save us a great deal of time and logistical complications, and the stables, at least, are sound and in good repair.”
“Well, that’s settled,” Belmont looked around, his gaze traveling in the direction of noise most likely made by his children. “I will deliver a few paternal words of guidance, not because they will be heeded, but because Abby will expect it of me.”
“I’ll see to your horse,” Darius volunteered.
Val started after Belmont, only to find Ellen’s hand on his arm.
“Leave them some privacy,” she suggested. “Good-byes are hard enough without an audience.”
“And young men have surprising reserves of dignity.”
“I was more concerned for their father,” Ellen rejoined, smiling. “Perhaps you might suggest a visit to Candlewick in the near future?”
“I’d like to see the place. Belmont claimed it was in bad shape when he took it on.”
“And I am sure Mrs. Belmont would like to see the boys,” Ellen said. “But if we’re to keep them busy, you must tell me what exactly you’d like them to accomplish.”
They created a list, starting with the vegetable garden and including the transplanting of some young fruit trees from Ellen’s back yard to Valentine’s home farm. That property began with the meadow boasting the farm pond and ran along the lane toward more buildings and pastures in the direction of town. As he tried not to blatantly admire the curve of Ellen’s FitzEngle’s lips or the way her neck joined her shoulders, Val instead heard the melody of her voice.
It would take woodwinds—strong, supple, and light, with low strings for balance—to convey the grace of that voice. Or possibly just the piano alone, a quiet, lyrical adagio.
He pulled his thoughts back to the conversation. “Who works the home farm?” he asked as they watched Darius leading Belmont’s gelding from the stables.
“The Bragdolls. Or they work the land. The vegetable gardens, chicken coop, dairy, and so forth are not used. The manor has been unoccupied since before the previous Baron Roxbury owned the place.”
“I am not inclined to set all that to rights just yet. Your surplus is adequate for my present needs, and I won’t be hiring staff for months.”
“Get in as big a plot of vegetables as you can, anyway,” Ellen said. “Children can weed it for you cheaply, and you can sell the excess, if any there is. And if you hire staff even as late as next spring, you’ll still need a cellar full of food to feed them until next summer.”
“Establishing a working manor with home farm is decidedly more complicated than I’d envisioned.”
“You thought simply to restore the house,” Ellen reminded him. “That is a substantial project in itself.”
Val shrugged self-consciously. “I liked the place when first I saw it. I still like it, and I like all the ideas I have for restoring it to health.” It reminded him in a curious way of creating… music. Part craft, part art; part discovery, part invention.
“So what will you name your acquisition?” Ellen asked, looking past Val’s shoulder.
“What?” Val followed her gaze to see Belmont shamelessly hugging his half-grown children. “He’ll miss them.”
He wondered if his father ever missed him but dismissed the thought. Victor and Bart were dead, and Val had never heard His Grace admit to missing either son. A mere youngest son off to Oxfordshire was hardly going to cause the Duke of Moreland to fret or worry or pine for the lack of him—any more than Val was going to permit himself to pine for his piano.
“It’s Monday.” Ellen leaned in to lower her voice. “Suggest you’ll bring them to visit at Candlewick on the weekend, and that way, you can dodge services in Little Weldon.” She sauntered off, pausing to bid Belmont good- bye. From where Val stood, it looked like a punctiliously polite leave-taking on both their parts. When Belmont crossed the yard to join him, Val was still watching Ellen’s retreat with a less than casual eye.
After Belmont had taken his leave and a wagonload of goods from town had been properly stored, Val sat beside Darius in the afternoon shadows and listened and calculated and listened some more. In the back of his mind, he heard the slow movement to Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, a sweet, lyrical little piece of musical comfort that had nothing to do with nails, lumber, sagging porches, and broken windows.
Herr Beethoven, Val concluded, knew little of the realities of country life.
“What say we round up the heathen and finish the day at the pond,” Val suggested, alighting from their perch on the lumber. “I don’t think they’ll last much past dark, and I’m not sure I will either.”
“Swimming.” Darius affected an expression of concentration then hopped down beside Val. “That’s the business where you get wet and hope not to accommodate any leeches in the process. Wouldn’t miss it.”
With the older males following at a sedate pace and the younger pair pelting through the wood, all four were soon shucking clothes and diving off the dock into the pond. To Val, the scene was reminiscent of many summer evenings spent with his brothers. He set himself to swimming laps around the pond, searching for a sense of peace in the soothing rhythm of water and mild exertion.
“We’re heading back to start dinner,” Darius called from the dock. He was dressed only in breeches, his dark hair wet and slicked back, the boys similarly attired.
“Leave me my soap. I’ll follow shortly.”
“Soap?” Dayton hollered. “What about meat pie? What about cobbler? What about cold potato salad and biscuits with butter?” His brother lit out, leaving Dayton to give chase and Darius to smile and bring up the rear. When they’d left, Val swam over to the dock and pulled himself up onto it, content just to sit and appreciate the quiet as he dried off in the warm evening air.
Who would ever have thought the absence of music could have any redeeming quality to it at all? God above, Belmont’s offspring were loud. Val couldn’t recall himself ever being that loud, but then, he’d been the baby boy. The youngest and then the musical artist, the one most likely to be watching and worrying while his older brothers leapt bellowing from rope swings into swimming holes or tore off across frozen ponds heedless of weak ice or protruding rocks. They had yelled and carried on enough without Val adding to the din.
And now the loudest of them—Victor and Bart—were dead. Val brought his knees up, wrapped his arms around his legs, and lowered his forehead to his knees. The night was growing beautiful as the air mellowed, the shadows lengthened, and soft, summery scents floated on gentle breezes.
Grief was so tenacious a companion he wanted to scream it out into the silence. At least when he could play the piano, there had been a way to express such emotions, to air them audibly without something so ugly as a scream. He sat up, then stood, and dove off the dock into the water and washed every inch of his skin and scalp.
When he was as clean as soap, water, and effort could make him, he sat naked on the dock for a long time watching the shadows lengthen. Evenings were difficult, and he’d frequently survived them only by playing his finger exercises for hours on end. Mindless, technically demanding, aurally homely, they’d soothed him in a way nothing else did.
When darkness threatened to obscure the path home, Val rose and pulled on his breeches. It occurred to him as he gathered up shirt, socks, boots, and towel, that in his own way, he’d grown used to making every bit as much useless noise as the Belmont brothers.
Mr. Valentine Windham had troubles.
Ellen concluded this from her place in the shadowed woods and debated whether she should reveal herself or leave him to wander home in solitude. Coward that she was, she opted to guard her own privacy, lest he see from the look in her eyes she’d been spying for quite some time.
He had troubles, as evidenced by the hunch of his back muscles when he dropped his face to his knees. Troubles, as demonstrated by the long, long silence he held while evening deepened around him and he sat naked and utterly still on the dock. Troubles, as outlined by the leanness of his flanks and belly, the way his ribs and hips were too clearly delineated under his skin.
But God above, troubled or not, he was a breathtakingly beautiful man. Francis had been trim and capable of sitting a horse, but he’d never sported the kind of muscle Valentine Windham did. He’d also lacked Windham’s height and the sense of coiled, nimble power Windham’s body conveyed when it arched and dove cleanly into the water.
Those images, of Valentine Windham naked and still, naked and hoisting himself out of the water, naked and
