The Windham Series Boxed Set (Volumes 1-3)

by Grace Burrowes

  “Which would mean?” Val forced himself to ask. But what would it matter, really? He might get the use of his hand back in a year, but how much conditioning and skill would he have lost by then? He loved his mistress—his muse—but she was jealous and unforgiving as hell.

  “Rest,” David said sternly as they approached the house. “Cold soaks, willow bark tea by the bucket, and at all costs, avoid the laudanum. If you can find a position where the hand is comfortable, you might consider sleeping with it splinted like that. Massage, if you can stand it.”

  “As if I had some tired old man’s ailment. You’re sure about the laudanum? It’s the only thing that lets me keep playing.”

  “Laudanum lets you continue to aggravate it,” David shot back. “It masks the pain, it cures nothing, and it can become addictive.”

  A beat of silence went by. Val nodded once, as much of an admission as he would make.

  “Christ.” David stopped in his tracks. “How long have you been using it?”

  “Off and on for months. Not regularly. What it gives in ability to keep playing, it takes away in ability to focus on what I’m creating. The pain goes away, but so does both manual and mental dexterity. And I can still see my hand is swollen and the wrong color.”

  “Get rid of the poppy. It has a place, but I don’t recommend it for you.”

  “I comprehend.”

  “You think your heart’s breaking,” David said, “but you still have that hand, Valentine, and you can do many, many things with it. If you treat it right now, someday you might be able to make music with it again.”

  “Is there anything you’re not telling me?” Val asked, his tone flat.

  “Well, yes,” David replied as they gained the back terraces of the manor house. “There’s another possibility regarding the onset of the symptoms.”

  “More good news?”

  “Perhaps.” David met his gaze steadily, which was slightly disconcerting. In addition to height and blond good looks, David Worthington, Viscount Fairly, had one blue eye and one green eye. “With a situation like this, where there is no immediate trauma, no exposure to disease, no clear cause for the symptoms, it can be beneficial to look at other aspects of well-being.”

  “In the King’s English, David, please.” Much more of David’s learned medical prosing on, and Val was going to break a laudanum bottle over his friend’s head.

  “Sickness can originate in the emotions,” David said quietly. “The term ‘broken heart’ can be literal, and you did say the sensations began just after you buried your brother Victor.”

  “As we were burying Victor,” Val corrected him, not wanting to think of the pain he’d felt as he scooped up a symbolic fistful of cold earth to toss on Victor’s coffin. “What in the hell does that have to do with whether I can ever again thunder away at Herr Beethoven’s latest sonata?”

  “That is for you to puzzle out, as you’ll have ample time to ponder on it, won’t you?”

  “Suppose I will at that.”

  Val felt David’s arm land across his shoulders and made no move to shrug it off, though the last thing he wanted was pity. The numbness in his hand was apparently spreading to the rest of him—just not quickly enough.

  ***

  “You seem to be thriving here, Cousin.”

  “I am quite comfortable.” Ellen FitzEngle smiled at Frederick Markham, Baron Roxbury, with determined pleasantness. The last thing she needed was to admit vulnerability to him or to let him see he had any impact on her existence at all. She smoothed her hair back with a steady hand and leveled a guileless gaze at her guest, enemy, and de facto landlord.

  “Hmm.” Frederick glanced around the tidy little cottage, a condescending smile implying enormous satisfaction at Ellen’s comedown in the world. “Not quite like Roxbury House, is it? Nor in a league with Roxbury Hall.”

  “But manageable for a widow of limited means. Would you like more tea?”

  “’Fraid I can’t stay.” Frederick rose, his body at twenty-two still giving the impression of not having grown into his arms and legs, despite expensive clothing and fashionable dark curls. She knew he fancied himself something of a Corinthian, paid punctilious attention to his attire, boxed at Gentlemen Jackson’s, fenced at Alberto’s, and accepted any bet involving his racing curricle.

  And still, to Ellen, he would always be the gangly, awkward adolescent whose malice she had sorely underestimated. Only five years difference separated their ages, but she felt decades his senior in sorrow and regret.

