The Virtuoso

Five

“What?” Darius approached the stall where his piebald gelding stood, a mulish expression on the beast’s long face. “I groomed your hairy arse and scratched your withers. I picked out your feet and scratched your withers again. Go play.”

Skunk, for that was the horse’s name, sniffed along the wall of his stall then glared at Darius. As Darius eyed his horse, the vague sense of something being out of place grew until he stepped closer and surveyed the stall.

No water bucket.

“My apologies,” Darius muttered to his horse. Of course the animal would be thirsty, but when Darius had left Saturday morning, he distinctly recalled there being a full bucket of water in Skunk’s stall. Val had taken the draft horses to Axel’s, leaving Ezekiel to fend for himself in a grassy paddock that boasted shade and a running stream.

So where had the water bucket walked off to?

He found it out in the stable yard, empty and tossed on its side. When Skunk had had his fill, Darius topped off the bucket at the cistern and hung it in the horse’s stall.

Resolved to find sustenance now that he’d tended to his horse, Darius left the stables, intent on raiding the stores in the springhouse.

“What ho!” Val sang out from the back terrace. “It’s our Darius, wandered back from Londontowne.” He hopped to his feet and extended a hand in welcome. Darius shook it, regarding him curiously.

“You thought I’d abandon you just when the place is actually becoming habitable?”

“We’re a good ways from habitable.” Val eyed his half-replaced roof. “I thought you might be seduced by the comforts of civilization. Particularly as I was not very good company by the end of the week.”

Darius offered a slight smile. “You are seldom good company, though you do entertain. Where are my favorite Visigoths, and can I eat them for lunch?”

“Come.” Val slung an arm around Darius’s shoulders. “Mrs. Belmont fears for my boyish figure, and we’re well provisioned until market on Wednesday.”

“So where are the heathen?” Darius asked when they gained the springhouse and Val had tossed him a towel.

“Mrs. Fitz has set them to transplanting some stock provided by Professor Belmont. Ah, there it is.” He took the soap from a dish on the hearth and plunged his hands into the water in the shallow end of the conduit. “Christ, that is cold.” He pulled his shirt over his head, bathed everything north of his waist, toweled off and replaced the shirt, then started rummaging in the hamper.

“We’ve ham,” Val reported, “and cheese, and bread baked this morning, and an embarrassment of cherry cobbler, as well as a stash of marzipan, and…”—he fell silent for a moment, head down in the hamper—“cider and cold tea, which should have gone in the stream, and bacon already cooked to a crisp, and something that looks like…”—he held up a ceramic dish as if it were the holy grail—“strawberry tarts. Now, which do we hide from the boys, and which do we serve for dinner?”

“We hide all of it. Let them eat trout, charred haunch of bunny, or pigeon. But let’s get out of here before they fall upon us.”

The boys having made a habit of eating in the springhouse, Val and Darius took their hamper up to the carriage house.

“For what we are about to receive,” Val intoned, “we are pathetically damned grateful, and please let us eat in it peace. Amen. How good are you at designing greenhouses with windows in the roof?”

“Could be tricky,” Darius said, piling bread, meat, and cheese into a stack, “but interesting. I’m surprised Ellen will let you do this.”

“She probably thinks I’ll forget.” Val accepted a thick sandwich from Darius. “I won’t. Between her butter and her cheese and supervision of the boys and her… I don’t know, her neighborliness, I am in her debt.”

“I was wondering if her neighborliness was responsible for reviving your spirits this past weekend,” Darius said, tipping the cider jug to his lips.

“She went with us to Candlewick,” Val began, but then Darius caught his eye. “Bugger off, Dare.”

Darius passed him the jug. “I see the improvement in your mood was temporary. I did hear young Roxbury eloped for his country seat. Seems our boy did not take his reprieve to heart but has been running up debts apace.”

Val shrugged. “He’s a lord. Some of them do that.”

“I dropped in on my brother Trent.” Darius passed over the cider jug. “He mentioned Roxbury is an object of pity in the clubs.”

