The Virtuoso (8 page)

“You might.” Ellen rose, and Val escorted her along a shady, winding path. He counted himself lucky, because she did indeed keep hold of his hand as she turned the topic. “Does this place give you ideas about your own grounds?”

“It does.” Val understood the conversation must not stray back to the personal until Ellen had her emotional balance. “The first such idea is that my estate needs a name. It will be the old Markham place until fifty years after I hang something else on the gateposts.”

“What comes to mind?”

“Nothing. And I don't want to force a name on the place when names and labels have a way of becoming permanent.”

“What does the estate signify to you?” Ellen asked, keeping his fingers loosely linked with her own.

Val pursed his lips in thought. “Hard work. A summer project, an escape.” A
dalliance
.

He didn't say that, of course. He wasn't sure it was true. When he'd risen that morning and seen Darius departing on his piebald gelding, Val had felt a measure of relief to think the weekend would be spent in company. Somehow, sitting on Ellen's porch in the evening darkness, he'd opened the topic of a different relationship with Ellen—a dalliance.

He'd meant to apologize for a year-old kiss, maybe, or to kiss her again. He wasn't sure which, but he certainly hadn't intended to baldly proposition the lady.

The matter had arisen unbidden, without Val planning to broach it. In his view, women as intimate partners were lovely creatures, like birds or pets or pretty house plants. They graced his life but were hardly necessary to it. When the occasional urge arose, he often felt it as a distraction from his music, indulging his sexual proclivities as an afterthought or an aside between the more fascinating business to be transacted at his keyboard.

He liked sex—he liked it a lot—but he seldom went in search of it.

And thus, he mused, he was probably no damned good at comprehending when he needed what Nick called a friendly poke, or how to arrange it with a minimum of fuss.

“You are quiet,” Ellen said. “Do you think of your brothers?”

“Every day,” Val said on a resigned sigh. It appeared they were going to brush up against this most uncomfortable topic again.

“It will get better,” Ellen assured him. “If it hasn't already. You don't just think of the loss, you also think of the good times and the gifts they left you with. You see the whole picture on your good days, and the ache fades.”

“Maybe. But it felt like I was just getting to that place with Bart's death, which was stupid and avoidable, when Victor's decline became impossible to ignore. And Victor and I had grown closer when Bart and Dev went off to war.”

She was silent for a moment as they strolled along. “I have pouted because I was an only child, but I never did consider what an affront it would be to lose siblings, particularly siblings in their prime, and siblings I was close to. I am sorry, Valentine, for your losses.”

He stopped walking, the emotional breath knocked out of him for reasons he could not consider. He'd heard the same platitude a thousand times before—two thousand—and knew the polite replies, but now Ellen's arms went around his waist, and the polite replies choked him. Slowly, tentatively, he wrapped an arm, then two, around her shoulders, closed his eyes, and rested his cheek against her hair.

***

Frederick Markham was angry, and when he was angry his digestion became dyspeptic, which made him angrier still. A fellow needed the comforts of good food and fine spirits to soothe him when aggravations such as petty debts plagued him.

God
damn
Cousin
Francis.
With each passing quarter, the indignity of the late baron's scheme became harder to bear. If it weren't for the rents Ellen had passed along from Little Weldon, there would have been no hunting in the shires the previous winter. Even with burdensome economies, the Season itself had been cramped. Now, Frederick had tarried too long in Town, and there was no convenient house party to entertain him as summer got under way.

And because he'd gambled his last unentailed property away, there would not be as much rental income. What on earth had he been thinking?

The old place out near Little Weldon had been a ruin, true, but it had been, to some extent,
his
ruin. Frederick had gotten the deed from the solicitors so he might study it, not toss it aside in a damned card game. And study it he had, while Windham—Lord Valentine, rather—apparently had not.