  “I did want to let you know, though”—Frederick paused with his hand on the door latch—“I’ll likely be selling the place. A fellow has expenses, and the solicitors are deuced tightfisted with the Roxbury funds.”

  “My thanks for the warning.” Ellen nodded, refusing to show any other reaction. Selling meant she could be homeless, of course, for she occupied a tenant cottage on the Markham estate. The new owner might allow her to stay on. Her property was profitable, but she didn’t have a signed lease—she’d not put it past Freddy to tamper with the deed—and so the new owner might also toss her out on her backside.

  “Thought it only sporting to let you know.” Frederick opened the door and swung his gaze out to his waiting vehicle. A tiger held the reins of the restive bays, and Ellen had to wonder how such spirited horses navigated the little track leading to her door. “Oh, and I almost forgot.” Freddy’s smile turned positively gleeful. “I brought you a little something from the Hall.”

  Dread seeped up from Ellen’s stomach, filling her throat with bile and foreboding. Any present from Frederick was bound to bring ill will, if not worse.

  Frederick bent into his curricle and withdrew a small potted plant. “You being the gardener in the family, I thought you might like a little cutting from Roxbury. You needn’t thank me.”

  “Most gracious of you, nonetheless.” Ellen offered him a cool smile as he put the clay pot into her hands and then climbed aboard. “Safe journey to Town, Frederick.”

  He waited, clearly wishing she’d look at the little plant, but then gave up and yelled at his tiger to let the horses go. The child’s grasp hadn’t left the reins before Frederick was cracking the whip, the horses lunging forward and the curricle slewing around in Ellen’s front yard as the boy scrambled up onto his post behind the seat.

  And ye gods, ye gods, was Ellen ever glad to see the last of the man. She glanced at the plant in her hand, rolled her eyes, and walked around to the back of her property to toss it, pot and all, on her compost heap.

  How like Frederick to give her an herb often used to settle the stomach, while he intimated he’d be tearing the roof from over her head. He’d been threatening for several years now, as winters in Portugal, autumn at Melton, a lengthy stint in London each spring, and expensive friends all around did not permit a man to hold on to decrepit, unentailed estates for long.

  She should be grateful she’d had five years to settle in, to grieve, and to heal. She had a few friends in nearby Little Weldon, some nice memories, and some satisfaction with what she’d been able to accomplish on this lovely little property.

  And now all that accomplishment was to be taken from her.

  She poured herself a cup of tea and took it to her back porch, where the vista was one of endless, riotous flowerbeds. They were her livelihood and her solace, her greatest joy and her most treasured necessity. Sachets and soaps, herbs for cooking, and bouquets for market, they all brought a fair penny, and the pennies added up. Fruits and vegetables created still more income, as did the preserves and pies made from them.

  “And if we have to move”—Ellen addressed the fat-headed orange tom cat who strolled up the porch steps—“we have a bit put by now, don’t we, Marmalade?”

  Himself squeezed up his eyes in feline inscrutability, which Ellen took for supportive agreement. The cat had been abandoned a
t the manor house through the wood and had gladly given up a diet of mice for the occasional dish of cream on Ellen’s porch.

  His company, though, combined with Frederick’s visit and the threat to her livelihood, put Ellen in a wistful, even lonely mood. She sipped her tea in the waning afternoon light and brought forth the memories that pleased her most. She didn’t visit them often but saved them for low moments when she’d hug them around her like a favorite shawl, the one that always made a girl feel pretty and special.

  She thought about her first pony, about the day she’d found Marmalade sitting king-of-all-he-surveyed in a tree near the cottage, like a welcoming committee from the fairy folk. She thought about the flowers she’d put together for all the village weddings, and the flowers on her own wedding day. And she thought about a chance visit from that handsome Mr. Windham, though it had been just a few moments stolen in the evening sunshine, and more than a year had passed since those moments.

