To Valentine Windham, each piano developed a particular personality. It wasn’t always possible to tell as a piano left his shops what the personality might be, but he could usually make an educated guess by playing the instrument at length.
So Val approached the assembly rooms, wondering who awaited him abovestairs. He found a little brown instrument sitting to the side of what passed for a stage at one end of the room—a piano, but likely some venerable forerunner to the small upright pianos growing popular for cottage use. It sat in shadows and a layer of dust, giving Val the impression of a little old dowager, forgotten in the corner, her lace cap askew, her fichu stained, and the light in her eye growing vague.
It took hours. She’d forgotten where most of her pitches were and wasn’t inclined to be reminded too sternly all at once. Val had to compromise with her on more than one occasion, for he could break a wire, strip a screw, or even—heaven help him—crack the sound board if he demanded too much too abruptly. So he coaxed and wheedled and badgered and begged, and eventually, she began to boast something close to a well-tempered tuning. Her tone quality was as gracious and merry as Val had suspected it would be, and he was pleased for her, that she could once again demonstrate her competence as she deserved.
“You’ve some music left in you yet.” Val patted the piano before putting away his tools. It was tempting—so terribly tempting—to try just a few tunes and see how she liked them, but he resisted. The entire village would hear him playing this piano, and it was bad enough they knew he could tune such an instrument.
So he put away the rags he’d used to clean it, the felt and tools he’d used to tune it, and carefully closed the lid over the keys. As he left the assembly rooms, he looked back and saw the little piano on the empty stage. No longer dusty, no longer quite so shopworn. It was the least he could do for a friend.
And to his surprise, leaving the piano to rejoin Ellen at his home was no more effort than that.
* * *
“Valentine?” Ellen’s sleepy voice called from her bedroom.
“Of course it’s Valentine,” he replied, not lighting a lamp. In the past week, he’d learned to navigate her little cottage in pitch darkness, because, while Ellen would not share the manor house with him, he would share the cottage with her. “And as soon as I get this damned thing unknotted, I will be there in that bed with you. I’ve missed you the livelong day,” Val went on as he made quick use of the wash water, “and not just at lunch. God spare me from London solicitors.”
“Were they here on your commercial business?”
“There’s always plenty of that. I gain more sympathy for my father as I age. Neither he nor I have any patience for the hours of meetings solicitors seem to think make civilization progress.”
“Francis abhorred that, as well,” Ellen observed on a yawn. “Are you ever coming to bed?”
“I am here.” Val climbed into the bed. “So what are you doing over there?” His arms came around her and drew her close. “I love you, Ellen Markham.” He kissed her cheek. “When are you going to tell me you love me?”
“How can you be sure I do?”
Val hiked a leg across her thighs. “First, you are sending me away. This is proof positive you love me, for you are trying to protect me from some sort of grave peril only you can perceive.”
Ellen’s breathing hitched, and Val knew his guess had been right. Gratified by that success, he marched forward.
“Second”—he slipped a hand over her breast—“you make love with me, Ellen. You hold nothing back, ever, and are so passionate I am nigh mindless with the pleasure of our intimacy.” He punctuated this sentiment by dipping his head and suckling gently on her nipple. She groaned and arched up toward him.
“I make my point.” Val smiled in the dark and raised his head. “Third, there is the way I make love with you.”
“And how is that?” She sounded more breathless than curious.
Val shifted his body over hers. “As if I trust you. I know you are human, and you will do what you think best, but you do it with my interests in mind, Ellen. I don’t have to watch myself with you, because you love me, truly. I know it. It isn’t the way my siblings love me, though they are dear. It isn’t how my parents love me, which is more instinct than insight. It isn’t the way my friends love me, though they are both dear and insightful.”
“So how is it?” Ellen asked, slipping her legs apart to cradle him intimately.
“It’s the way I want and need to be loved,” Val said quietly, resting his weight against the soft, curving length of her. “It’s perfect.”
