The Virtuoso

Two

Valentine Windham continued to smile at her, an expression of concentrated regard that formed a substantial part of Ellen’s pleasurable memories of him.

“Mrs. Ellen FitzEngle.” Mr. Windham’s gaze—and his smile—remained directed at her. “May I make known to you the Honorable Mr. Darius Lindsey, late of Kent, come to assist me in the assessment of damages on my newly acquired property.”

Lindsey fell in with the introductions with the smooth manners sported by any well-bred fellow.

“You’ve bought this place?” Ellen kept both the hope and the dread from her voice, but just barely.

“I have acquired it, and apparently just in the nick of time. Do you often have to shoo away thieves and vandals?”

Ellen glanced at the scythe in her hand. “It’s worse in the summer. Boys wander around in packs and have not enough to keep them busy. There’s a very pleasant pond in the first meadow beyond the wood, and it draws them on hot days.”

“No doubt they are responsible for my broken windows. Perhaps they’ll be willing to help with the repairs.”

“You’re going to restore the house?” Ellen asked, though it was none of her business.

“Very likely. It will take a good deal of time.”

“Where are my manners? May I offer you a pot of tea, gentlemen, or a mug of cider, perhaps?”

“Cider.” His just-for-you smile broadened. “An ambrosial thought.”

“I take it you live near here, Mrs. FitzEngle?” Mr. Lindsey interjected as they left the carriage house.

Ellen gestured vaguely. “Through the wood.”

“Well, darkness approaches,” Mr. Windham said. “Darius, if you’ll bring the horses along down the track, I’ll escort Mrs. FitzEngle through the wood.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Ellen replied. “I know the woods blindfolded.”

“You wound me.” His smile—and worse, his green eyes—put a hint of sincerity in the words, leaving Ellen to feel a little flip of excitement in her vitals. Oh, God help her, her tame, tired memories of his single previous visit did not do him justice. Either that, or Mr. Windham had become even more intensely attractive in the year of his absence. Dark hair slightly longer than was fashionable went with those green eyes, and if anything, in the year since she’d seen him, he’d grown leaner, taller, and better looking than was decent.

“Despite the fact that periodic wounding keeps him humble,” Mr. Lindsey spoke up, “I must ask you to humor my friend’s suggestion, Mrs. FitzEngle. He will only want to inspect his wood come morning, in any case, so you are the ideal guide.” He spun on his heel and strode off toward the front of the house.

“You are looking well,” Ellen said, dusting off her long unused skills with small talk.

“I’m tired. Road weary, dusty, and probably scented accordingly. You, however, look to be blooming.”

“You mustn’t flatter me, Mr. Windham,” Ellen replied, not meeting his gaze. He offered his arm, as he had once long ago, and she took it gingerly. “I did steal a nap after my supper.”

“Did a handsome prince come kiss you awake?” he asked, matching his steps to hers. “Darius is convinced we’ve fallen into the land of the fairy, what with the rhododendrons, the bats in the attic, and the air of neglect.”

“You’re less than three miles from that thriving enclave of modern civilization, Little Weldon. I will disabuse your friend of his wayward notions.”

“Oh, please don’t. He’s having great fun at my expense, and the summer is likely to try his patience if he bides with me for any length of time.”

“You can’t think to live at the manor.” Ellen frowned as she spoke. She didn’t want him so nearby, or rather, she did, and it was a stupid, foolish idea.

“We’ll put up in the carriage house. It’s clean and serviceable. There’s a small stove upstairs for tea and warmth, and the quarters are well ventilated.”

“And the roof is still functioning,” Ellen added. They were passing through the woods on one of the more worn bridle paths. Nobody maintained the paths, but game used them, and Ellen did.

And nasty little boys did, as well.

She walked more quickly, all too aware that in these woods the man beside her had kissed her, only once, but endlessly, until she was a standing puddle of desire and anticipation. With nothing more than his mouth on hers, he’d stripped her of dignity, self-restraint, and common sense, probably without a backward thought when he’d gone on his way.

“Are we in a hurry?” her escort inquired.