  Ellen set her chair to rocking, hugged the memory closer still, and banished all thoughts of Frederick, homelessness, and poverty from her mind.

  ***

  A life devoted to any creative art did not develop in the artist an ability to appreciate idleness, much less vice. Val had run his errands, visited his friend Nicholas Haddonfield, paid his duty calls to family—and that had been particularly difficult, as family was spread all over the Home Counties—and tended to every detail of his business he could think to tend to. He’d taken several sessions guest-conducting the Philharmonic Society Orchestra, because he’d promised his friend Edward Kirkland he would, but they were painful afternoons.

  And amid all this peripatetic activity, his head was full of music. Mozart’s Requiem figured prominently, but it was all he could do not to let his hands wander over any available keyboard, tapping out a little rendition of the simplest nursery rhyme.

  He owned two manufactories that built, of course, pianos. One for grands, one for cottage pianos. They did a surprisingly brisk trade, and because the Americans in particular had decided snobbery required well-made English goods, many of the grands were shipped overseas at very significant cost to the buyers.

  Val had been in the habit of personally playing each instrument before releasing it for sale. The temptation to sit down and dabble just a little…

  Dabbling, for Val, could go on literally for days. Oh, he’d heed the calls of nature—to eat, sleep, and tend to bodily functions—but when a particular theme got into his brain, earthly concerns were so many intermissions in the ongoing concert that was his life.

  Had been his life.

  For the first time, Val was forced to consider what younger sons of the nobility actually did with themselves. They could apparently drink, whore, duel, and what? The Corsican had met his match at Waterloo, which left gambling.

  It boggled the mind but certainly did not entertain for long.

  Glancing at his cards, Val felt a wave of despair. Here he was, seated amid the power and plenty of the realm’s aristocracy, and he was about to burst out cursing for lack of ability to play “Hot Cross Buns.”

  A fucking, bedamned nursery rhyme was denied him.

  “Your turn, Windham,” Darius Lindsey drawled. By some unspoken accord, Lindsey had become Val’s latest carousing companion, though Val had his suspicions as to how this had come about. “Or not, if you’d rather cash in.”

  Val glanced again at his cards and felt the heavy irony of divine humor at work. In the two weeks since he had stopped making music, his luck had become uncannily good at all games of chance. The pile of chips before him was obscenely ample, but he was comforted to note Lindsey was managing fairly well, too.

  Not so young Baron Roxbury, seated across from Val. The man was playing too deep, visibly sweating in the candlelight.

  “You can’t back out now,” Roxbury said, desperation in his voice. “Wouldn’t be sporting in the least. A fellow needs a chance to win back his own, don’tcha know?”

  “Believe you’re about out of chips, Roxbury,” Lindsey said. “Why don’t we all call it a night, and things will look less daunting in the morning?”

  “Not a bad idea,” Val chimed in on cue, for he had no intention of spending the entire night watching Roxbury dig himself even deeper in debt. “My eyes grow tired. The smoke is rather thick.”

  “One more round.” Roxbury’s hand shot out and gripped Val’s right wrist when Val would have swept his chips to the edge of the table. “All I need is one more.”

  “My dear,” Lindsey’s voice cut in softly, “I don’t think you can make the ante.”

  “I can.” Roxbury’s chin went up. “With this.” He fumbled in his breast pocket and tossed a document on the table that bore the ribbons and seals of legality.

  “I’m out.” Darius stood. “Roxbury, if you need a small loan to cover your losses, I’m sure it can be arranged until next quarter. Lord Val, you coming?”

  “He can’t.” Roxbury answered for Val as the other two players murmured their excuses and left the table. “He owes me one more hand.”

  “He owes you nothing,” Lindsey said. “You’re half seas over and the cards aren’t favoring you. Do yourself a favor and call it a night, Roxbury.”

  “One more hand.” Roxbury held Val’s gaze, and it was difficult for a decent man to decide what would be kinder: To allow Roxbury what he thought would save him or to minimize the man’s losses.

  One more hand, Val thought, the irony quirking his lips.