Else why would the man be pouring time and money into the place? Ellen was a young woman and technically entitled to live there for the rest of her days. She wasn't a fool, of course—the income wouldn't be hers regardless of what any deed said, but Windham might get to sniffing around the legalities and wondering what exactly was afoot.

Frederick's hand absently rubbed at his chest, where heartburn was making him almost as miserable as the summer's heat. Creditors would hound a gentleman to death. He scowled, eyeing a pile of duns on his desk. Perhaps it was time for a respite at Roxbury Hall, and perhaps it was time Frederick reminded dear Ellen of her priorities too.

It was Saturday, the skies were clear, and the roads would be deserted outside of Town. He bellowed for his curricle, bellowed for his valet to toss a few things into an overnight bag, then bellowed for his medicinal flask. If he was tooling out to Oxfordshire in this heat, he'd have to settle his stomach first.

***

“I've come to kidnap your hand again.” Ellen waved her little tin under Val's nose. She'd knocked on his door very boldly about an hour after the household had risen from another very fine evening meal. It was full dark, the crickets were chirping, and Val had been resisting the pull of Axel's music room with every fiber of his being.

“You may have my hand,” he said, stepping into the hallway. “Shall you drag me terrified into the night, or will you turn Axel's library into a temporary prison?”

“Let's go out. It's a lovely night, and I am not used to such rich fare. Then too, I miss my gardens.”

Val offered his right hand, she laced her fingers through his, and within minutes, they were back at the gazebo, watching a three-quarter moon drift up over the flowers.

“You must tell me if I hurt you,” Ellen cautioned him. “I literally cannot see what I'm doing in this darkness.”

Val smiled at the thought. “I doubt you could hurt me, but do your worst.”

She bent to her task, her touch now familiar, the smell of the salve oddly reassuring.

“What can I do to repay your kindness?” Val asked as the soothing pleasure of her touch worked its magic. “You've given me surplus food that makes the difference between starving and maintaining one's spirits, you look after my hand, and you've broken Belmont's savages to the bridle. You really must let me do something for you, Ellen FitzEngle. I am as afflicted with pride as the next man.”

“Probably more so,” she observed, turning his hand over and starting on his knuckles. “But you must allow it does me good to be of use to someone else. For five years, I've puttered in my gardens, being not more than cordial with my neighbors and not quite included in with the local community. I like my privacy, but I realize it comes at a cost.”

“What cost would that be?” Val asked, wishing he could see her expression.

“I am expendable.” She said the words easily—too easily, maybe. “Widows occupy a niche in most villages. They look after children when others can't. They attend confinements; they nurse the sick; they are involved in charitable endeavors if they have the means. Relax your arm, sir, or I will take stern measures.”

Val complied, trying to focus on her words without losing awareness of her touch.

“You don't think you contribute as a widow should?”

“I know I don't.” She shifted to stroke Val's wrist and forearm. “I might be more involved, had I children, but I don't. I am purely a widow, not a mother, a sister, a sister-in-law, a close neighbor, a shopkeeper.”

Val closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “Do you think you are more inclined or less than other widows to take a lover?” He sat forward abruptly and opened his eyes. “Forget I asked that and forgive me.”

What
on
earth
was
plaguing
him, that such a thing would come out of his mouth?

“That isn't a question one easily forgets,” Ellen replied, and Val was relieved to hear humor in her voice. “If it's an oblique way of asking if I'm lonely, then you needn't mince around the issue: I am lonely, and I miss my husband's attentions. Perhaps I'm a snob, but I can't see loneliness being assuaged by casual affiliations.”

Val shot her a frown and blew out a breath. She'd just articulated something he himself had long tried to put into words: Casual sex was only mildly appealing because in his experience, it might ease lust, but it only heightened loneliness.

Well, hell.

Hell and the devil.

“I think there's something wrong with me,” Val said slowly, “because I am a man, and I agree with you.”

“You agree with me, how?” Ellen clasped his hand between both of hers, the warmth of her palms seeping into Val's sore and aching bones.

