Текст книги "The Heir"

Автор книги: Grace Burrowes

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“Relax, Anna.” He kissed her nape. “This will take a while. Let your legs fall open, and just enjoy.”

She closed her eyes and felt the caress of his hand dancing over her like the breeze, but better. He knew where to touch, how much pressure to use, when to tease, and when to gratify. His fingers explored her sex from behind then drifted away to trace the long muscles on either side of her spine. He caressed her buttocks with slow, almost pensive attention to the tension in the muscles there then pressed another series of kisses to her nape and shoulders.

She shouldn’t let him, she thought… Whole afternoons, but not for them. This was their afternoon, their only afternoon, and then she’d be gone, betraying all the trust he showed her, taking his respect for her and tossing it back in his face.

“On to your back, sweetheart,” Westhaven whispered in her ear. When she lazily complied, he started all over again, the same stroking and studying and teasing, but this time his attention wandered from her breasts to her face, to her sex, to her neck and shoulders, and back her breasts.

“Spread your legs for me,” he coaxed, but when Anna did, he remained content to tease at her breasts with his fingers. Only gradually did he let his hand drift down in slow, smooth sweeps, then to rest over her sex. He turned his body, and though she didn’t open her eyes, Anna felt him crouching over her, his mouth settling contentedly over a nipple.

He was tormenting her, she thought sluggishly, creating such a blend of languor and arousal she couldn’t fight either. Why would she want to? His mouth drew on her, and she sifted her fingers through his hair, emotion tangling with the erotic lassitude he created. Precious, she thought. These moments, this man, these sensations… all precious.

He paused and moved lower, resting his face against her abdomen before levering up and reaching for a spare pillow.

“Hips up,” he directed, tucking the pillow under her. “You’ll see why soon enough.” And then he was nuzzling at her belly, nipping at the underside of her breast, and stroking the insides of her thighs.

“Your job,” he said, moving yet lower still, “is simply to enjoy. You can tell me to stop, but I might have trouble hearing you, as I intend to be enjoying myself, as well.” His words floated into Anna’s awareness and floated right back out again. She was nearly asleep, so relaxed had she become.

But not quite asleep, as the earl’s caresses had also created a low, buzzing arousal throughout her body. Her breasts wanted his mouth and his fingers, her buttocks wanted that same hand, and her sex wanted all of him. If he’d asked, she’d have consented to join with him, so finely drawn was she between arousal, regret, and lassitude.

He moved to kiss her spread thighs, and Anna knew a fleeting self-consciousness. He was going to look at her, to see in the broad light of day the parts of her she hadn’t seen herself.

“You are beautiful,” he said, as if reading her mind, “and luscious.”

The next sensation, as his mouth settled over her, was indescribable. It took the sweet, tender, languorous arousal of all his previous caresses and let it congeal where he drew on her. He was gentle at first, just hinting at what pleasures he could bring her. He’d suckle at her for a moment then use his tongue to lap at her folds, to paint her sex with pleasure.

But then he was back, applying just a little more pressure, and a soft groan escaped Anna’s throat.

“Move if you want to,” he urged, wrapping an arm around her thigh to anchor her. “Move against me, and you’ll feel better.”

Tentatively, she rocked her hips, a long, slow roll of her body that eased her ache and made it worse. She moved again, setting up a rhythm, working with him to craft her pleasure. It went on like that, minute after minute of bliss edged with longing, then longing coalescing into need.

“Westhaven?” If a man didn’t come in a woman’s mouth, was a woman permitted to find her pleasure with a man’s mouth? She wanted to ask him, but her mind was too far gone with pleasure.

“Touch your breasts, sweetheart,” he murmured. “You’ll feel better. Like this.” He reached up one long arm and gently pinched at her nipple. He fished for her hand, closed it around her own nipple, and used his fingers to close her grasp on herself.

It wasn’t the same as his caresses, but he kept his hand resting over hers, and so there was part of him in the sensations she evoked. When her own hand went still, the better for her to focus on his busy mouth, he closed his fingers again in gentle reminder.

“Westhaven,” Anna rasped, stop, she wanted to say, but the word would not come to her lips. The feelings he aroused, the physical sensations… they were building, an inexorable welling of pleasure was advancing toward her, but—God help her—not fast enough.

“This will help,” he said, and Anna felt him ease a finger shallowly into her body. He was careful, tentative, unwilling to advance beyond a certain point, but it helped focus her frustration. She clamped her muscles around that finger and felt him pause.

