Such thoughts blundered perilously close to hoping, and Ethan knew better than to countenance that folly.
“I’m not without experience,” she said softly, turning to rest her head on his shoulder.
If she’d expected him to stiffen, pull away, or physically display disappointment, he was determined to confound her. He pulled her closer and kissed her temple.
“God, Alice, neither am I. For you, I wish I could be.” It was an odd, heartfelt sentiment he would never be able to explain to her. “Were you mistreated?”
“No.” Ethan heard a silent “but” following her denial. “I was engaged, when I was sixteen, and could once again walk without much of a limp. My brothers had seen to it I was well dowered, and a young man I’d known most of my life offered for me. He was of decent family, and I saw him as my means of leaving Cumbria and its memories far behind. I accepted him, on the condition we’d leave the area and settle elsewhere. America would have done for me, or the Antipodes. I just needed to get away.”
“And this young man,” Ethan conjectured, “the one you refer to as decent, he took liberties, thinking you would not cry off after that no matter what, and then announced he had no intention of taking you anywhere.”
Alice’s smile was rueful. “More or less.”
“But you,” Ethan went on, “having a spine of Toledo steel, did cry off and left the poor idiot without a wife, her dowry, or a semblance of his honor, which was exactly what he deserved. I am proud of you.”
“Proud of me?”
He had surprised her, and he was damned glad of it. “There is no explaining the courage it takes to face down the judgments and expectations of Polite Society. Did your brothers try to dissuade you?” Ethan tried to recall where his dueling pistols were stored in the event he did not approve of her answer.
“Benjamin knows the whole of it, and he understands my decision.”
Bastard. “He never told you he was proud of you, that he admired your fortitude and integrity? He never told you the scoundrel wasn’t good enough for you in any regard?”
Alice looked away. She scuffed her half boot against the dirt. “He brought me South. He keeps an eye on me.”
He had kept that eye from a distance, when the man by reputation was well able to provide a roof over her head. Ethan made a note to locate those dueling pistols.
“Mr. Durbeyfield thought he was doing me a favor.” Alice turned her head, and Ethan thought she might have sniffed at his shoulder. “I was, in the local parlance, touched with an unfortunate past, which he was willing to overlook.”
“So that he could get his lying, smug, unworthy paws on your dowry. Your brothers should be ashamed.”
Alice sat up then and cocked her head at him. “Perhaps they are. I always thought they were ashamed of me… Men are odd creatures. But dear.”
Dear was encouraging. Ethan would shoot her brothers some other day, because he would like to be dear to her. Dear and desired; it was a frightening, exhilarating, and ambitious combination. He hadn’t his brother’s charm or his title or his tremendous amatory experience, but Alice was on this bench, tucked obligingly against Ethan, not Nick.
It was enough to keep Ethan on the bench all night, if she’d allow it.
“We should be going,” Alice said. “They’ll be ringing the bell soon for supper, and the boys will be looking for me.”
“You’re going to make me work for it,” Ethan decided. “Good girl.”
“Work for it?” Alice let him assist her to her feet.
“You do not respond to my offer, Alice, and it’s an offer that requires a yes or no answer. If you refuse me, I will understand I do not appeal to you as a woman finds a man appealing. I will not enjoy the rejection, but neither will it destroy me.” He hoped. “If you reject me, you will continue to be the person to whom I entrust the education of my sons, a respected member of my household, and safe at Tydings from any unwanted advances, including my own.” Damn it.
“We simply ignore this extraordinary discussion and both kisses?”
Ethan smiled over at her. “We pretend to, as best we can.”
“And if I accept your offer?” Alice kept her eyes focused ahead, depriving Ethan of the insights they might yield.
“You decide.” Ethan dropped his voice. “You decide if I come to you or you come to me. If we join in a bed or in the hay mow or on a blanket in the woods. You decide if you remain in the position of governess—I think you like it, for one thing, but it protects your reputation and mine, for another—or we find another governess. You decide.”
He liked—he adored—the idea of them deciding together something as significant as who the boys’ next governess should be.
She turned her face up to the dying sun as she walked along. “I cannot abandon the appearance of propriety, and I am wicked for admitting I’d even consider such a thing. You do kiss exceedingly well, though, and you…”
She trailed off, while Ethan waited.
And waited. He what? Got her on a horse? Would die to keep her safe? Made the loneliness and doubt recede when he took her in his arms?
For she surely did that for him.
“I have much to think about,” Alice muttered. “We would have to be very discreet.”
She was considering it—considering allowing him to become her lover. “I can be discreet.” Ethan ushered her up the terrace steps at a sedate pace, when he wanted to vault them three at time. “And so can you.”
“Give me a week, Ethan. At least a week.”
A week was seven entire days and nights, an infinite procession of moments. How could a yes-or-no decision take that long?
“You may have as long as you please, Alice. It is a lady’s prerogative. I will see you at dinner?”
“I think not. Some solitude will allow me to clear my head.”
“As you wish.” He saw her guard relax a trifle before he swooped in and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to her cheek. “I will see you at breakfast and in my dreams.” He left her there in the golden evening sunlight, her fingers pressed to her cheek.
Ten
“It’s Buttercup!” Joshua spotted the big mare first, and only his father’s bellowed command stopped the boy from galloping the remaining distance to the stable yard.
“Uncle Nick!” Joshua yelled from the back of his pony. “Uncle Nick, we’re home!”
“You may trot,” Ethan allowed, because they were nearing the arena. “You too, Jeremiah.” Ethan drew his horse to a halt and waited beside Alice’s mount when the boys’ ponies started forward at the faster gait.
And here their outing had been going so well. “It appears my brother is paying a visit. Shall we greet him?”
“I suppose I have no choice?” Alice looked around as if seeking a hiding place.
“You can dismount here. Go on up to the house if you wish, but Nick will see the sidesaddle and ask questions.”
“I’m being silly.” Alice nudged Waltzer forward at the walk. “Nick will tease me, though, and I’d as soon avoid that.”
Her reaction, far from enthusiastic, held a petty kind of reassurance for a man whose overtures took a week to consider. “Nick will behave, or he won’t be welcome under my roof.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” Alice murmured as they neared the barns. “He never means anything but fun.”
Ethan was torn between a guilty pleasure that on the face of the entire earth, there was at least one woman whose heart didn’t leap for joy at the prospect of spending time with Nick, and an odd disappointment. Having been assured Alice was not attracted to Nick, Ethan wanted her to like his brother.