“I’ll take that for a maybe,” Val whispered in her ear then rested his cheek over hers. “Are you afraid of something, Ellen? Afraid I’ll hurt you?”
“Hurt me?” She scooted around a little. “Of course you’ll hurt me.”
“Blazes.” Val went still behind her. “That answer doesn’t encourage a fellow, love. Whatever do you mean?”
“You will offer me the sort of oblivion widows can discreetly enjoy, Valentine, and some sweet memories, but we both know nothing can come of it. When you are no longer interested, or you sell the property, you’ll move along with your life, selling your furniture, maybe restoring another estate, and I’ll still be here weeding my bed. My beds.”
He was silent, letting the slip of the tongue pass and considering himself responsible for her conclusion that nothing could come of their dealings. He’d all but assured her such was the case, and as his left hand throbbed mercilessly, he couldn’t really rescind his statement. He was aware, though, some part of him was unhappy with her brutal evaluation of the situation.
“Would you want more if I could offer it?” he asked, stroking his hand up to brush over her breast.
“I cannot want more.” She closed her hand over his and pressed his fingers more snugly around her breast.
It wasn’t an answer, but Val was too absorbed with the balance needed to shift her body over his in the swaying hammock to argue with her. When she was straddling him, he levered up to brush a kiss over her mouth.
“Your mood is distant. Where have you gone, Ellen?”
“Hold me.” She twined her arms around his neck and pressed her face to his shoulder. He complied, cradling her head in his palm, resting his cheek against her temple, but wondering how a woman could be clinging to him so tightly and yet be so far away at the same time.
“Are you looking forward to visiting Candlewick this weekend?” Val asked, his hands stroking slowly over her back. “I think Day and Phil are counting the hours.”
“I worked them without mercy at market yesterday.” Ellen tucked her nose against Val’s throat. “How is it you smell so good when you’ve been working all day?”
“We towel off in the springhouse before every meal,” Val replied, content to let Ellen’s conversation hop around like a pair of breeding hares at sunset. “Dare and I do. Day and Phil are becoming otters, and if Axel hasn’t a pond for swimming, he’d better dig one soon.”
“He does. Abby and I went for a stroll, and she showed it to me.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Are you looking forward to the weekend?” Val purposely maintained the easy rhythm of his caresses, but he felt Ellen’s breathing pause nonetheless.
“I am and I’m not.”
“Tell me.”
“I am because they are dear people and very gracious to their guests. I gather they’ve been through a lot, and it has made them sensible, easy to be with.”
“But?”
“But they are so happy with each other,” Ellen said softly. “It destroys some of my illusions, and that is hard.”
“Which illusions, love?”
“I have several illusions,” she said, shifting so she more closely straddled his hips. “I tell myself I was happy with Francis, and I was.”
“But Axel and Abby are happier,” Val guessed. “They were each married before, and it makes them appreciate each other.”
“Maybe.” Ellen’s tone was skeptical. “Francis was married before, and he didn’t look at me or touch me or talk about me the way Axel Belmont regards his Abby.”
“So you and Francis were miserable? What a relief to know he wasn’t actually canonized in the pantheon of saintly husbands.”
“We weren’t miserable.” Ellen found his nipple and bit him through the fabric of his shirt. “But we weren’t close, not like the Belmonts are.”
“I think few couples are, but you said they disabused you of several illusions.” Val made no move to dissuade her from her explorations—for that’s what they were. “The first being they reminded you your marriage was not perfect.”
“The second being that I am happy here in my gardens with no social life, no real friends, and only a trip to market or church to mark the passing of my days and weeks and years.”
“You are lonely.”
“Lonely.” Ellen sighed against his throat. “Also just… inconsequential.”
“We’re all inconsequential. The Regent himself can drop over dead, and the world will keep spinning in the very same direction, but I know something of what you mean.”