“Pity?” Val wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “His title is older than the Flood, the Roxbury estate is legendarily well run, and he’s yet to be snabbled by the matchmakers. What’s to pity?”

“He has no income to speak of.” Darius withdrew a cobbler from the hamper. “If he remains at Roxbury Hall, he can enjoy every luxury imaginable because the estate funds can be spent at the estate, on the estate without limit. His own portion is quite modest, though, and the previous baron tied most of the rest up in trusts and codicils and conditional bequests. Seems all that good management is a function of the late baron’s hard work and the present army of conscientious solicitors.”

“That would put a crimp in a young man’s stride.” Val frowned at the last bit of his sandwich. “How fortunate we are, not to be burdened with peerage, though such a sentiment sounds appallingly like something His Grace would say.”

“Are you being sarcastic?” Darius took another pull from the jug.

“I am not. I see what Westhaven has to go through, now that he has financial control of the duchy, his life hardly his own for all the commerce and land he must oversee. It’s a wonder he had the time to tend the succession, much less the requisite privacy. And now St. Just is saddled with an earldom, and I begin to see why my father has said being the youngest son is a position of good fortune.”

“I’ve wondered if Trent shares His Grace’s point of view.” Darius said, relinquishing the jug again. “How soon do you want to get busy on Mrs. FitzEngle’s addition?”

“As soon as the roof is done. Probably another two weeks or so, and I will prevail on the Belmonts to invite her for a weeklong visit. If the weather cooperates and we plan well in advance, we should be able to get it done in a few days.”

Val repacked the hampers and left Darius muttering numbers under his breath, his pencil scratching across the page nineteen to the dozen.

The hamper in Val’s right hand he lifted without difficulty. His left hand, however, protested its burden vociferously all the way down the stairs. A morning spent laying the terrace slates had left the appendage sore, the redness and swelling spread back to the third finger, and Val’s temper ratchetting up, as well.

Ellen, blast the woman, had been right: Resting the hand completely apparently had a salubrious effect. Working it, no matter how mundane the task, aggravated the condition. Val eyed the manor house, deciding to forego his plan to spend the afternoon with the masons on the roof, and turned to make his way through the home wood.

He emerged from the woods at the back of Ellen’s property and scanned her yard. In the heat of the day she was toiling over her beds, her floppy hat the only part of her visible as she knelt among her flowers. Val stood at the edge of the trees, watching silently, letting the peace and quiet of the scene seep into his bones. Through the trees he could still hear the occasional shout from workers on the roof of the manor, the swing of a hammer, the clatter of a board being dropped into place.

In Ellen’s gardens, the sounds were a distant, mundane chorus, detached, from another sphere entirely. The scent of honeysuckle was more real than those sounds or the industry producing them.

She looked up, like a grazing animal looks up when sensing a possible intruder to its meadow. Val walked forward out of the shadows, knowing without being told she’d hate being spied on. Fear it and resent it.

“Good day.” He smiled at her as she rose, seeing she was once again barefoot and back in one of her old dresses. Her hair was in its customary braid, and old gloves covered both hands.

She returned his smile and Val let himself enjoy the sensation of physical warmth it bestowed on him. “Mr. Windham. I hope you’ve had a pleasant morning.”

“I most assuredly have not.” Val’s smile faded slightly. “Soames was, as usual, late with his deliveries, Darius is in a brown study about something to do with his brother, the Visigoths discovered the cobbler, and my hand hurts.”

“Come along.” She pulled off her gloves and held out a hand to him.

“I am to be taken to the woodshed for a thrashing?” Val asked as he linked his fingers with hers.

“You should be. You no doubt spent the morning mending stone walls, laying slate, unloading wagons, and entirely undoing all the benefit you gained resting over the weekend. You are stubborn, sir, but I did not take you for stupid.”

“That smarts a bit, Ellen.” Val peered at her, trying to ascertain if she were truly angry.

