The Virtuoso

by Grace Burrowes

  “As would theirs.”

  He let her have the last word, content to conjure up plans for her addition as the wagon rolled toward the old… His estate.

  Five

  “What?” Darius approached the stall where his piebald gelding stood, a mulish expression on the beast’s long face. “I groomed your hairy arse and scratched your withers. I picked out your feet and scratched your withers again. Go play.”

  Skunk, for that was the horse’s name, sniffed along the wall of his stall then glared at Darius. As Darius eyed his horse, the vague sense of something being out of place grew until he stepped closer and surveyed the stall.

  No water bucket.

  “My apologies,” Darius muttered to his horse. Of course the animal would be thirsty, but when Darius had left Saturday morning, he distinctly recalled there being a full bucket of water in Skunk’s stall. Val had taken the draft horses to Axel’s, leaving Ezekiel to fend for himself in a grassy paddock that boasted shade and a running stream.

  So where had the water bucket walked off to?

  He found it out in the stable yard, empty and tossed on its side. When Skunk had had his fill, Darius topped off the bucket at the cistern and hung it in the horse’s stall.

  Resolved to find sustenance now that he’d tended to his horse, Darius left the stables, intent on raiding the stores in the springhouse.

  “What ho!” Val sang out from the back terrace. “It’s our Darius, wandered back from Londontowne.” He hopped to his feet and extended a hand in welcome. Darius shook it, regarding him curiously.

  “You thought I’d abandon you just when the place is actually becoming habitable?”

  “We’re a good ways from habitable.” Val eyed his half-replaced roof. “I thought you might be seduced by the comforts of civilization. Particularly as I was not very good company by the end of the week.”

  Darius offered a slight smile. “You are seldom good company, though you do entertain. Where are my favorite Visigoths, and can I eat them for lunch?”

  “Come.” Val slung an arm around Darius’s shoulders. “Mrs. Belmont fears for my boyish figure, and we’re well provisioned until market on Wednesday.”

  “So where are the heathen?” Darius asked when they gained the springhouse and Val had tossed him a towel.

  “Mrs. Fitz has set them to transplanting some stock provided by Professor Belmont. Ah, there it is.” He took the soap from a dish on the hearth and plunged his hands into the water in the shallow end of the conduit. “Christ, that is cold.” He pulled his shirt over his head, bathed everything north of his waist, toweled off and replaced the shirt, then started rummaging in the hamper.

  “We’ve ham,” Val reported, “and cheese, and bread baked this morning, and an embarrassment of cherry cobbler, as well as a stash of marzipan, and…”—he fell silent for a moment, head down in the hamper—“cider and cold tea, which should have gone in the stream, and bacon already cooked to a crisp, and something that looks like…”—he held up a ceramic dish as if it were the holy grail—“strawberry tarts. Now, which do we hide from the boys, and which do we serve for dinner?”

  “We hide all of it. Let them eat trout, charred haunch of bunny, or pigeon. But let’s get out of here before they fall upon us.”

  The boys having made a habit of eating in the springhouse, Val and Darius took their hamper up to the carriage house.

  “For what we are about to receive,” Val intoned, “we are pathetically damned grateful, and please let us eat in it peace. Amen. How good are you at designing greenhouses with windows in the roof?”

  “Could be tricky,” Darius said, piling bread, meat, and cheese into a stack, “but interesting. I’m surprised Ellen will let you do this.”

  “She probably thinks I’ll forget.” Val accepted a thick sandwich from Darius. “I won’t. Between her butter and her cheese and supervision of the boys and her… I don’t know, her neighborliness, I am in her debt.”

  “I was wondering if her neighborliness was responsible for reviving your spirits this past weekend,” Darius said, tipping the cider jug to his lips.

  “She went with us to Candlewick,” Val began, but then Darius caught his eye. “Bugger off, Dare.”

  Darius passed him the jug. “I see the improvement in your mood was temporary. I did hear young Roxbury eloped for his country seat. Seems our boy did not take his reprieve to heart but has been running up debts apace.”

