Ethan: Lord of Scandals

Four

Ethan didn’t even knock. He opened the door to Miss Portman’s bedroom and was hit immediately with a blast of warm, stale air. The curtains were opened, but the windows, which should have been cracked to let in some of the breeze, were closed tightly.

But he knew this scene—the bedclothes badly tangled; the air uncomfortably still; a hot, painful tension in the room.

“Close the drapes all but a little,” he quietly directed the maid. “Open the windows, then bring me up some lavender water with ice, and a pitcher of cold mint tea. Sugar the tea. We’ll need clean sheets as well, and some buttered toast, and the laudanum. Move quietly, or I’ll know the reason why.”

On the bed, Miss Portman tried to roll away from the sound of his voice.

“Miss Portman?” Ethan approached the bed soundlessly and kept his voice down. “Alice?”

The sound she made when she tried to draw in a breath was terrible, a wheezy bleat that struggled against itself.

He did not sit on the bed, as he knew all too well that giving Miss Portman any cause for anxiety would only exacerbate the situation. He did, however, note the location of the nearest pitcher and basin. And by the scant light coming through the drawn drapes, he saw Miss Portman had had a bad night.

Her braid was a disaster, her skin was pale, and beneath her closed eyes, there was still that grayish, drawn look of extreme fatigue.

“Alice?” He sat carefully on the bed, and her hand appeared from the covers to rest over her stomach.

Another horrible indrawn breath, and then, “No.” It meant, he knew, no talking, no moving, no company. No hope, too, when the fear was at its worst. He reached out a hand, just to be sure, and laid the back of it to her forehead.

No fever, thank God, because this much discomfort might also signal some physical ailment.

“Alice?” He smoothed her hair back, noting she tolerated that well enough. “Alice, can you talk to me?”

“Go away.” She tried to roll away, to draw her knees up, but then her eyes flew open. “Oh no…”

Ethan’s wife had not fared easily early in her pregnancy with Jeremiah. He knew what that particular variety of “oh no” presaged, and in an instant had her sitting up beside him.

“Look at me,” Ethan ordered. “You’re at Tydings, you’re safe, and your charges are likely stirring across the hall.”

Another breath, just as tortured. “Want to die,” Miss Portman murmured to her knees.

“I know.” Ethan settled a hand on her nape and took a more soothing tone. “Look around you, Alice. You’re having a bad moment, but it will pass. Don’t try to breathe, just let it happen. See your things there on the desk, your robe across the foot of the bed. Your spectacles are here on the night table. I expect you picked this rose when you were out strolling with Joshua and Jeremiah.”

As he spoke, Ethan rubbed his thumb slowly across her nape. He matched his breathing to hers and felt her gradually calming. “Better?” Ethan asked.

She nodded, her gaze on the single red rose in a bud vase near her spectacles. He did not take his hand away. Soon, she might start to shake or weep, if her bad moments resembled his.

“Humiliated, but better.”

“Was it the wine?”

“Spirits don’t help.” She tried to move, but he prevented it. “Nothing else on the table. Thirsty. Mostly, it’s being in a strange place and being overly tired. I woke up…”

“You’re safe, Alice. Tydings is boringly, unendingly safe.”

Though he’d never thought of it that way before. As Ethan remained beside her, his fingers massaging her nape, he realized Alice hadn’t been assessing his silver pattern or his table linen the night before. She’d been looking for a simple glass of water. She could have rung for it…

But she’d been running all afternoon, and she was new to the household, and she was Alice Portman.

“You need fluids,” he said, again being careful to keep his voice down, and to fill a water glass only half-full. He propped an arm under her shoulders and held the glass to her lips, finding it worrisome—bothersome—that she didn’t protest the proximity or the assistance.

“More.”

“Soon. We have to accommodate your tentative digestion. Will laudanum help?”

“God, no. Laudanum makes everything strange, and that is worse than a spell of anxiety.”

And her with that creaky hip. No wonder she had to be so careful with it, if she could not relieve her pain in the usual fashion.

“The breeze feels wonderful.” She addressed her observation to the half-full water glass. “Thank you.”

“It’s still too hot in here.” Ethan retrieved a tray from the chambermaid, then closed the door. He shouldn’t be in Miss Portman’s room, of course, but she shouldn’t be having a damned spell of nerves because she’d overdone and awoken in strange surroundings.