“Oh, don’t mind me.” Ellen sighed gustily. “I shouldn’t complain. Your excesses give me an excuse to get out of the sun and to hold hands with a handsome fellow, don’t they?”

She retrieved her tin of salve from a pocket and tugged him back across the yard to where the stream at the edge of her property ran next to a single willow. Pausing to part the hanging fronds of green, she led Val to a bench in the shade, one sporting both pillows and an old blanket.

“Come, naughty man.” She sat on the bench. “Lend a hand.” Val complied, bracing himself for a lecture when she saw the damage he’d done in a single morning.

“You must be in a desperate tear to finish your house,” she remarked, opening her tin and frowning at his hand. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Ellen?”

“Hmm?”

“Could we just now not take too seriously to task one Valentine Forsythe Windham?” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “It’s a pretty day, the morning was… disappointing, and I would enjoy this respite with you.”

She fell silent, and he let out a sigh of relief. Her hands on him were gentle but thorough, working all over his palm, fingers, and knuckles, up his wrist and forearm, and then simply clasping his hand between her two. The stream gurgled, the breeze soughed, a faint buzz of insects came from the gardens, and Val felt a pleasant lassitude replacing his earlier ire.

“You’ve worked magic,” he said, opening his eyes. Beside him, Ellen’s expression was grave, uncharacteristically devoid of the special lightness he associated with her. “What’s on your mind, Ellen FitzEngle? You look most serious.”

“I get in these moods.” She smiled at him, though there was a forced quality to it.

“Broody.” Val nodded. “All the Windham men are prone to it. Maybe you are tired? We were up early this morning, and I know I could use a nap. Shall we?” He stood and grabbed the blanket folded over the back of the bench. “If we spread it here, nobody will know Val Windham, Slave Driver and Scourge of the Huns, has caught forty winks with his pretty neighbor.” He flipped the blanket out before Ellen could argue then extended a hand to her.

“Just forty winks,” she allowed, glancing around as if to make sure of their privacy then lowering herself to the blanket.

“Twenty apiece,” Val replied solemnly then lowered himself to the blanket and began unlacing his boots. “Getting up at first light and abusing my hand all morning is tiring work. I can’t imagine taming your own jungle is exactly restful, either.”

“It is, actually.” Ellen regarded him as he popped up and retrieved a pillow from the bench to stuff behind his head. He stretched out on her blanket and smiled up at her where she sat beside him.

“This is a friendly forty winks, Mrs. FitzEngle.” He snagged her wrist. “Join me.”

She regarded him where he lay.

“Ellen.” The teasing tone in Val’s voice faded. “I will not ravish you in broad daylight unless you ask it of me, though I would hold you.”

She nodded uncertainly and gingerly lowered herself beside him, flat on her back.

“You’re out of practice,” Val observed, rolling to his side. “We must correct this state of affairs if we’re to get our winks.” Before she could protest, he arranged her so she was on her side as well, his body curved around hers, her head resting on his bicep, his arm tucking her back against him.

“The benefit of this position,” his said, speaking very close to her ear, “is that I cannot behold your lovely face if you want to confide secrets, you see? I am close enough to hear you whisper, but you have a little privacy, as well. So confide away, and I’ll just cuddle up and perhaps even drift off.”

“You would drift off while I’m confiding?”

“I would allow you the fiction. It’s one of the rules of gentlemanly conduct owed on summer days to napping companions.” His arm was loosely draped over her middle so he could sense the tension in her. “I can hear your thoughts turning like a mill wheel. Let your mind rest too, Ellen.”

“I am unused to this friendly napping.”

“You and your baron never stole off for an afternoon nap?” Val asked, his fingers tracing the length of her arm. “Never kidnapped each other for a picnic on a pretty day?”

“We did not.” Ellen sighed as his fingers stroked over her arm again. “He occasionally took tea with me, though, and we often visited at the end of the day.”

But, Val concluded with some satisfaction, they did not visit in bed or on blankets or with their clothes off. Ellen had much to learn about napping. His right hand drifted up to her shoulder, where he experimentally squeezed at the muscles joining her neck to her back.

