The Virtuoso do-3

by Grace Burrowes

  “And the lamp oil?”

  “It’s there.”

  “Where can I find your cousin Dervid now?”

  “He’ll be in the livery.” Something in her tone suggested the boy might be anywhere but in the livery.

  “Then he might want to watch us, hmm?” He was hurting her, but for his coin, she’d endure the hurt and afford him the pleasure of her wide, clever mouth. “Come along, Louise.” Freddy rose to his feet, tossing coins on the table. “And best be loosening that bodice of yours. I wouldn’t want to rip it when you earn your coin, would I?”

  He’d rip it anyway. Breasts like that begged for a man’s attention. Begged for it.

  And he was nothing if not a man, after all.

  * * *

  Val was smiling when he walked into the Rooster, mentally challenging himself to come up with another twenty terms for the male member. Ellen had laughed so hard the sound had actually filled his ears with music. Light, scampering melodies that would require lightning quick fingers with unerring accuracy—and be great fun to play.

  He paid for a pint and some purchases at the Rooster, posted his letters to family, picked up a few for himself, and stopped by the livery, letting the grooms know he’d one more errand before he’d need Ezekiel for his trip back to the estate.

  He owed Ellen, and in a way that didn’t feel exactly comfortable. She worked on his sore hand diligently at least once per day, usually more. Val himself had been increasingly conservative about using his hand, not quite willing to admit he had grown more hopeful in the past week.

  It was never going to be as good as it had been. Never.

  But it was better when he didn’t use it, better when Ellen worked with it. Better if he was careful not to fall asleep with that hand tucked in its customary spot under his pillow. So Val took himself to the apothecary, there to attempt compliance with more of the medical wisdom David Worthington had dispensed weeks ago.

  “Good morning, fine sir,” came a cheery voice from the back of the shop. It was a tidy little place but crammed to the gills with jars and bins and trays and sachets. “Thaddeus Crannock.” A little wizened man appeared to go with the voice. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. You’d be Mr. Windham, now, wouldn’t you?”

  “I have that pleasure.” Val smiled slightly, while Mr. Crannock produced a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles and fitted them over his ears—which were not pointed but perhaps should have been.

  “What might I do for you, Mr. Windham?” Mr. Crannock peered at his customer, looking like a turtle in bright sunshine. His neck was a leathery brisket, but his clothes were immaculate, if twenty years behind fashion.

  “I’m looking for a particular tea,” Val said, glancing around the shop.

  “Teas and tisanes are right here.” Mr. Crannock bustled across the room. “We’ve dozens of teas, and I can mix them for you in any proportion. The mints are very popular now, as is the chamomile, particularly with the ladies.”

  “And willow bark tea? Do you have a quantity of that?”

  “Oh, aye.” Mr. Crannock began peering at his glass jars. “When the fevers come in summer, everybody needs their willow bark tea. Bitter stuff, though it does the job.”

  “If you mixed the willow bark with this stuff”—Val lifted the lid of a jar at random and took a sniff—“would the willow bark still be effective?”

  “Why, yes.” Mr. Crannock looked pleased with his customer. “It would provided you let it steep. And that pennyroyal will soothe a bilious stomach.”

  “This is pennyroyal?” Val took another sniff. “It’s rather like spearmint, isn’t it?”

  Mr. Crannock nodded. “Aye, ’tis, but we have the spearmint itself, and peppermint and catmint, as well. Shall I blend some for you?”

  “Why don’t I take some of each,” Val suggested. “The willow bark and the pennyroyal, and some of this…” He sniffed the jar labeled peppermint. “And some chamomile.”

  “We’ve lemon verbena sachets, as well,” Mr. Crannock offered. “I expect you can procure those from Mrs. Fitz, since she provides the sachets to me.”

  “What else does she sell to you?” Val asked, still ambling around, sniffing a jar here and a sachet there.

  “Only sachets and soaps,” Mr. Crannock said, weighing out Val’s purchases. “I’ve asked her to grow me some herbs or grind me up some simples and tisanes. She won’t do it. Says it’s too easy to make an error.”

  “Is there really so much danger of making an error?”

