The Virtuoso

“Come in,” Ellen said, stepping back into her kitchen, “and welcome. I don’t believe you’ve been inside before.”

“Except to put Sleeping Beauty to bed in the dark of night.” Val smiled slightly, glancing around. “This is like you. Pretty, tidy, organized, and yet not quite the expected.”

The dominant feature was the large fieldstone hearth, raised to allow feet to be propped on it, socks dried, or water heated. Two insets in the stonework sat ready for dutch ovens or warming pans, and a sturdy potswing held a cast iron cook pot. For those times of year when the fireplace would not be used, a small cast-iron stove stood in a corner of the kitchen opposite the sink. The fireplace opened on two sides, both on the kitchen cum sitting room, and on the bedroom behind it.

There were sachets and scent bowls in corners and on end tables, giving the whole cottage a fresh, floral air.

Ellen stood in her kitchen, arms crossed. “Well?”

“May I peek at your bedroom?”

The room was light and airy with only sheer curtains over the window, and a breeze coming in to flutter those. A shelf built over the bed held books, a wardrobe contained Ellen’s dresses and shoes, and a chest of cedar at the foot of the bed likely her more delicate apparel. The bed, wardrobe, and shelf were pine, a pedestrian wood, but light in color and pretty to the eye.

And the bed… It was probably intended to be a canopy, but stood without the hangings, covered by a worn white quilt gone soft and thin with age. Val entered the room only far enough to stroke a hand over the quilt and inhale the lavender scent of the bed linens.

“Lovely.”

“Humble,” Ellen countered, standing beside him and gazing down at her bed. “It was a guest room set that was being moved up to the servant’s wing at Roxbury. I appropriated it and did not ask permission.”

“It’s pretty and sensible.” Val left off inspecting her personal space and met her gaze. “Like you, and if we don’t leave this room right now, Ellen FitzEngle, I’m going to want you in that bed, naked and panting my name while I make you come so hard you can’t see.”

Eight

Ellen sat on the bed, dropped onto it, more like, her expression thunderstruck.

“Ellen?” Val knelt to peer up at her where she sat. “Shall I leave?” He put a hand on her knee then slid it up to her hip, holding her gaze as he did. She laid her fingers over the back of his debilitated left hand. They’d been heading for this moment for weeks, but now that it was upon her, she looked not just surprised but stunned.

“I’ll leave,” Val said, settling back onto his heels and resting his cheek against her thigh. “If you ask it of me, I’ll get up and see about your locks, share a cup of cider and an apple tart, ask you your plans for the week, and understand.”

“Understand?”

He brought his other hand around her waist and held on, knee-walking in close to hug her middle on a sigh.

“Now isn’t the time,” Val suggested. “You don’t feel ready, you’re having second thoughts, or you don’t particularly relish getting involved with a man who’s the target of impending mayhem.”

Much less, he thought, one who had only one reliably functional hand, even after more than a month of abstaining from his music. He was pushing her, but he wanted out from under the uncertainty of his reception in her arms. It had been almost a week since they’d been what he could call intimate, and in the intervening days his desire for her had only grown.

“Now is the time,” Ellen said softly. “But if you let me think about it, I’ll lose my nerve and make excuses, and I don’t want…”

He pulled back to survey her velvety brown eyes, finding them so somber as to unnerve him. He wanted this joining to be pleasurable for her, joyous even.

“You don’t want?”

“To never have known what it’s like,” she finished the thought, “to be with you like that. To be your lover.”

Warnings went off in Val’s head, as her words could mean she wanted only a single experience of him, wanted a taste, a sample, nothing more. He wanted more, he wanted more than he deserved of her; he wanted to devour her, to make a feast of her, and to offer himself for her delectation too.

Ah, well.

A man worked with what life gave him, and life was giving him this opportunity with Ellen. He folded himself back down against her lap in gratitude and felt her hand stroking the back of his head. The moment was made complete and more memorable by the sudden gentle tattoo of rain on her roof, a showery patter that presaged a good, soaking rain, not merely a passing cloudburst.

“Valentine?” Ellen’s hand went still against his nape. “I don’t know what to do.”

He did not sit up. “About?”

“How do we go on?” she asked, curling down over him to press her nose against his back. “I’ve never… not in daylight, not here.”

“It’s better in daylight,” he assured her. “I can see your beautiful face and your lovely body and let you look your fill of me.”

“Will you undress?”

“Of course,” he replied, smiling with pleasure, approval, and anticipation when he sat back on his heels. “With your help.” He rose and sat beside her on the bed, settling a hand on her lap so she could remove first one cuff link then the other.

“Now what?”

“Unbutton my shirt?” He could have pulled it over his head, of course, but he wanted to communicate very clearly that they were in no hurry. So one by one, he had her remove each article of his clothing until he was standing without a stitch in her bedroom.

“Let’s get you comfortable, as well.” Though comfortable was going to be a stretch, he surmised. Her blushes suggested she could barely tolerate his nudity, much less her own.

“Don’t you want to get under the covers?” Her tone was almost hopeful, while her gaze was glued to his chest. She reached up a hand toward his sternum then dropped it back to her side.

Val picked up her hand in his own. “I would adore for you to touch me.” Carefully, he laid her palm over his heart then left it there so she could feel the steady, reassuring life-beat.

“I want to touch your heart too,” Val said, stepping in to kiss her cheek. “Clothes off, Ellen, hmm?”

She didn’t comply immediately but stroked her hand over his chest, his biceps, his belly, his shoulders. She was touching him with such wonder, he could barely stand still for it. When her hands fell to her sides, he kissed her cheek, let his hands settle gently on her hips, and waited.

And while he waited, he couldn’t help but kiss her. The way she fitted her curves and hollows to his was enough to send lust singing through his veins. When she sighed into his mouth and cautiously met his tongue with her own, he gathered the fabric of her dress in his hands. By slow, stealthy degrees, he drew her into the kiss even as he drew the worn cotton up around her hips. She gave a little gasp when the sensation of air on her legs must have registered, but Val held her hips still when she would have stepped back.

“Steady,” he whispered against her neck. She nodded, and he drew the dress and chemise up the rest of the way, leaving Ellen blushing in her shoes and stockings.

And even today, no stays. Val almost cried with gratitude at that discovery.

“There you are,” he whispered, running his hands down her sides and up her back. He wanted to look— wanted badly, badly to look—but he could feel the heat of Ellen’s blush where her face was planted against his collarbone.

“Under the covers now?”

“Let me get you out of your shoes and stockings.”