“Blazes,” he whispered, “you are strong. Relax, Ellen.” His right hand was more than competent to knead at her tense muscles, and when he heard her sigh and felt her relax, he realized he’d found the way to stop her mill wheel from spinning so relentlessly.

“Close your eyes, Ellen,” he instructed softly. “Close your eyes and rest.” In minutes, her breathing evened out, her body went slack, and sleep claimed her. Gathering her a little more closely, he planted a kiss on her nape and closed his eyes. His hand wasn’t throbbing anymore, his belly was full, and he was stealing a few private moments with a pretty lady on a pretty day.

God was in His heaven, and enough was right with the world that Val’s own busy mill wheel slipped its cogs, and dreams rose up to claim him.

Val sensed when Ellen woke, sensed the change in her breathing, the wariness in her body as she sorted through impressions and regained her wits. He’d probably provoked her by shifting his hips back ever so slightly so his growing erection wouldn’t disturb her dreams.

He wasn’t particularly surprised to awaken aroused—Nature imposed a certain agenda on the slumbering healthy male of the species—but he was surprised at the pleasure it gave him simply to lie on a blanket with the inspiration for his lust. The feel of Ellen’s flank under his hand, the soft curve of her hip, the contour of her spine, for Val, they all became more alluring for being covered in the thinnest of cotton rather than revealed immediately to his eyes or his touch. The old blanket beneath them, the faint scent of lavender coming from the pillow under his head, the shift and sway of the willow branches, combined to imbue the moment with a precious languor.

He levered up slightly, tucked Ellen a little closer, and pressed a kiss to her temple. She made no protest, so he kissed her again, letting his lips cruise over her cheek, inhaling the rosy scent of her, drifting his hand along the flat of her stomach.

Was there any greater pleasure than seducing a willing woman on a lovely summer day?

Beneath him, Ellen opened her eyes and then closed them. In the brief glimpse he’d gotten of her mood, Val saw the dawning of pleasure, but something else, something a little sad or forlorn.

Gently, he shifted her to her back and maneuvered his body over hers. He kept most of his weight from her but put his forearms and knees close to her body, not quite trapping her but sheltering her. She lay passive beneath him, and he almost smiled at the challenge that presented.

“Touch me,” Val whispered, pressing a soft kiss to the side of her neck. “Put your hands on me, Ellen, wherever you please.”

He ambushed her impulse to argue by settling his mouth over hers and seaming her lips with his tongue. When she offered no resistance, he invited himself into the plush heat of her mouth, exploring the contours and textures to be had there and inviting her to do likewise.

She was slow to respond, and he liked that too. Liked the savoring and the need to pay attention to her. She was shy but moved her tongue over his and took his lower lip between hers. Val felt his shirt being tugged from his waistband and had all he could do not to rear back and tear it off. Her mouth carefully exploring his kept him in place.

That and the desire to press his body more closely to hers, to find that exact spot where he could wedge his cock against her sex and push, gently at first, to test her arousal and increase his own.

She understood, bless the woman, for she raised and spread her knees so her dress dragged up her legs and the cradle of her pelvis accommodated him more closely. The fit was good—too good—and Val knew a moment’s consternation as his body suggested that coming—right now, in his breeches, merely by thrusting a few times against the woman—would suit famously.

He silenced that thought and raised up enough to see Ellen’s face. She met his gaze and brushed his hair back from his forehead, her expression a little dazed and bewildered.

He couldn’t merely use her like that. Couldn’t live with himself if he did, couldn’t find any pleasure in it. None. He shifted to lie on his side beside her but kept a leg across her knees.

“Don’t…” Ellen frowned and caught his right hand, bringing it to her stomach.

“Don’t?” Val kissed her mouth then rested his forehead on her sternum.

“Don’t stop touching me,” Ellen said, her hand tangling in his hair. “Please.” She held his hand over that place in her body where Val suspected the emptiness gathered most intensely, where a child should grow but hadn’t. Where life should start but where, for her, it had stubbornly refused to.

