“Just that,” he said tiredly. “I want that small, mundane, bucolic existence. A wife, children, love, and a shared life here at Rosecroft. That is my idea of what makes peace meaningful. It can’t be built on pity or convenience or simple affection, Em. Not with me. I’ll run you off in less than two years, but we’ll have a child by then, so you’ll stay, and next thing, we’ll have separate bedrooms, and the brandy decanter will seldom stay full for long. I won’t live that way, and I won’t let it happen to you or our children either.”
Another silence, while Emmie’s mind scrambled for what to say.
“But I do love you.”
“Of course you do.” He raised his gaze to the ceiling, a man reaching for the last of his patience, and Emmie felt a consuming fear that if she didn’t convince him of this now, then the brandy decanters were never going to be full, and he wouldn’t have even one single child to love and to give meaning to the peace he’d fought so hard to secure. “You love that I can keep a roof over your head and that I am attached to your child. Not enough, Em, but thanks for the gesture.” He turned to go, his eyes registering surprise when she stopped him.
“No,” she said, gathering the front of his shirt in her fist. She shook it to emphasize her point and glared up at him.
“No,” she said again. “You will not make such sweeping declarations then stomp off without giving me even a minute to recover. You will stay here in this kitchen and hear me out, Devlin St. Just. You will.” He nodded carefully, and she let his shirt go then smoothed it down with an incongruous little pat of her hand.
“Thank you,” she said, returning his nod. What to say? What on earth to say to make him believe her?
“I love you,” she said slowly, her hand returning to stroke down his chest again, “because you wrestle with stone walls when you’d rather drink yourself mindless. I love you because you take my recipes seriously and you gave me your apple tart recipe, asking nothing in return. I love you because it matters to you when I cry and when Winnie is scared and difficult and lost. I love you because you pray for dead horses and you bought that awful, stinky dog so Winnie wouldn’t be so lonely. You went to see Rose and you forgave your mother and you’ve fought and fought and fought…”
She leaned in against him, her arms around his waist, while his remained at his sides.
“You fought for Winnie,” she went on, voice breaking. “You fought my stupid, wrongheaded schemes for Winnie, so Winnie wouldn’t suffer what you did, so I wouldn’t die of a broken heart as your m-mother did. I love you because you fought so hard… I surrender, Devlin St. Just. I love you, and I surrender for all time.”
She wept against him, not even registering when his arms slowly crept around her nor when his chin rested against her temple.
“You surrender?” he murmured quietly, his hands rubbing slow circles on her back. “Unconditionally?”
“Not unconditionally,” Emmie replied through her tears. “I demand you take me prisoner.”
“It will be my pleasure,” St. Just replied. “But, Em? I surrender, too.”
And thus, for the first time in history, did all sides win the war, even as they were also captured—foot, horse, heart, and cannon—by their opponents for all time.
Acknowledgments
Thanks go to my editor, Deb Werksman, who spotted what needed polishing and made the rest of this story shine brighter as a result, and to the crew at Sourcebooks, Inc., who take straw and spin it into gold—Cat, Susie, Skye, my very skilled copy editor, the art, marketing and bookmaking departments, Danielle, and others who are the unsung heroes of the book you’re holding in your hands. A very particular thanks goes to author Robin Kaye, who—despite her own maniac schedule (three teenagers, enough said)—read the manuscript when I was in a dither and prevented me from doing Something Stupid to the ending when my courage was wavering (again).
And thanks to my readers. The pleasure you take in my books is small compared to how much it means to me that you enjoy them.
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 by Grace Burrowes
Cover and internal design © 2011 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover illustration by Anne Cain
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
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Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Author’s Note
Sneak Preview of Lady Maggie’s Secret Scandal
Acknowledgments
About the Author
This book is dedicated to younger brothers, and specifically to my brother Joe, who has the ability to make hard things look easy and even fun—things like raising kids, Montana winters, and being a younger brother to six obstreperous siblings.
Joer, we are in awe of you.
One
“My best advice is to give up playing the piano.”
Lord Valentine Windham neither moved nor changed his expression when he heard his friend—a skilled and experienced physician—pronounce sentence. Being the youngest of five boys and named Valentine—for God’s sake—had given him fast reflexes, abundant muscle, and an enviable poker face. Being called the baby boy any time he’d shown the least tender sentiment had fired his will to the strength of iron and given him the ability to withstand almost any blow without flinching.
But this… This was diabolical, this demand David made of him. To give up the one mistress Val loved, the one place he was happy and competent. To give up the home he’d forged for his soul despite his ducal father’s ridicule, his mother’s anxiety, and his siblings’ inability to understand what music had become to him.
He closed his eyes and drew breath into his lungs by act of will. “For how long am I to give up my music?”
Silence, until Val opened his eyes and glanced down at where his left hand, aching and swollen, lay uselessly on his thigh.
David sat beside him, making a polite pretense of surveying the surrounding paddocks and fields. “You are possibly done with music for the rest of your life, my friend. The hand might heal but only if you rest it until you’re ready to scream with frustration. Not just days, not just weeks, and by then you will have lost some of the dexterity you hone so keenly now. If you try too hard or too soon to regain it, you’ll make the hand worse than ever.”
“Months?” One month was forever when a man wanted only to do the single thing denied him.
“At least. And as long as I’m cheering you up, you need to watch for the condition to arise in the other hand. If you catch it early, it might need less extensive treatment.”
“Both hands?” Val closed his eyes again and hunched in on himself, though the urge to kick the stone wall where they sat—hard, repeatedly, like a man beset with murderous frustration—was nigh overwhelming.
“It’s possible both hands will be affected,” David went on. “Your left hand is more likely in
worse condition because of the untreated fracture you suffered as a small boy. You’re right-handed, so it’s also possible the right hand is stronger out of habit.”
Val roused himself to gather as many facts from David as he could. “Is the left weak, then?”
“Not weak, so much.” David, Viscount Fairly, pursed his lips. “It seems to me you have something like gout or rheumatism in your hand. It’s inflamed, swollen, and painful without apparent cause. The test will be if you rest it and see improvement. That is not the signal to resume spending all hours on the piano bench, Valentine.”
“It’s the signal to what? All I do is spend hours on the piano bench and occasionally escort my sisters about Town.”
“It’s the signal you’re dealing with a simple inflammation from overuse, old son.” David slid a hand to Val’s nape and shook him gently. “Many people lead happy, productive lives without gluing their arses to the piano bench for twenty hours a day. Kiss some pretty girls; sniff a few roses; go see the Lakes.”
Val shoved off the wall, using only his right hand for balance. “I know you mean well, but I don’t want to do anything but play the piano.”
“And I know what you want.” David hopped down to fall in step beside Val. “What you want has gotten you a hand that can’t hold a teacup, and while that’s not fair and it’s not right, it’s also not yet permanent.”
“I’m whining.” Val stopped and gazed toward the manor house where David’s viscountess was no doubt tucking in their infant daughter for the evening. “I should be thanking you for bothering with me.”
“I am flattered to be of service. And you are not to let some idiot surgeon talk you into bleeding it.”
“You’re sure?”
“I am absolutely sure of that. No bleeding, no blisters, no surgery, and no peculiar nostrums. You tend it as you would any other inflammation.”
“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 at 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.
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