and tender.”
“God.” She clutched her arms around her middle but shook her head again.
“Ellen…” Val’s voice was low, pleading. “I stink like a drover two hundred miles from home, or I’d come hold you, but you have to tell me what’s going on.”
“I can’t.” She still wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“You won’t,” Val countered tiredly. “I did not want to tell you this, but if you look closely at the tree that fell on your cottage, you’ll see it toppled partway but then was cut at the base—in essence, it was pushed onto your roof. Maybe whoever did it knew you were from home, maybe not. Somebody, it appears, has succeeded in scaring the hell out of you, Ellen, and that scares the hell out of me.”
He could not stand one more moment of her silence, so he stood and passed a gentle hand over the back of her head. “The house is entirely secured on the first floor. I’ll come check on you later.”
She clutched his hand and tucked her forehead against his thigh but said nothing, leaving Val to stroke his hand over her hair once again then depart in silence. He made his way through the darkened house, careful to lock the front door behind him, and then found himself on the path toward the pond. He changed his mind, doubled back, and retrieved Hazlit’s packet, taking it to the sleeping porch on the second floor of the carriage house to read by lantern light.
When Nick and Darius returned from their swim, Val was still sitting in the shadows, Hazlit’s missive open on his lap.
“Bad news?” Nick asked, sinking down to rest his back against the porch railing.
“Here.” Darius waved a bottle before Val’s eyes. “This is bad news too, but not until tomorrow morning, and only if Nick and I let you get drunk.”
Val took a hefty pull of the bottle and passed it to Nick. Darius lowered himself to the hammock but used it as a seat, keeping his feet on the floor.
“Somebody cut the tree,” Darius said, “and that was after they laid bonfires in the very house. There’s no telling what other mischief we’re going to have to endure. What does Hazlit add to this puzzle?”
“The rents are dutifully deposited in a Markham general account,” Val said in a hollow voice. “One that Ellen could withdraw from, but she doesn’t.”
“So there should be a pile of money there,” Nick concluded, passing the bottle to Darius.
“There’s nothing but a token amount. Frederick Markham has withdrawn every cent in the account regularly for the past five years.”
“So the good baron is bleeding his widowed cousin dry.” Nick frowned into the gathering darkness. “Bad form. You might have to call the blighter out.”
Val nodded agreement. “I might. Ellen would frown on that. It gets worse.”
Darius passed the bottle back to Val. “What could be worse than stealing from your cousin’s widow, forcing her to grub in the dirt for necessities and live out here like a social leper?”
“The rents should consist of the amounts due from the six tenant farms,” Val said. “But for the past five years, there have been seven individual deposits from seven different sources. Freddy has been charging Ellen rent on her own damned land.”
“You going to kill him?” Nick asked. “I know all manner of ways to end a life, Valentine.”
“Nick…” Darius chided, “don’t put ideas in Val’s head he’ll come to regret.”
“I am not going to kill him,” Val said taking another hefty swig. “I might, though, make him wish he were dead.”
Nick accepted the bottle from Val. “What do you have in mind?”
“I’m going to invite him here as my very first guest, to show him what a gift he passed to me when he lost that hand of cards. I’m going to keep my friends close and my enemies closer.”
“Never should have let you spend that time in Italy.” Nick shook his head and passed Darius the whiskey. “Citing Machiavelli, plotting dark deeds when a simple cudgel to the back of the idiot’s head would do the job.”
Val smiled thinly. “It may come to that. For now, I want to refine my plans, post a note to His Grace, finish my house, and wash the filth of this day from my person.”
“We know.” Darius waggled the bottle resignedly. “Don’t wait up for you.”
“Did you lock the door?” Ellen murmured, cuddling closer to the man who’d just joined her in her bed. She’d left only the sheet over her body, and in the evening breeze, she’d taken a slight chill. Val gave off heat like a toasted brick, and reassurance and warmth that had nothing to do with the physical.
“I did.” He kissed her cheek. “Rest. We’ll talk in the morning.”
“Val?”
“Beloved?”
“You shouldn’t say such things, but I want you to know something,” Ellen said, glad for the darkness.
“It can wait until morning.”
“I’ll lose my nerve.” Her voice broke as she wrapped an arm around his lean waist. “And you’ll hate me.”
“I’ll never hate you,” Val said, tucking her face to his shoulder. “Talk to me.”
“It’s Freddy. All the attempts to sabotage your work here. It’s him.”
“I won’t ask how you know, but I agree with you. It’s Freddy.”
“So what will you do?” Ellen let her grip on him slacken.
“Don’t run off.” Val gathered her back against him. “For now, I’m going to hold you and rest and consider options. You are not to worry about this, Ellen.”
“I do worry. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“Arson? Destruction of property, attempted murder?”
“He must have known I was from home,” Ellen said, though Freddy was absolutely capable of taking a life—of taking three lives or even four. “Freddy is an opportunist. He probably stopped by to plague you or see how your progress was coming and realized the storm had left him a way to further torment me.”
“He’s been tormenting you for a while now, hasn’t he?”
“Since the accursed day I met him.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her tone. “You’ll be careful?”
“With you?” Val kissed her temple. “Very. With him, even more so. Now sleep, and let me do the fretting.”
As she dropped off, Val lay beside her, staring at the ceiling and then at Ellen’s face in the moonlight pouring through the curtains. She slept, finally, lulled by his caresses and his warmth. She’d offered him something, at least, and he was encouraged by that but also wary: Why would she offer only part of the story, unless she intended to take the rest of it with her when she left?
“What a bloody perishing mess,” Nick observed, looking up at the roof of the hay barn. “And the damned thing would be half full.”
“We have more hay,” Val said. “It’s stored elsewhere, under tarpaulins, in sheds, and so forth. The good news is it looks like we’re in for a stretch of decent weather, and the supplies are on hand. Tell the men to bring in the rest of the hay now, and we’ll shift them to the roof this afternoon. If they work quickly we’ll have the hay here and the roof on by week’s end.”
“That’s ambitious,” Darius cautioned.
“But not impossible. The first hay crop is off the fields; the foals and calves and lambs are on the ground; the vegetable plots are producing. This is the lull in midsummer, when the rest of the corn is ripening and there’s no land to be worked daily. I’ll get the word to my tenants. You manage the crews.”
“And I?” Nick arched an eyebrow. “I’m to scamper back to Kent and take your dear Ellen with me?”
“Not yet,” Val said, not sure why he was hesitating. “You and Dare know more about estate management than I, and if you can spare another few days, I’d appreciate it.”
“I can stay.” Nick went back to studying the roof. “As you say, the land is quiet this time of year, and it’s easy