He stared down at her, trying to fathom what exactly she was requesting—and what she wasn’t.

“I’ll touch you,” he said softly, “however you want, for as long as you want.”

But she wasn’t going to give him any more clues, so he began where he was, by stroking gently over her stomach. She closed her eyes and let her hand drift to the blanket, a small gesture Val took for a sign of submission.

Trust, even.

Through the thin cotton of her dress, he traced the crests of her pelvis, the contours of her navel, and the undersides of her ribs. She sighed, her fingers twitching on the blanket.

Lower, he surmised. She wanted him to touch her sex, and he was happy to oblige. His hand drifted to her thighs, and Ellen opened her eyes long enough to meet his gaze. He saw acceptance there and knew he’d guessed right. She wanted him to touch her intimately, and yet she couldn’t ask for it overtly.

He held her gaze as he gradually slid the material of her dress up, until it lay across her thighs, shielding her sex from his view but not from his touch. He leaned in and kissed her, not a polite, teasing kiss that invited and dallied and flirted. This was a kiss of possession and arousal and challenge, informing her in no uncertain terms where he intended to take her and demanding she acknowledge the destination.

She tugged at his shirt again, her body coming slowly alive under his. He broke the kiss only long enough to let her pull his shirt over his head, and then he was back, his chest arched over hers, his mouth sealed to hers. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him closer, her grip surprisingly strong when he resisted slightly.

“Valentine,” she chided, physically urging him to give her some of his weight.

“Behave,” he growled back, angling his body only partly over hers. His hand covered her breast, and she went still, a shiver going through her body. Carefully, he closed his hand over the soft fullness, and she turned her face into his shoulder.

“Tell me.” He repeated the caress, watching her carefully. She was so quiet, so focused, he honestly could not determine if she was enjoying it, until she arched her back, pressing herself into his hand, and he had his answer. As he shaped and stroked and teased, he wondered if her precious baron had ever thought to pleasure his wife, or if Ellen had been deprived of the most basic accommodation between spouses for the entire five years of her marriage.

She made a soft sound in the back of her throat, and her hand closed over his, asking him to touch her more assertively. Gently, Val disentangled their fingers and untied the bows at her bodice. It was the work of a moment to loosen the front of her dress and ease the décolletage and chemise down, so the fullness of her breasts was exposed to the soft summer air.

No stays. God bless the woman; in this heat, toiling in her garden, she’d not worn stays.

“Valentine.” Ellen’s voice was faintly questioning but not scolding, and Val looked up to see her watching him soberly as he beheld her naked breasts.

“You are beautiful.” He leaned in and kissed the slope of one pale treasure. “Lovely.” He slid his mouth down to nuzzle the underside. “Breathtaking.” He grazed his mouth along the furled pink flesh of her nipple. “Beyond glorious.” He settled his mouth over her and felt her whole body gather itself toward the sensation as he drew on her softly.

She arched up and pressed his hand to her other breast, hard, beseechingly, and Val understood that at least five years of sexual solitude was driving this surrender on her part. She was in a torment of longing and asking him for relief.

It humbled him and gave him the determination to ignore the feel of her hand slipping down his back to dive into the waistband of his breeches, pulling him closer, begging him to cover her with his weight.

He’d be lost if he allowed that. Beyond control, hopelessly cast to the winds of his own pleasures. He eased his hand from her breast and stroked down her body, provoking an undulation of Ellen’s torso that turned into a subtle, rhythmic press of her body against his.

“Part your legs for me,” he whispered against her heart. “Just a little. Let me touch you.”

He had to nudge at her thighs with his hand before his words bore fruit, but then she complied, her legs falling open in a boneless, welcoming sprawl. God in heaven, what he wouldn’t give to settle himself between those thighs and start…

He would not trade her satisfaction for his own. Would not, so he let his hand stroke up Ellen’s thigh by slow degrees, ready for her to stop him, as wanting and allowing oneself to have were two different things. His mouth at her breast no doubt quelled some of the last-minute clamorings of her conscience, and perhaps the feel of his erection pressed against her hip obliterated the rest.