“This is mint tea.” He poured a glass half-full from a ceramic pitcher. “When my digestion is tentative, it seems to help.” He put a basin on the night table. “This is lavender water, with ice. I don’t know if it truly helps, but the scent is soothing, and I don’t think it will hurt.”

“You are prone to unprovoked sensations of dread?”

She lay back on her pillows, sounding hopeful, as if wishing she were not isolated in her misery—except when it came to this ailment, each sufferer was profoundly isolated.

“Not as often as I used to.” Ethan wrung out a cloth in the lavender water and folded it across her forehead. “I’ve learned to dodge much of what causes them.”

“Which would be?” From the expression on her face, the cold cloth was a bit of divine relief.

Ethan frowned at her from his perch at her hip. “Any extreme can set me off. Too little sleep, too little activity, too little food, too little drink, too much exertion, too much change of company or conditions. I expect in your case, you needed fluids and rest, and you ignored those needs for two days. You’re away from all that’s familiar, and the change was not one you had much chance to contemplate.”

Because he hadn’t wanted her to have the opportunity for reflection.

“Perhaps.” She took a sip of her mint tea. “I hate when this happens.”

“I know.” She would hate the indignity far more than the suffering. “But these moments pass, and then one is so pathetically grateful.”

The maid appeared, having the sense to knock softly and close the door softly when Ethan permitted her to enter. She bore clean sheets and some buttered toast.

“No food.” Miss Portman waved a hand weakly when the maid had left again. “I cannot, Mr. Grey.”

“Yes, you can,” he corrected her, taking the cloth from her forehead. “Just a bite or two, washed down with some tea. I’ll help.” She managed a very weak glare at him, which suggested the patient would live. He gently hefted her up, and while holding her forward against his shoulder, he arranged pillows at her back.

He straightened, looking her over as he did. “You did not threaten me with dire punishments for my presumptions, so you must allow you are not yet feeling quite the thing.”

“I am making allowances for your unfamiliarity with compassionate impulses.” The words held only a fraction of her usual starch.

“Two sips.” Ethan held the glass to her lips, thinking it odd that now that he had a moment to order her around, he dearly wished she wasn’t permitting it.

“I’ll do it,” she muttered against the rim of the glass, wrapping her hand around his much-larger one.

“And now your toast.” He set the glass down and picked up the plate, tearing her off a bite right over the plate so the crumbs wouldn’t get on the bedclothes. He held it to her lips, and she took it from him with her hand.

“You are surprisingly solicitous,” she said, munching the toast, “if inclined to managing.”

“Chew,” he ordered, smiling slightly. “To be accounted managing by one of your standards makes my day complete. Two more sips.”

She complied without argument. He suspected she knew that goaded him too.

“The maid will be back shortly to do up your braid, change these sheets, and remove the tray. Remain silent, Alice Portman, and do not fuss.”

He reached for her hand, which was cool in his grasp.

“Now,” he went on, keeping his fingers wrapped around hers, “you will not exert yourself for at least the rest of this day. I will keep the boys out of trouble, but I will also check on you, to make sure you are sipping your tea, resting, and eating enough to keep a bird alive. If that featherbrained young lady serving you does not report to my satisfaction, you will find yourself bearing more of my company.

“You are a disgrace, Alice Portman,” Ethan informed her, “to get into such a state and not even ring for a damned maid. I am not happy with you.”

He was pleased, though, for some unfathomable reason. He was pleased she was tolerating his fussing and scolding. Pleased to be of some usefulness to her. Pleased he knew what to do.

“You are excused from tonight’s meal,” he said very sternly. “And henceforth we will have water on the table at all times. You will rest, and you will acquaint yourself with your surroundings. Write the loved ones you miss, and otherwise take one day to adjust to your new surroundings. Do I make myself understood?”

She nodded when she probably wanted to dump her tea over his head. It was time to go, before he provoked her into a display of vinegar for his own reassurance. Still, he held her hand a moment longer.

It would be a good moment to tell her about his willingness to give parenting his children another try—a better try—but he kept his peace, even as he marveled at the delicacy of the bones of her hand. All women were small to him, given his height and muscle. Alice was taller than most, and yet to him, she was delicate and diminutive. And up close, she smelled good, of lemons and sunshine.