“You can’t know what I mean,” Ellen muttered, unbuttoning enough of his shirt that she could lay her cheek on his bare chest. “You have employees at your manufactories, you’ve mentioned brothers, Mr. Lindsey is attached to you, and the Belmonts are your friends. You talk about this Nick fellow, and your viscount physician friend and his wife. You have people, Valentine, lots and lots of people.”
“I’m from a very large family. Lots and lots of people feels natural to me.” But as he reflected on her words, Val realized he hadn’t been quite honest. For all he did have a lot of people, he still felt as Ellen did, isolated and marginal. While he pondered that paradox, he felt Ellen’s fingers undoing his shirt further, until her thumb brushed over his nipple and her cheek lay over his heart.
“Ellen FitzEngle Markham, you are too young and too lovely not to have some pleasures in your life. Your entire existence can’t be about flowers and beans and waving off the nasty boys with your broom.”
“And your entire existence can’t be about slates and shells and bills of lading.”
“Which is why”—Val hugged her close—“we will be pleased to accept the Belmont’s hospitality this weekend, right?”
“Right.” Ellen capitulated with only a hint of truculence in her tone. But then she drew back, peering at Val’s features in the moonlight. “How did your visit to Great Weldon go today?”
“Oh, that.” Val closed his eyes. “Cheatham wasn’t in, and I’m not sure what he’d have to tell me of any use, as his loyalties will clearly lie with Freddy and the Roxbury estate.”
Ellen said nothing but subsided into his embrace. Val gradually drifted off to sleep, leaving Ellen to ponder his answer as the crickets chirped and the breeze stirred gently through the trees. She’d dreaded asking the question and feared to hear his answer. Depending on Cheatham’s discretion, she might have been revealed in the very worst possible light.
But her fears had been for naught. Val had learned nothing, and so she had a reprieve. Maybe in the little time fate had given her, she’d somehow find the courage to tell the man the truth, for surely somebody in the shire—the tenants, the local boys, the well-meaning gossips at the Rooster, somebody—would tell him the woman in his arms was a liar, a cheat, and a thief intent on stealing from him until she had no other choice.
Seven
“Where’s your kit?” Axel asked as he and Val repaired to the airy, high-ceilinged guest chamber across the hallway from Ellen’s room.
“Here.” Val tossed a rolled-up shaving kit to Axel as a procession of footmen trooped in carrying the tub, Val’s traveling gear, and steaming buckets of water.
“Shirt off.” Axel stropped a straight razor against a small whetstone. “And sit you here.” He smacked the back of a dressing stool. “I got your note regarding mischief on your roof.”
“I don’t think it was an accident.” Val sat without even trying to put up a fuss about Axel acting as his valet. “Darius has remained behind, essentially to stand guard. And your sons could have been killed.”
“Or you.” Axel dipped a shaving brush into the half-full tub and worked up a lather with Val’s shaving soap. He sniffed the soap and dabbed lather onto Val’s cheeks. “Lovely scent. How do you conclude somebody tampered with your roof?”
“We know there were trespassers.” Val craned his chin up so Axel could lather his throat. “We also know the slates were tight on Friday.”
&nbs
p; “You know your roofing crew claims they were tight on Friday,” Axel corrected as he began to scrape the razor along Val’s jaw. “From what you described, it took at least a half ton of fieldstone piled on that scaffolding to loosen the slates. Correct?”
“You don’t think it was mischief,” Val said when Axel swiped the razor clean on a towel.
“I do not. It was too random. Anybody could have been hurt by those stones, or nobody. The weight might have been enough to loosen the slates, and then again it might not. Somebody who really wanted to cause you harm would have taken more predictably troublesome measures to do it—if they had any sense. Hold still.”
Val considered Axel’s reasoning and found it sound. Axel, like his brother, Matthew Belmont, in Sussex, occasionally served as local magistrate. He had experience investigating crimes, and more to the point, he was Day and Phillip’s father. He would not put them at avoidable risk of harm; of that Val was certain.
Axel tossed a clean towel directly at Val’s shaven face. “I think you’ve dropped some weight. Your face is thinner.”
