Elias In Love

by Grace Burrowes

  “I’ll see about my spreadsheets, and the verb is develop, not trash.”

  “Leave, Max, before the verb is I quit.”

  “Quit if you must, but please not until Thursday.”

  “You said please. That’s a crumb, but for you, it’s progress. I’ll be here tomorrow, now get out of my kitchen.”

  * * *

  Why in the name of all that was sensible had Violet put Elias’s clothes in the wash? She ought to have tossed them in a plastic bag and warned him not to touch them until they’d been thoroughly laundered. Now she faced a choice of sending him on his way immediately—nobody would object to Elias Brodie clad only in board shorts on a hot day—or returning his laundry to him later in the week.

  Slow footsteps descended the stairs. Elias’s footsteps—Violet knew his tread already.

  “Shall I leave, Violet?” He stood on the bottom step, his backpack dangling from his hand, his board shorts riding low on his hips.

  “You can’t leave,” she retorted. “Your jeans, T-shirt, socks, and skivvies are in my washing machine. I’d just as soon not have to send them to you.” Or leave them on his porch, then watch to see if he retrieved them before he flew home.

  “I am held hostage by my skivvies,” he said. “Perhaps this is why men wear nothing under their kilts. Less chance of being taken prisoner. What did Marvin have to say?”

  Violet ached to whip out her cell phone, as Elias had the previous day. She wanted a picture of him like this—casually half-naked in her kitchen, fresh from the shower, a little grouchy, a lot scrumptious.

  “Who’s Marvin?”

  “Marvin,” Elias said, tapping a finger over his heart. “His wife likes a big garden, the children aren’t fond of vegetables. He’s repairing my wiring.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with your wiring, Elias.”

  His lashes lowered. “Why, thank you. You’re parsimonious with compliments, you know. My second fiancée had quite a way with them. Then I realized she never accepted compliments, she only passed them out.”

  Whoever Fiancée No. 2 she was, she’d been an idiot to let Elias Brodie slip through her grasp. Which made Violet…

  “I left my computer on the porch.”

  “Then let’s sit on your porch and pretend to answer emails, shall we? The business day will soon be over in Scotland, and I’m sure all manner of dire epistles are clamoring for my attention.”

  The farther away from the bedroom, the better. “If you want something to drink, help yourself. I noticed you didn’t bother to hydrate much this morning.”

  “Another compliment—you noticed me.” He poured himself a glass of water from the tap, downed it, rinsed the glass, then set it in the drain rack. “Please excuse my testiness. You don’t deserve rudeness simply because you are honest and sensible.”

  The line of his back was anatomical perfection, the breadth of his shoulders the embodiment of ideal male geometry, and yet, those shoulders were tense.

  “On second thought, let’s work in the sun room. From there, I can hear the laundry timers, while I might not on the porch.”

  His expression suggested he didn’t want to be anywhere near her, but he took out his phone and was swiping and jabbing at the screen before he’d left the kitchen. When Violet found him in the sunroom, he’d stretched out on the sofa, and his phone was playing… bagpipes?

  “If you like music when you work, Elias, can we agree on something a little less boisterous?” The tune was jaunty and vaguely familiar, but strident as only bagpipes could be.

  “I’m honor-bound to listen to this,” Elias said, propping an arm behind his head. “My solicitor’s pipe band finally won the championship, and Angus will quiz me about every bar and drumbeat. Tell me about your business, Violet, and about whatever keeps you so enthralled with your laptop when a handsome neighbor is hard at work across the road.”

  The pipe music droned on, and maybe the tune had restored Elias’s brand of good cheer.

  “Your property has been quiet for so long, any activity over there draws my notice. Marvin won’t be back though.”

  Elias reduced the volume of the pipe march. “I have power, then?”

  Oh, he had tons of power. “The problem, as best Marvin and I can diagnose it, is that your account got into significant arrears, and the power was simply shut off.” Violet got comfy in her papasan chair, but didn’t open her laptop. “That’s a long song.”

