Текст книги "The Virtuoso"

Автор книги: Grace Burrowes

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“I am devastated.” Val rolled to his back, taking her with him against his side. “To think mere moments after I’ve pleasured you, you can hop up, slip on your hat and gloves, and go back to weeding your lilies of the field.”

“You mustn’t be.” Ellen propped herself on her elbow to regard him solemnly. “Think of it as running away to someplace where I can regain my balance, Valentine, and catch my breath. You really have… disconcerted me.”

He smiled at her, understanding all too well what she meant. Oh, he wanted to kiss and cuddle and swive her silly, but he wanted to make sense of what had passed between them, as well. Or try to.

“If you insist on driving me away, could you at least help me with my falls first? I’m not as dexterous as I’d like with the buttons.”

“Hold still.” Ellen sat up and gazed down at him. His genitals were exposed to her view, which he’d known damned well when he’d made the request. Her gaze flew to his, and he gave her his best slumberous, heavy-lidded expression.

“How does one…?” She waved a hand at his groin, a blush creeping up her neck.

“You just tuck me up, Ellen. Then do up the buttons.” He waited, realizing however much Ellen Markham had loved her husband, they’d had a very restrained passion between them, at best. Tentatively, her fingers encircled his flaccid length.

“It’s unassumingly soft now,” she murmured. “Wilted.” She stretched him gently and glanced at him for further permission.

“You keep that up,” Val warned her, “and I’ll regain my starch in very short order. Your touch feels lovely.”

That prompted her to shift to a brisk, businesslike organizing of his parts in his smalls, then a deft buttoning of his falls.

“There.” She gave him an incongruously self-satisfied pat on the cock through his breeches, and Val realized just touching his wilted self in the broad light of day had taken all of Ellen’s considerable courage.

Ye bloody blazing gods, he would adorebeing her lover. Adore her.

“And now I will put you to rights,” Val said, sitting up and stealing a kiss before she could protest. “Hold still.”

He took his time, letting the backs of his hands brush against her nipples often and intentionally, until she batted his hands away and finished tying her own bodice laces.

“You are a naughty, ruthless man,” she accused, tossing the pillow back up onto the bench. “Help me shake out this blanket.”

Val rose first and helped her to her feet, resisting the temptation to draw her into his arms. If he yielded to his impulses, he’d hold her until winter descended and drove them inside, then hold her by the blazing hearth. The notion surprised him but wasn’t as alarming as it should have been.

Before she could don her wide-brimmed hat and leave the sanctuary of their willow bower, Val did wrap his arms around her again, this time positioning his body behind hers.

“I will come back after dark,” he whispered, “if you’ll allow it.”

She went still, and he knew a moment’s panic. “Talk to me, Ellen.” He kissed her cheek. “Just be honest.”

“My… tonight might not be a good time.”

“Sweetheart…” Val let her go and turned her to face him. “I will not force myself on you, I just want… I want to see you.”

To make sure she was all right, whatever that meant in the odd, new context in which he was trying to define the term. She must have sensed his bewilderment, because she turned away and spoke to him from over her shoulder.

“My courses are due.”

Val cocked his head. “So you become unfit company? Do you have the megrims and cramps and melancholy? Eat chocolates by the tin? Take to your bed?”

“Sometimes.” Ellen peered at him, her expression guarded.

“Then I will comfort you. I’ll cuddle you up and bring you tisanes and rub your back and your feet. I’ll read to you and beat you at cards and bring you hot-water bottles for your aches.”

Ellen’s brows knit. “I truly am poor company at such times and usually before such times, as well.”

“You are poor company for people who expect you to play on without missing a note, perhaps,” Val replied, holding her gaze. “May we sit a moment?”

She nodded but had gone too shy even to meet his eyes.

“My Uncle Tony’s wife,” Val said, wrapping an arm around Ellen’s shoulders, “is blunt to a fault. She told me relations with Tony were the best way to ease her cramps.”

“Valentine!” Ellen hid her face against his shoulder. “Surely you wouldn’t want to…?”

“What I want makes little difference. If youwanted, though, I’d be pleased to be with you. My point is I enjoy your company, Ellen. You are more than a willing and lovely body to me, and just because I appear on your back porch, that doesn’t mean I expect you to be sexually available to me.”

Ellen lifted her face to regard him closely. “But what is a dalliance if not… physically intimate?”

“It’s what we make of it. I likely have less experience with these things than you think I do, but I will not engage in a liaison with you that is not first and last a friendship. If your priorities are different, you had best tell me now before matters progress.”