“I would not want to leave Mr.…” Ellen searched frantically for his name. Good lord, she’d just been introduced to the man.

“The Honorable Darius Lindsey,” Mr. Windham supplied as they walked along. “His papa is the Earl of Wilton, with the primary estate over in Hampshire.”

“I see.”

Mr. Windham must have heard the cooling in her tone at the mention of a title, because as he and Mr. Lindsey sipped cold cider on Ellen’s back porch, he quizzed her on the tenants, the neighbors, the availability of various services in the area, and the likelihood of finding competent laborers in the immediate future, keeping well away from any remotely social topic.

“You’ll have to wait until the hay is in,” Ellen said as the shadows lengthened across her yard. “There’s help to be had for coin. Tomorrow is market day, so you can start getting the word out among the locals, and they’ll spread it quickly enough. How are you fixed for provisions?”

“For provisions?” Mr. Lindsey echoed. “We rode out from Town with saddlebags bulging, but that’s about it.”

“I can keep you in butter, milk, cheese, and eggs. Mable presented me with a little heifer calf not a month past. I was giving the extra to Bathsheba, since she’s nursing eight piglets, but she can make shift without cream and eggs every day. I’ve also been working on a smoke-cured ham but not making much progress.”

“You were feeding your sow cream and eggs?”

“Eight piglets, Mr. Lindsey, would take a lot out of any lady. It was either that or much of it would go to waste.”

“We’ll be happy to enjoy your surplus,” Mr. Windham cut in, “but you have to let us compensate you somehow.”

“I will not take coin for being neighborly.”

“I didn’t mean to offend, merely to suggest when the opportunity presents itself, I would like to be neighborly, as well. I’m sure there’s some effort a pair of strong-backed fellows might turn themselves to that would be useful to you, Mrs. FitzEngle.”

His voice was a melody of good breeding and better intentions, an aural embodiment of kindness and politesse. Just to hear him speaking left Ellen a little dazed, a little… wanting.

“We’ll see,” she said briskly. “For now, enjoy your cider. Moonrise will be early this evening, and if you’re staying in town for now, you’ll want to get back to The Tired Rooster before the darts start flying.”

“Tame gentlemen such as ourselves will need to be up early tomorrow,” Mr. Windham said, rising. “We’ll be on our way, but thank you for the cider and the hospitality.”

“Until tomorrow, then.” Ellen rose, as well, pretending to ignore the hand Mr. Windham extended toward her.

“Tomorrow?” Mr. Lindsey frowned. “Here I was hoping to malinger at the Rooster for a couple weeks waiting for building materials to come in from London, or darkest Peru.”

“Lazy sot.” Mr. Windham smiled at his friend. “I think the lady meant she’d be in town for market day, and we might be fortunate enough to see her then.”

“Until tomorrow.” Mr. Lindsey bowed over her hand and went to collect the horses, leaving Ellen standing in the gathering darkness with Valentine Windham.

“I am glad to have renewed our acquaintance,” Mr. Windham said, his gaze traveling around the colorful borders of her yard. “Your flowers make an impression.”

“I am glad to see you again, as well.” Ellen used the most cordially unremarkable tones she could muster. “One is always pleased to know one’s gardening efforts are memorable.”

“Until tomorrow.” Mr. Windham took her hand and bowed over it, but he also kissed her knuckles—a soft, fleeting contact of his mouth on the back of her hand, accompanied by a slight squeeze of his fingers around hers. And then he was swinging up on a big chestnut, saluting with his crop, and cantering off into the darkness, Mr. Lindsey at his side.

Ellen sat, her left hand closed over the knuckles of her right, and tried to think whether it was a good thing her flowers had left an impression on Mr. Windham.

It was a bad thing, she decided, for Mr. Windham was a scamp, and a scamp as a neighbor was trouble enough, particularly when she liked him, and his every touch and glance had her insides in a compete muddle. And while he might recall her flowers, she recalled quite clearly their one, very thorough and far beyond neighborly kiss.

“You are going to trifle with the widow,” Darius predicted as the horses ambled through the moonlight toward Little Weldon. The night was pleasant, the worst heat of the day fading to a soft, summery warmth made fragrant by mown hay and wild flowers.