Val shrugged as he stood. “Darius claims the rest of me is thinner, as well. I confess to being indifferent on the matter but not the least indifferent to the thought of that tub of hot water.”
“Cuff links.” Axel waggled his fingers, and Val held out his left hand.
“Ye gods, Windham.” Axel frowned at Val’s swollen joints and reddened flesh. “Did you hit this thing with a hammer? It has to hurt.”
“It flares up,” Val muttered, snatching his hand back as soon as Axel had the cuff link out. “I think I can manage from here.”
“Like hell you can. You either let me unbutton your falls, or I’ll stand here and watch while you attempt it yourself.”
“Axel.” Val scowled at him in earnest.
“What?” He grabbed Val’s breeches by the waistband and scowled right back. “Do you have them made this loose?” He deftly unfastened the buttons while Val stood and suffered the assistance.
“I don’t like them tight.” Val shoved breeches and smalls over his hips. “If you must know, they are a little looser than when they were made.”
“Abby can probably take them in for you.” Axel picked up Val’s discarded clothing and kept further comments on his guest’s leanness to himself.
“Might I have the soap?” Val asked, sinking down into the water with a grateful sigh.
“You might.” Axel rummaged in the satchel brought up with the last of the hot water, fetched a sliver of milled soap, and laid out a complete change of clothes on the bed. “Dunk, and I’ll do the honors.”
In truth, it felt good to let Axel fuss over him just a little, although being scolded for the state of his hand was grating in the extreme. Axel would no doubt alert Val’s family—and dear Nicholas, as well—but they weren’t likely to come haring out to Oxfordshire to pester him personally, not when there were no real accommodations, no social life, and only the barest of provisions. Then too, Val hadn’t sent either of his brothers the exact direction to his latest folly, and they were both busy men.
Westhaven’s letters were full of the wonder—and drivel—that probably characterized all new papas. Devlin’s letters read more like dispatches. They were terse, factual, and few in number. The Rosecroft estate up in Yorkshire hadn’t been in much better shape than Val’s own acquisition, and Devlin was newly married, newly blessed with a stepdaughter, and shortly expecting his own firstborn.
And if Val regretted that his oldest brother was a week’s journey away, at least it was an improvement over the years when the man was leading cavalry charges against the damned French.
But Val rose from the tub, admitting just how much he’d missed his brother Devlin since coming down from the north two months previously. It had been a pleasant winter in Yorkshire with Dev, little Winnie, and Emmie—cozy, almost, and were it not for the condition of Val’s hand…
He looked down at that hand and let out a low oath, as its condition was almost as bad as when David Worthington had examined it. Two things were now certain, though: Rest improved it, albeit at an excruciatingly slow pace; and using the hand for anything like a normal level of activity caused it to deteriorate with appalling swiftness.
Val struggled into his shirt then fumbled at length to get his clean breeches fastened as he realized Ellen had not treated his hand for more than two days. After lunch, he promised himself he would seek her out and beg her assistance. If he had to suffer Axel’s dressing him like a fidgety toddler, it really would send him round the bend.
He was toweling his hair dry when he heard the door to his room open and close. A servant would have knocked, and Ellen was supposed to be at her own bath.
“Axel,” Val muttered from the depths of his towel, “if you’ve come to do me up like a little fellow newly breeched, you can bugger the hell off.”
“Now that’s a fine way to address your host,” growled a deep and familiar baritone. “I’m sure Her Grace will be pleased to know my baby brother’s impeccable manners are serving him in good stead.”
Val tossed the towel aside, and as if his thoughts had conjured the man, there stood Devlin St. Just, Colonel Lord Rosecroft, Valentine’s oldest brother, in the bronzed, healthy, and grinning flesh.
“Dev?” Val was in his brother’s crushing embrace in the next instant, his back being heartily pounded, and his throat suspiciously tight. Val pulled back and assured himself that his eyes had not lied. “What in the hell are you doing away from Emmie and Winnie?”
