceeded to put decent helpings of food on his plate, then to make his portions disappear with a kind of relentless dispatch that did not allow for conversation. And even as he demolished his dinner, he did so wondering how he would endure meals with Miss Portman for the next six months. When his plate was nearly clean, he looked up to find his guest regarding him curiously.

“Is this the kind of fare your sons consume?”

“I suppose.” He sat back but did not put his utensils down. “Why?”

“Don’t you see something missing from your table, Mr. Grey?”

“Dessert. Fear not, it will be here, as I do enjoy the occasional sweet.”

“Not dessert,” she replied, her tone annoyingly patient. “Something more conducive to the good health of a growing child.”

“I’m not serving ale at my table, Miss Portman. We have it in the kitchen, and I’ll occasionally have a pint, but it hardly adds to a genteel supper.”

She eyed her wineglass balefully and forged ahead.

“Vegetables, Mr. Grey,” she said on a long-suffering sigh. “You have no summer vegetables. You have nothing from the abundance of the good earth but potatoes. I know this will strike you as a radical notion, but children need vegetables, even if they should forgo the spicier preparations.”

Ethan glanced around the table, nonplussed. At Belle Maison, there had been vegetables at every meal save breakfast. It was high summer, for pity’s sake, when the garden was at its best.

He put his utensils down. “I am willing to concede the wisdom of your point. Henceforth, you will meet with Cook and approve the menus. I will have my desserts, though, Miss Portman. It’s little enough to ask in life at the end of a man’s busy day.”

“Fear not,” she quoted him. “I will agree with you—mark the moment—a little something sweet at the end of the day is a deserved reward.”

Unbidden, the question of what Alice Portman might consider a treat at the end of her day popped into Ethan’s mind. A fairy tale read to a rapt juvenile audience, or did she harbor girlish fancies to go along with her tidy bun and studious spectacles?

He took a fortifying sip of his wine and offered her a salute with his glass.

“A moment of accord,” he noted gravely. “How unusual.”

“I won’t make a habit of it. The books in your schoolroom being a case in point.”

“Oh?” Ethan resumed the demolition of his dinner.

“They are boring, for one thing,” she said, sitting back and watching him eat. “And they are far too advanced, for another, and lack anything like the breadth of subject matter little boys require.”

“You were a little boy once, perhaps, that you are expert on the matter?”

She leveled a reproving look at him, which he noted between bites of potato.

“There is more to a boy’s education than drilling into him the dates of ancient battles, Mr. Grey. More to history than the Greeks, the Romans, and the British. More to languages than five declensions and four classes of verbs.”

“You know Latin?” She was an intelligent woman—and he did not mean that insultingly, to his surprise—but Latin?

“Latin and Greek. Once you get the knack of the structure of the one, the other isn’t so difficult to grasp.”

“Good heavens.” Ethan set his utensils down again. “What else has been stuffed between those ears of yours?”

“Astronomy is among my favorites,” she confessed, casting a bashful glance at Ethan’s half-eaten potato. “Mathematics, of course, including geometry and trigonometry, though only the rudiments of calculus. History, though I fear European history defines the limits of my command of the subject at this point. I am competent in French, but my command of modern languages is lacking. I read voraciously when I’ve the time.”

“And what of needlepoint?” Ethan pressed, knowing he should have made these inquiries several days ago. “Tatting lace? Watercolors? A little piano or voice?”

She waved a dismissive hand. “I can mend what needs mending, and I’m a passable accompanist, but it hardly signifies.”

“And why should the refinements of a lady hardly signify?” This bluestocking quality made perfect sense, given what he knew of the woman, but it impressed him as well. He liked a woman who didn’t attempt to trade solely on her face and figure.

“They are not useful, Mr. Grey. The world does not need lace from me, though lace is charming. The world does not need a note-perfect rendition of the simpler Haydn sonatas at my hands, though music is a gift from God. The world does not need another vague rendition of some fruit and a towel, could I manage it, though painting is another gift from God.”

“What does the world need?” He genuinely wanted to know.

“From me,” she said, studying her plate this time, “it needs education. Were I proficient in those ladylike pursuits, I’d be a finishing governess. That is not my gift. I am far more interested in cultivating the minds of my charges than I am in assisting some schoolgirl in her quest to snatch up a spotty young swain of a few weeks’ acquaintance.”