“She is a widow,” Val said, “but I don’t think she’s that kind of widow.”

“What kind of widow would that be?”

Val ignored the question, more intent on a sweet recollection. “I was out here last spring on an errand for David Worthington, supposedly looking at rural properties that might be for sale. I accompanied Vicar Banks on a courtesy call to what I thought was an elderly widow who’d missed the previous week’s services. I saw a floppy straw hat, an untidy cinnamon-colored braid, and bare feet before I saw anything else of her. I concluded she was an old dear becoming vague, as they say.”

“Vague does not apply to Mrs. FitzEngle. Just the opposite.”

“Not vague,” Val agreed, He’d kissed the woman before taking his leave of her on that long-ago afternoon, an impulse—a sweet, stolen moment with a woman whose every feature left a man with a sense of warmth. She had warm brown eyes, a warm sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and hair a warm shade exactly midway between auburn and blond—cinnamon came to mind rather than chestnut. “She isn’t dreamy or given to flights but there is something…”

“Yes?”

“Unconventional,” Val said, though that term wasn’t quite right either. Her hands on his body would be warm too, though how he knew this, he could not say. “Ellen could be considered eccentric, but I prefer to think of her as… unique.”

Darius said nothing, finding it sufficiently unique that Valentine Windham, son of a duke, wealthy merchant, virtuoso pianist, and favorite of the ladies, would think of Mrs. FitzEngle as Ellen.

Val peered over the soffit as several slate tiles slid down from the roof on the newly constructed slide and bumped safely against the cloth padding the bottom of the chute.

“It works,” he said, grinning over at Darius, the only other occupant of the house’s roof.

“Of course it works.” Darius sat back on his heels, using his forearm to wipe the sweat from his brow. “I designed it. I don’t recall you ordering another entire wagonload of goods from town.”

Val followed Darius’s gaze down to the yard, where a farm wagon pulled by two exceptionally sturdy horses came to a halt before the house. A handsome black saddle horse was tethered behind, not one Val recognized. Val and Darius both availed themselves of the slide to get from roof to yard, causing the lead horses’ ears to flick and the occupants of the wagon to start whooping with glee.

“Settle down, you two,” barked the driver. “Lord Valentine will think he’s set upon by savages.” The man hopped down, along with the two lanky adolescents who’d been so enthusiastically cheering the sight of grown men sliding to the ground.

“Axel Belmont at your service.” The driver grinned, swiped back his blond hair with one hand, and stuck out the other. “Though you might not think so when I warn you my sons Dayton and Phillip have invaded your undefended borders with me.”

Val extended a hand, recognizing the tall blond fellow from his friend Nick’s wedding to Darius’s sister Leah just a few weeks past.

“Good to see you, Professor,” Val said, “and may I make known to you the Honorable Darius Lindsey, late of the roof, but whom you might have met at Leah and Nick’s wedding. How fares your dear wife?”

Belmont’s smile softened. “She’s much better, particularly now that I’ve taken the heathen off the property. Nick wrote that you were working on a project not an hour’s drive from Candlewick, and I have come to inspect progress.”

“We’re still very much in the planning stages,” Val said, though this further evidence of Nick Haddonfield’s friendly meddling was mentally noted. “We’re also glad for some company. Darius fears we’re going to be kidnapped by elves.”

“Boys!” Belmont’s offspring stopped in midpelt toward the house. “Get this wagon unloaded, and mind you put the contents in the carriage bay where they’ll stay dry. The first son of mine on that roof without Lord Valentine’s permission gets his backside walloped and has to learn how to tat lace.”

Loud groans, followed by reluctant grins, saw the boys reversing direction and heading for the wagon at a decorous pace.

“Spare them no sympathy,” Belmont warned. “Not by word, deed, or expression. Abby is teaching them how to charm, and between that and their natural guile, they are shamelessly manipulative.”

“They’re also at an age where they can eat entire horses, tack, and all,” Val mused. “But run all day, as well.”

“In the opposite direction of their parents, unless it’s meal time,” Belmont said, eyeing the house again.