  “Scotland the Brave. It’s actually fairly brief. Pipe marches tend to come in sets, and this one is extraordinarily popular. Even I can play it, but Angus’s crew is doing a right proper job. He’ll be insufferably proud for six months, and then he’ll be insufferably anxious about defending the championship title as the next competition approaches.”

  “You like this guy.” Violet liked simply visiting with Elias. She liked seeing him relaxed and casual, liked watching his moods shift.

  “I love Angus Whyte, but I don’t dare tell him that, at least not before the third dram. He and my uncle didn’t always get along, and I needed to see that, to see somebody could stand up to Zebedee, call his bluffs, and take him down a peg on occasion. Angus is the reason I did graduate work in business and economics, and he’s the reason I have some money of my own now.”

  Insight niggled beneath all the emotions Violet juggled where Elias was concerned: He’d lost both parents, and had no siblings to soften that blow. Jeopardizing his uncle’s regard in any sense would have been not only difficult for him, but frightening.

  “You have a master’s degree?” Violet had resisted googling Elias, unwilling to see one photo after another of him in kilted formal attire, escorting some lovely woman whose jewels were worth more than Violet’s half of the farm.

  “I blush to admit I have a doctorate. They’re not that hard to come by, if you have funds and ample free time to apply yourself to scholarship. I’m something of a specialist in charitable organizations, which are peculiar business entities, part eleemosynary institution and part pirate ship. They interest me.”

  The music came to a throbbing, screeching end, and the day took on a deeper quiet for the contrast.

  “And I loathe the business aspects of running a farm. My mother handled the books and assumed I’d happily take on that as well as the rest of the farming, if I was so dead set on keeping the place going.”

  Elias stuffed his phone in his pocket, jammed a pillow behind his head, and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Tell me about your business, Violet.”

  “It’s boring. Taxes and more taxes, and loans, and inspections. I’m on the board of the farmers market, and there’s more squabbling there than among my hens.”

  “Then get off the board,” Elias said. “You are one person trying to run an entire farm. Marvin’s wife probably has more time and enthusiasm for the farmers market, and she needs a break from those filthy children.”

  He was half serious. “What was Marvin’s last name?”

  “Eby.”

  “That narrows it down to half the valley.” Though Elias had noticed the man’s name, and not everybody would have bothered. “I never expected a monthly board meeting would be so time-consuming.”

  “Who prepares the agenda?”

  “We don’t really have an agenda. We have a list of action items and discussion topics.”

  Elias launched into a checklist of everything wrong with the farmers market board, sight unseen. People with no experience in a traditional business environment trying to run the most traditional aspect of what was actually a corporation. Volunteers who should have brought enthusiasm and energy to their duties instead bringing a sense of entitlement. A director unskilled with either meeting facilitation or—when all else failed—Robert’s Rules of Order.

  “And nobody with any expertise is responsible for fundraising or public relations,” he concluded. “I write this memo a half dozen times a year, and am generally paid too much for it, but if I don’t charge my clients, they
don’t take me seriously. Am I boring you?”

  “What sort of clients?”

  “Bothersome ones. Give the board a ninety-day notice, in writing, and graciously allude to giving somebody else a turn to benefit the organization. Tell me about your blog, Violet.”

  Her own mother never asked about her blog. “The Violet Patch is my way of advocating for farms, for farm life. One week, I’ll do a piece on composting, the next, I’ll take a look at different breeds of chickens.”

  Elias sat up. “Show me.”

  One moment, he’d been lounging on his back, a testament to the male in his prime at rest. The next he was fishing glasses from his backpack, and perching them on his nose.

  “You want to see my blog?”

  “Yes. Bring your laptop here and give me a tour.”

  Half an hour later, he was still prosing on about first browser loads, responsive code, native advertising, affiliate links, and social media reach.