“I’ll leave you in peace now.” Ethan turned her hand loose and wrung out another cold cloth. “You sip tea, nibble toast, and let the maid brush your hair for hours on end. If you don’t behave, I’ll thrash you silly.”

“I’ll behave,” she replied, smiling at him faintly. “My thanks for your assistance, Mr. Grey.”

He rose from the bed and glared down at her. “Would you call me Ethan if I asked you to?” He should not ambush her in a weak moment, but there was no point trying to ambush her in any other kind of moment.

He’d asked. He’d actually put his wishes into the form of a question. This was a measure of his panic at seeing her ailing, though try as he might, he couldn’t resent her for it.

“I would allow it, under certain circumstances, if you asked politely. Any governess worth her salt knows to reward proper manners, particularly when the result is such a marvelously nonplussed expression.”

Her smile had nothing in it of buns, spectacles, or sensible shoes. Her smile was pure, lovely female benevolence, and it inspired Ethan to a reckless display of his best manners.

“I am asking, most politely, for the honor of my given name from you.”

Because she’d back down. He knew she’d back down, plead her diminished capacity, and otherwise let him call her bluff.

Her smile grew yet more brilliant. “When circumstances don’t require otherwise, I shall call you Ethan.”

He smiled back—let her have a taste of her own good manners rewarded—then made a bid to knock her off her governess pins by leaning over and brushing a kiss to her cheek. “I’ll stop by after lunch, and you had best be napping, or at least on the mend, or there will be unpleasant consequences.”

He finished with an admonitory scowl, thinking this scolding business was almost fun. No wonder Miss Portman—who was looking gratifyingly, no, marvelously nonplussed—seemed to enjoy it so much.

“Papa?” Jeremiah scrambled to his feet, dragging Joshua upright with him, their astonishment at seeing their father in the nursery suite plain on their faces.

“Good morning.” Ethan frowned down at them. “Gentlemen.” He added it as an afterthought, and it earned him a wary exchange of looks from his sons. “Miss Portman is not faring well today, so we are cast upon one another’s company. I am charged to get the both of you outside before it gets too hot, and then we will visit Miss Portman at midday. Now then…” Ethan’s sons were gazing at him with disconcerting stillness. “What had you planned for the day?”

Joshua shrugged his little shoulders. “Nothing.” He shot a puzzled look at his older brother. “Well, we didn’t.”

“Miss Portman said we’d have to see where we were,” Jeremiah offered hesitantly. “She said there should be time for a ride and would discuss it with you.”

“A ride might be just the thing.” He’d ridden with them before, though the last time was months ago, and it was by happenstance. Still, it was a good place to start.

And it went surprisingly well, the ponies having been kept in work by the grooms during the boys’ absence. Ethan rode Argus, who was too tired from his travels to provide his usual brand of entertainment, and the boys largely absorbed each other’s attention as they walked and trotted their mounts through the woods. They were all headed back to the barn at the walk, the heat building, when Joshua turned to his brother with a questioning look, though no inquiry had been voiced.

Jeremiah shook his head emphatically, which inspired Joshua to stick out his tongue then whack his pony one stout blow with his crop. The little beast shot forward, Jeremiah’s mount did the same, and Ethan and Argus were left to bring up the rear at a canter.

Shouting wasn’t going to help. Ponies were wily little things, and these two were both sane, sittable, and sure-footed. His sons were standing in their stirrups, clearly accustomed to a hearty gallop from time to time. When Joshua aimed his pony at a stile, though, Ethan felt his heart rise up in his throat.

“Joshua, no!” Ethan bellowed, but the pony had seen the objective and wasn’t to be pulled off his fence. At a dead run, the animal charged up to the fence and sailed over, Joshua grinning like a fiend on his back. Jeremiah cleared the same obstacle, but had the sense to shoot worried glances over his shoulder as Ethan popped the jump easily behind them.

Only when Joshua drew his pony up did he glance at his father. His grin evaporated as he recalled who their groom was that morning, though he patted his pony, who was rudely cropping grass after its exertions.

Ethan’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Who taught you to jump like that?”

“Nobody taught us,” Jeremiah piped up, ever protective. “The ponies just know, and it’s shorter to get home if you hop the stiles. Shorter to get to the village too.”