“Come along, Professor. I’ll give you the tour. Dare, you want to come?”

Darius shuddered dramatically. “I’ve had the privilege. I can work on calculations while you lie to your guest about the potential of the place. Mr. Belmont, a pleasure to see you again.”

“Axel,” the blond corrected him. “Philip and Dayton are underfoot, and formalities are futile. A surrender of all but the barest civilities is the only reasonable course.”

“Your gutters don’t work,” Belmont said in patient, magisterial tones, “so the water backs up, sometimes under the eaves. If the squirrels or bats have been busy, that puts water in your walls or attics or both, and water will destroy your house more quickly than wind, snow, or most anything else save fire.”

“So I must replace all those gutters and spouts,” Val concluded, eyeing the seedlings growing in the gutters.

“You must subdue your jungle, as well,” Belmont pointed out gently as he ambled along beside Val in the yard. “I went through this same exercise when I married my first wife. Candlewick was in disrepair, and yet it was all we had. You prioritize and try to put each season to its best use. And you work your bloody arse off.”

“That much I am prepared to do, but other than the roof, what would you prioritize?”

They meandered the house, the property, and the outbuildings, exchanging ideas, arguing good-naturedly, and tossing suggestions back and forth. By the time they’d finished a complete circuit of house, outbuildings, and immediate grounds, the sun was directly overhead—as near as could be determined through the trees.

“Now comes the reason you’ll be glad we crashed your gate,” Belmont said. “Get Mr. Lindsey to set aside his figuring, or the locusts will not leave him any lunch.” Belmont retrieved a very large wicker hamper from the back of the wagon and bellowed for his offspring to wash their filthy paws if they wanted even a crust of bread. A picnic fit for a regiment was soon laid out on a blanket spread in the shade.

“Compliments of my wife,” Belmont said, “in exchange for getting her menfolk out from underfoot for a few hours.”

“Lunch!” Dayton and Phillip gamboled up, every bit as energetic as they’d been hours earlier.

“One of their nine favorite meals of the day. Sit down, you lot, and wait for your elders to snatch a few crumbs before you destroy all in your path.”

As food was passed around among the adults, Belmont continued speaking. “Day and Phil concocted a plan for Phillip to start school a year early so all five Belmont cousins could have one year at university together. Abby was enthusiastic about it, since it will give us a little time at Candlewick before the baby arrives and all hell breaks loose once again.”

“I didn’t realize you were in anticipation of a happy event.” Val smiled genially, but ye gods… Val’s sister-in-law Anna had just been delivered of a son, while the wife of his other brother, Devlin, was expecting. David and Letty were still adjusting to the arrival of a daughter. Nick’s wife would no doubt soon be in a similar condition, and it seemed as if all in Val’s world could be measured by the birth—imminent or recent—of a child.

“I find the prospect of parenthood…”—Belmont’s expression became pensive—“sweet, an unexpected opportunity to revisit a previous responsibility I took too much for granted.”

“He didn’t appreciate us,” Day translated solemnly then ruined the effect by meeting his brother’s gaze and bursting into guffaws.

“I did.” Belmont corrected them easily. “But as a very young father might. I am an old hand now and will go about the job differently.”

Val rummaged in the hamper, finding the topic unaccountably unsettling. “I put you at, what? Less than five years my senior?”

“We’re surrounded by duffers, Day.” Phil rolled his eyes dramatically. “The only saving grace is they’ve no teeth and can’t do justice to the meat.”

“You two.” Belmont scowled at his sons. “No dessert if you don’t make some pretense of domestication immediately.”

“Not that.” Day rolled to his back, letting his arms and legs twitch in the air. “Phil, he uttered the Worst Curse, and we’ve hardly done anything yet.”

“May I finish your sandwich?” Phillip reached for his brother’s uneaten portion.

“Touch it”—Day sat up immediately—“and it’s pistols, swords, or bare-knuckle rules.”

Darius accepted the pie Val withdrew from the hamper. “And to think, Valentine,” Darius drawled, “your mother raised five of these, what are they? Boys?”