“You lovely, naughty girl,” he whispered, adding a second finger—but not deep enough. He shifted the angle of his shoulders and took her in his mouth again.

“Please, Westhaven, please…”

She rocked up against his mouth, wanting, wanting, wanting until she would have begged had speech not been beyond her. She begged with her body, with her hands in his hair, with the soft whimpers that escaped her.

Her body began to hum with impending pleasure, to rise and vibrate and sing with it, until it burst through her, finally—fast enough, hard enough, deep enough, and with his mouth and hands and will, he made it last long enough, pushing her onward ruthlessly when she would have accepted just a taste of pleasure, until she was moaning and undulating helplessly against his mouth.

“Westhaven.” She ruffled his hair and said it again, her voice soft with the surfeit of pleasure he’d brought her.

“I’m here,” he murmured, his face against her belly.

“Cover me,” she said, and he reached for the sheets.

“No.” She tugged at his scalp. “You, cover me. Please.”

It was an odd request, but he rose up on all fours, crouched over her, and lowered his chest to hers.

“All of you,” she said, eyes closed, hands drifting over his shoulders and back.

So he settled between her legs, giving her his weight, his erection resting snugly on her belly. When she sighed in contentment, he tucked her crown under his chin and matched his breathing to hers.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “For all of it, but this, too. Thank you.”

Twelve

“I CAN HEAR YOU THINKING,” WESTHAVEN RUMBLED above her moments later.

“What you did,” Anna said, too closely wrapped for him to see her face. “Is that…?”

“Is it what?” he smiled, in charity with all of creation. “Legal? Yes, unlike some other intimate pleasures. Is it biblical, absolutely not. Is it what?”

“Is it something you did with your mistress?”

“Ye gods, Anna.” He levered up on his arms and frowned down at her. “What is this fascination you have with a woman you’ve never met?”

“Not with her.” Anna met his gaze, her face crimson. “With you. Is that something men like to do—or you like to do?” A slightly different and more acceptable question, he decided, snuggling back down.

“As a young man,” he said, brushing her hair off her forehead, “it’s something you want to experience, as it’s wicked and forbidden and said to delight those women willing to allow it. But no, I’ve not offered this to another. There is a whole invisible community of women whose job it is to educate university boys and I put them through their paces and they put me through mine, but not in this regard.”

“So you enjoyed it?”

“What I enjoyed,” he said, smiling at her, “was bringing you pleasure and learning your responses and feeling close to you when you let yourself go. Some women, Anna, go their whole lives without experiencing passion the way you do. You are lovely, and so, yes, I most assuredly enjoyed doing that with you.”

She was blessedly silent while Westhaven anticipated her next outrageous, blushing question.

“I enjoy it, too,” she said, “having you find your pleasure in my mouth. It is… intimate.”

“There is trust involved,” he replied, thinking about it for the first time in years. “On both sides.” She nodded under him and closed her eyes.

You do trust me, he wanted to point out. Maybe not completely, but you do. He wanted her to admit it, to him, if not to herself, but wasn’t willing to breach that intimacy she’d alluded to. Rather than start a lecture, Westhaven began kissing her, his mood still slow and relaxed.

“Would you like me to…?” she began. He stopped the question by covering her mouth with his then drew back.

“I’ll do the work, such as it is,” he said. “You relax. We don’t want to make you sore.”

He rocked against her, their bodies snugged tightly together. She was learning the way his body moved when it sought pleasure and subtly undulated with him. When she tilted her hips just a little, sealing them even more closely together, he buried his face against her neck.

In a very few moments, he felt his pleasure welling up, a thick, hot current radiating up his spine and out through his extremities. He didn’t fight it, didn’t hold back, but pulsed against her hard for a half-dozen thrusts, and then went still on a long, fraught sigh against her neck.

“God, Anna.” He lifted himself off of her. “You utterly undo me.” He walked naked across the room to his jacket, extracted a handkerchief, and used the water in the pitcher on the nightstand to wet it. He swabbed at himself thoroughly, rinsed the handkerchief in the basin, and wrung it out. He then sat at her hip, washed his seed off her body, and raised his gaze to hers.

“I am fond of you,” he said, “and maybe more than that. If you are in trouble, Anna, I wish you’d let me help you.”

“You can’t help,” she said, her expression unreadable.