Ellen’s hand stroking his face went still as Val’s fingers brushed over her curls. Soft, springy, he wished with all his heart he could see what he was touching, what he was parting and caressing and tactilely treasuring.

“Lovely,” he whispered again, drawing a finger up the crease of her sex. She involuntarily drew her legs together, not to shut him out, he knew, but to brace herself against the pleasure.

“Let me,” he murmured, repeating the caress. “Let me give you this.”

Her gaze when he met it this time was clouded with desire, though bewilderment was there, as well. Her legs eased apart, and Val knew a spike of possessiveness and a sense he’d breached the last of her defenses. He tucked her tightly against him and resettled his hand over her sex.

“Hold on to me.” He kissed her palm and set it on the back of his neck then cradled her sex firmly, so she’d have no illusions. He could not hold out much longer, but he was damned if he’d leave her hanging, so he eased his fingers up to the apex of her sex and found the seat of her pleasure.

“Hold tight,” he reminded her, drifting his fingers over her. She shivered and clutched at him reflexively then clung as he set up a rhythm. When he felt her body beginning to hum with arousal, he eased off, teasing her with shallow penetrations of first one then two fingers.

“Valentine.” It came out as a moan, burdened with frustration and desire and such pure longing, Val’s own arousal spiked again.

He leaned in, took her nipple in his mouth, and drew hard, letting his hand work her firmly in the same rhythm. In moments, she bowed up, pleasure wracking her then drawing her more tightly still. Val drove her relentlessly higher, giving quarter with neither hand nor mouth nor body. Before her pleasure waned, her tears were wet on his chest, her nails had scored his back, and her leg had snaked tightly around his hips.

She’d stunned him, blown to pieces his notions of what pleasing a woman meant, and torn at his composure. He shifted off her and cursed his clumsy left hand, but somehow managed to get one side of his falls and three buttons on the second side undone. Ellen burrowed into his embrace, hiding her face against his chest when Val wanted desperately to see her expression. She seemed upset, but a lack of familiarity with his partner, her shyness, and his own pounding, unsatisfied lust conspired to render Val incapable of frustrating himself further.

But given that she’d been celibate for five years, neither could he merely heave himself over her and start rutting.

Self-gratification for Val had always tidily restored the balance of his bodily humors. It left him feeling relaxed, in charity with life, and best of all, it took only a few minutes.

As his hand closed around his swollen cock, he sensed dimly there would be nothing tidy about it this time, not with Ellen panting and sated beside him, and lust igniting at the base of his spine like a lightning strike.

Just brushing his hand over the glans of his erection was enough to make his breath seize in his chest. Four strokes along the length of his shaft, and his ears roared, his vision dimmed, and his entire awareness converged on cataclysmic spasms of pleasure radiating from his cock to his balls, and outward to every particle of his being. His body shook with it, until he comprehended for the first time in his life why an orgasm could be called a little death.

When it was over, he lay dazed, very indelicately untidy, and heaving like a race horse. Ellen was wrapped against his left side, her face pressed against his shoulder, and Val knew only that he had to hold her soon. Had to.

He fished in his right pocket for his handkerchief and tried to clean up the mess he’d created on his belly and chest. Gently extricating himself from Ellen, he crawled down the blanket until he could dip his handkerchief in the stream then tried again to put himself to rights. He rinsed, dipped, and squeezed out the hankie, and sat back on his heels, head nearly spinning from that simple exertion.

Ellen’s feet, dusty, elegant, and bare, came into his view, and he had to stifle the urge to kiss them. He sat there, his body humming, until he realized Ellen was propped on her elbows, bodice loosely drawn over her breasts, watching him curiously.

“Valentine, what are you doing?” Her tone was so rife with affection and befuddlement, Val almost blushed.

“I don’t know.”

“Let me hold you.” She smiled at him, stole his pillow, and lay back, clearly confident he would comply.