Ethan propped his chin on his hand and surveyed her. “You are an anarchist, Miss Portman. And here I’ve placed the care of my sons in your rabble-rousing hands.”

Her blush was all the more enchanting for being unexpected.

“You are teasing. Do you have all those books in your library for show, then, Mr. Grey? I hadn’t taken you for a man driven by appearances.”

“I’m not. I love to read.” This was not a matter of pride; it was a simple truth. “One can’t be managing business affairs every hour of the day, and reading is a solitary pleasure, suited to my nature.”

“If you say so.”

That was a governess’s version of casting a lure. Even so, Ethan took the bait. “What?”

“You don’t live alone here, Mr. Grey.”

“Of course not. I dwell with my sons, and the servants and staff in my employ, and now—heaven be praised—with your very useful self.”

“Have you seen your sons since the coach pulled up here today?” she asked in the same peculiarly quiet voice.

“I did, actually.” He was pleased with himself to be able to say it. “Out the window, as they dragged you around the rose gardens. A charming tableau, made blessedly quiet by the distance involved. Better you than me, Miss Portman.”

“They miss you,” she said flatly. “Though God knows why, Mr. Grey, as the concept leaves me quite at a loss. Now, if you will excuse me, I find I am intolerably fatigued, and though the meal has been appreciated, I must seek my bed.”

She pushed back from the table and left the room before Ethan was halfway to his feet. He sat back down, his meal lying uneasily in his gut, and thought over the conversation.

He’d said something to push her past her limit, something… not funny. Cruel, perhaps, from her perspective. Well, there was no decoding the whims and fancies of females, bluestocking or otherwise. He eyed the table, intent on helping himself to more food, then changed his mind.

He’d been sitting too long, and this made for dyspepsia, so he took himself through the house, his wineglass in his hand, and headed for the back gardens. A man needed to stretch his legs from time to time if he was to have a prayer of remaining civilized.

Except his sons had been stuck in the coach for two days, and they had needed to stretch their legs. Alice Portman had reasoned that out; Ethan had not, and he wanted to smash the damned wineglass on the flagstones as a result. Because he was an adult, and civilized, he did not give in to the urge but wandered around in the moonlight until the shadows and breezes and pretty scents had soothed him past his anger.

Three floors above him, on her balcony, Alice watched the dark figure moving along the gravel paths. Moonlight suited him, though in daylight, he was deceptively golden. His hair was more burnished than Nick’s wheat blond, and his features more austere. Still, he gave the impression of light, with his blue, blue eyes, light hair, and quiet movement.

He wasn’t light, Alice concluded as she took down her hair. He was dark, inside, in his heart and soul. It still surprised her after she’d had days to observe him, but he looked so much like Nick, she still expected him to laugh like Nick, smile like Nick, flirt like Nick.

She missed Nick, and because it wasn’t any kind of sexual longing, she could admit it. She desperately, pitifully missed Priscilla, and worried for how the child was going on.

In years of governessing, Alice had dealt with enough overly tired, cranky, distraught, fractious children to know if she didn’t get herself to bed, posthaste, she was going to treat herself to an undignified, unproductive, useless crying spell. She was already hungry again, exhausted, in need of a bath, and facing a situation she should have examined more carefully before leaping into it.

“You’re just discouraged,” she told herself. “Braid your hair, get to bed. Things will look better in the morning.”

But in the morning, things didn’t look at all better.

In the morning, things looked much, much worse.

“You will leave in the morning, Hart, and you will not come back in my lifetime.” The Baroness Collins had never taken that tone with her son before. Not when he was a child, not when he’d been a young man, and not now, when inchoate middle age and a dissolute lifestyle were making him look like an old child, an aging boy becoming less and less attractive with the passing years.

Predictably, Hart bristled. “I’ll damned well come and go from my own property as I please, madam. You would do well to recall upon whose charity you survive.” He tossed back another glass of brandy, adding to the amazing amount that had disappeared in the course of the conversation already.

“You are not safe here.”

Somewhere in the depths of her maternal heart, the baroness could not allow her son to knowingly court danger, regardless that it was danger of his own making. “Your scheming and violence, your disregard for proper behavior, your disrespect of every woman you meet will be the end of you if you stay here in the North. I am not asking you to leave, Hart, I am insisting.”