He said nothing but climbed into bed beside her and lay back, his hands laced under his head. He should not have made that admission—fond of her, for God’s sake—what woman wants to hear that? He was fond of Elise, fond of Rose’s pony, George. It was as good as saying he did not love her, which he feared might not be true.

That is to say… He shied off that fence and turned his mind to Anna’s virtual admission she was in trouble. That was progress, he decided. From bearing confidences, to being in trouble. Dev had been right, and it meant Westhaven had to take a little more seriously Anna’s threats to leave him. What kind of trouble would a young, pretty, gently reared housekeeper have?

She had a brother, he recalled. It was a brother’s job to protect a sister, so where was that worthy soul now that Anna needed him? But even a brother had no rights where a husband was concerned.

“Please assure me,” he said, glancing over at her, “you have no living husband.”

“I have no living husband,” Anna recited. But this time, the earl was paying attention, and he raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“That is the truth,” Anna remonstrated. “We are merely fornicating, not committing adultery.”

He cracked a dry smile. “My dear, we are not even fornicating.”

“Not yet.” She offered him the same smile back.

“Are you a convicted felon?” he asked, puzzling over it.

“I am not charged with anything that I know of,” Anna said, “but you can cease the interrogation, Westhaven. I am fond of you, too.”

She sat up, hugging her knees, and Westhaven had the sense she was fighting back tears. Surely there was no more damning testament to a man’s seductions than that they left a woman in tears? He reached out and stroked his hand over her elegant spine.

“You are fond of me, but you are leaving me anyway.” She nodded once, her back to him, and he felt her heart breaking. With gentle force, he dragged her back into his arms and held her while she cried.

When the hamper had been repacked, Anna stood beside the earl in the stables, waiting for Pericles to be harnessed to the gig.

“Penny for them,” the earl said softly. He was standing just a hair too close to her, but there was nobody save the young stable hand to see, and much to Westhaven’s pleasure, Anna let herself drift back against him.

“It is lovely here,” Anna said. “You are to be commended for taking such care with a sister’s welfare.”

He heard the wistful, almost despairing note in her voice, and knew with absolute conviction Anna Seaton’s brother had somehow disappointed her or played her false. His mind turned back to those ideas, the ones he’d been formulating earlier about how to uncover Anna’s troubles and assist her with them.

“I love my sisters. As any brother should love a sister.”

“They don’t all—brothers, that is,” Anna said, stepping away from him. “Some of them love their gold more or their drink or their flashy Town habits. Being a sister is sometimes not much more of a bargain than being a wife.”

“You simply have to choose the right brother”—Westhaven smiled at her gently—“or the right husband. I have enjoyed our time here, Anna. I hope you did, as well.”

“Even when I cried,” she said, a world of resignation in her tone, “I was glad to be here with you, Westhaven. Believe that, if you believe nothing else of me.”

He handed her into the gig, puzzling over that comment. They were halfway back to Town, Anna tucked shamelessly close to him even in the heat, before his brain woke from its stupor.

What she had meant was: Even when I cried because I must leave you, I was glad to be here with you… Believe that if you believe nothing else of me when I find the courage to finally go.

The hot, lovely day suddenly became ominous, and where Anna wasn’t touching him, he was chilled.

Morgan stood beside Val when they’d left Viscount Fairly’s townhouse and listened. Fairly had worked a miracle, gently and thoroughly cleaning her ears, explaining that she had scar tissue complicating the natural process and her hearing would always be impaired. She thought he was daft, as she heard everything.

“It’s loud,” she said wonderingly. “But sweet, too. Like your music. The sounds all go together to say something.”

“Let’s walk home through the park,” Val suggested, offering his arm. “You can hear birds singing, hear the water in the Serpentine, hear the children playing… I never realized how happy the park sounds.”

“There’s so much…” Morgan took a deep breath and fell in step beside him. “I would never go anywhere I didn’t know well, because I could not stop to ask directions. I was confined to those places Anna would take me or that someone else would escort me to. I could not get lost; I could not need assistance.”

“That has changed. You may get lost several times a day, just to hear people give you directions. Are your ears hurting?”

“They are…” Morgan frowned. “Not hurting from the viscount’s treatment but throbbing, it feels like, with sounds. I’m pleased beyond telling to hear your voice, Lord Valentine.”

“Val,” he said easily. “I’d like to hear you say my name.”

“Valentine Windham.” Morgan smiled at him. “Musician and friend to hard-of-hearing chambermaids.”