“Loneliness and lust are two different things. I still want to kiss you.”

“I did not come out here for that.” She carefully set Val's hand on his own thigh and sat up.

“Neither did I.” And he wasn't pleased to admit it. “But you'll have to be the one to stop me, as I think we need to get this taken care of.”

As introductions to dalliance went, that had to be the worst tone of voice and the worst line of speech Val had ever heard himself compose. He gave her all the time in the world to call him on it and laugh or slap his face or make an abrupt, indignant run for the house. She simply held his gaze, and when he lifted his right hand to brush her hair back, she closed her eyes.

So Val started there, setting his lips on her eyelid, letting the floral scent of her hair tease his nose, then drawing back to kiss the other eye. When he heard her sigh, he shifted to graze his mouth over her cheek and brow and temple, taking his time, learning the contour of each feature with his lips.

When he'd inventoried her face, he paused and switched tactics, bringing the fingers of his right hand up to caress her neck then her jaw. He closed his eyes and traced her bones with his index and middle fingers, reveling in the softness of her skin. It occurred to him he was doing as he'd thought he might when he'd been close to her in the darkness before: He was learning her by touch.

“Valentine,” Ellen whispered, “kiss me, please.”

“Hush.” He bussed her cheek. “I am kissing you.” But he wasn't done orienting himself with his fingers or nuzzling at her neck or burying his hand in her hair. She moved toward him, her hands slipping up his chest to link at his nape.

“
Please
.”

She sounded as if she'd put five years of longing and loneliness in that one word, and Val gathered his focus to bring his mouth to hers. He paused again, his lips a quarter inch from hers, then closed his eyes and joined their mouths. Ellen's mouth clung to his, her hands winnowed through his hair, and her body arched closer to his.

Oh, God, he hadn't dreamed this.
In his mind, Val had referred repeatedly to their sharing one kiss as if it had been some polite little gesture stolen in a moment under the rose arbor.

In truth, a year ago, in the waning light of the overgrown woods, he'd kissed her forever, like he was kissing her now. Lips were just the start of it, as Ellen's fingers drifted through his hair, around his neck, over his ears—his surprisingly sensitive
ears
—and down along his chest. She pressed forward, her very body burrowing closer to him, and she conveyed both eagerness and a kind of shy wonder in her touch and posture.

And her mouth, Jesus in the manger, her
mouth
…

“Sweetheart,” Val whispered, “slow down, easy…” But Ellen took advantage of his lapse to seam his lips with her tongue and cradle his jaw with her hands. He tasted her in return and she groaned, a soft, sweet sound of longing and encouragement.

Val shifted and hoisted her to straddle his lap. He hadn't planned to do such a thing, but when Ellen looked down at him, dazed, her lips glistening in the moonlight, he had to approve of the impulse.

“You kiss me,” he urged, his hand running down her arm and back up to her collarbone. “Please.”

She framed his face with her hands and bent to the task, tasting him first with her tongue then sealing her mouth to his. Val's palm moved to the base of her spine, to urge her down, down onto the rising ridge of flesh at his groin. His left hand remained at his side and never had it felt more useless.

“Give me your weight,” he whispered between kisses. “Let me feel your body over mine.”

When he pressed down this time, she let him guide her into his lap. She stopped abruptly when she met his erection then cautiously continued her descent until Val had the gratification of her weight resting on his cock.

“Better,” he murmured, laying his cheek against her sternum. His hand found her calf next, and Ellen went still.

Around them, the sounds and scents of the summer night went into high relief: The pause between breezes and the lift in the air when the lightest wind resumed, the subtle shift in the moon shadows as the air stirred, the blending of fragrances in the warm night.

Val knew what came next. He'd ease her skirts up, diddle her until she either came or was begging him to make her come, then he'd penetrate that sweet heat of hers, and spend—or, if he were going to be a gentleman, he'd withdraw before he spent, cuddle her for a bit, lend her his hankie, and see her back to the house.