Alice shut her eyes and angled her jaw. “It’s not locked.”

“Alice?” Ethan’s gaze was curious, but in his eyes, Alice saw banked heat.

She shook her head. “I am not suggesting we… sin right here and now. Your sons are across the hallway, probably still whispering and plotting about tomorrow, and they could interrupt at any moment.”

“A gap in my strategy,” Ethan chided himself as he rose and went to the door. “And now the door is locked.”

His walk as he crossed the room this time was the relaxed, feline glide Alice usually observed. The grace was there, and the power, but the purpose had changed. He was stalking her, closing in on his objective with single-minded determination.

“This isn’t the right time, Ethan.”

“Agreed. You are nervous of me, and I would reassure you.”

Was the gazelle nervous of the lion? “You won’t hurt me,” Alice said, believing it. He wouldn’t hurt her physically, for all his size and muscle.

He peered down at her. “Of course I wouldn’t. I promise you that.”

To her consternation, he dropped to the floor before her, stuffed a pillow under his knees, and wrapped his arms around her waist.

“Ethan?” Alice’s hand settled on his golden hair, unable to resist touching him in such a docile pose—such a deceptively docile pose.

“Nick and George went at it just before dinner.” Ethan laid his head in her lap, resting his cheek against her thigh. “They all but resorted to fisticuffs in the grand fraternal tradition.”

“That would be a rousing match. Nick is nigh half a foot taller than your brother George.”

“And carrying considerably more muscle. They were spoiling to get a piece of each other, but I couldn’t allow it.”

“What were they arguing over?” Alice asked, stroking Ethan’s hair then feathering her fingers over his cheek, forehead, and jaw. To touch him this way was lovely; to hear his troubles and worries was lovelier still.

“Each accused the other of behaving badly without regard to the family’s sensibilities or his own safety,” Ethan summarized, “and they were both right.”

“Nick was a tramp,” Alice said flatly. “I hope his wife understands this about him. His ability to remain faithful to her should not be taken for granted.”

“I know.” Ethan nuzzled at Alice’s hip. “That feels good, what you’re doing.”

“You are tired.” He was tired and cuddled in her lap, and who would have thought him capable of such a thing?

“I am.” He sat back, and took off his neckcloth and unfastened the collar of his shirt. “So I won’t trouble you for long.” He tucked himself against her again, and then went still, until Alice’s hands found him once more, and he let out a quiet sigh.

“George was at university until this summer, wasn’t he?” Alice asked as she kneaded the muscles of Ethan’s neck.

“Good Lord.” Ethan’s sigh was louder. “That feels heavenly, and yes, George has just completed his formal education. He’s agreed travel would complement his studies nicely.”

“Travel?” Alice switched her grip with one hand and cradled Ethan’s jaw with the other. “As in, on the Continent?”

“For now.” Ethan shifted his shoulders, wedging himself more snugly against her. “George prefers the intimate attentions of men, and this is unsafe behavior.”

“Unsafe?” Alice knew her tone held more than a touch of dismay. “It’s considered immoral, unsanitary, and felonious.”

“You judge him? How is it any more immoral than carousing the way Nick did, or taking to wife a woman only tolerated on the fringes of Society as I did?”

“I understand you and your brothers haven’t been saints, Ethan, but George’s preference could get him hanged. I suppose this is why Nick wanted to use his fists.”

“It is,” Ethan muttered, sounding drowsy. “And George was just as frustrated, because he envisioned Nick with diseases that could have taken his reason or his ability to ensure the succession, or blotting the family escutcheon with his peccadilloes.”

“George has a valid point. I suppose both men were insisting they’d been careful, but obviously not careful enough if each knew of the other’s risks.”

“They were able to see that.” Ethan shifted to rest his face against Alice’s other thigh. “Nick apologized, as some truly dreadful gossip devolved to George as a consequence of Nick’s behaviors, and George agreed essentially to go on reconnaissance and see if there might be some places he’d enjoy living abroad.”

These were familial confidences. A governess did often learn of them, but not from the master of the house as he cuddled against her lap.

“Seems a shame.” Alice let go of Ethan’s neck and brushed her hand over his hair in a slow, soothing caress. “You just meet your brother George as an adult, and he’s sent away to avoid scandal.”

“He’s choosing to travel to avoid a grim and unnecessary death. I’d rather lose George to the charms of Paris than to death.”

“But what a sad choice, hmm?” Alice leaned down and wrapped her arms around Ethan’s shoulders. It wasn’t a sexual embrace. Nothing they’d done since locking the door had been sexual. She breathed in the cedary scent of him and felt a desire to protect him from having to part from his brother, from any of his brothers.

“Let me brush out your hair.” Ethan ended the embrace, remaining on his knees before her, hands on her hips. “I’ll leave you in peace then, and you can dream of me.”

She wanted to keep touching him, to keep comforting them both by touching him. “I don’t think dreams of you will be peaceful.”

“They’ll be pleasurable.” Ethan was up on his feet in one lithe move. “My dreams of you certainly are.”

“Such talk.” Alice’s lips compressed rather than let a smile show.

“Come.” Ethan tossed the pillow back on the bed and drew her to her feet. “I said I wouldn’t stay long, and I am a man of my word. I’ve been longing to see what you look like with your hair down, so stop stalling.”

“You’ve seen it down,” Alice replied, but she let him guide her to her vanity. How dangerous could it be to let him simply brush her hair?

“I’ve seen it coming down, and I’ve seen it in a braid. That isn’t down.”

“It’s just hair.”

Ethan said nothing, taking the glasses from her nose and then letting his hands rest for a moment on her shoulders. The gesture quieted her, brought her calm inside, where she still wasn’t quite settled enough from her busy day to contemplate sleep.

“Relax, Alice.” Ethan held her shoulders. “I will merely brush out your hair and bid you good night.”

She waited, but instead of getting down to work, Ethan’s hands massaged her shoulders, then her neck, until Alice was leaning forward, her forehead resting on the arms she’d folded on her vanity.

If this be seduction, then let it never end.

“Better,” Ethan murmured, and only then did Alice feel his deft fingers sliding pins from her hair. He worked with a kind of methodical rhythm, until her braid swung free, then he easily unplaited her hair, leaving it flowing down her back.

“So pretty.” In the mirror, she watched while he brought a handful of her hair to his nose. “And this is why you smell of lemon verbena.”

“I keep sachets with my clothing too,” Alice said as Ethan trailed her hair down her back. “It’s a perky scent, suitable for a governess.”

“Perky.” Ethan’s lips quirked. “Tart, bracing, unexpected, with an underlying allure.” She thought, from the husky note in his voice, he might start in kissing her neck. She loved it when he kissed her neck—he’d already taught her that about herself—but he took the brush to her hair, sweeping it in long strokes that tickled her back through her nightclothes.

“You like this,” Ethan mused as he divided her hair into three thick skeins. “Left or right?”

Alice stifled a yawn. “I switch off. I’m right-handed, so over the right shoulder is easier.”