Page 6 of The Heir
He leaned in and sniffed at her, assessing.
“Lavender and something sweet,” he decided, ignoring the presumptuousness of his gesture. “Lilies?”
“Perhaps.” Mrs. Seaton was blushing, her gaze on her lap. “The details will shift, depending on one’s sense of smell, and also with the ambient scents.”
“You mean with what I’m wearing? Hadn’t thought of that. Hmm.”
He gave her another little sniff then squared his shoulders to rise. To his unending disgust, he had to steady himself momentarily on his housekeeper’s shoulder. “Proceed,” he said when his head had stopped swimming. They were soon out in the silky summer darkness of his balcony.
“Honeysuckle,” he said, apropos of nothing but the night air.
“There is some of that,” Mrs. Seaton said as they closed in on a padded wicker chaise. His balcony overlooked the back gardens, and a soft breeze was stirring the scents from the flowers below.
“Sit with me,” the earl said as he settled onto the chaise. Mrs. Seaton paused in her retreat, and something in her posture alerted him to his overuse of the imperative. “Please,” he added, unable to keep a hint of amusement from his tone.
“You were not born to service,” the earl surmised as his housekeeper took a seat on a wicker rocking chair.
“Minor gentry,” she concurred. “Very minor.”
“Brothers and sisters?”
“A younger sister and an older brother. Your lemonade, my lord?”
“Please,” he replied, recalling he’d sent her down two flights in the dark of night to fetch it.
But it was a moonless night and dark as pitch on the balcony, so when Mrs. Seaton retrieved the drink, she reached for his fingers with her free hand and wrapped his grip around the glass.
“You are warm,” she said, a frown in her voice. She reached out again, no doubt expecting to put the back of her hand against his forehead but instead connecting with his cheek. “I beg your pardon.” She snatched back her hand. “Do you think you are becoming fevered?”
“I am not,” he replied tersely, setting down his drink. He reached for her hand and brought it to his forehead. “No warmer than the circumstances dictate.”
He felt—or thought he felt—her fingers smooth back his hair before she resumed her seat. The gesture was no doubt intended as maternal, and it was likely Elise’s protracted absence that had him experiencing it as something much less innocent.
“How is your head, my lord?”
“Hurts like blue blazes. My back is on fire, and I won’t be wrestling my chestnut geldings any time soon, either. You pack quite a wallop, considering the worst I could have done in broad daylight was perhaps grope the girl.”
This recitation inspired his housekeeper to a very quiet yawn.
“Is my company that tiresome, Mrs. Seaton?” He wasn’t offended, but neither had he intended his tone to come out sounding so wistful.
“My day is long in your service, my lord. We do a big market on Wednesday, and Cook and I spend much of the day laying it in, as the men aren’t underfoot to bother us.”
“So you are tired,” he concluded. “Go rest, Mrs. Seaton. The settee in my sitting room will do, and I’ll call when I need your assistance.” She rose but hesitated, as if filling her sails for a lecture about propriety and decency and other virtues known mostly to domestics.
“Go, Mrs. Seaton,” he urged. “I treasure my solitude, and I have much to think about. I will not fall asleep out here, and you need to at least nap. Were you anybody but my housekeeper, you’d know the Earl of Westhaven has no need to bother his help.”
That must have appeased her or spiked her guns, for she departed, leaving Westhaven to sip his tea and enjoy his thoughts.
Her scent, he reflected, blended beautifully with the summer night air. It made a man want to nibble on her, to see if she tasted of lavender, roses, and honeysuckle. He cast back, trying to recall when he’d hired the pretty, younger-than-she-should-be, more-protective-than-she-needed-to-be, Mrs. Seaton. Early spring, perhaps, when he’d made the decision to leave the ducal townhouse, lest he strangle his dear papa and the endless parade of shirttail cousins his mama trooped past him for consideration as his broodmare.
The whole business was demeaning. He understood his parents, having lost two sons, were desperate for progeny from their two remaining legitimate sons. He understood Val affected a preference for men—at least he claimed it was an affectation—rather than suffer the duke’s importuning. He understood Devlin would be years recovering from Waterloo and the Peninsular War.
He did not understand though, how—given that the ducal responsibilities took every spare hour and minute—he was going to find the time to locate a woman he could tolerate not just in his bed but as the mother of his children and his companion at the breakfast table.
“Westhaven!” Elise flew across her sitting room, arms outstretched to envelope him in an enthusiastic hug. “Did you miss me?” She squeezed him to her ample bosom and kissed his cheek. “I have expired for lack of you, Westhaven.” She kept her hands wrapped around his arm, pressing her breast to his bicep as she did. “A month is too long, isn’t it? I’m sure you were very naughty in my absence, but I’m here now, and you needn’t go baying at the moon for lack of me.”
She was tugging at his clothing, her mouth chattering on, and Westhaven knew a moment’s impatience. Desire was a bodily craving, like fatigue or hunger or physical restlessness. He tended to it, usually twice a week, sometimes more, and lately less. It had been mildly alarming to find Elise’s departure for a month-long house party had inconvenienced him not one bit.
