The Duke’s Obsession Bundle

by Grace Burrowes

  “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 yo
ur 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?”

  She shook her head.

  He stayed with her for a long while after that, rocking the swing gently, holding her, and watching darkness fall over the garden. When she began to doze against him, he carried her through the darkened cottage to her bed and tucked her in.

  Leaving Ellen to wonder as she drifted off to sleep how it was her furniture-merchant neighbor rubbed elbows with not one title but several, and, were she a different kind of widow in a different life, if he’d be courting her—and if she’d be allowing him to.

  ***

  Val retrieved his horse from the Great Weldon livery, feeling as if his interview with Cheatham had been just the kick in the arse he needed to be completely out of charity with life. He was still disgruntled and puzzled when he returned to the estate at midday.

  Darius greeted him on the driveway. “Just in time for lunch.”

  Val quirked an eyebrow at his friend, who had foregone cravat and waistcoat in deference to the building heat. “You’re in dishabille.”

  “And soon I’ll be romping the day away at the pond in all my naked glory, like our pet savages. What did you learn in that beehive of commercial activity known as Great Weldon?”

  “Nothing positive,” Val said, leading Ezekiel to the stables. “The lane looks good.”

  “The Ostrogoths about bloodied their paws getting the shells raked out for you. Make it a point to compliment them.”

  “I take it they’ve had their meal?” Val put his horse in the cross ties and heaved the saddle off its back. He ignored the familiar pain shooting up his left arm and put the saddle down on its customary rack.

  Darius took a seat on the only bench in the barn aisle. “Hand bothering you?”

  “Hurts like blazes,” Val said easily, but what he’d learned in town hurt worse. “It was pointed out to me today by the estimable William Cheatham, Esquire, that Ellen FitzEngle has a life estate on that property known as, et cetera, until such time as she dies, remarries, or loses privileges of citizenship, whichever shall first occur, et cetera.”

  Darius frowned. “A life estate?”

  “Life estate, as in the right to dwell unmolested and undisturbed, free of any interference and so forth, right here, for the rest of her life, with all the blessings attendant thereto.”

  “All the blessings?” Darius asked as Val groomed his horse briskly, the brush held firmly in his right hand. “As in the rents?”

  “Rents, crops, and benefits not including the right to sell fixtures. This was to be her dower property, Dare. I don’t understand it.”

  “What don’t you understand?”

  “Ellen has been collecting the rents here through Cheatham for the past five years, but she has Cheatham put the money into one of the Markham accounts in a London bank. Not a penny of it has gone into the estate.”

  “That doesn’t seem in character with a woman who dotes on her own land. Your horse is about to pass out with the pleasure of your efforts.”

  Val glanced at Ezekiel, who was indeed giving a heavy-lidded, horsey impression of bliss.

  “Hopeless.” Val scratched the horse behind the ears with his right hand. “At least Zeke doesn’t prevaricate on estate matters.”

  “Did you ever ask the lady where the money is going?”

  “I did not,” Val said, tucking Zeke into a stall. “But you put your finger on the contradiction I couldn’t quite name: Ellen treasures her ground and takes better care of it than some women do their newborn children. It doesn’t make sense she’d let the rest of the estate go to ruin.”

  “No sense at all. Maybe she doesn’t have a choice.”

  Val fetched a rag to wipe off his bridle and boots. “The deed is clear. I now own the place in fee simple, but she has a life estate. Freddy didn’t lie exactly, he just implied title was held in fee simple absolute when it wasn’t—quite.”

  “Ellen’s tenancy, or life estate, is probably a detail to him in the vast whirlwind of empty pleasures constituting his life.” Darius got off his bench and extended a hand to Skunk in the stall next to Ezekiel. “One has to wonder if this is what the previous baron intended.”

  Val hung his bridle on a peg and laced the throatlatch around the headstall and reins. “No, one doesn’t. Ellen is to have those rents, the use of the hall, and so forth, but she’s to make improvements, alterations during her life as she sees fit. She wasn’t intended to toil away in a simple cottage, getting her hands literally dirty to earn her daily bread.”

  “This bothers you, not just because the place is a wreck but because she isn’t getting her due.”

  “It bothers me.” Val took the bench Darius had vacated. “For those reasons but also because she hasn’t told me any of this. I am the new owner and I’ve been here several weeks. If Freddy has Ellen on some sort of reduced stipend, I can certainly set that to rights.”

  “And if he has her on no stipend at all?” Darius wondered aloud.

  Val sighed, closed his eyes, and leaned his head back while Darius came down beside him. “She’s lied to me, Dare.”

  “Not outright. Family situations are complicated, as we both know. She might have her reasons
, and things might not be as they seem. Maybe she’s hoarding her rents because she doesn’t trust Freddy, and you can’t blame her for that. Have a talk with her, discuss how matters will go on from here, and clear the air.”

  “You’re like her.” Val rose as he spoke. “You have this direct, brisk way of thinking things through that yields simple answers to complicated problems.”

  “Maybe the problem isn’t so complicated. Maybe you just need to eat some decent food, talk to the widow, and come to an understanding.”

  And Darius, damn the man’s skinny, handsome, genteelly impoverished ass, had been right. With a full belly, Val’s sense of upset had faded to something more manageable, until it occurred to him sabotaging his efforts at the manor might not have been aimed at victimizing him.

  In some convoluted way, scaring off the new owner, with his deep pockets, London connections, and titled family, could be a way to further erode what little financial security the widowed baroness had attained at Little Weldon.

  In other words, Ellen FitzEngle Markham might have enemies willing to go through Val to bring her harm.

  He kept that alarming thought silent and lectured himself sternly about jumping to conclusions, overreacting, and leaping to the worst case. Though his mental lecture lasted the entire time it took him to assist with glazing the new windows on the north side of the house, he was still pondering the possibility when the crews left, dinner with Dare and the boys was a noisy memory, and evening shadows stretched over the terrace.

  “Don’t stay out too late,” Darius warned as they stowed the hamper in the springhouse. “The boys have remarked on your late-night wanderings. And your wretched ugly self and your wretched ugly hand are in need of beauty sleep.”

  “Yes, Mother.” Val sauntered off toward the woods. “Don’t wait up.”

  Val took his time ambling along the bridle path, not sure what he wanted to accomplish on this visit with his neighbor. He wasn’t ready to broach the subject of the rents and her life estate, but he wanted to see her.