Ellen peered at him, frowning, and he could positively hear her gears whizzing. “If matters between us… proceed”—she looked at their hands—“ ifthey do, I will not trifle with you. I will not share my affections with you and then offer them to others while we are yet intimate. I will not betray your confidences.”

“You honor me,” Val said softly, his hand cradling her cheek. “I will try to be worthy of that honor, though I know I don’t deserve it. And since you have been so brave as to put into words the promises I would never, ever seek aloud, I will screw up my courage and give them back to you. I will not trifle with you, Ellen FitzEngle Markham, Baroness Roxbury. I will not share my affections with you then offer them to others while we are yet intimate. I will do my best not to betray your confidences or your trust.”

When Val rose, kissed her cheek, and slipped away through the trees, Ellen remained on the bench, recalling as many precious details of this first, new happy memory as she could. Hope notwithstanding, the memory might have to last her a long, long time.

Her peace was destroyed not ten minutes later when Val’s warning shout sliced through the woods like a rifle shot, followed by the unmistakable sound of something very heavy shattering into a thousand pieces.

Six

“Dare! Above you!”

Darius barely had time to glance up in reaction to Val’s warning bellow before grabbing each Belmont brother by the collar and hauling them back beneath the overhang of the eaves.

Four heavy pieces of slate hit the terrace, followed by a rain of fieldstone plummeting four stories from the roof. An eerie silence followed, broken by Val’s voice raised in alarm.

“Bloody, blazing Jesus!” He was across the terrace in four strides. “Tell me you’re unharmed, the lot of you.” He grabbed first Day then Phillip, perusing them frantically for signs of injury.

“They’re all right, Val,” Darius said, gaze trained upward.

“Whoever’s on the roof,” Val called, “secure your tools and get yourselves down here, now!”

“You saw the slates coming down?” Darius asked, still glancing up warily.

“I did. Talk to me, lads. Now is no time to stop your infernal chatter.”

“We’re fine,” Day said, though his complexion had gone sheet white, while Phillip was flushing a bright red. “Phil?”

“Right as rain.” Phillip nodded just before sinking to the ground. “A bit woozy, though.” Day’s gaze strayed to the terrace a few feet from the eaves, where the slates had broken into myriad small pieces, and fieldstone lay scattered about.

“Believe I’ll join you,” Day muttered, sliding down the wall beside his brother. “That was perilously close.”

“Too close,” Darius muttered, eyes narrowing. “Let’s take note of who is coming down that ladder, shall we?” In response to Val’s command, the roof crew was making its way to the ground and crossing the yard to peer at Day and Phillip.

“Be the lads a’right?” Hancock, the foreman asked.

“They’re fine,” Val said. “A bit shook up. Hancock, who built that scaffolding?”

“The scaffold what holds the chimbly stone?” Hancock asked. “Built it m’self, just afore we broke on Saturday past. Spent this morning piling up that old chimbly onto it so it could be rebuilt proper.”

“You built it on loose slates,” Val said between clenched teeth.

“Beg pardon.” Hancock widened his stance and met Val’s gaze. “I did not.”

“Explain yourself.”

“I been working high masonry for nigh thirty years, Mr. Windham.” Hancock put massive fists on his hips and leaned forward to make his point. “If the chimbly is in poor shape, the whole roof is suspect. I checked them slates and they were solid tight to the roof on Friday.”

“I seen him do it, Mr. Windham,” another man volunteered. “Nobody wants to work on a rotten roof, particularly not with heavy stone. The slate on the north side is coming loose, but the south side is tight as a tick.”

Val blew out a breath and exchanged a look with Darius. “Then I spoke in haste and apologize, which leaves us with a mystery.”

Hancock nodded, his expression grim. “We had no wind nor rain atween Friday and today, and yet the slates is got somehow loose.”

“They did. Nobody up on the roof until I’ve checked it over. Your crew can finish out the day cleaning up the terrace and laying slate down here. Boys, I need to borrow Darius for a moment, but you’re free to take a swim, or repair to your tent, if you’d rather.”

“Swim,” Day said. “But we’d best check the pond for monsters first.”

Val and Darius found nothing to indicate the damage went beyond the four loose slates, but before descending, Val sat on the peak of the roof and frowned at Little Weldon visible on the horizon.

“The only logical conclusion is somebody was here over the weekend and thought it might be fun to loosen a few roof tiles,” Val said. “That is a level of mischief bordering on criminal.”