“So you hop them frequently at a dead run?” They had ridden the jump like little jockeys, their form flawless and relaxed.

“We canter them,” Jeremiah said, his chin coming up. “Mostly.”

So they’d cantered them the first time, and gone screaming over forever after. Ethan did not know whether to be proud or horrified.

“I suppose we’ll have to get you proper hunting attire, then. Cubbing starts in September.”

He turned Argus without another word, feeling his sons staring agape at his back.

“We’re to ride to hounds?” Joshua’s tone suggested he could not believe such a thing.

“Cubbing.” Jeremiah said, nudging his pony forward. “It’s not quite the same, but it counts.”

“But, gentlemen,” Ethan called over his shoulder then stopped Argus and turned him to face the ponies. “Tearing off that way in company is considered the height of bad form, though I know between the two of you, it’s great fun to startle your brother’s horse. When we ride in company, though, there’ll be none of that, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Correct, sir.”

“And now we will walk our horses out, for they’ve exerted themselves mightily, but I see we’re on the wrong side of the fence, aren’t we?”

Joshua and Jeremiah were exchanging one of those puzzled, fraternal looks when Ethan surreptitiously nudged at Argus’s side with his spur, sending the gelding back toward the stile at a brisk trot. The ponies fell in behind without benefit of direction from their riders, and they cleared the same obstacle, one, two, three, at a more dignified pace but with the same excellent form.

When they gained the stable yard, the boys were grinning, and whacking their ponies with appreciative pats on the neck, and betting each other their ponies could clear anything old Argus could.

“Let’s not put it to the test,” Ethan interrupted them. “And if I ever learn you were foolish enough to attempt an obstacle without me or a groom to supervise, I will forbid you to ride for a considerable while, not that I think either of my sons would be so foolish.”

His sons surely would, but Miss Portman’s favorite gentlemen might not.

“Outside?” Joshua and Jeremiah grinned at each other. “Now?”

“I suggest you stop up in the playroom to mass your troops,” Mr. Grey said, sounding very stern indeed. “Get a shovel from the garden shed and ask Tolliver where you might find some shade and a patch of earth to memorialize British military heroism. You will be expected back upstairs, with clean hands and faces, by teatime.”

“That’s five bongs of the clock,” Joshua said. “Let’s go, Jeremiah.”

“And thus the Corsican monster meets his deserved fate,” Alice said from her place on the bed. The boys bounced away from her sides, leaving her in blessed quiet—and quite at sea—with their father.

Mr. Grey—or Ethan, since they were in private—lowered himself to sit on the bed at her hip. He was inspecting her, not in any way trespassing against propriety.

“Thus my sons are given an excuse to be loud, get muddy, and plague the gardener.”

“You would have made a tolerable governess, you know.” Alice smiled at him, even knowing he was assessing her complexion, her eyes, and any other aspect of her person that might provide insight. “Disguising mud as British military heroism is ingenious.”

“I suspect a fair amount of mud was involved at Waterloo, if the stories are true. You look better.”

“Which is not saying much.” Alice smoothed a hand over her quilt, not sure how to deal with an Ethan Grey who could outwit his sons and play nursemaid to a governess. “I was in wretched shape this morning, and you have my thanks for your kindness.”

He sat there at her hip, regarding her out of solemn blue eyes. He wore riding attire very well, and a faint odor of horse clung to the edges of his usual cedar scent. That she could enjoy any scent when blended with horse was a puzzlement.

“What will you do with your afternoon, Alice Portman?”

“I have many letters to write. I slept most of the morning. Perhaps I will tend to correspondence.”

“A letter or two only.” He frowned and tucked a strand of hair over her ear. The touch was not proper, but cowering in bed while bleating like a trapped sheep rather trumped all comers in the impropriety department.

“The headache and nervousness are slipping away, creeping back down into my vitals from whence they sprang.”

“That’s how it feels, isn’t it?” He rose, making the mattress shift. “Where is Clara?”

“I sent her downstairs.” Alice settled against the pillows, relieved to have the bed to herself though curious as to how Ethan Grey knew the exact contours of a bout of panic. “She is a dear, but twittery, and recovery from a spell like this morning’s is facilitated by calm.”

He said nothing, but stood at her window, where the curtains were drawn back halfway. While Alice cast around for something innocuous to say, he spoke over his shoulder.