“But I am sending you away,” Ellen reminded him, her fingers at his nape.
Val levered up on his forearms and began to nudge lazily at her sex with his erection. “So you’re running out of time to tell me the things that matter, aren’t you?”
If she was going to use words to answer, Val forestalled her reply by kissing her within an inch of her soul. Her response was made with her body, and to Val’s mind she told him, as emphatically as any woman ever told her man, she did, indeed, unequivocally love him.
And always would.
“What has you sighing?” Val asked as his hand stroked over her hair when they were both sated. “Missing me already?”
“Of course I’m missing you.” Ellen hitched herself more closely to him. “I will always miss you.”
“You might trust me instead,” Val said softly.
She remained silent, and for the hundredth time that day, his heart broke, and he battled back despair. “Ellen?” He kissed her crown. “The assembly is this Saturday. I’ll be leaving the next day, as will Dare and Nick.”
She nodded, offering neither protest nor argument.
Lying beside her in the darkness, Val heard a slow, mournful dirge in his head. It soared, keened, regretted and lamented, a soul-rending, grief-stricken blend of tenderness, discord, resolution, and heartache. It went on and on, hauntingly sad, and still, neither his musical skill nor his artistic imagination nor all his ducal determination was adequate to bring it to a peaceful, final cadence.
Fourteen
“Whose idea was it,” Val groused as Nick knotted his cravat for him, “to leave this benighted place the day after the local version of a party?”
“Some duke’s son devised the notion,” Nick replied. “An otherwise fairly steady fellow, but one must make allowances. He’s dealing with a lot at present. Stickpin?” Val produced the requisite finishing accessory, and Nick frowned in concentration as he shoved gold through linen and lace. He patted the knot approvingly. “You’ll do.”
When Val merely grimaced, Nick offered him a crooked smile. “Dare and I will get you drunk, and there will be all manner of eager little heifers panting to take a spin with the duke’s son. Shoulders back, chin up, duty and honor call, and all that. Darius is also waiting for us in the library, guarding the decanter.”
“Suppose we must relieve him.” Val sighed, and met Nick’s eyes. “Heifers don’t pant.”
Nick’s smile was mischievous. “Maybe not after a duke’s youngest son. After a fine new earl like yours truly, turned out in his country finest and sadly lacking his dear countess at his side, they will be panting, or my name isn’t Wee Nick.”
They collected Ellen, who was looking pretty indeed, in a summery short-sleeved blue muslin dress patterned with little roses in a darker blue. She’d tucked her hair back in a chignon and woven some kind of bright blue flowers into her bun. A white woven shawl and white gloves completed her ensemble, and Val was reminded she was, by any standards, still a young woman.
A beautiful young woman.
And she was nervous. Even as a baroness, she’d likely never had quite the escort she had to the Little Weldon summer assembly, with the son of a duke at her side, an earl’s spare, and an earl in train, as well.
Nick handed Ellen into Val’s traveling coach—the only one he’d brought out from Town—and rocked the vehicle soundly when he c
limbed in and lowered himself beside Darius on the backward-facing seat.
Between Nick and Darius, the conversation stayed light, flirtatious, and even humorous, but as far as Val was concerned, they might have been in a hearse, so low were his spirits. He heard again the dirge, violins over cellos, the mournful bassoon adding its misery to the mix.
He looked up to find Ellen watching him as the coach rolled into the village and Sean brought the team to a halt.
“If you give your supper waltz to anyone else, Ellen,” Val murmured as he handed her out, “I will spank you on the steps of the church.”
“Likewise,” she replied, her smile sweet and wistful. “But look, they’ve set up the dancing outside.”
Sure enough, half the green was roped off, the trees hung with lanterns, and a podium set up for the musicians. Val’s little dowager friend sat in the center of the podium, three stools behind her. Two violin cases rested on the piano’s lid, and a guitar case leaned against one of the stools.