“Not bordering.” Darius’s voice held banked violence. “That’s trespassing, at least; malicious mischief, destruction of property, certainly; attempted murder, possibly. If this is what the local boys consider fun, then you might not want to move in. And I am almost certain you had trespassers here while you were at Belmont’s.”

“How can you know that?”

Darius explained about his gelding’s water bucket, and Val’s expression became thoughtful. “What would a bunch of boys want with a water bucket? And how would they have the expertise to loosen slate tiles?”

“You have a half-dozen masons working on your roof. All it would take is a son or cousin or nephew of one of those men, and the boy would undoubtedly know enough to loosen tiles.”

“But why? Somebody—you, Day, Phil—could have been killed, and I would have been responsible, and it’s not as if most of the local families aren’t benefiting from our work here.”

“You’re right. Who would want to sabotage this project?”

“I don’t know.” Val scanned the bucolic view. “But the scaffold to hold the old chimney stones was built on Friday, and the slates were tight then. Anybody with any powers of observation could see the next step in the task was to pile the fieldstone up on the scaffolding. They loosened the slates, knowing the load on them would increase dramatically as soon as work on the chimney began.”

“Causing the slates to fall and the piled rock to come down with them.” Darius blew out a breath. “Nasty, nasty business.”

“Dangerous.” Val straightened to stand on the peak of the roof. “I’m wondering if we should send Day and Phil back to the professor.”

“They won’t want to go,” Darius said, pursing his lips. “Why don’t you send a note along to Belmont, and he can make the decision. It’s possible Hancock was mistaken and the slates were looser than he thought. It’s also possible this was an isolated incident of mischief by children who could not foresee the dire consequences.”

“I might be overreacting,” Val allowed. “You don’t think so; neither do I.”

“So what now?”

“We take precautions.” Val gave Darius a hand up. “Not the least of which should be a guard here on weekends when the place is deserted.”

“I can stay here. Or we can take turns, or you can hire somebody.”

“I appreciate your willingness to remain, but whoever stays here alone will be at risk and I can’t ask that of you. The locals will be less inclined to hurt one of their own.”

“We can argue about this all week.” Darius began a careful progress toward the ladder. “Right now it appears your neighbor is coming to see what’s amiss.” He nodded in the direction of the wood, and Val saw Ellen emerging from the trees into the yard below.

“God almighty.” Val followed Dare toward the ladder. “And what if she’d been coming to call fifteen minutes ago? Let’s go down. I’d rather she hear it from us, and I’d rather she see for herself we’re unharmed.”

Val presented the situation to Ellen as a mishap with no real harm resulting, but his words were for the benefit of their audience. When he had her to himself, he’d explain the matter more completely and hopefully talk her into staying with the Belmonts until the manor house was restored. Not that he wanted her several miles distant… But he would be visiting on weekends at Candlewick.

Religiously, if she bided there.

* * *

Ellen was unwilling to impede the afternoon’s work further with her fretting, but she was determined to grill Val thoroughly about the “slight mishap” when they were next private. She’d taken the lane rather than the bridle path to her property, and thus she approached her cottage from the front. As a consequence, she spied for the first time the little pot of pennyroyal on her front steps.

As she yanked the plant from its pot and tossed it on her compost heap, outrage warred with panic. The plant’s presence suggested to her just who might have caused the slates to fall from Valentine Windham’s roof.

Surely she was jumping to an unwarranted conclusion. Not even Freddy would be so stupid as to create havoc like that and leave his damned pennyroyal on her front step like a calling card.

Or would he?

* * *

“I notice Mrs. FitzEngle does a brisk business.” Val peered at his mug of summer ale as if it held the answers to imponderable mysteries. “Is she really so dependent on her sales? The property seems prosperous, at least her little corner of it.”

“If you want to know about your tenants’ finances,” Rafe, the bartender and coproprietor of The Tired Rooster said, “you’d best be looking in on Mr. Cheatham. He was the late baron’s solicitor, up in Great Weldon. He’d likely know who’s up to date on the rents, since he handles the banking for most around this part of the shire.”

“Cheatham. Good to know.” Val watched for a moment as Rafe, apron tied over his potbelly, continued to scrub at the gleaming wood.

“I’ll tell you something else good to know.” Rafe’s rag stopped its polishing of the scarred bar. “Them Bragdolls are hard workers, make no mistake, but they work your home farm, and I don’t think they quite have Mrs. Fitz’s permission to do that.”

“Mrs. Fitz?” Val raised an eyebrow and let the silence grow.