He paused before putting his empty glass down on the harpsichord. That harpsichord had belonged to the baroness’s grandfather, and yet, she did not rise and remove the glass—not while Hart was in such a mood.

“You are insisting? How will you insist, dear Mama, when I cut off your allowance?”

Perhaps it was the French disease or the drink, but Hart’s memory was growing faulty. “You cut off my allowance years ago, Hart. I manage on my portion.” Which, thank her sainted papa’s shrewdness, no venal, grasping son could touch.

He turned his back on her, making the bald spot on the back of his head apparent. He’d hate that, if he knew she could see it. Hart Collins was so vain, so unhealthy, that he’d see even the normal impact of time as victimization.

She did not wish her son were dead. In the manner he went on, he’d meet his end soon enough.

“I’ll need money.”

Of course he would. The old baron’s solicitors were a pack of jackals well up to dealing with Hart’s tantrums and bullying. Not one penny of estate money would get into Hart’s hands until the very day it was due him.

“I have a few jewels.” Those had belonged to her grandmother. “You will leave in the morning, Hart, and I’ll write to some people I know in the South, who would welcome you to their house parties.”

He was no longer welcome in Rome, and neither was he safe in Paris or Marseilles. His duns in London had already found him at the family seat in Cumbria and were becoming impatient.

The baroness unfastened the pearl necklace her grandmother had given her upon her come out and held it out to her son. In the flickering candlelight of the once-elegant parlor, the jewels looked like a noose.

Perhaps the English countryside would shelter him for a time. It was just a thought, not a wish, not even a prayer.

Ethan slept badly, but got up early and heeded the impulse to get out of the house. Confinement never improved his mood, so he made for the stables after a quick breakfast. Miss Portman and her charges were not in evidence at breakfast, which suited him splendidly.

As he took his second-favorite mount out for a bracing hack in the cool of the earliest morning, Ethan forced himself to consider he might owe Miss Portman an apology. On general principles, it irked him to apologize to anyone, particularly when he wasn’t quite sure where he’d transgressed.

One thing he’d realized as he surveyed the remains of supper: there had been nothing to drink except wine, and Miss Portman did not enjoy wine. He should have seen to it she was offered something else. Had she not been so provoking, he might have been a better host.

He let his gelding come down to the trot after they’d cleared every stile and fence between the house and the home farm. Maybe Miss Portman was peeved at him because he’d teased her for her degree of education.

But that explanation didn’t feel quite right.

The horse halted without Ethan cuing him, as the realization sank in that Miss Alice Portman did not care one bean—a vegetable, mind you—how much Ethan teased her. She minded bitterly the way Ethan disregarded his children.

Bloody, bleeding hell.

He did not know what they ate.

He did not know what they learned.

He did not know how they passed their days.

He had not known his youngest had been harshly beaten, or why.

As the horse started walking forward, Ethan knew in his bones he was facing an opportunity—a challenge. He could continue as he’d gone on, largely trying to ignore that his wife had borne two sons, or he could transcend his pique and be the kind of parent his sons deserved.

The kind of father he himself had not had.

Which decided the matter, foot, horse, and cannon.

He did not want to be a father at all, but he was damned if he would do to his children what the old earl had done to him. The man had presided over his family as a benevolent dictator, but had been so badly informed regarding his own children he’d tossed Ethan away on the strength of ill-founded suspicion alone. Banished him.

That line of thought was worse than bleak, so Ethan patted his horse, turned for the stables, and mentally rearranged his day. He’d start with the nursery and find some way to talk to his children. It couldn’t be that hard, after all. Miss Portman did it easily, didn’t she?

But as he made his way through the house, he was accosted by a chambermaid hurrying down the stairs, eyes wild, cap askew.

“Oh, Mr. Grey, I don’t mean to be getting above myself, but you best come quick. Mrs. B. is off to the village and Cook’s abed and Mr. B. is down to the mill.” She reached for Ethan’s arm, then dropped her hand and dipped a little at the knees, as if she were resisting an urgent call from nature.

“I’m coming,” Ethan said, keeping the irritation from his voice. “What exactly is the problem?”

“It’s the new governess,” the girl moaned as she turned back up the steps toward the nursery wing. “I think Miss Portman is dying!”