The Virtuoso

Val slewed around to stare at his friend. “What piano?”

“The one your papa sent along with the team,” Darius said. “The one that’s been sitting in its crate in the carriage bays for the past week and more.”

Val cringed. “We left a piano in the carriage house?”

“Freddy will expect you to have a piano,” Darius said, his tone merely bored. “And we’ve half the morning to kill before he gets here.”

“And Nick’s considerable brawn to assist us.” He should not even set the damned thing up. What was His Grace thinking, now of all times, to send Val a piano? It was so typical of their dealings, that his father would finally mean well and get the timing so exactly, ironically wrong. Val stared down at his left hand, which looked no different from the right of late. He could always crate up this gift later and send it back from whence it came.

“Let’s get this over with,” he muttered, telling himself no piano should be housed in a damned carriage house, and certainly not in his carriage house.

“If you insist.”

“You going to tune the thing?” Nick asked, draping an arm over Val’s shoulder when they’d gotten the instrument set up in a first-floor parlor. “I know you have your kit with you.”

Val’s lips compressed into a thin line, but Nick was right. He did have his tools with him—he always did.

“Ellen might enjoy playing it,” Darius suggested with devilish innocence.

“Bugger you both,” Val said on a sigh. Except a piano should be kept in tune.

His craftsmen had packed the instrument very carefully—for it was one of his, damned if it wasn’t—and the piano was in fine shape, not even needing much tuning. Val closed the lid and looked around the room for the bench that had been delivered with the piano. He positioned it before the piano and noticed a corner of white paper sticking out from under the seat.

A note in his father’s slashing, confident hand.

Valentine,

You play these things better than I have ever done anything, save perhaps love Her Grace. She picked this one out after trying all that were ready for sale at both of your shops. She said it was particularly lovely in the middle and lower registers, whatever that means. Her Grace will be sending along some of your music, though I told her it would be better for you to come choose what you wanted from Morelands, as an old fellow might get to see his youngest (and only bachelor) son that way, but there is no reasoning with Her Grace on certain points.

You are to keep Sean, if you please. Morelands’s stables are too large and busy for one of his years, but he would not ask for lighter duties. This was Her Grace’s idea; the piano was mine.

I hope you are keeping well, as am I—which you would know had you had the courtesy to correspond with your own papa from time to time. And polite, chipper little thank you notes to placate your mother do not count.

Moreland

Val had to chuckle at the aggravating blend of what? Officiousness, bashful innuendo, and simple familiarity in the short note. His Grace was never, not in a millennium of trying, going to be a subtle or calming sort of person. He was direct, ruthless, and devoted to his duchess. Since a heart seizure a year ago, there had been some softening, but Val still felt the blatant attempts to manipulate, even in the terse little epistle.

He was to visit his father.

He was to write to his father.

He was to play the piano, though his father had railed at him for years that music was a nancy-pants way for a man to go through life when it went beyond drawing room competence. Never mind the gift of a piano was at complete odds with all those lectures! If His Grace wanted to change his tune, then all other tunes simply ceased to exist—past, present, or future. It was an amazing quality, to alter reality at will. The trick of it was probably the first secret passed along from one duke to the next. He’d have to ask Gayle about it when next he saw his brother-the-heir.

He closed the lid of the piano bench, but not before he noticed one other document—a bill of lading marked “paid.”

It was a beautiful instrument. Val sighed as he regarded the gleaming finish. A grand, of course. His mother would not content herself with less for him. He lifted the lid and sat, vowing to himself he was just testing the tuning.

To keep his vow, he limited his test to the little lullaby he’d composed for Winnie and sent north with St. Just. Winnie was a busy child. She darted around the estate like a small tornado, poking her nose into adult business at will with the canine mastodon, Scout, panting at her heels.

So he’d written Winnie a cradle song to play when Scout was having trouble settling his doggy nerves or when Winnie wanted something quiet and pretty to end her busy days with. It wasn’t the first piece he’d written for her, though it might be the last.

Gently, he laid his hands on the keys, the familiar cool feel of them sending a wave of awareness up his arms and into his body.

“I’ve missed you, my friend,” he told the piano quietly, “but this is just a visit.”

The notes came so easily, drifting up into the soft morning air and out across the yard. Simple, tender, lyrical, and sweet, the piece wafted through the trees and flower baskets, through the beams of sunshine, and out over the pond. On the balcony of the carriage house, Nick and Darius exchanged a smile as the final notes died away.

“It’s a start,” Nick said quietly. “A modest start but a good one.”

Thirteen

When he finished dressing for his caller, Val had an hour left of his morning, so he crossed to the house and made his way to his library. He sat for long minutes at his desk, wondering what he could write to his father that wouldn’t be considered a placatory thank you note—the challenge had been tossed down, and Val wasn’t inclined to ignore a challenge. Not from Moreland, and not given the state of Val’s life.

To His Grace, Percival, the Duke of Moreland, etc,

It crossed my mind if a short, placatory thank you would not count, perhaps a long, effusive, entirely sincere thank you might. At the risk of self-aggrandizement, the instrument chosen for me is truly lovely, and I do appreciate it.

I am pleased to report I even have a music room for your generous gift, though the estate I found here at the beginning of the summer was in sad disrepair and not habitable by other than rodents, vagrants, and bats. All three have been evicted, and the next few weeks will see the manor finished in all its details. Darius Lindsey, Axel Belmont, and Axel’s sons have been particularly helpful in this regard, and now no less than Nicholas, the Earl of Bellefonte, has put his hand to the effort, as well. This has been an enjoyable project, but daunting, for the neglect of the house is only one aspect of the estate’s troubles.

I believe one Frederick, Baron Roxbury, has made a great deal of other difficulty for me here, and I have yet to uncover his motives. As the former owner of the property, he can have no legal interest in the place, and yet he seems to bear ill will toward both me and the late baron’s widow. Any insights Your Grace can offer regarding Roxbury’s situation would be appreciated.

My regards to my sisters and Westhaven, should you see him before I do. We sent St. Just on his way north roughly ten days ago and hope to hear good news from him and Emmie in the very near future.

You remain in my thoughts and prayers,

Valentine

“Beg pardon, Mr. Windham, but your guest is here.”

Val’s only officially hired servant, a footman named Davies, appeared in the doorway. There were women in the kitchen today, because Val had known he’d have company coming, but as for the rest…

“Thank you, Davies.” Val rose, tugged down his waistcoat, and shrugged into his morning coat. “Please show