He rinsed his handkerchief again then crawled back up to her side and slid an arm under her neck. She scooted closer and wrapped her arms around him, urging him down until his cheek was pillowed on her breast.

“Are you all right?” he asked, lacing their hands and resting them on her stomach.

She tucked her face against his temple and shook her head.

“Well, neither am I,” Val confessed, his tone conveying both pleasure and confusion. He was… torn. Wracked between profound contentment and a need to be closer to her; between feeling utterly drained and perfectly satisfied. Between confusion that he should have experienced such intensity of sensation when not even having intercourse and the certain knowledge that with Ellen, intensity would be the norm.

“I will be all right,” Ellen said softly, “but you have quite, quite knocked me off my pins in a manner that puts new meaning in the term.”

“Quite, quite,” Val murmured, nuzzling her breast. “I am off my pins, as well, then; in fact, my pins are scattered from here to blazing Halifax.”

“You’re well rid of them.” Ellen kissed his cheek.

Val levered up onto his elbow and peered down at her. “Are you all right? You cried.”

She ran her fingers over his jawbone. “Sometimes one cries for relief and for sheer… wonderment.”

Val nodded, somewhat reassured—he was suffering a case of wonderment himself. “I did not come over here today thinking to seduce you.”

“And for that, I can be grateful. Your spontaneous efforts were impressive enough.” Val felt her sigh against his cheek.

“It wasn’t enough.” This bothered him exceedingly. “I didn’t even make love to you properly, and you deserve at least that.”

“You are not the judge of what I deserve,” Ellen said, sounding smug and replete. “I was married for five years, Valentine, and did not merit the kind of pleasure you just visited upon me.”

“Five years?” Val grimaced, not knowing if he should thank old Francis for his ineptitude or castigate the lazy bugger.

“I will not discuss it,” Ellen warned him.

“Of course not.” But five years? “You inspire me, Ellen. That is a warning, by the way.”

“I am too content to be alarmed by it,” Ellen said, but then she fell silent.

Val traced a finger down her nose. “Your mill wheel is back in motion.”

“Spinning freely,” she agreed, turning her face into his palm. “So this is your idea of forty winks?”

“Twenty apiece. But having had my twenty, I now want to stay and poach another forty.”

“You shall not.” She framed his face with her hands and leaned up to kiss him soundly on the mouth. “I might want you to, but we’ve borrowed enough time and privacy from fate, and the afternoon is advancing.”

“I am devastated.” Val rolled to his back, taking her with him against his side. “To think mere moments after I’ve pleasured you, you can hop up, slip on your hat and gloves, and go back to weeding your lilies of the field.”

“You mustn’t be.” Ellen propped herself on her elbow to regard him solemnly. “Think of it as running away to someplace where I can regain my balance, Valentine, and catch my breath. You really have… disconcerted me.”

He smiled at her, understanding all too well what she meant. Oh, he wanted to kiss and cuddle and swive her silly, but he wanted to make sense of what had passed between them, as well. Or try to.

“If you insist on driving me away, could you at least help me with my falls first? I’m not as dexterous as I’d like with the buttons.”

“Hold still.” Ellen sat up and gazed down at him. His genitals were exposed to her view, which he’d known damned well when he’d made the request. Her gaze flew to his, and he gave her his best slumberous, heavy-lidded expression.

“How does one…?” She waved a hand at his groin, a blush creeping up her neck.

“You just tuck me up, Ellen. Then do up the buttons.” He waited, realizing however much Ellen Markham had loved her husband, they’d had a very restrained passion between them, at best. Tentatively, her fingers encircled his flaccid length.

“It’s unassumingly soft now,” she murmured. “Wilted.” She stretched him gently and glanced at him for further permission.

“You keep that up,” Val warned her, “and I’ll regain my starch in very short order. Your touch feels lovely.”

That prompted her to shift to a brisk, businesslike organizing of his parts in his smalls, then a deft buttoning of his falls.