“Why are the boys so concerned with death? As we rode in this morning, Joshua asked me if you were going to die. From a simple headache, such as I might suffer any day of the week—I told them you suffered only that—they leapt to making your final arrangements.” Then he did turn, though he stayed across the room, leaning his hips back against the windowsill and crossing his ankles. “Or do I perhaps misperceive my children?”

Not a question she’d anticipated, but a sound one, and they could discuss it with a whole room between them. “I don’t think you do. They know your father just died, and of course their mother died, which leaves them with only you.”

“Only me.” Even frowning, Mr. Grey was a handsome man. A handsome, largish man who looked perfectly comfortable to be visiting her in her boudoir. That came as a lowering realization since, despite his buss to her cheek earlier, it implied he could not conceive of improprieties transpiring here. “I haven’t said anything to them about the old earl passing on, and they never met him.”

“They know anyway. Leah explained to the little boys that you and Nick had the same father, and thus the boys’ grandfather had died.”

“Good of her.” Ethan’s—Mr. Grey’s—Ethan’s—frown intensified. “Barbara died in August. The night of the nineteenth.”

This was not a confidence. Any governess learned these bits of family history sooner or later. “How did she die?”

“Typhoid.” He turned back around to stare out the window. “It is neither a tidy death nor quick.”

“Were the boys here?”

“Of course. As was I. I wasn’t going to let her die alone, regardless of the state of our marriage. She was ill for a good month, and sometimes the fever even seemed to abate, but then it spiked again. She was lucid from time to time and asked to see the boys when she was.”

“And you allowed it?”

“I did. She was dying. I tried to keep them from touching her, but they did visit the sickroom on good days. Joshua was still in nappies. I can’t think he remembers much.”

While the boys’ father probably forgot little.

“He might not have much recollection, but Jeremiah has no doubt talked with him at length about their mother, so Joshua thinks he recalls everything his brother does. It must have been very difficult.”

“It was… hot.”

Likely stifling in a sick room, stinking horrendously, humiliating for the patient and trying for the family. And this had gone on for weeks. Of course the children had a recollection of it.

With his back to her, Ethan went on speaking. “She… apologized. In one of her lucid intervals, she apologized for her…” Alice was sure he hadn’t meant to say that, but to her surprise, he finished his thought softly. “For her betrayals.”

Gracious heavens. Betrayals—plural. That could not be good.

“May I offer you the library?” he asked, facing her, his expression once again that of a solicitous host. “It will be cooler, and you’ll have everything you need to tend to your letters. I’ve done most of my writing for the day, which leaves me the accounting, for which I do not need the desk.”

The change in topic was a relief, probably for them both. “Cooler sounds lovely. I’ve been in this bed long enough, but I hardly think it will serve to have me in my nightgown below stairs in broad daylight.”

He pushed away from the window. “This is my house, and if I permit it, then nobody will say anything to it. I am not an earl, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Mr. Grey was more arrogant than any earl. Alice had met a few and was in fact related to one. “The gossips will say whatever they please,” she retorted, “though not to your face, and maybe not to mine. If you’d give me a few minutes, I’ll be right along.”

“As you wish.” He turned to go then rounded on her. “You are not to pin your hair up in some frightful concoction designed to aggravate a lingering headache.”

She accepted this edict, because Clara had tidied her braid very nicely, and because Mr. Grey liked to have the last word. Alice regarded his retreat, noting that he walked like the lions she’d seen in the Royal Menagerie, slinky, silent, and graceful, but somehow menacing in their very elegance. She did not doubt Ethan Grey was capable of sending an enemy to his final reward, and as big as he was, it would be quickly done.

And what kind of thoughts were those? Alice eased from the bed and crossed to her wardrobe. Maybe the boys weren’t the only ones preoccupied with death, but as to that, it was good to know the anniversary of their mother’s death was approaching.

A capable governess kept her eye on such things, for they caused havoc when ignored. She slipped into the most comfortable of her old summer dresses, a short-sleeved, high-waisted muslin faded with age, and put her feet into a pair of comfortable house slippers.

Alice made her way to the library, composing a letter to her sister Avis in her head. She was halfway to the desk when she realized she wasn’t alone. Ethan Grey sat on the couch, his papers and an abacus spread out on the low table.