Flowers sat in pots every few feet around the dancing area, and children were shrieking with glee as they darted between adults. Tilden manned a tapped keg across the street outside the Rooster, and young men congregated around him in whatever passed for their evening finery. A punch bowl was set up under a tree, and ladies were gathering there like a bouquet of summer blossoms.
“The assembly itself will be upstairs,” Ellen explained. “There will be food there, and a place to stow hats, shawls, canes, and so forth.”
“Just like a London ball,” Darius quipped. “But with considerably more fresh air.”
As the evening progressed, the good humor and energy of the dancers seem to increase. Rafe’s generously distributed summer ale likely had a great deal to do with the level of merriment, and Val was just about to find Ellen and suggest a discreet and early departure, when the musicians announced that the next dance would be a waltz. A buffet at the long tables set up on the other side of the green would follow the waltz, and the party would then move into the Rooster for the annual summer darts tournament.
A cheer went up, and Val ducked through the crowd to find Ellen standing near the stairs leading up to the assembly rooms.
“May I have the honor of this dance?” He bowed to her as formally as he might have bowed to any duchess, and Ellen dipped an elegant curtsey.
“The pleasure is entirely mine,” she recited, laying her hand on his knuckles and following him across the street.
He didn’t lead her to the dancing area, though, but to the side yard of the livery, which was quiet and heavily shadowed. As the introductory measures drifted out across the summer night, Val was relieved to find it would be an English waltz, the slower, sweeter version of the Viennese dance.
He drew her closer than custom allowed; she tucked against him and rested her cheek against his shoulder.
The little group of musicians made a good job of it, the violins lilting along in close harmony, the piano and guitar accompanying with more sensitivity than Val would have expected. But for once, when there was music played, he didn’t focus exclusively on the sounds in his ears, but rather, spent his attention on the woman in his arms.
“Talk to me, Ellen,” Val whispered as he turned her slowly around the darkened yard. “I leave tomorrow, you promised me answers, and we’re out of time.”
“Not now, Valentine, please. We’re not out of time yet, and all I want in this moment is to have this dance with you.”
He wasn’t going to argue with her, but tucked her more closely to him and wished the dance would never end. When the last notes died away, she stayed right where she was, both arms around his waist, her forehead pressed to his chest.
“Ah, damn.” Val stroked her hair and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Shall I simply take you home, Ellen? I can send the coach back for Nick and Dare.”
She shook her head. “Everybody would remark our departure, and while you leave tomorrow, I have to live with these people.”
Val rested his chin on her crown. “It should reassure me you’re not planning on haring off somewhere and not telling me.”
“Oh, Val…” Ellen’s voice held weary reproach.
“Let me take you home,” Val tried again. “It will give us a chance to talk, and I think we need that.” She owed him that was closer to the truth, in Val’s mind.
She stepped back then, and Val felt a cold, sinking sensation coil in his gut. “Ellen?”
“I know I told you I would explain,” she said, turning her back to him, “but does it have to be now?”
“For God’s sake.” Val ran a hand through his hair. “If not now, then tell me when, please? I will be on my horse leaving for London at first light, and the sun set an hour ago. We are down to hours, Ellen, and bloody few of those.”
“I know, but I don’t want to see your eyes when you learn what I have to tell you. I don’t want to see what you think of me writ plain on your face.”
Val stepped closer to her. “You are being cowardly and asking the impossible of me. You are not a cowardly woman, Ellen Markham.”
“Cowardly.” Ellen winced and crossed her arms. “I am merely asking you for patience. We’re at the local assembly, for pity’s sake.”
“You’ve had weeks, Ellen,” Val shot back, his temper rising through his frustration and bewilderment. “You want to send me off for what amounts to no reason.”
“I can write to you.”
“You won’t, though. Why in the name of all that’s holy can’t you just, in the smallest, least significant way, trust me? There’s nothing you can say or do or think or imagine that will make me stop loving you. It isn’t in me to do that.”
She shook her head, and Val saw the glint of fresh tears on her cheeks.
