close, not like the Belmonts are.”
“I think few couples are, but you said they disabused you of several illusions.” Val made no move to dissuade her from her explorations—for that’s what they were. “The first being they reminded you your marriage was not perfect.”
“The second being that I am happy here in my gardens with no social life, no real friends, and only a trip to market or church to mark the passing of my days and weeks and years.”
“You are lonely.”
“Lonely.” Ellen sighed against his throat. “Also just… inconsequential.”
“We’re all inconsequential. The Regent himself can drop over dead, and the world will keep spinning in the very same direction, but I know something of what you mean.”
“You can’t know what I mean,” Ellen muttered, unbuttoning enough of his shirt that she could lay her cheek on his bare chest. “You have employees at your manufactories, you’ve mentioned brothers, Mr. Lindsey is attached to you, and the Belmonts are your friends. You talk about this Nick fellow, and your viscount physician friend and his wife. You have people, Valentine, lots and lots of people.”
“I’m from a very large family. Lots and lots of people feels natural to me.” But as he reflected on her words, Val realized he hadn’t been quite honest. For all he did have a lot of people, he still felt as Ellen did, isolated and marginal. While he pondered that paradox, he felt Ellen’s fingers undoing his shirt further, until her thumb brushed over his nipple and her cheek lay over his heart.
“Ellen FitzEngle Markham, you are too young and too lovely not to have some pleasures in your life. Your entire existence can’t be about flowers and beans and waving off the nasty boys with your broom.”
“And your entire existence can’t be about slates and shells and bills of lading.”
“Which is why”—Val hugged her close—“we will be pleased to accept the Belmont’s hospitality this weekend, right?”
“Right.” Ellen capitulated with only a hint of truculence in her tone. But then she drew back, peering at Val’s features in the moonlight. “How did your visit to Great Weldon go today?”
“Oh, that.” Val closed his eyes. “Cheatham wasn’t in, and I’m not sure what he’d have to tell me of any use, as his loyalties will clearly lie with Freddy and the Roxbury estate.”
Ellen said nothing but subsided into his embrace. Val gradually drifted off to sleep, leaving Ellen to ponder his answer as the crickets chirped and the breeze stirred gently through the trees. She’d dreaded asking the question and feared to hear his answer. Depending on Cheatham’s discretion, she might have been revealed in the very worst possible light.
But her fears had been for naught. Val had learned nothing, and so she had a reprieve. Maybe in the little time fate had given her, she’d somehow find the courage to tell the man the truth, for surely somebody in the shire—the tenants, the local boys, the well-meaning gossips at the Rooster,
“Where’s your kit?” Axel asked as he and Val repaired to the airy, high-ceilinged guest chamber across the hallway from Ellen’s room.
“Here.” Val tossed a rolled-up shaving kit to Axel as a procession of footmen trooped in carrying the tub, Val’s traveling gear, and steaming buckets of water.
“Shirt off.” Axel stropped a straight razor against a small whetstone. “And sit you here.” He smacked the back of a dressing stool. “I got your note regarding mischief on your roof.”
“I don’t think it was an accident.” Val sat without even trying to put up a fuss about Axel acting as his valet. “Darius has remained behind, essentially to stand guard. And your sons could have been killed.”
“Or you.” Axel dipped a shaving brush into the half-full tub and worked up a lather with Val’s shaving soap. He sniffed the soap and dabbed lather onto Val’s cheeks. “Lovely scent. How do you conclude somebody tampered with your roof?”
“We know there were trespassers.” Val craned his chin up so Axel could lather his throat. “We also know the slates were tight on Friday.”
“You know your roofing crew claims they were tight on Friday,” Axel corrected as he began to scrape the razor along Val’s jaw. “From what you described, it took at least a half ton of fieldstone piled on that scaffolding to loosen the slates. Correct?”
“You don’t think it was mischief,” Val said when Axel swiped the razor clean on a towel.
“I do not. It was too random. Anybody could have been hurt by those stones, or nobody. The weight might have been enough to loosen the slates, and then again it might not. Somebody who really wanted to cause you harm would have taken more predictably troublesome measures to do it—if they had any sense. Hold still.”
Val considered Axel’s reasoning and found it sound. Axel, like his brother, Matthew Belmont, in Sussex, occasionally served as local magistrate. He had experience investigating crimes, and more to the point, he was Day and Phillip’s father. He would not put them at avoidable risk of harm; of that Val was certain.
Axel tossed a clean towel directly at Val’s shaven face. “I think you’ve dropped some weight. Your face is thinner.”
Val shrugged as he stood. “Darius claims the rest of me is thinner, as well. I confess to being indifferent on the matter but not the least indifferent to the thought of that tub of hot water.”
“Cuff links.” Axel waggled his fingers, and Val held out his left hand.
“Ye gods, Windham.” Axel frowned at Val’s swollen joints and reddened flesh. “Did you hit this thing with a hammer? It has to hurt.”
“It flares up,” Val muttered, snatching his hand back as soon as Axel had the cuff link out. “I think I can manage from here.”
“Like hell you can. You either let me unbutton your falls, or I’ll stand here and watch while you attempt it yourself.”
“Axel.” Val scowled at him in earnest.
“What?” He grabbed Val’s breeches by the waistband and scowled right back. “Do you have them made this loose?” He deftly unfastened the buttons while Val stood and suffered the assistance.
“I don’t like them tight.” Val shoved breeches and smalls over his hips. “If you must know, they are a little looser than when they were made.”
“Abby can probably take them in for you.” Axel picked up Val’s discarded clothing and kept further comments on his guest’s leanness to himself.
“Might I have the soap?” Val asked, sinking down into the water with a grateful sigh.
“You might.” Axel rummaged in the satchel brought up with the last of the hot water, fetched a sliver of milled soap, and laid out a complete change of clothes on the bed. “Dunk, and I’ll do the honors.”
In truth, it felt good to let Axel fuss over him just a little, although being scolded for the state of his hand was grating in the extreme. Axel would no doubt alert Val’s family—and dear Nicholas, as well—but they weren’t likely to come haring out to Oxfordshire to pester him personally, not when there were no real accommodations, no social life, and only the barest of provisions. Then too, Val hadn’t sent either of his brothers the exact direction to his latest folly, and they were both busy men.
Westhaven’s letters were full of the wonder—and drivel—that probably characterized all new papas. Devlin’s letters read more like dispatches. They were terse, factual, and few in number. The Rosecroft estate up in Yorkshire hadn’t been in much better shape than Val’s own acquisition, and Devlin was newly married, newly blessed with a stepdaughter, and shortly expecting his own firstborn.
And if Val regretted that his oldest brother was a week’s journey away, at least it was an improvement over the years when the man was leading cavalry charges against the damned French.
But Val rose from the tub, admitting just how much he’d missed his brother Devlin since coming down from the north two months previously. It had been a pleasant winter in Yorkshire with Dev, little Winnie, and Emmie— cozy, almost, and were it not for the condition of Val’s hand…