  Val shrugged. “He’s a lord. Some of them do that.”

  “I dropped in on my brother Trent.” Darius passed over the cider jug. “He mentioned Roxbury is an object of pity in the clubs.”

  “Pity?” Val wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “His title is older than the Flood, the Roxbury estate is legendarily well run, and he’s yet to be snabbled by the matchmakers. What’s to pity?”

  “He has no income to speak of.” Darius withdrew a cobbler from the hamper. “If he remains at Roxbury Hall, he can enjoy every luxury imaginable because the estate funds can be spent at the estate, on the estate without limit. His own portion is quite modest, though, and the previous baron tied most of the rest up in trusts and codicils and conditional bequests. Seems all that good management is a function of the late baron’s hard work and the present army of conscientious solicitors.”

  “That would put a crimp in a young man’s stride.” Val frowned at the last bit of his sandwich. “How fortunate we are, not to be burdened with peerage, though such a sentiment sounds appallingly like something His Grace would say.”

  “Are you being sarcastic?” Darius took another pull from the jug.

  “I am not. I see what Westhaven has to go through, now that he has financial control of the duchy, his life hardly his own for all the commerce and land he must oversee. It’s a wonder he had the time to tend the succession, much less the requisite privacy. And now St. Just is saddled with an earldom, and I begin to see why my father has said being the youngest son is a position of good fortune.”

  “I’ve wondered if Trent shares His Grace’s point of view.” Darius said, relinquishing the jug again. “How soon do you want to get busy on Mrs. FitzEngle’s addition?”

  “As soon as the roof is done. Probably another two weeks or so, and I will prevail on the Belmonts to invite her for a weeklong visit. If the weather cooperates and we plan well in advance, we should be able to get it done in a few days.”

  Val repacked the hampers and left Darius muttering numbers under his breath, his pencil scratching across the page nineteen to the dozen.

  The hamper in Val’s right hand he lifted without difficulty. His left hand, however, protested its burden vociferously all the way down the stairs. A morning spent laying the terrace slates had left the appendage sore, the redness and swelling spread back to the third finger, and Val’s temper ratchetting up, as well.

  Ellen, blast the woman, had been right: Resting the hand completely apparently had a salubrious effect. Working it, no matter how mundane the task, aggravated the condition. Val eyed the manor house, deciding to forego his plan to spend the afternoon with the masons on the roof, and turned to make his way through the home wood.

  He emerged from the woods at the back of Ellen’s property and scanned her yard. In the heat of the day she was toiling over her beds, her floppy hat the only part of her visible as she knelt among her flowers. Val stood at the edge of the trees, watching silently, letting the peace and quiet of the scene seep into his bones. Through the trees he could still hear the occasional shout from workers on the roof of the manor, the swing of a hammer, the clatter of a board being dropped into place.

  In Ellen’s gardens, the sounds were a distant, mundane chorus, detached, from another sphere entirely. The scent of honeysuckle was more real than those sounds or the industry producing them.

  She looked up, like a grazing animal looks up when sensing a possible intruder to its meadow. Val walked forward out of the shadows, knowing without being told she’d hate being spied on. Fear it and rese
nt it.

  “Good day.” He smiled at her as she rose, seeing she was once again barefoot and back in one of her old dresses. Her hair was in its customary braid, and old gloves covered both hands.

  She returned his smile and Val let himself enjoy the sensation of physical warmth it bestowed on him. “Mr. Windham. I hope you’ve had a pleasant morning.”

  “I most assuredly have not.” Val’s smile faded slightly. “Soames was, as usual, late with his deliveries, Darius is in a brown study about something to do with his brother, the Visigoths discovered the cobbler, and my hand hurts.”

  “Come along.” She pulled off her gloves and held out a hand to him.

  “I am to be taken to the woodshed for a thrashing?” Val asked as he linked his fingers with hers.

  “You should be. You no doubt spent the morning mending stone walls, laying slate, unloading wagons, and entirely undoing all the benefit you gained resting over the weekend. You are stubborn, sir, but I did not take you for stupid.”