“Did you ask Fairly if the cure is temporary?”

“It is. If I don’t look after my ears, they can get into the same state, particularly if I let quacks poke at me and bring me more infections and bleeding and scarring. He gave me an ear syringe and his card, should I have questions. However did you meet such a man?”

“Mutual friends,” Val said. “The circumstances were not particularly sanguine.”

“This involves your papa’s meddling?”

“Nanny Fran’s been talking again.” Val rolled his eyes. “She talks all the time. I got much faster at figuring out what is spoken by watching the speaker’s lips around her, and when people don’t think you can hear, they often say things you ought not to overhear.”

“What sorts of things?” Val asked, noticing Morgan’s voice was already increasing in range of pitch, taking on the intonations and inflections of a woman who could hear.

“Footmen are a bawdy lot,” Morgan said. “Nanny Fran and Cook are just as bad.”

“Has anyone been talking out of turn to His Grace?”

“Not that I know of.” Morgan frowned. “Mostly, the staff are very loyal to the earl, as he provided employment when His Grace was letting junior staff go, to hear them tell it. And I can.” Morgan sighed and hung a little on his arm. “I can hear them tell it. I will be on my knees for a long time tonight and every night. I wonder if I will sing again someday?”

“You like to sing?”

“Love to.” Morgan beamed at him. “I used to sing with my mother, and sometimes Anna would join us, but she was an adolescent just as my voice was becoming reliable, and singing was not her greatest talent.”

“So you are related to her?” Val asked, but Morgan’s hand dropped from his arm. “Morgan,” he chided, “Anna brought you into the household with her, she has admitted to Westhaven she knew you when you could hear, and Dev has seen the two of you tête-à-tête over something serious.”

Too late, Morgan realized the trap speaking had sprung on her. Deaf and mute, she could not be questioned; she could not be held accountable for any particular knowledge or intelligence.

Val peered down at her as they approached the park. “Dev says Anna has secrets, and I fear he is right. They are your secrets, too, aren’t they?”

“It’s complicated and not entirely my business to tell,” she said, speaking slowly. “This is part of the reason you must not tell anyone I can hear.”

“I do not like lying, Morgan. Particularly not to my brother, regarding people in his employ.”

“The earl hired me knowing I could not hear or speak,” Morgan pointed out. “He is not cheated when you keep this confidence for me. And if it comforts you to know it, I am not even going to tell Anna I can hear.”

“You think she would begrudge you your hearing?”

“No.” Morgan shook her head then grinned. “I can hear that, when I shake my head.” She did it again then her smile faded. “Back to Anna and me… For the past two years, Anna is all that connected me with a world I had long since stopped hearing. I owe her more than you know, and yet, having me to look after has also meant she’s had to look after herself. Were I not in such great need, Anna might have given up. She might have taken some options for herself that were not at all desirable. In any case, I do not want to disclose I can hear, not until I know it’s going to last.”

“That much I can understand,” Val said. “How long do you think it will take to convince yourself you are back among the hearing?”

“Oh, listen!” Morgan stopped, grinning from ear to ear. “It’s geese, and they are honking. What a wonderful, silly, undignified sound. And there are children, and they are screamingwith glee. Oh, Valentine…”

The way she’d said his name, with wonder, and joy and gratitude, it lit the places inside him that had been going dark since his closest brother had died. The music rumbling through him when he watched her hearing the sound of childish laughter was not polite, graceful, or ornamental. It was great, bounding swoops and leaps of joy, and unstoppable, unending gratitude.

Brothers slowly wasted of terrible diseases; they died in asinine duels in provincial taverns; and sometimes, a gifted pianist’s hand hurt unbearably, but Morgan could also hearwhen the children laughed.

He sat beside her for a long time in the sunshine and fresh air, just listening to the park and the city and to life.

“Gentlemen.” Westhaven addressed his brothers as they ambled back from a morning ride. “I need your help.”

Val and Dev exchanged a look of quiet surprise.

“You have it,” Dev said.

“Anything you need,” Val added. “Anything. Anywhere, anytime.”

Westhaven busied himself fiddling with the reins of the rangy chestnut gelding Dev had put him on. He might have expected ribbing from his brothers or teasing or idle curiosity, but their unconditional response caught him off guard.

Dev smiled at him, a smile more tender than humorous. “We love you, and we know you are all that stands between us and His Grace. Say on.”