  “Oh, my.” Mr. Crannock’s expression was horror-stricken. “You can kill a man with the wrong potion, Mr. Windham. The digitalis aids the heart, but too much, and the patient expires. Arsenic is just as dangerous. And if you don’t know your plants—the belladonna and nightshade, the mushrooms and toadstools—you can do the same again, and it’s not a pleasant way to go.”

  “So you’re sure you’ve sold me only harmless teas?” Val teased good-naturedly.

  “Don’t leave the pennyroyal around the womenfolk unless they understand what it is,” Mr. Crannock said. “It can solve certain female problems but cause others.”

  Val put his coin on the counter and picked up his purchases. “As I do not suffer female problems, I will not inquire further. Good day to you, and my thanks.”

  Mr. Crannock beamed. “Good day. My regards to Mrs. Fitz, if you see her.”

  Val left, wondering if that last happy aside was intended as a fishing expedition, a polite nothing, or a reflection of local speculation regarding Val’s dealings with Ellen. People, His Grace, the Duke of Moreland, always said, were going to do at least two things with unfailing regularity, and one of those things was talk. Val had been nine before St. Just had taken pity on him and explained what the second activity was, though the disclosure had seemed nonsense to a boy enthralled with his piano and his pony.

  Val repaired to the livery, finding Zeke tacked up and sporting a small keg trussed behind the saddle. When Val was in the saddle, the groom handed him a covered pie plate, a burden which required that Zeke be kept to a moderate pace.

  As Val made his way back to the estate, he found himself considering what the Duke of Moreland might say about Ellen Markham. Much to Val’s surprise, the duke had welcomed Anna James into the family on Westhaven’s arm, without a peep of protest or bluster.

  And what in the bloody, blazing, stinking hell, Val wondered as he approached his own lane, was he doing considering Ellen Markham as a marriage prospect? The improvement in his hand was encouraging, yes, but he’d known the woman only a few weeks, and she’d shown no inclination to seek a more permanent union. He’d swived her once—thoroughly and gloriously, true, but only the once. They were a long and difficult way from considering each other as potential spouses.

  Which nonetheless didn’t put the notion out of his head entirely. He was still pondering possibilities when St. Just met him in the stable yard.

  “If we cut this now,” St. Just said, taking the pie from Val before Zeke was even halted, “we can destroy all the evidence before the infidels come back from the home farm. Sir Dewey and Darius are making an inspection of the pond and can help us dispose of the evidence. Ale goes with pie. Put up your pony, Valentine, and we’ll save you a little slice.”

  “I will tattle to Her Grace,” Val said, swinging down. “I traveled six miles in a sweltering heat, paid good coin, and carried that pie back with my own two hands.”

  “Traveling uphill both ways,” St. Just added solemnly, “with a scalding headwind. Last one to the pond is a virgin with a little pizzle.”

  “Pizzle,” Val muttered, loosening his horse’s girth. “I forgot pizzle. That makes thirteen.”

  “You’re daft, Valentine. A man doesn’t forget his pizzle.” St. Just spun on his heel and headed for the trail to the pond.

  When Val—bearing the small cask and some tin cups—joined his brother on the dock, Sir Dewey was sitting on the planks, boots neatly to the side, feet immersed.

 
“So to what do we owe the pleasure?” Val asked as he started to work on his own boots.

  Sir Dewey shrugged. “Thought the king’s man ought to see and be seen. The local lads aren’t talking, and Vicar hasn’t heard anything of note either.”

  They both watched as St. Just set down the pie, straightened, and began to unfasten his breeches. “Tap that keg, why don’t you, baby brother? It’s hot out here, and we’ll need to wash down our pie.” His shirt followed, and he was soon standing naked at the end of the dock. “You have the prettiest pond, Valentine.”

  He executed a clean, arcing dive into the water, the movement combining grace and strength.

  Darius quickly followed suit, while Val merely swizzled his feet in the wonderfully cool water.

  “Are you always so quiet?” Sir Dewey asked.

  “I’m hearing a song in my head,” Val mused. “A sort of rollicking, triple meter that men might sing in German.”

  “A drinking song?”

  “To the Germans, if it’s triple meter and rollicking, then of course it’s a drinking song. Even if it isn’t, enough schnapps and beer, and it will do whether the piano’s in tune or not.”