“Cheatham comes in for his pint now and again. I know how to keep my mouth shut, contrary to what you might think. Talk to Cheatham.”

“Believe I will,” Val said, finishing his ale. “Save me an entire fruit pie, and I don’t care what you charge me for it.”

“A whole entire pie.” Rafe nodded, good cheer abruptly wreathing his cherubic countenance. “For growing boys and strappin’ lads.”

Val walked out of the tavern into the hurly-burly of a small town on a pretty market day, trying to puzzle out what Rafe had been telling him. Clearly, a visit to Cheatham was in order, but Rafe had almost admitted Ellen had some sort of claim on the land as well.

“I see your goods are disappearing quickly,” Val remarked as he approached Ellen’s wagon where it was parked on the green. “Can you take a break? I’ll have Rafe pull you a lady’s pint.”

“We can manage,” Dayton volunteered. “Can’t we, Phil?”

“We’ll guard your flowers with our lives,” Phil assured her. “Now that Sir Dewey has fortified us with raspberry scones.”

“Sir Dewey?” Val asked.

“John Dewey Fanning. He’s over there.” Ellen gestured with her chin. “Playing chess with Tilden between Rafe’s interruptions. Why?”

“He might have served with my oldest brother. You’ll introduce us?”

“I can.” Though she did not sound enthusiastic about it.

By the time they retrieved a pint for Ellen, Sir Dewey was alone at the chessboard.

“Valentine Windham.” Val introduced himself, though in all propriety, Ellen or even Tilden should have made the introductions. “At your service and overdue to make your acquaintance. I believe we are neighbors.”

Sir Dewey’s smile took in both Val and Ellen. “My good fortune, then. Axel Belmont warned me the Markham place was being refurbished. Here.” Sir Dewey appropriated a spare chair and set it down between the other two. “Shall we sit while you tell me how your progress fares at the Markham estate?”

Fanning was probably five years Val’s senior, tall, blond, and a little weathered, which made his blue eyes look brilliant. He was genial enough, but beneath his country-squire manners, he had a certain watchful reserve, even when he turned to address Ellen.

“Your late husband would have been pleased to see the progress on the estate, I believe.” In the beat of silence following Sir Dewey’s pronouncement, Ellen wasn’t quick enough to hide her surprise from Val.

“You knew my late husband?”

“His term at university overlapped my cousin Denham’s by a year, and Denham and I are very cordial, as were Denham and the baron. By the time I returned from India, Baron Roxbury had gone to his reward. I am remiss for not calling on you.” He shifted his gaze to Val. “Heard you had a bit of mishap on Monday.”

“If you gentlemen will excuse me.” Ellen smiled at them briefly before passing Val her half-empty mug. “I see the boys are in need of assistance and will return to my post.”

“You are fortunate in your immediate neighbors,” Sir Dewey remarked as both men rose to watch Ellen’s retreat. “She’s as pretty as the flowers she grows.”

“Gallantly said,” Val allowed, resuming his seat. “Though I gather you hadn’t previously mentioned her marriage to Roxbury.”

Sir Dewey continued to watch Ellen across the way. “Had she indicated she wanted it acknowledged, I might have taken that for a social overture, but she hasn’t.”

Val watched her as well. “You knew Roxbury?”

“I did, years ago, and not that well. The last baron, that is. The current holder of the title does no credit to his ancestry.”

“I won the place from him in a card game.” Val forced himself to take his gaze from the sight of Ellen laughing at something Day said. “He struck me as a typical young lord, more time on his hands than sense, and ready for any stimulation to distract him from his boredom.”

Sir Dewey cocked his head. “An odd assessment, coming from Moreland’s musical dilettante.”

Val looked over at his companion sharply, only to find guileless blue eyes regarding him steadily. “How is it you come to know of Monday’s mishap?”

Sir Dewey’s attention fell to the pieces on the chessboard, and he was quiet for a long moment before once again meeting Val’s gaze.

“As it happens, the local excuse for a magistrate, Squire Rutland, is off to Brighton with his lady, leaving my humble self to hold the reins in his absence. Mr. Belmont served his turn earlier in the year and is disinclined to serve again. Then too, in the common opinion, I am a retired officer and thus suited to the role of magistrate.”

“Then you have reason to know of our mishap. No doubt you will want to investigate the matter, but I’m going to ask a favor of you.”

“A favor?”