“Good to know one’s sentiments are reciprocated,” Westhaven said, eyeing the sky casually.

“I suspect whatever you need help with,” Val chimed in, “we are discussing it here because you do not want to be overheard at home?”

“Perceptive of you,” Westhaven said. “The matter at hand is Mrs. Seaton. She is not, as Dev has suggested, exactly what she appears to be. She tells me there is no spouse trying to hunt her down, nor is she wanted on criminal charges, but she is carrying some burden and will not enlighten me as to its nature. She claims the matter is confidential, and it necessitates her departure from my employ in the near future.”

Dev quirked an eyebrow. “We are to find out for you what plagues her and make it go away.”

“Not so fast.” Westhaven smiled at his darkest brother, the one most likely to solve a problem with his fists or his knife. “Before we go eavesdropping in doorways, I thought we might first combine our knowledge of the situation.”

When the brothers returned to the townhouse, they took their lemonade—cold tea for Val—into the library, and closed and locked the door. After about an hour’s discussion, they boiled down their objective knowledge to a few facts, most of those gleaned from the agency that had recommended her:

Anna Seaton had come down from the North about two years ago and was on her third post has housekeeper. She’d worked first for an old Hebrew, then briefly for a wealthy merchant before joining the earl’s household almost six months ago. At each location, Morgan became part of the household staff, as well. Anna admitted to having a brother and a sister, but being orphaned, had been raised by her grandfather, the florist.

“He had to be one hell of a successful florist,” Dev observed. “Didn’t you say Anna could speak several languages? Tutors, particularly for females, cost money.”

“She plays the piano, too,” Westhaven recalled. “That means more money, both to own the instrument and to afford the instruction.”

“I wonder,” Val said slowly, “if Morgan is not this sister Anna has mentioned to you.”

“I suppose she could be.” Westhaven frowned. “They do not look particularly alike, but then neither do many sisters.”

“They have the same laugh,” Val said, surprising his brothers. “What? Morgan can laugh—she isn’t simple.”

“We know, but it’s an odd thing to notice,” Westhaven said, noting his youngest brother was more than a little defensive of the chambermaid. “You’re reminding me, though, Anna said her parents were killed when their buggy overturned and slid down an embankment. They were on an errand to look at a pony for her younger sister. Then you tell me Morgan lost her hearing after a buggy accident left her pinned in cold water. I think you’ve put the puzzle pieces together correctly, Val.”

Dev drew a finger around the rim of his glass. “We need to send someone north who can find us a very wealthy elderly florist, perhaps two years deceased, perhaps still extant, with three grandchildren, whose son died in a buggy accident that cost one grandchild her hearing. How many of those can there be?”

“Don’t rule out a title,” Val said quietly.

“A title?” Westhaven winced, hating to think he might have been cavorting with some duke’s daughter. That hit a little too close to home.

“Anna once teased me about my… public mannerism,” Val said.

“You mean”—Dev grinned—“your mincing and lisping?”

“And so on.” Val nodded and waved a hand. “She said something like: You are no more a mincing fop than I am an earl’s granddaughter. I remembered it, because Her Grace is an earl’s granddaughter.”

“We can keep it in mind,” Westhaven said, “intuition being at least half of what we have to go on. Anything else?”

“Yes.” Dev rose from the sofa and stretched. “Suppose we find out who our housekeeper really is, find she’s suspected of some wrongdoing, put the accusations to rest, and so forth. Are we going to all this effort just to keep you in marzipan for the foreseeable future? There are easier ways to do that.”

Westhaven pushed away from his desk. “We are doing this because the duke will soon be asking the same questions, and his methods will not be discreet nor careful nor at all delicate.”

“And ours will be?” Val asked, coming to his feet, as well.

“Utterly. We must be, or there’s no point to the effort. If anybody finds out we are poking around in Anna Seaton’s past, then they could easily insinuate themselves into her present, and that I cannot allow.”

“Very well.” Dev scratched his ribs and nodded. “We find the elderly florist, et cetera, and do it without making a sound.”

“Not a peep,” Val agreed just as his stomach rumbled thunderously. “Not a peep once I get some breakfast.”

“We can all use breakfast.” Westhaven smiled. “We’ll talk more about this later, but only when our privacy is assured.” He unlocked the door and departed for the breakfast parlor, leaving his two brothers to exchange a look of consternation.