“Demons,” Belmont muttered. “Spawn of Satan, imps from hell.”

“Beloved offspring,” Dayton and Phillip chorused together.

“Hush,” Belmont reproved. “I haven’t sprung Nick’s plan on Lord Val yet, so you’ve made a complete hash of my strategy.”

“Oops.” Dayton glanced at Phillip. “Let’s go check on the horses, Phil. You swear you’ll let us have a piece of pie?” He drilled his father with a very adult look.

“Honor of a Belmont. Now scat.”

They went at a run that nonetheless included elbows shoved into ribs and laughter tossed into the building heat. The sense of silence and stillness left in their wake was slightly disorienting.

“And you’ve another on the way,” Val reminded him. “I suppose you want to leave your beloved offspring with me for a bit?”

“How did you guess?”

“He’s canny like that,” Darius said, munching on a chicken leg. “And desperately in need of free labor.”

“Don’t kid yourself.” Belmont examined his hands while he spoke. “They will eat every bit as much as you would spend to hire such as them, but they do work hard, and Nick thought you might not mind some company.”

“Nick.” Val heaved a sigh. “He sent poor Lindsey here to be my duenna. He ought to be too busy with his new wife to meddle like this.”

Val understood Axel Belmont was being polite, offering a way for Val to accept help—and dear Nicholas’s spies in his camp—without losing face. Well… there were worse things than taking on a pair of adolescent brothers.

“I will be pleased to have the company of your sons,” Val said, opening his eyes and sitting up, “but we’d better cut that pie before they come charging back here, arguing over how to cut the thing in five exactly equal pieces.”

“Better make that six,” Darius murmured as his gaze went to the path through the woods.

“Six is easy,” Val replied, but then he followed Darius’s line of vision to see Ellen FitzEngle emerging from the trees. “Six is the easiest thing in world,” he concluded, helpless to prevent a smile from spreading across his face.

Ellen was wearing one of her comfortable old dresses and a straw hat. She was also wearing shoes, which Val found mildly disappointing. Since the day he’d first met her—barefoot, a floppy hat on her abundant, chestnut hair—he’d pictured her that way in his imagination. And though she was shod, today her hair was again down, confined in a single thick braid.

“You were drawn by the noise.” Val rose to his feet and greeted his newest guest. “Ellen FitzEngle, may I present to you Mr. Axel Belmont of Candlewick.”

“Mrs. Fitz.” Belmont bowed over her hand, smiling openly. “We’re acquainted. I am a botanist, and Mrs. FitzEngle has the most impressive flower gardens in the shire.”

“You flatter, Professor,” Ellen said, “but I’ll allow it. I came to see the massacre, or what surely sounded like one.”

“You heard my sons,” Belmont concluded dryly. “As soon as we cut the pie, you’ll have the pleasure, or the burden, of meeting them.”

“Won’t you join us?” Val gestured toward the hamper. “Mrs. Belmont sent a picnic as a peace offering in exchange for suffering the company of her familiars.”

“How is your dear wife, Mr. Belmont?” Ellen asked, sinking onto a corner of the blanket.

“Probably blissfully asleep as we speak. She will be eternally indebted to your neighbor here when I return without the boys.”

Ellen smiled at Val. “You’re acquiring your own herd of boys. A sound strategy when the local variety could use some good influences. That looks like a delicious pie.”

“Strawberries are good, no matter the setting,” Belmont rejoined. He drew Ellen into a conversation about her flowers, and Val was interested to see that while she conversed easily and knowledgeably about her craft, there was still a reserved quality in her speech and manners with Belmont. The professor was all that was gentlemanly, though he treated Ellen as an intellectual equal on matters pertaining to plants, but still, she would not be charmed past a certain point.

And this pleased Val inordinately.

Dayton galloped up, Phil beside him. “Did you see the springhouse? It is the keenest! You could practically live in there.”

“Keenest isn’t a word,” Phil said. “It has pipes and conduits and baths and windows and all manner of accommodations—the springhouse, that is.”

