Page 27 of The Heir

“Anna,” he began, but he saw his use of her name made her bristle. “Please sit, and I do mean will you please.”

She sat, perched like an errant schoolgirl on the very edge of her chair, back straight, eyes front.

“You are scolding me without saying a word,” the earl said on a sigh. “It was just a kiss, Anna, and I had the impression you rather enjoyed it, too.”

She looked down, while a blush crept up the side of her neck.

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” he said with sudden, happy insight. “You could accept my apology and treat me with cheerful condescension, but youenjoyedour kiss.”

“My lord,” she said, addressing the hands she fisted in her lap, “can you not accept that were I to encourage your… mischief, I would be courting my own ruin?”

“Ruin?” He said with a snort. “Elise will be enjoying an entire estate for the rest of her days as a token of ruin at my hands—among others—if ruin you believe it to be. I did not take her virginity, either,Mrs. Seaton, and I am not a man who casually discards others.”

She was silent then raised her eyes, a mulish expression on her face.

“I will not seek another position as a function of what has gone between us so far, but you must stop.”

“Stop what, Anna?”

“You should not use my name, my lord,” she said, rising. “I have not given you leave to do so.”

He rose, as well, as if she were a lady deserving of his manners. “May I ask your permission to use your given name, at least when we are private?”

He’d shocked her, he saw with some satisfaction. She’d thought him too autocratic to ask, and he was again reminded of his father’s ways. But she was looking at him now, really looking, and he pressed his advantage.

“I find it impossible to think of you as Mrs. Seaton. In this house, there is no other who treats me as you do,Anna.You are kind but honest, and sympathetic without being patronizing. You are the closest thing I have here to an ally, and I would ask this small boon of you.”

He watched as she closed her eyes and waged some internal struggle, but in the anguish on her face, he suspected victory in this skirmish was to be his. She’d grant him his request, precisely because he had made it a request, putting a small measure of power exclusively into her hands.

She nodded assent but looked miserable over it.

“And you,” he said, letting concern—not guilt, surely—show in his gaze, “you must consider me an ally, as well, Anna.”

She speared him with a stormy look. “An ally who would compromise my reputation, knowing without it I am but a pauper or worse.”

“I do not seek to bring you ruin,” he corrected her. “And I would never force my will on you.”

Anna stood, and he thought her eyes were suspiciously bright. “Perhaps, my lord, you just did.”

He stared after her for long moments, wrestling with her final accusation but coming to no tidy answers. He could offer Anna Seaton an option, a choice other than decades of stepping and fetching and serving. He desired her and enjoyed her company out of bed, a peculiar realization though not unwelcome. But his seduction would be complicated by her reticence, her infernal notions of decency.

For now, he could steal some delectable kisses—and perhaps more than kisses—while she found the resolve to refuse him altogether and send him packing.

He was lingering over his lemonade when Val wandered out looking sleepy and rumpled, shirt open at the throat and cuffs turned back.

“Ye gods, it is too hot to sleep.” He reached over and drained the last of his brother’s drink. “You do like it sweet.”

“Helps with my disposition. And as I did indeed have to deal with His Grace this morning, I feel entitled.”

“How bad was he?” Val asked as he sat and crossed his long legs at the ankle.

“Bad enough. Wanted to chat about the scene at Fairly’s but left yelling about grandchildren and disrespect.”

“Sounds about like your usual with him,” Val said as John Footman brought out a second tray, this one bearing something closer to breakfast.

“Mrs. S said to tell you this one is sweetened, my lord.” John set one glass before the earl. “And this one, less so,” he said as he placed the other before Val.

“I think she puts mint in it,” Val said after a long swallow.