“Blazing hell.” He crossed to her and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m sorry, Ellen. I’m sorry I’ve made you cry, sorry I can’t be more patient, sorry you are so frightened. What can I do to make it better?”
She drew in a slow, shuddery breath. “Let me collect myself. The evening has been long, and we are both exhausted. You find Nick and Darius, and I’ll be along in a minute.”
Dismissed, Val thought darkly. It crossed his mind that the simple truth might be Ellen had tired of him, and out of misguided kindness was allowing him some dramatic fantasy of past bad deeds, skulking relations, and a cruel fate. What did he have to recommend himself, really? His title was a mere courtesy, his wealth garnered in that most unprepossessing of pursuits—trade—and his former abilities as a musician completely unknown to her.
By the time Val worked his way back to the green, he was relieved to see the party was moving into the Rooster. Children were still shrieking and larking about, the laughter and revelry around the punch bowl and keg were louder than ever, but near the musician’s corner, the violinists were packing up.
Bile rose in Val’s stomach as he took in the carnival that had been the summer assembly in Little Weldon. His world was ending, again, and The Almighty was seeing to it this misery befell him in the midst of a bloody party.
Movement by the doors to the stairs caught his eye, and when he discerned what was going on, he started over at a determined trot.
“For God’s sake, be careful!” It came out more loudly and more angrily than he’d intended, and Neal Bragdoll blinked at him in semidrunken consternation.
“We’re movin’ the pianna, guv.” Neal frowned. “Can’t leave it outside all night.” Neal’s brothers nodded agreeably, as if any damned fool could see what they were about.
“You nigh bumped the legs right off of her,” Val shot back. “If you can’t be any more careful than that, you might as well leave her out here for the rain and the dewfall to destroy her more gently.”
“Her?” Neal set his end of the piano down, and a moment later his brothers did likewise with their end. “This is a pianna, not a her.”
“For God’s sake,” Val nearly shouted, “I know that, but it doesn’t give you leave to wrestle
it around like damned sack of oats. You neglect her year after year, and still you expect music when you come to do your drunken stomping about, and then you can’t be bothered to take the least care of an instrument old enough to be your grandmother. There’s music in here”—he smacked the lid of the piano. “There’s craftsmanship you can’t even conceive of, there’s… goodness and beauty.” He stopped, and his voice dropped considerably. “There’s… something of the divine, and you just can’t… you can’t take it for granted and endlessly bash it about. You can’t do that, much less again and again and again. You just… you can’t.”
An awkward, very unmerry quiet fell, underscored by the continued sounds of revelry coming from the Rooster. Val looked up from the little piano to see Neal’s slack-jawed confusion mirrored on faces all around him.
“Lads.” Sir Dewey appeared at Val’s side, Nick looming behind him. “Let’s try this again and treat this piano like it was your grannie’s coffin, shall we?” Neal exchanged a look with his brothers, one of whom shrugged and bent to pick up his corner. Nick took the fourth corner, and the procession carefully moved up the stairs.
“You’ll want to see her situated,” Sir Dewey said softly, his hand on Val’s arm.
What Val wanted was for the earth to swallow him up and end this miserable, unbearable day. No music, no Ellen, nothing to fight for but a battered old piano that had been knocked about long before the Bragdoll brothers’ drunken buffoonery.
Still, Sir Dewey was looking at Val with a kind of steadying, level gaze, and what else was there to do, really? Val nodded and followed Sir Dewey up the stairs.
“There’s an ale for each of you gentlemen,” Sir Dewey said when the piano was back in its place. “Tell Rafe to put it on my tab.”
“Thankee.” Neal tugged his forelock, shot a glance at the piano once again sitting on the stage, and left with only one puzzled look at Val.
“You’ll stay with him?” Sir Dewey directed the question at Nick, who nodded and began moving around the room, blowing out candles. “I must return to the Rooster or there will be hell to pay within the hour. Rafe’s special blends are mayhem waiting to happen.”
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