“And it’s spotless,” Day added, ignoring the grammar lesson. “You could eat off the floors in there. Hey! You cut the pie.” Belmont handed them each a slice, which—once they’d made hasty bows in Ellen’s direction—they took off with them, eating directly from their own hands, still jabbering about the springhouse.

Ellen met Val’s gaze. “You do have an impressive springhouse. I confess I’ve made use of it myself.”

“Impressive, how?”

“Come.” Ellen rose to her feet unassisted, causing all three men to rise, as well. “I’ll show you. Gentlemen, you need not have gotten up. I know all too well that on the menu for every summer picnic worth the name, a nap follows dessert.”

While Belmont and Darius exchanged a smile, Val offered his arm. He set off with Ellen in the direction of the springhouse, inordinately gratified that she would initiate this private ramble with him.

A few minutes later, Val’s appreciative gaze traveled over the most elaborate springhouse he’d ever beheld. “This is fascinating. It’s as much laundry and bathhouse as springhouse, and I’ve never seen so much glazed yellow tile.”

“Light keeps the moss and mould from growing,” Ellen said. “And what good is a laundry or a bathhouse that isn’t clean?”

The structure itself was stone. Water entered it halfway up one wall, falling into a tiled conduit divided up into a holding pool, then several lower pools, the last of which exited the downstream end of the building near the floor. Pipes allowed the water to be diverted into and out of copper tubs, one of which sat in sturdy hinged brackets over a tiled fire pit.

“So you heat water here and use this for the laundry tub,” Val said, pointing to one of two enormous copper tubs. “This other tub, without a fire under it, would be the bathing tub.”

“Hence, my use of your facility.” As she spoke, Ellen’s gaze was focused on the blue fleur-de-lis pattern decorating a row of tiles at waist height. “I wash my clothes here and use the other tub on occasion, as well.”

“You’re welcome to, of course.” Val glanced around at the pipes lest he be caught staring at her. “I suppose it’s you who’s kept the place so clean.”

“I use the farm pond in warm weather,” Ellen said, coloring slightly, “but when it’s cold, this little springhouse is a godsend. I never dread laundry day.”

“And you must not now.” Val shoved himself back to sit on the worktable beside the only door—the door he had left wide open in deference to the lady’s sensibilities. “What day is laundry day?”

“Thursday or Friday. Wednesday is market; Sunday is services. Little market is Saturday, if need be.”

“I ask, lest we attempt to use this facility on the same day. One wouldn’t want to intrude on a lady at her bath.”

“Or a gentleman,” Ellen agreed, this blush more apparent.

“I hadn’t considered the issue of our laundry. Working on the house, Darius and I will pile up a deal of dirty clothes.”

“It will be no trouble to toss in a few more shirts and socks when I do my own,” Ellen suggested, still not meeting his eyes.

“I will not allow you to do my laundry, Ellen.” Val shoved off the table and crossed the space to frown down at her.

“I will not allow you to use my given name without permission,” she retorted, her gaze meeting his then dropping. His arched an eyebrow but held his ground, peering down at her.

“Show me where this pond is,” he said abruptly, taking her hand and placing it on his forearm. “I love nothing at the end of a hot summer day so much as a good swim, and that will be equally true when I’m not playing… idling my days away indoors.”

“I did not mean to bark at you,” Ellen said as they walked into the woods. “I am used to my solitude here.”

“I have intruded,” Val guessed. “You hear us over here, like you did this morning. You heard the hammers and the sawing. The birds are quiet, and we are not. You sense movement beyond your woods, and it isn’t little beasts or even local boys. It’s change, and you can’t control it.”

And what was he going on about, as if he could divine her thoughts?

“And because I can control who calls me what, up to a point,” Ellen said with a slow smile, “you must ask permission to call me Ellen.”

“My name is Valentine,” he said quietly. “I beg you to use it and ask your leave to adopt comparably informal address when private with you.”

“Valentine,” she said, enunciating each syllable as they moved toward a break in the trees. “It’s a lovely name. It shall be my privilege to use it. And you must call me Ellen when we are not in the churchyard.”

“Thank you,” Val said, releasing a breath. “So this is your pond?”