  “That smarts a bit, Ellen.” Val peered at her, trying to ascertain if she were truly angry.

  “Oh, don’t mind me.” Ellen sighed gustily. “I shouldn’t complain. Your excesses give me an excuse to get out of the sun and to hold hands with a handsome fellow, don’t they?”

  She retrieved her tin of salve from a pocket and tugged him back across the yard to where the stream at the edge of her property ran next to a single willow. Pausing to part the hanging fronds of green, she led Val to a bench in the shade, one sporting both pillows and an old blanket.

  “Come, naughty man.” She sat on the bench. “Lend a hand.” Val complied, bracing himself for a lecture when she saw the damage he’d done in a single morning.

  “You must be in a desperate tear to finish your house,” she remarked, opening her tin and frowning at his hand. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “Ellen?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Could we just now not take too seriously to task one Valentine Forsythe Windham?” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “It’s a pretty day, the morning was… disappointing, and I would enjoy this respite with you.”

  She fell silent, and he let out a sigh of relief. Her hands on him were gentle but thorough, working all over his palm, fingers, and knuckles, up his wrist and forearm, and then simply clasping his hand between her two. The stream gurgled, the breeze soughed, a faint buzz of insects came from the gardens, and Val felt a pleasant lassitude replacing his earlier ire.

  “You’ve worked magic,” he said, opening his eyes. Beside him, Ellen’s expression was grave, uncharacteristically devoid of the special lightness he associated with her. “What’s on your mind, Ellen FitzEngle? You look most serious.”

  “I get in these moods.” She smiled at him, though there was a forced quality to it.

  “Broody.” Val nodded. “All the Windham men are prone to it. Maybe you are tired? We were up early this morning, and I know I could use a nap. Shall we?” He stood and grabbed the blanket folded over the back of the bench. “If we spread it here, nobody will know Val Windham, Slave Driver and Scourge of the Huns, has caught forty winks with his pretty neighbor.” He flipped the blanket out before Ellen could argue then extended a hand to her.

  “Just forty winks,” she allowed, glancing around as if to make sure of their privacy then lowering herself to the blanket.

  “Twenty apiece,” Val replied solemnly then lowered himself to the blanket and began unlacing his boots. “Getting up at first light and abusing my hand all morning is tiring work. I can’t imagine taming your own jungle is exactly restful, either.”

  “It is, actually.” Ellen regarded him as he popped up and retrieved a pillow from the bench to stuff behind his head. He stretched out on her blanket and smiled up at her where she sat beside him.

  “This is a friendly forty winks, Mrs. FitzEngle.” He snagged her wrist. “Join me.”

  She regarded him where he lay.

  “Ellen.” The teasing tone in Val’s voice faded. “I will not ravish you in broad daylight unless you ask it of me, though I would hold you.”

  She nodded uncertainly and gingerly lowered herself beside him, flat on her back.

  “You’re out of practice,” Val observed, rolling to his side. “We must correct this state of affairs if we’re to get our winks.” Before she could protest, he arranged her so she was on her side as well, his body curved around hers, her head resting on his bicep, his arm tucking her back against him.

  “The benefit of this position,” his said, speaking very close to her ear, “is that I cannot behold your lovely face if you want to confide secrets, you see? I am close enough to hear you whisper, but you have a little privacy, as well. So confide away, and I’ll just cuddle up and perhaps even drift off.”

  “You would drift off while I’m confiding?”

  “I would allow you the fiction. It’s one of the rules of gentlemanly conduct owed on summer days to napping companions.” His arm was loosely draped over her middle so he could sense the tension in her. “I can hear your thoughts turning like a mill wheel. Let your mind rest too, Ellen.”

  “I am unused to this friendly napping.”

  “You and your baron never stole off for an afternoon nap?” Val asked, his fingers tracing the length of her arm. “Never kidnapped each other for a picnic on a pretty day?”

  “We did not.” Ellen sighed as his fingers stroked over her arm again. “He occasionally took tea with me, though, and we often visited at the end of the day.”