  “As much traffic as you have, you should be monetizing,” he said. “And for pity’s sake take the time to use your analytics. If you’re ever to sell advertising on this site, you’ll want that information, and it can show you what’s working, and what’s not. Accountability and evaluation aren’t optional if your business is to run well.”

  He managed to sound professorial wearing nothing more than board shorts and glasses.

  “You’ve given me a lot of ideas,” Violet said, and half of those ideas were about how to make money with her blog, and spend less time on the heavy lifting of generating original copy. Guest posts, round ups, post swaps, open forums, frequently asked Fridays….

  “Offer a virtual internship,” Elias said. “The right person will be grateful for the education, have ideas that aren’t limited by prior experience, and become a marketing resource when the internship is over. They’ll carry your standard forward for the next forty years of their career. You should also incorporate a separate business entity to handle the blog revenue and any liability resulting from your posts.”

  He was endlessly knowledgeable about how a business ought to be run, and he was endlessly helpful. James Knightley could execute some of these ideas—setting up a corporation, for example—but no one had ever talked with Violet about how she spent her time, and how to make her dreams grow.

  Elias powered down the laptop and passed it to her. “The first Earl of Strathdee was a soldier by training, but I think that made him determined to assure peace and prosperity for his progeny. He was keen on exporting Aberdeen cattle all over the globe—bulls especially—and he had the good fortune to hold property near Balmoral. Queen Victoria became quite fond of him—or of the money he made the royal couple.”

  Violet had the good fortune to sit next to Elias. His business expertise was unexpected, but his willingness to share what he knew, to offer his insights with no expectation of remuneration….

  That was just Elias.

  He was an aristocrat by virtue of honor and generosity of spirit, not as a function of wealth and status. He made love generously, his consideration for others was bone deep, and Violet could listen to him evangelize about mission statements all day for the sheer pleasure of hearing him talk.

  I am so in love, and he ’s going back to Scotland as soon as he ’s ruined my valley.

  The washing machine buzzer sounded, as loud as the bagpipes and not half so merry.

  “Let me throw your clothes in the dryer, Elias, and then I want to hear about your castle.”

  He rose and stretched, pressing his palms against the ceiling. “I’ll put my clothes in the dryer, and then you’ll tell me how to get the power turned on across the road. I’d rather not impose on Dunstan and Jane any longer than I have to.”

  He prowled off to deal with the laundry, while Violet swallowed back tears, and punched up the website for the power company.

  Chapter Nine

  * * *

  Elias parked Jane’s hybrid and set the brake. “If I bring up Maryland’s agricultural conservancy program, act as if you’ve never heard of it, please.”

  Jane undid her seatbelt and stashed her sunglasses in her shoulder bag. “Elias, for purposes of this meeting, I am your lawyer. That means you level with me about anything that pertains to legal matters. You don’t keep cards up your sleeve so you can whip them out if Maitland wants to play mine’s bigger than yours.”

  No wonder Dunstan had married her. “Jeannie would get on with you famously. Have you met her?”

  “Haven’t had the pleasure. Henry had recently made his appearance when Dunstan and I were in Scotland, and being a new mom takes precedence over attending weddings. So why are we meeting with Maitland if you’re thinking of keeping the farm?”

  They were fifteen minutes early, because Elias had no tolerance for people who were habitually late. Money could be replaced—in theory—but time lost was gone forever.

  “I cannot afford to keep the farm, Jane. I simply did some research last night in preparation for this meeting.” And because Violet had asked him to, though not in so many words.

  “I know the general idea with agricultural conservancy: You sell your development rights to the state, more or less, and agree to keep your land in agricultural production.”

  There was more to it than that—much more—but Jane had the basics in hand.

  “Any final words of advice?” Elias asked, checking his tie in the rearview mirror. He’d had to borrow a suit from Dunstan—Violet apparently didn’t frequent her own powder room—but the fit and quality of the suit was surprisingly good. The alternative—kilted finery—would not have turned heads in Edinburgh, but surely wasn’t the done thing here.

