“But I realize I am tromping around Tydings like a mountaineer, Nick. I used to go for days at Sutcliffe without leaving the walls of the manor. My hip hurt, true, but here, it seems the more I walk, the less it hurts.”

“This overwhelms you? And why didn’t you just tell us you stayed indoors because you hurt?”

Yes, why hadn’t she? “It doesn’t bother me much now. That’s a change, a big change. Miss Portman,” she said with some consternation, “does not enjoy the outdoors.”

Nick cocked his head. “But you do. You were positively beaming on that horse, Alice. You were enjoying the outdoors and being on horseback.”

“That overwhelms me too. Before this week, I’d gone twelve years without managing a horse, Nick. I’d avoided titled company, but ended up on the arm of an earl here in Ethan’s gardens, and we’re off to do the pretty with more of same on Wednesday. It makes my head swim, to tell the truth.”

“I’m a title.” Nick swiped more of her tea.

“You’re just you, for which I am grateful.”

“So are you overwhelmed with joy, or worries?”

“Both.” Alice peered at her almost-empty mug. “Then there is your brother.”

“Ah.”

What a man could do with one syllable. “He overwhelms me too.”

“It’s the family charm. We’re endowed with it in proportion to our size.”

“Abominable man.” Alice stalled by sipping the last of her tea. “Ethan is charming, and you should not mock him.”

Nick sobered. “I don’t mock him, and I don’t understand him either. He used to have charm to burn, Alice. I was convinced, growing up, he would have made a much better earl than I, and I used to pray he’d end up with the title, though it was a legal impossibility.”

“Why would he have made the better earl? You’re the heir.”

“Ethan is so much more of a man than I am. He’s not just smarter, he’s wiser. He’s not quite too big, whereas I have the dimensions of an ox. He never descended to chasing skirts out of immature resentment of life’s responsibilities. He managed to dust himself off after Papa’s wrongheaded foolishness, and he comprehends finances with an intuition I lack. He’s just… better. I am glad Leah did not meet him first.”

“Have you told him this?” Alice asked, wondering why women were considered less rational than men.

“He would just give me that cool, kind smile of his.” Nick scrubbed a hand over his face. “He’d tell me he hadn’t any idea what I was going on about, then change the subject. It unnerves me.”

“Why would that unnerve you?”

“Because the old Ethan, my brother Ethan, would have argued me right out of my positions, because they are not entirely logical—I comprehend that—and he would have done so without causing me to resent his superior reasoning. He took a first in mathematics, you know.”

“And his Latin is excellent. Where did he go to school before Cambridge?”

“Stoneham,” Nick replied. “Some dreary place up north. Lady Warne about tore a strip off Papa when she got wind of it. I gather it is not a congenial environment, as boarding schools go.”

Alice felt the tea in her belly abruptly curdle. “God above. Stoneham is not far from Blessings, Nick. It’s a horror.”

Nick’s hand went still, the eraser poised above the whimsical sketch. “A horror? What constitutes a horror, Alice? And don’t spare me the details.”

“Adequate academically, and probably not too harsh for the typical meek younger son, but for an earl’s disgraced bastard… Stoneham is one of the places boys go when they’re sent down from the better schools. There’s an assumption at such institutions that ‘boys being boys’ means many boys will be hurt, deprived of their meals, beaten, and worse.”

Nick looked heartsick, a disquieting thing on a man so large and generally sunny. “What you describe is bad enough. Ethan did nothing to deserve such a fate.”

“Some would call such a fate an opportunity. He got into Cambridge, and did well there.”

“What aren’t you telling me, Alice?” Nick met her gaze squarely, but Alice could see him steeling himself for her reply.

“My half brother Vim attended Stoneham at one point,” Alice said. “He came home with a broken arm after only a few weeks of the Michaelmas term. He got crosswise of some baron’s lordling and was attacked by a gang one night on the way to the privy. He lost the hearing in one ear for most of a year as well, and we weren’t sure he’d be able to see out of one eye.”

Nick stood, almost knocking the bench over. “At Stoneham?”

“At Stoneham. And from what Vim said, the proctors and deans regarded this as tolerable behavior between young men of unequal standing.”

“Because your brother was a bastard?”

“He wasn’t. He was my mother’s son from a prior marriage, wealthy, much loved, and very bright. His family was right at hand and outraged on his behalf.”

“Ethan was there for two years. He didn’t leave the premises even once.” Nick scrubbed a hand over his face again, and his gaze slewed around toward the door. His expression was tortured as he backed away from Alice. “I have to… You’ll excuse me.”

And then he was gone, leaving a sketch of such whimsy and grace on the table, Alice thought it worthy of framing and hanging on the schoolroom wall.

“You look a little tired,” Ethan remarked, pushing off the door jamb to Alice’s room and settling himself at her escritoire. The desk wasn’t far from the bed, but Alice was relieved he’d stopped there.

And… disappointed.

“I am tired. I sleep better here at Tydings than I did at Sutcliffe or Belmont Hall. I think it’s because the boys keep me moving, and not just about the house, but all over the grounds.”

“Does it bother your hip?”

“At first, yes. It ached, but now it seems stronger.” A good deal stronger. How had this happened in just a few weeks?

“Maybe the riding helps. Are you ready for tomorrow?”

“I will be relieved to have it over with, though the boys are looking forward to it and promising to be on their best behavior.”

“I’ll bring Davey,” Ethan said. “If there are three adults to manage two little boys, we might stand a chance.”

“You aren’t to manage them. You’re Mr. Grey, the invited guest, and Davey and I will see to the children.” To remind him of the hierarchy reassured Alice, or it ought to.

Ethan rose and ambled the short distance to the bed, coming down beside her. “I wish you did not see yourself as subordinate.”

With his weight on the mattress, Alice was pitched against his side. “I don’t see myself as subordinate. I see myself as employed.”

“You don’t have to be,” Ethan went on. “Your brother said there’s a great deal of family wealth.”

“There is, and when I’m too old to keep up with a child, I’ll have need of it. Benjamin invests my share, and it does quite nicely.”

Ethan had turned his head, as if he’d study Alice’s ear. The thought was unnerving. “I’d be happy to speak with him regarding some worthy projects. I don’t bruit it about, but I am occasionally called to Carlton House to whisper in the Regent’s ear regarding his finances.”

Whisper in the… “You’re what?”

“That’s my reaction as well.” Ethan looked a little puzzled. “I peer at the records for that monstrosity he’s building in Brighton, assess which roads ought to be improved in which order, that sort of thing. Suggest a few investments that might turn him a profit. He’s an intelligent man, is Prinny, and in a difficult position, but he does listen and seldom forgets what he’s heard—unless he’s passed out or far gone with some other sin.”

“Sin. Always a worthy topic in lofty circles.” And in the bedrooms of lowly governesses.

“Are you contemplating the sin of fornication with me, Alice? Do I dare hope you are considering such a thing?”

“Ethan.” Alice made herself pull away. “The door.”

“It’s closed.” He nuzzled at her neck.