  “There’s a decent piano in the assembly rooms over the shops,” Sir Dewey said. “The damned thing is sorely in need of tuning, not that anybody seems to care. It would serve for pounding out a drinking song and I’m sure you’d be welcome to use it.”

  “Why not get it tuned?”

  “Hire a tuner to come work on one instrument?” Sir Dewey scoffed. “Even in the enchanted confines of Little Weldon, the concept of economy is practiced to an art. Each year, I think they’ll simply inflict a pair of violins on us at the summer assembly, as the humidity afflicts the instrument badly.”

  “Who tunes your piano?” Val asked, swirling his feet thoughtfully. He was grateful, he realized, for the particular pleasure of simply soaking his feet on a lovely summer day while a merry little oom-pah-pah tootled along in his head.

  “I’ve had my piano only a few months, and because you so generously provide that it gets tuned before your delivery crews depart, it still sounds lovely.”

  Val looked out over the water. “Why aren’t we in the water, earning our pie?”

  “You’re not going to tune that piano for us, are you?” Sir Dewey observed softly. “Belmont said you hadn’t set foot in his music room, either, which is puzzling. You are Lord Valentine Windham, and if there’s one epithet attributed to you, it’s ‘the virtuoso.’ Your musical artistry precedes you even in the rustic circles I frequent.”

  Val eyed the pie. Lovely summer day, indeed. “Since when does the cavalry teach reading tea leaves and tramping around in a man’s head for a pastime, Fanning?”

  “I’ve heard you play,” Sir Dewey said. “It was at a private gathering at Lord and Lady Barringer’s last year. There were the usual diligent offerings and even competent entertainments, but then there was you, and the true art of a genius. I ordered one of your instruments the next day. You have a gift, Windham, and you likely deny yourself as much as you deny those around you when you don’t use it.”

  “Oh, likely.” Val started working at the cork on the small keg. “We artists are a complicated lot. Are you going in for a swim or not?”

  Sir Dewey drew his feet from the water. “When you’re willing to play for us, I’ll join you all for a swim, how’s that?”

  Val scowled, watching as Sir Dewey rose and gathered up his boots. There were implications there, about exposing one’s vulnerabilities, and trust and self-acceptance, but it was a pleasant afternoon; there was plenty of ale to drink, and Val wasn’t the least bit interested in tramping around in his own head, thank you very much.

  Particularly not when there was a very charming German drinking song rollicking about there already.

  * * *

  “How are things coming?” Abby asked as she turned Ellen around to undo the hooks on her dress. “And how did you get this thing on?”

  “You fasten it most of the way then drop it over your head, then contort yourself in a learned maneuver that takes years to perfect.”

  “I know that maneuver, and I know the tendency to choose practical clothing over the pretty. Shall I brush out your hair?”

  Ellen intended to politely refuse. Abby Belmont had a busy household to run, her stepsons would no doubt want to greet her, and there was a meal to get on the table.

  “Would you mind?”

  “Of course not.” Abby hung Ellen’s dress in the wardrobe and fetched a brush from the vanity, while Ellen took the low-backed chair before it. “When I was married to That Man, he thought I should not have a lady’s maid, claiming it set an example of sloth and dependence on one’s inferiors. The Colonel was so full of nonsense. You have beautiful hair.”

  “How do you reconcile that?” Ellen asked, closing her eyes. “How do you put up with knowing you were married to Stoneleigh for years, and in some senses those years were wasted?”

  “Like five years of widowhood might feel wasted?” Abby asked softly. “With regard to my first marriage, it was the only marriage I knew, and the Colonel wasn’t overtly cruel. But I am convinced, as well, years in his household gave me a particular independence of spirit and resilience.”

  “Independence of spirit is no comfort on a cold winter night,” Ellen said, her smile sheepish.

  “I didn’t know what all I was missing,” Abby reminded her. “I think sometimes, what if I lost Axel now, especially with the baby coming and the boys not yet off to school? God above, I’d go mad with grief and rage.”

  “You do,” Ellen said quietly. “A little bit, you do go mad, but the world does not take heed of your madness, and you must get up, don your clothes, tidy your hair, and put sustenance in your body all the same.”

