departing on his piebald gelding, Val had felt a measure of relief to think the weekend would be spent in company. Somehow, sitting on Ellen’s porch in the evening darkness, he’d opened the topic of a different relationship with Ellen—a dalliance.
He’d meant to apologize for a year-old kiss, maybe, or to kiss her again. He wasn’t sure which, but he certainly hadn’t intended to baldly proposition the lady.
The matter had arisen unbidden, without Val planning to broach it. In his view, women as intimate partners were lovely creatures, like birds or pets or pretty house plants. They graced his life but were hardly necessary to it. When the occasional urge arose, he often felt it as a distraction from his music, indulging his sexual proclivities as an afterthought or an aside between the more fascinating business to be transacted at his keyboard.
He liked sex—he liked it a lot—but he seldom went in search of it.
And thus, he mused, he was probably no damned good at comprehending when he needed what Nick called a friendly poke, or how to arrange it with a minimum of fuss.
“You are quiet,” Ellen said. “Do you think of your brothers?”
“Every day,” Val said on a resigned sigh. It appeared they were going to brush up against this most uncomfortable topic again.
“It will get better,” Ellen assured him. “If it hasn’t already. You don’t just think of the loss, you also think of the good times and the gifts they left you with. You see the whole picture on your good days, and the ache fades.”
“Maybe. But it felt like I was just getting to that place with Bart’s death, which was stupid and avoidable, when Victor’s decline became impossible to ignore. And Victor and I had grown closer when Bart and Dev went off to war.”
She was silent for a moment as they strolled along. “I have pouted because I was an only child, but I never did consider what an affront it would be to lose siblings, particularly siblings in their prime, and siblings I was close to. I am sorry, Valentine, for your losses.”
He stopped walking, the emotional breath knocked out of him for reasons he could not consider. He’d heard the same platitude a thousand times before—two thousand—and knew the polite replies, but now Ellen’s arms went around his waist, and the polite replies choked him. Slowly, tentatively, he wrapped an arm, then two, around her shoulders, closed his eyes, and rested his cheek against her hair.
Frederick Markham was angry, and when he was angry his digestion became dyspeptic, which made him angrier still. A fellow needed the comforts of good food and fine spirits to soothe him when aggravations such as petty debts plagued him.
And because he’d gambled his last unentailed property away, there would not be as much rental income. What on earth had he been thinking?
The old place out near Little Weldon had been a ruin, true, but it had been, to some extent,
Else why would the man be pouring time and money into the place? Ellen was a young woman and technically entitled to live there for the rest of her days. She wasn’t a fool, of course—the income wouldn’t be hers regardless of what any deed said, but Windham might get to sniffing around the legalities and wondering what exactly was afoot.
Frederick’s hand absently rubbed at his chest, where heartburn was making him almost as miserable as the summer’s heat. Creditors would hound a gentleman to death. He scowled, eyeing a pile of duns on his desk. Perhaps it was time for a respite at Roxbury Hall, and perhaps it was time Frederick reminded dear Ellen of her priorities too.
It was Saturday, the skies were clear, and the roads would be deserted outside of Town. He bellowed for his curricle, bellowed for his valet to toss a few things into an overnight bag, then bellowed for his medicinal flask. If he was tooling out to Oxfordshire in this heat, he’d have to settle his stomach first.
“I’ve come to kidnap your hand again.” Ellen waved her little tin under Val’s nose. She’d knocked on his door very boldly about an hour after the household had risen from another very fine evening meal. It was full dark, the crickets were chirping, and Val had been resisting the pull of Axel’s music room with every fiber of his being.
“You may have my hand,” he said, stepping into the hallway. “Shall you drag me terrified into the night, or will you turn Axel’s library into a temporary prison?”
“Let’s go out. It’s a lovely night, and I am not used to such rich fare. Then too, I miss my gardens.”
Val offered his right hand, she laced her fingers through his, and within minutes, they were back at the gazebo, watching a three-quarter moon drift up over the flowers.
“You must tell me if I hurt you,” Ellen cautioned him. “I literally cannot see what I’m doing in this darkness.”
Val smiled at the thought. “I doubt you could hurt me, but do your worst.”
She bent to her task, her touch now familiar, the smell of the salve oddly reassuring.
“What can I do to repay your kindness?” Val asked as the soothing pleasure of her touch worked its magic. “You’ve given me surplus food that makes the difference between starving and maintaining one’s spirits, you look after my hand, and you’ve broken Belmont’s savages to the bridle. You really must let me do something for you, Ellen FitzEngle. I am as afflicted with pride as the next man.”
“Probably more so,” she observed, turning his hand over and starting on his knuckles. “But you must allow it does me good to be of use to someone else. For five years, I’ve puttered in my gardens, being not more than cordial with my neighbors and not quite included in with the local community. I like my privacy, but I realize it comes at a cost.”
“What cost would that be?” Val asked, wishing he could see her expression.
“I am expendable.” She said the words easily—too easily, maybe. “Widows occupy a niche in most villages. They look after children when others can’t. They attend confinements; they nurse the sick; they are involved in charitable endeavors if they have the means. Relax your arm, sir, or I will take stern measures.”
Val complied, trying to focus on her words without losing awareness of her touch.
“You don’t think you contribute as a widow should?”
“I know I don’t.” She shifted to stroke Val’s wrist and forearm. “I might be more involved, had I children, but I don’t. I am purely a widow, not a mother, a sister, a sister-in-law, a close neighbor, a shopkeeper.”
Val closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “Do you think you are more inclined or less than other widows to take a lover?” He sat forward abruptly and opened his eyes. “Forget I asked that and forgive me.”
“That isn’t a question one easily forgets,” Ellen replied, and Val was relieved to hear humor in her voice. “If it’s an oblique way of asking if I’m lonely, then you needn’t mince around the issue: I am lonely, and I miss my husband’s attentions. Perhaps I’m a snob, but I can’t see loneliness being assuaged by casual affiliations.”
Val shot her a frown and blew out a breath. She’d just articulated something he himself had long tried to put into words: Casual sex was only mildly appealing because in his experience, it might ease lust, but it only heightened loneliness.
Well, hell.
Hell and the devil.
“I think there’s something wrong with me,” Val said slowly, “because I am a man, and I agree with you.”
“You agree with me, how?” Ellen clasped his hand between both of hers, the warmth of her palms seeping into Val’s sore and aching bones.