“Yours, actually.” Ellen dropped his arm and hopped up on the dock that extended a good forty feet out over the pond. “I use it after dark, and the local boys use it whenever they please.”

“A pond should be used.” Val stepped onto the boards, as well, watching Ellen move to the end of the dock, her features obscured by the floppy brim of her hat. While she surveyed the tranquil surface of the water, he sat about ten feet from her and started tugging off his boots.

Ellen’s gaze lit on him where he sat. “You are going to soak your feet?”

“And invite you to do likewise.” Val tugged off his second boot. “Ellen.”

She surprised him by nimbly slipping off her shoes and taking a seat beside him. Their bodies did not touch, and yet Val caught a whiff of the lovely honeysuckle and lavender scent of her. She carefully hiked her skirts just a little and let her toes dangle in the water.

“My feet are going to love this pond.” Val cuffed his breeches to just under the knees and slipped his feet into the cool water. “All of me will love it, in fact.”

“You are a good swimmer? The far end is quite deep.”

“I am a very good swimmer. You?” He swirled his toes in the water, unabashedly letting her fix her gaze on his feet. They were big feet, of course, in keeping with the rest of him, and long, with high arches.

“I am competent,” Ellen replied, “in a pond. I would not take on the ocean.”

“Nor I. Who are these boys you despair of?”

He distracted her with questions for about the next twenty minutes, regarding it as time well spent in his efforts to set her at ease. They were going to be neighbors at the very least, and a man was hardly a man if he didn’t take a little opportunity to appreciate a pair of bare, very pretty female feet.

“You have guests,” Ellen reminded him. “I should not monopolize your time, Mr. Windham.”

“Valentine. And they are uninvited guests.”

“Good manners do not distinguish.” She lifted her feet from the water and looked around as if searching for her shoes.

“Here.” Val took his feet out, as well, and spun to sit facing her, cross-legged. He pulled his shirt over his head and held it over his lap. “Give me your foot.”

“My foot?” Ellen’s eyes were glued to the expanse of his chest. Val knew it was a chest that boasted an abundance of nicely arranged male muscle—mostly courtesy of years at the keyboard—and for a widow, it could hardly be considered a shocking sight.

“I’ll dry you off.” Val gestured with his makeshift towel, holding her gaze as if to imply he exposed himself like this to women every day, when in fact, he was by nature fairly modest. Cautiously, she leaned back on her hands and extended a foot toward him.

He seized the foot gently and buffed it with the linen shirt. He dried first one foot then the other, then tarried over his own feet before finally putting the somewhat damp shirt back on.

“Shall we?” Val had put his boots on and risen to extend a hand down to her. He’d left her no choice but to accept that hand and allow him to assist her to her feet. She didn’t protest when he kept hold of her hand as he led her off the dock.

A year ago, Ellen had taken him by the hand to show him the wood, a casual gesture on her part—Val was sure of it. She could hardly object that he was turning the tables now, lacing his fingers through hers and setting a sedate pace back toward the house.

“Belmont’s boys will be staying for a while,” he said as they gained the shade of the woods. “They’re good boys, but I think the professor wants to test out being separated from them before he must send them to university.”

“I’m ten years away from my parents’ house, and I still miss them both desperately. But I’m also relieved they’re gone in another sense.”

“Relieved?” Val stopped walking to peer at her. “Was there illness?”

“My father was quite a bit older than my mother,” she replied, frowning down at some ferns trying to encroach on the path. “He was probably failing, but I was a child, and his death seemed sudden to me. My mother wasn’t young when I was born, so I was their treasured miracle.”

“Of course you were.”

“And were you somebody’s treasured miracle?” Ellen asked, bending to tug at the ferns.

“I was one of ten such miracles,” Val said. “But I do not doubt my parents’ regard for me.” He fell silent on that thought, a little disconcerted to realize it was the truth. He had never doubted their regard for him, though he’d also never felt he had their understanding. He was pondering this realization when Ellen shifted her hand so her fingers gripped his arm near the elbow, which was probably prudent. They would soon be out of the trees, and he had no desire to rush his fences.

Though what fences those would be, he would have to puzzle out later.