  Abby leaned down and hugged Ellen’s shoulders for a long, silent minute, and Ellen found tears welling. She swallowed and blinked them into submission, but the intensity of the emotion and the relief of Abby’s silent understanding surprised her.

  Abby straightened and resumed brushing Ellen’s hair. “Axel says it’s like this: He loved his Caroline and so did the boys. In some ways, they all still love her, and that’s as it should be. He keeps some of her clothing in a trunk in the attic because they carry her scent.”

  As Abby spoke, Ellen realized abruptly that part of her misgivings regarding Valentine Windham stemmed not from her own duplicity with the man, or even fear of entangling him in her past, but simply from a widow’s guilt.

  Like sun bursting through rain clouds, it hit her that loving Valentine Windham, being intimate with him, did not betray Francis. Francis would want her to find another love, to be happy and to be loved.

  Love?

  Abby looked a little concerned at Ellen’s expression. “Perhaps I should not have been quite so personal on the topic of grief.”

  “Of course you should.” Ellen met Abby’s gaze in the mirror. “I am glad you were. It’s a topic nobody wants to bring up, and you can’t very well stroll up to the neighbors and tell them: I’m missing my spouse who has been gone for years, would you mind if I had a good cry on your shoulder?”

  “We should be able to, but we don’t, do we?”

  “I didn’t.” Ellen closed her eyes as Abby drew her hair in a slow sweep over both shoulders.

  “Maybe you did, a little, just now. Let’s put you in the tub and wash this hair. As hot as the weather is, it will dry in no time.”

  Ellen let Abby attend her, let her wash her hair, pour her a glass of wine while she soaked, and wrap her in a bath sheet when she was done. She hadn’t permitted herself this luxury—an attended bath—since Francis had died.

  Punishing herself, perhaps? Or maybe just that much in need of bodily privacy.

  “We can sit on the balcony and I’ll brush out your hair,” Abby said when Ellen was in her dressing gown, her hair hanging in damp curls.

  And Abby went one better, having a tray of cheese and fruit bro
ught up to go with the wine. They spent the time conversing about mutual neighbors, gardens, pie recipes, and the boys.

  “They are splendid young men,” Ellen said after her second glass of wine—or was it her third? “And I think having them around makes us all less lonely.”

  “Lonely,” Abby spat. “I got damned sick of being lonely. I’m not lonely now.”

  “Because of Mr. Belmont. He is an impressive specimen.”

  Abby grinned at her wineglass. “Quite, but so is your Mr. Windham.”

  Ellen shook her head, and the countryside beyond the balcony swished around in her vision. “He isn’t my Mr. Windham.” It really was an interesting effect. “I think I’m getting tipsy.”

  Abby nodded slowly. “One should, from time to time. Why isn’t he your Mr. Windham?”

  “He’s far above my touch. I’m a gardener, for pity’s sake, and he’s a wealthy young fellow who will no doubt want children.”

  Abby cocked her head. “You can still have children. You aren’t at your last prayers, Baroness.”

  “I never carried a child to term for Francis,” Ellen said, some of the pleasant haze evaporating, “and I am… not fit for one of Mr. Windham’s station.”

  Abby set her wine glass down. “What nonsense is this?”

  Ellen should have remained silent; she should have let the moment pass with some unremarkable platitude, but five years of platitudes and silence—or perhaps half a bottle of wine—overwhelmed good sense.

  “Oh, Abby, I’ve done things to be ashamed of, and they are such things as will not allow me to remarry. Ever.”

  “Did you murder your husband?” Abby asked, her tone indignant. “Did you hold up stagecoaches on the high toby? Perhaps you sold secrets to the Corsican?”

  “I did not murder my h-husband,” Ellen said, tears welling up again. “Oh, damn it all.” It was her worst, most scathing curse, and it hardly served to express one tenth of her misery. “What I did was worse than that, and I won’t speak of it. I’d like to be alone.”

  Abby rose and put her arms around Ellen, enveloping her in a cloud of sweet, flowery fragrance. “Whatever you think you did, it can be forgiven by those who love you. I know this, Ellen.”