  “One more.” Val nodded, meeting Lindsey’s exasperated glance. “But call for our hats and gloves, would you, Dare?”

  Lindsey took the proffered excuse to leave but said something to the two men loitering by the door as they finished their drinks. With his peripheral vision, Val noted both sidled over to the corner and topped off those drinks. Witnesses, Val thought, realizing Lindsey brought a certain sophistication Val lacked to the suddenly dangerous business of gentlemanly idleness.

  “Shall we cut for the deal?” Val asked. “Perhaps you can tell me exactly what you’ve tossed into the pot.”

  “An estate.” Roxbury turned the top half of the deck over, smiling hugely when he revealed the knave of diamonds. “A tidy little property a short day’s ride from Town, out in Oxfordshire. Been in the family but doesn’t merit much attention.”

  “Doesn’t merit much attention?” Val quirked an eyebrow and cut the queen of hearts—of course. He sighed inwardly as the little mi-re-do tune to “Hot Cross Buns” ran through his head. “My deal.”

  Roxbury shrugged in what Val supposed was an attempt at casual disregard. “It’s not the family seat. Haven’t spent a night there myself, so there’s little point to keeping the place staffed, but it’s worth a pretty penny.”

  “How many acres?” Val asked, dealing—with his right hand.

  “Few thousand.” Another shrug as the final cards were dealt. “Home farm, home wood, dairy, pastures, a few tenants, that sort of thing.” Roxbury picked up his cards, and from the man’s expression, Val knew with sinking certainty this unstaffed, neglected, miserable little ruin of a country estate was all but his.

  He could throw the game, of course.

  Hot cross buns, hot cross buns.

  One ha’ penny, two ha’ penny,

  Hot cross buns.

  He wasn’t going to throw the game. The place might be useful as a dower property for a relative, or a retreat for Val that wasn’t surrounded by friends and family. If it required attention, so much the better, because nobody sane spent the entire summer sweltering in Town.

  Surrounded by pianos at every turn.

  Val looked at his cards and almost smiled. Of course, a full house, queens over knaves. How fitting.

  ***

  “This brings back memories,” Darius said from his perch on a solid piebald gelding.

  “The trips to u
niversity and back,” Val replied from aboard his chestnut. They’d had good weather for their trip out from London, thank God, though this particular stretch of road was looking oddly familiar. “Jesus pissing in the bloody blazing desert.”

  “Original,” Darius conceded. “But apropos of what?”

  Val retrieved the deed from the breast pocket of his riding jacket and scowled at the document. “I am very much afraid I know this place.”

  “You know the estate or the town nearby?”

  “Both.” Val felt a reluctant smile tugging at his lips. “And if this is the place I think it is, it’s in godforsaken shape. The roof was on its last prayers a year ago and the grounds are an eyesore.”

  “Famous. So why are you smiling?”

  “It needs rescuing. It has good bones and a lovely setting, and it’s just far enough from London I won’t be plagued with relatives and friends. There’s a decent tavern in Little Weldon, and a market, and the folk are pleasant, as long as you’ve no pretensions to privacy.” Val tucked the deed back in his pocket and urged his horse forward.

  Darius brushed his horse’s mane so it rested neatly down the right side of the animal’s muscular neck and put his gelding to the walk beside Val’s mount. “You are telling me we are to bivouac in Oxfordshire among a bunch of toothless old men and church biddies?”

  “Nonsense,” Val said, his smile broadening. “Both Rafe and Tilden have a few teeth, and we’ll be camping only until I can put a few rooms to rights.”

  “I see.”

  “Lindsey.” Val peered over at him. “Didn’t you and your brother ever camp in the home wood at Wilton? Play Indians, roast a few hapless bunnies over a fire, and swim naked in the moonlight?”

  “I am in the company of a pagan.” Darius smoothed his hand over the horse’s already tidy mane. “If you must know, Trent and I were not permitted such savage pastimes, and I’d not have indulged in them if we were.”

  “You’ve never sat in a tree reading Robinson Crusoe?”