“So.” Val looked to his elder sibling hopefully. “We’re going about this stealthy investigation of a housekeeper’s personal business, why?”

“Noticed he dodged that one, didn’t you?” Dev rubbed his chin. “Smart lad. I would hazard a guess, though, we are abetting our brother’s ride to the rescue of the fair damsel because for once, he’s delegating the tedious work to someone else and keeping the fun part for himself.”

“He picked an odd time to turn up human.”

“I didn’t think the housekeeper was to your taste.” Dev grinned and slung an arm around Val’s shoulders. “Thought you were more enamored of the quiet housemaid who—though is she deaf—sits in the music room by the hour– watchingyou play?”

“Let’s get some breakfast,” Val groused, digging an elbow into his brother’s ribs to shove him away. Smart lad, indeed. Bad enough to have to dodge the duke’s spies among the help, but he’d have to warn Morgan that Dev wasn’t going to miss a trick either.

Since their trip out to Willow Bend more than a week ago, Anna had felt the earl watching her the way one man might size up another in preparation for a duel or a high-stakes card game. He studied her but made no more mention of trips to the country or marriage. He kept his hands to himself, but his eyes were on her if they were in the same room.

She tried to tell herself it was better this way, with Westhaven keeping his distance and the household rolling along in its pleasant routine. The three brothers usually went out for an early ride then breakfasted together. Thereafter, the earl would closet himself with Tolliver for most of the morning, while Val repaired to his piano and Dev spent time in the stables or at the auctions. Occasionally, all three would be home for lunch, but more often, it was dinner before they joined each other again.

And occasionally, Anna had noticed, they would join in the library for a brandy before dinner, some three-handed cribbage after dinner, or just to talk. And when they did, the door was both closed and locked.

Since the earl hadn’t even thought to lock the door when he was naked with her, Anna wondered what could be holding their interest that demanded such privacy. Something they did not want the duke to learn of, no doubt.

Still, it hurt, a little, not be in Westhaven’s confidence—not to be in his arms.

But life went on. The agency from Manchester had written they did not place candidates from London unless or until said candidates were removing to the local environs. Bath had at least two openings, but they were for the households of older single gentlemen who enjoyed “lively” social calendars. Anna knew one by reputation to be a lecherous roué and assumed the other was just as objectionable. She waited in the daily hope of more encouraging news from the remaining possibilities and was thus pleased when John Footman brought her a letter.

One glance at the envelope, however, told her the news was not good. Another epistle from rural Yorkshire could not bode well.

I am most concerned for you. A man has been about asking pointed questions, and I am sure he was followed when he returned south. Use greatest caution.

A man asking questions… Dear God, she had caused this. With her reticence and mention of confidences and unwillingness to yield details to his bloody lordship, the Earl of Westhaven. He was resorting to his father’s tactics and causing more trouble—more peril—than he could possibly imagine. The fear Anna lived with day and night boiled over into rage and indignation at his high-handedness. She barreled out of her sitting room, the letter still in her hand, and almost ran into Devlin St. Just.

“Where is he?” she hissed.

“Westhaven?” St. Just took a step back but kept his hands on her upper arms. “Is there something I can help you with?” His gaze traveled over her warily, no doubt taking in the absence of a cap and the utter determination in her eyes.

“You?” Anna loaded the word with incredulity and scorn. “With your strutting and sneering and threats? You’ve helped more than enough. Where is he?”

“The library.” He dropped his hands, and stepped back as Anna stormed away.

“She upset with you?” Val asked as he sauntered out of the kitchen, cookies in hand.

“I did not get off on the proper foot with her, which is my fault,” Dev said, “but it’s Westhaven who had better start praying.”

“Front-row seats, eh?” Val handed him a cookie, and they stole up the stairs in Anna’s wake.

“A moment of your time, my lord.” Anna kept her voice steady, but her eyes were a different matter. One glance, and the earl knew a storm was brewing.

He rose from his desk. “Tolliver, if you would excuse us?” Taking in Anna’s appearance, Tolliver departed with only a brief sympathetic glance at the earl.

“Won’t you have a seat?” the earl offered, his tones cordial as he went to close and lock the door.

“I most assuredly will not have a seat,” Anna spat back, “and you can unlock that door, Gayle Tristan Montmorency Windham.”

An odd thrill went through him at the sound of his name on her lips, one that made it difficult to appropriately marshal his negotiating face. He had the presence of mind to keep the door locked, however, and instead turned to assess her.