“I was banished.” St. Just’s grin became sheepish. “Emmie isn’t due for a few more weeks, and she accused me of hovering. I missed those members of the family who were not kind enough to winter with us, so here I am on a lightning raid, as it were.”
“And damned glad I am to see you. Damned glad. How long can you stay?”
“I’ll depart for York by the end of the week, but Oxford is nominally north of Town, so you were on my way.” St. Just stepped back, and Val was treated to the critical appraisal of the brother who was half Irish and all former soldier.
“And Belmont knew you were coming?” Val pressed. “He said not one word to me, and I’ve had his boys underfoot for the past several weeks.”
“Belmont knew I was coming but not exactly when, as he and I have business to transact of a sort, and our wives are connected.”
“Your wives…” Val frowned and recalled that Abby Stoneleigh—now Abby Belmont—had mentioned being related to the late Earl of Helmsley and his surviving sisters.
“I thought the army was the world’s largest village,” St. Just said, “but the English peerage takes that honor. If you’re done with that tub, I’d like to hop in before the water is done cooling.”
“Help yourself, but I’m sure Axel will send up clean water, if you’d prefer.”
“Compared to what was available in Spain”—St. Just was already out of his shirt—“this is sparkling. Smells good too.”
“I’ll leave you some privacy, then.” Val moved toward the door.
“The hell you will.” St. Just shucked out of his breeches. “We’ll have to make polite conversation at table, so stay and take your interrogation like a man. For starters, I’ve seen prisoners of war in better weight than you, Valentine Windham. What has you off your feed?”
Val smiled at the directness, even as he resented his brother’s assumption that answers would be forthcoming—or he should resent it. He watched St. Just settle himself in the tub and noted the signs of good care that married life had left.
“You aren’t answering my question, Valentine,” St. Just chided, soaping a large foot and then dunking it. “Don’t think I won’t leave this tub and beat it out of you.”
“You won’t. I’m busy lately trying to put my property to rights, and provisions are limited.”
“You need a camp cook.” The second foot disappeared beneath the water. “An army marches on its belly, as the saying goes, and cook pots are as imp
ortant as cannon. Is this your soap?”
“It is,” Val answered, sitting on the bed and watching as St. Just dunked to wet his hair.
“Do the honors. I am going smell like a bordello when I get out of this bath.”
“You will smell like a gentleman.” Val hunkered behind the tub. “This is my only clean shirt until Belmont’s laundresses take pity on me, so splash me at your peril.”
“I’m trembling,” St. Just retorted, only to have Val smack a soapy palm against the back of his head with a firm wallop before working up a fragrant lather.
“How are your womenfolk?” Val asked, feeling a tug at his heartstrings at just the thought of Emmie St. Just so near her confinement.
“Em thinks she’s big as a house. The heat isn’t so bad up north, and that’s a blessing, as she sleeps poorly. This makes me fret, which makes me sleep poorly, and so forth. Winnie is watching closely but doing as well as can be expected. She said to tell you she practices the piano a lot, and while I cannot vouch for the quality of her practicing, I can vouch unequivocally for its volume.”
“Stand,” Val instructed. “We’ll finish you off.” Val sluiced a pitcher of rinse water over St. Just’s tall frame and then passed him a bath sheet.
“I do adore a bath.” St. Just sighed. “One takes them for granted until they’re no longer available. Now, tell me about this monstrosity you’ve acquired in Little Cow Pie. Belmont says it was a disgrace several years ago, albeit salvageable.”
“He would know,” Val said, amazed at how quickly his personal business had been disseminated over the family gossip vine—and amazed at how quickly St. Just was getting back into his clothes. “It needs a lot of work and will likely take me all summer just to make habitable.”
“And what is this I hear about a friendly widow, little brother?” St. Just tugged on his boots and straightened. “Did she convey with the property, rather like a certain daughter of mine?” He settled a fraternal arm over Val’s shoulders and sauntered with him toward the door.
The Virtuoso do-3 Page 13