“While I am gaining my foothold here in Oxfordshire,” Val said, “I do not use my courtesy title or bruit about my antecedents. I am plain, simple Mr. Valentine Windham, who owns some furniture manufactories and does modestly well as a result.” He picked up a queen, the black one, and studied her. Keyboards were black and white, and if Val were going to accompany this tête-à-tête with Fanning, it would be a piping little piece for fife and drum designed to keep an entire army moving smartly along.

“I own one of your pieces of furniture,” Fanning said, frowning. “Why dissemble when the truth will eventually come out?”

“Have you ever wished you might not be known as the Sir Dewey Fanning who averted wars in India?”

“So you are well informed, too.” Sir Dewey’s gaze went to the chess piece in Val’s hand. “Your brother is Colonel St. Just, correct?”

“I am privileged to answer in the affirmative.”

“I ran into your brother shortly after Waterloo,” Sir Dewey said quietly. “One worried for him.”

Val cocked his head to consider Sir Dewey’s expression and found the soft words bore the stamp of one soldier’s concern for another. “He still has bad days when it rains and thunders, but he’s happily wed now and his countess is expecting a child.”

“That is good news,” Sir Dewey said, smiling at the chessboard. It was a sweet, genuine smile, and as Val put the black queen back down on her home square, he wondered where that smile had been hiding when Ellen was at the table.

“So what do you make of my mishap?”

“Tell me about it, and I’ll share what I know of the local penchant for mischief.” They were more than an hour at it, with Sir Dewey asking thoughtful questions regarding everything from Val’s business competitors to the terms upon which Roxbury had conveyed the property.

“Would you mind if I came over and had a look around?”

“I would not.” Val rose and extended a hand. “Just don’t expect tea and crumpets in the formal parlor, as we’ve no formal parlor worth the name, much less crumpets, much less china to serve them on.”

They parted, and Val went in search of his tenants.

He found five out of the six enjoying a midday meal at the Rooster, the Bragdolls not having come into town for market. The picture Val derived from his interviews with his tenants was not encouraging, and he couldn’t escape the sense they were all talking past him, exchanging glances that suggested he was being humored.

The visit to Cheatham loomed as something Val would see to sooner, not later.

“So what did you learn from the tenants?” Ellen asked, clucking the horses to a sedate trot when they finally headed home.

“My estate is a mess,” Val said. “The rents are collected, but I don’t gather much is done with them. The six farms ought to be run cooperatively, so they all shear together, hay together, and so forth, but I gather it’s pretty much every man for himself. And because improvements and repairs are not the tenants’ job, they don’t marl; they don’t clean out the irrigation ditches; they don’t trade bulls, stallions, or rams; they don’t fallow on any particular schedule; they don’t mend wall on any schedule; and it’s a wonder the land has held up as well as it has.”

“How does a furniture maker know about marling and irrigation and so forth?” Ellen asked, her gaze on the horses’ rumps.

“My father holds a great deal of land.” Val glanced over at her, gauging the impact of his disclosure. “I don’t consider myself sophisticated when it comes to husbanding the land, but I comprehend the basics, and if I don’t step in and do something, I will soon have several thousand acres of tired, unkempt property.”

“You didn’t need this too in addition to all the work to be done on the house.”

Val peeked behind him to make sure Day and Phillip had nodded off. “I can’t help but think your late husband would not have left the place in poor repair.”

“He didn’t,” Ellen said, swatting a fly buzzing near the brim of her straw hat. “But he died five years ago, and in five years, land can suffer considerable neglect.”

“So Frederick kept the rents and did nothing for his tenants?”

“Less than nothing. When they get sufficiently fed up, they’ll all move on.”

They traveled the rest of the way in silence, but when they trotted up the lane, Val saw an order of crushed shells had been delivered and the back terrace all but finished.

“Day and Phil can put the horses up,” Val told Darius. “I’ll walk Ellen back to her cottage, then I can update you on our exciting day in town.”

“Looks like a tiring day in town,” Darius remarked as Day and Phillip yawned and stretched. He swung Ellen down from her perch on the bench and eyed her critically. “Even the indomitable Mrs. Fitz is looking done in, Val. You’ve taken your slave driving a little too seriously today.”

“Have a piece of the raspberry pie I brought home; then pass judgment on me. Ellen?” Val offered her his arm, which she took without protest, and headed with her toward the woods.

“You really ought to be cleaning this wood up,” Ellen observed as they gained the shade of the bridle path.

“I don’t want to.” Val matched his steps to her leisurely pace. “I’m afraid I’ll offend the piskies.”

“It is beautiful, but if you don’t at least cut up some deadwood, these paths will become useless, and the piskies will be the only ones keeping warm in winter. Then too, there are a couple of old pensioners in here who need to be cut down before they topple, and they’re big enough to land on your outbuildings or mine.”