“There.” She gave him an incongruously self-satisfied pat on the cock through his breeches, and Val realized just touching his wilted self in the broad light of day had taken all of Ellen’s considerable courage.

Ye bloody blazing gods, he would adore being her lover. Adore her.

“And now I will put you to rights,” Val said, sitting up and stealing a kiss before she could protest. “Hold still.”

He took his time, letting the backs of his hands brush against her nipples often and intentionally, until she batted his hands away and finished tying her own bodice laces.

“You are a naughty, ruthless man,” she accused, tossing the pillow back up onto the bench. “Help me shake out this blanket.”

Val rose first and helped her to her feet, resisting the temptation to draw her into his arms. If he yielded to his impulses, he’d hold her until winter descended and drove them inside, then hold her by the blazing hearth. The notion surprised him but wasn’t as alarming as it should have been.

Before she could don her wide-brimmed hat and leave the sanctuary of their willow bower, Val did wrap his arms around her again, this time positioning his body behind hers.

“I will come back after dark,” he whispered, “if you’ll allow it.”

She went still, and he knew a moment’s panic. “Talk to me, Ellen.” He kissed her cheek. “Just be honest.”

“My… tonight might not be a good time.”

“Sweetheart…” Val let her go and turned her to face him. “I will not force myself on you, I just want… I want to see you.”

To make sure she was all right, whatever that meant in the odd, new context in which he was trying to define the term. She must have sensed his bewilderment, because she turned away and spoke to him from over her shoulder.

“My courses are due.”

Val cocked his head. “So you become unfit company? Do you have the megrims and cramps and melancholy? Eat chocolates by the tin? Take to your bed?”

“Sometimes.” Ellen peered at him, her expression guarded.

“Then I will comfort you. I’ll cuddle you up and bring you tisanes and rub your back and your feet. I’ll read to you and beat you at cards and bring you hot-water bottles for your aches.”

Ellen’s brows knit. “I truly am poor company at such times and usually before such times, as well.”

“You are poor company for people who expect you to play on without missing a note, perhaps,” Val replied, holding her gaze. “May we sit a moment?”

She nodded but had gone too shy even to meet his eyes.

“My Uncle Tony’s wife,” Val said, wrapping an arm around Ellen’s shoulders, “is blunt to a fault. She told me relations with Tony were the best way to ease her cramps.”

“Valentine!” Ellen hid her face against his shoulder. “Surely you wouldn’t want to…?”

“What I want makes little difference. If you wanted, though, I’d be pleased to be with you. My point is I enjoy your company, Ellen. You are more than a willing and lovely body to me, and just because I appear on your back porch, that doesn’t mean I expect you to be sexually available to me.”

Ellen lifted her face to regard him closely. “But what is a dalliance if not… physically intimate?”

“It’s what we make of it. I likely have less experience with these things than you think I do, but I will not engage in a liaison with you that is not first and last a friendship. If your priorities are different, you had best tell me now before matters progress.”

Ellen peered at him, frowning, and he could positively hear her gears whizzing. “If matters between us… proceed”—she looked at their hands—“if they do, I will not trifle with you. I will not share my affections with you and then offer them to others while we are yet intimate. I will not betray your confidences.”

“You honor me,” Val said softly, his hand cradling her cheek. “I will try to be worthy of that honor, though I know I don’t deserve it. And since you have been so brave as to put into words the promises I would never, ever seek aloud, I will screw up my courage and give them back to you. I will not trifle with you, Ellen FitzEngle Markham, Baroness Roxbury. I will not share my affections with you then offer them to others while we are yet intimate. I will do my best not to betray your confidences or your trust.”

When Val rose, kissed her cheek, and slipped away through the trees, Ellen remained on the bench, recalling as many precious details of this first, new happy memory as she could. Hope notwithstanding, the memory might have to last her a long, long time.

Her peace was destroyed not ten minutes later when Val’s warning shout sliced through the woods like a rifle shot, followed by the unmistakable sound of something very heavy shattering into a thousand pieces.