  But, Val concluded with some satisfaction, they did not visit in bed or on blankets or with their clothes off. Ellen had much to learn about napping. His right hand drifted up to her shoulder, where he experimentally squeezed at the muscles joining her neck to her back.

  “Blazes,” he whispered, “you are strong. Relax, Ellen.” His right hand was more than competent to knead at her tense muscles, and when he heard her sigh and felt her relax, he realized he’d found the way to stop her mill wheel from spinning so relentlessly.

  “Close your eyes, Ellen,” he instructed softly. “Close your eyes and rest.” In minutes, her breathing evened out, her body went slack, and sleep claimed her. Gathering her a little more closely, he planted a kiss on her nape and closed his eyes. His hand wasn’t throbbing anymore, his belly was full, and he was stealing a few private moments with a pretty lady on a pretty day.

  God was in His heaven, and enough was right with the world that Val’s own busy mill wheel slipped its cogs, and dreams rose up to claim him.

  ***

  Val sensed when Ellen woke, sensed the change in her breathing, the wariness in her body as she sorted through impressions and regained her wits. He’d probably provoked her by shifting his hips back ever so slightly so his growing erection wouldn’t disturb her dreams.

  He wasn’t particularly surprised to awaken aroused—Nature imposed a certain agenda on the slumbering healthy male of the species—but he was surprised at the pleasure it gave him simply to lie on a blanket with the inspiration for his lust. The feel of Ellen’s flank under his hand, the soft curve of her hip, the contour of her spine, for Val, they all became more alluring for being covered in the thinnest of cotton rather than revealed immediately to his eyes or his touch. The old blanket beneath them, the faint scent of lavender coming from the pillow under his head, the shift and sway of the willow branches, combined to imbue the moment with a precious languor.

  He levered up slightly, tucked Ellen a little closer, and pressed a kiss to her temple. She made no protest, so he kissed her again, letting his lips cruise over her cheek, inhaling the rosy scent of her, drifting his hand along the flat of her stomach.

  Was there any greater pleasure than seducing a willing woman on a lovely summer day?

  Beneath him, Ellen opened her eyes and then closed them. In the brief glimpse he’d gotten of her mood, Val saw the dawning of pleasure, but something else, something a little sad or forlorn.

  Ge
ntly, he shifted her to her back and maneuvered his body over hers. He kept most of his weight from her but put his forearms and knees close to her body, not quite trapping her but sheltering her. She lay passive beneath him, and he almost smiled at the challenge that presented.

  “Touch me,” Val whispered, pressing a soft kiss to the side of her neck. “Put your hands on me, Ellen, wherever you please.”

  He ambushed her impulse to argue by settling his mouth over hers and seaming her lips with his tongue. When she offered no resistance, he invited himself into the plush heat of her mouth, exploring the contours and textures to be had there and inviting her to do likewise.

  She was slow to respond, and he liked that too. Liked the savoring and the need to pay attention to her. She was shy but moved her tongue over his and took his lower lip between hers. Val felt his shirt being tugged from his waistband and had all he could do not to rear back and tear it off. Her mouth carefully exploring his kept him in place.

  That and the desire to press his body more closely to hers, to find that exact spot where he could wedge his cock against her sex and push, gently at first, to test her arousal and increase his own.

  She understood, bless the woman, for she raised and spread her knees so her dress dragged up her legs and the cradle of her pelvis accommodated him more closely. The fit was good—too good—and Val knew a moment’s consternation as his body suggested that coming—right now, in his breeches, merely by thrusting a few times against the woman—would suit famously.

  He silenced that thought and raised up enough to see Ellen’s face. She met his gaze and brushed his hair back from his forehead, her expression a little dazed and bewildered.

  He couldn’t merely use her like that. Couldn’t live with himself if he did, couldn’t find any pleasure in it. None. He shifted to lie on his side beside her but kept a leg across her knees.

  “Don’t…” Ellen frowned and caught his right hand, bringing it to her stomach.