Val stopped and regarded her in the late afternoon light. “I don’t want to disturb the wood because it’s the first place I kissed you. It’s… magical for me, and I don’t want it to change.”

It was an unplanned disclosure, a truth Val himself hadn’t been aware of until he heard the words coming out of his own mouth.

“Magical.” Ellen’s expression shifted between amusement, sadness, and… wistfulness?

“Silly.” Val glanced around self-consciously. “But there it is.” He could still see in his mind’s eye the way two butterflies had danced around in a sunbeam the day he’d first kissed her, not far from where they stood now. At the time, he’d thought the butterflies absurd.

Ellen shook her head. “Not silly. Sentimental, though.”

“I’m going to kiss you again.” He took her hand in his. “Now, in fact.”

He settled his lips over hers gently, just as he’d done a year ago. And now, as then, he took his time deepening the kiss, tasting her, breathing in her fragrance, letting his hands wander over her arms and shoulders and neck, until she was leaning into him and kissing him back.

“All day today,” Val said as he wrapped his arms around her, “I watched you being so brisk, efficient, and businesslike. You have the knack of the friendly transaction, and you part with your produce willingly enough. But your flowers.” He paused to kiss the side of her neck, a spot she seemed to particularly enjoy. “When you sold your posies,” Val went on, kissing his way out to her shoulder, “each time, you didn’t want to let them go. Your heart broke a little, sending them off that way, for coin.”

“Hush. Flowers aren’t kisses to be given away…” She buried her face against his shoulder.

“What?” He slid a hand to her nape and began massaging gently. “Your moods are hard to read today, love.”

“I’m just tired,” Ellen said, offering him a smile. “And cranky and probably in need of my bed.”

“I can understand fatigue.” He stepped back and took her hand as they started toward her gardens. “It has been a long and challenging day.”

“You made progress, though. You met with Sir Dewey, whom Phil says is standing in for Squire Rutland as magistrate, and you met with your tenants. You were also a considerable help to me, so I expect you to behave with docile submission when I declare it time to treat your hand again.”

“Docile submission?” Val shot her a puzzled look. “You’ll have to explain this term to me, or better still, demonstrate its meaning.”

She gave him an amused smile that put Val in mind of the smiles Her Grace often bestowed on Val’s father, then disappeared into her cottage. When she emerged, she handed him a tall glass of cider and took a seat on her swing. Val lowered himself beside her, setting the thing to swaying gently with his foot. While Ellen worked salve into Val’s hand, they discussed Sir Dewey Fanning and Val’s physician friend, Viscount Fairly, and his good friend Lord Nick—Darius’s brother-in-law—who was also a mutual friend of the Belmonts.

“You did not do this hand any favors today.” Ellen frowned at the offending appendage. “But you did let me drive out from town.”

“I rested my hand as well as I could.”

“But you tormented the poor thing yesterday and the day before,” Ellen chided as she spread salve over his knuckles. “You are not going to heal quickly at this rate.”

“I’m not getting worse,” Val replied, closing his eyes. “And if you’ll attend me like this, I have an incentive for making only the slowest of recoveries. With respect to the estate, though, I feel daunted. It feels like a quagmire, one that will consume every resource I throw at it and still demand more.”

“Like a jealous mistress,” Ellen murmured, kissing his knuckles.

“Yes, though I can’t say I’ve experienced one of those in person—at least not recently. The farms are nearing disgrace, the house is a ruin, somebody is bent on criminal mischief, and my own health isn’t one hundred percent.”

“Your hand will get better if you rest it.”

“You’re going to send me off now,” Val predicted. “We visit and we hold hands and we even cuddle, Ellen, but you’re still shy of me, and I can’t tell whether I should be flattered or frustrated.”

“Valentine.” She set his hand on his thigh. “I am not… I am indisposed.”

“Ah, well.” Val brushed his hand down her braid. “That explains it, then. As I myself am never indisposed, except perhaps when my seed is all over my belly and chest, I’m sweating with spent lust on a blanket beneath the willow, and my wits are abegging too.”

“You are shameless.” A blush rose up her neck and suffused her cheeks.

Val looped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side. “And you are very dear. Shall we go swimming tonight?”

“You are being outrageous. Trying to shock me.”

“Trying to seduce you,” Val corrected her, pulling her in so he could kiss her temple. “Without apparent success, but I’m the patient sort and you won’t be indisposed much longer, will you?”