  “You want advice? I have some advice. Get drunk with Dunstan. He has a beautiful singing voice, but I don’t know any of the songs he does, and now that he’s married, his old drinking buddies don’t come around much. I’m not sure what he misses more, the buzz or the songs.”

  Maitland’s office was on a narrow street about two blocks from the courthouse. A hundred years ago, the street would have been pretty, with flower boxes on every window, and plenty of sunshine finding its way through the oaks on either side.

  Now, those oaks had lifted and cracked the sidewalks, the foliage was dense enough to give the street below a gloomy feel, and the houses were leaning on each other for support, twigs and leaves peeking from the gutters.

  “I might not know the songs either, Jane. Why does nobody build with stone here? Nothing else lasts as well.”

  “We build with stone,” Jane said, zipping her bag closed. “Fieldstone, anyway. You have a beautiful stone barn on your property that Max Maitland will probably bulldoze right off the face of the earth.”

  Violet would hate Elias for that. She’d hate him for a thousand other betrayals too, but the day she had to watch that barn turned to rubble, she’d consign Elias to an eternal case of poison ivy.

  “I thought my attorney was supposed to keep my best interests foremost,” Elias said, hitting the unlock button.

  “Elias, my expertise regarding land development wouldn’t fill a shot glass. You know that and I know that, and Maitland will probably figure it out in the first five minutes. I’m your wingman because Dunstan couldn’t get out of court on short notice.”

  A squirrel set out to cross the street by virtue of leaping along a power line overhead.

  “Dunstan had court today? He said you knew more property law than he did.”

  “Holmes v. Holmes. Domestic relations, at which he excels. I know nothing about real estate, he knows about the same. Let’s get this over with.”

  Let ’s get this over with. A fitting candidate for the Brodie family motto, except Elias was the only Brodie left to spout it.

  He would have held Jane’s door for her, but she was out of the car and marching down the sidewalk before the squirrel had reached the opposite side of the street. Elias snatched his pack from the backseat and followed.

  “I’ve made the acquaintance
of Violet Hughes,” Elias said. “She’s the one who mentioned the agricultural conservancy business.”

  “I don’t know her well, but what I do know, I like. Is she messing with you?”

  Mortally. “In what sense?”

  “Violet’s rabidly opposed to developing Damson Valley, Elias. Pick up the local newspaper when a controversial zoning variance is being considered, she’s the citizen you’ll see quoted. Has all sorts of arguments against turning farmland into housing developments. Of all the farms in all the valleys in all of the United States, your farm is right across the road from the person who’ll hate you most for selling to Maitland.”

  They approached a row house painted a hue that might once have had pretensions to bland yellow. Now, the paint was faded to a color Elias had seen in some of Henry’s most odoriferous diapers.

  “So I’ll do my silent, shrewd routine,” Jane said. “You be the charming, bon vivant globetrotter whose investment advisors suggested ditching the extraneous provincial real estate.”

  “Do they teach you how to talk like that in law school?”

  “Yes,” Jane said, trotting up the front steps, “and how to charge obscene sums for it too. Hold still.”

  She turned a gimlet eye on Elias, smoothed his lapel, nudged at the Windsor knot in his tie, and punched him on the shoulder.

  “Relax, Elias. This guy wants your land like you probably want to get back to Scotland. He’s got deep pockets backing him, and you’re prepared to be reasonable.”

  To be fussed at and twitched at by a woman who regarded looking after him as her right… Elias had had to learn to recognize the behavior, because a boy who endured adolescence without a mother had gaps in his vocabulary when it came to women. Jane was not finding fault with his appearance. This was her version of a pep talk before battle.

  “I will be relieved to get away from this heat and humidity,” Elias said, and he was prepared to be reasonable—for a Scotsman talking business.