her over his shoulder. “It’s the truth.”
Ellen’s fingers settled on his nape, massaging in the small, soothing circles Val had come to expect when her hands were on him.
“If you love me,” she said after a long, fraught silence, “you’ll tell me the truth.”
Val tried to see that response as positive—she hadn’t stomped off, railed at him, or tossed his words back in his face. Yet. But neither had she reciprocated.
“My name is Valentine Windham,” he said slowly, “but you’ve asked about my family, and in that regard—and that regard only—I have not been entirely forthcoming.”
“Come forth now,” she commanded softly, her hand going still.
“My father is the Duke of Moreland. That’s all. I’m a commoner, my title only a courtesy, and I’m not even technically the spare anymore, a situation that should improve further, because my brother Gayle is deeply enamored of his wife.”
“Improve?” Ellen’s voice was soft, preoccupied.
“I don’t want the title, Ellen.” Val sat up, needing to see her eyes. “I don’t ever want it, not for me, not for my son or grandson. I make pianos, and it’s a good income. I can provide well for you, if you’ll let me.”
“As your mistress?”
“Bloody, blazing… no!” Val rose and paced across the porch, turning to face her when he could go no farther. “As my wife, as my beloved, dearest wife.”
A few heartbeats of silence went by, and with each one, Val felt the ringing of a death knell over his hopes.
“I would be your mistress. I care for you, too, but I cannot be your wife.”
Val frowned at that. It wasn’t what he’d been expecting. A conditional rejection, that’s what it was. She’d give him time, he supposed, to get over his feelings and move along with his life.
“Why not marry me?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
She crossed her arms too. “What else haven’t you told me?”
“Fair enough.” Val came back to sit beside her and searched his mind. “I play the piano. I don’t just mess about with it for polite entertainment. Playing the piano used to be who I was.”
“You were a musician?”
Val snorted. “I was a coward, but yes, I was a musician, a
“So you came out here?” Ellen guessed. “You took on the monumental task of setting to rights what I had put wrong on this estate and thought that would be… what?”
“A way to feel useful or maybe just a way to get tired enough each day that I didn’t miss the music so much, and then…”
“Then?” She took his hand in hers, but Val wasn’t reassured.
“Then I became enamored of my neighbor. She beguiled me—she’s lovely and dear and patient. She’s a virtuoso of the flower garden. She cared about my hand and about me without once hearing me play the piano, and this intrigued me.”
“You intrigued me,” Ellen admitted, pressing the back of his hand to her cheek. “You still do.”
“My Ellen loves to make beauty, as do I.” Val turned and used his free hand to trace the line of Ellen’s jaw. “She is as independent as I am and values her privacy, as I do.”
“You are merely lonely, Val.” Ellen bent a little over their joined hands but then looked up and frowned slightly. “Lord Valentine.”
“Not to you,
Her frown became considerably more fierce. “What was Freddy doing in Little Weldon?” she asked, straightening.
“I invited him ostensibly to see the progress on the estate,” Val said, watching a battle light come into Ellen’s eye. “He confessed to setting the various traps on the property and did so before witnesses. I also treated myself to landing a single blow on his ugly face and made sure he knew I did so in your name.”
“
“I did. His mischief was deadly, Ellen. And his only motivation was to regain possession of the estate. He thought he could scare me off by creating accidents and setbacks, then buy the place back for a pittance, probably to sell for considerably more.”
Ellen shook her head. “He wants the rents. It’s about the money, and with him it will always be about the money.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” Val rose to stand behind her where she stood looking out over her gardens. “Ellen?” But she shook her head and remained unyielding when Val slipped his arms around her waist. That, more than any words, alarmed him.
“Ellen,” Val spoke quietly, “Freddy won’t be bothering you anymore. I’ve seen to it.”
“No.” She huffed out a breath. “No, you have not, Valentine. You have merely waved a red flag before a very angry and powerful little bull. Freddy will go off, tend his wounds, and plot his moves. He sulks and fumes and skulks about, but he does not learn his lesson.”
“You’re keeping secrets.” Val rested his forehead against her nape. “Why in God’s name won’t you trust me, Ellen?”
“If I tell you, will you leave?”
It was Val’s turn to be silent, to consider, to weigh what was in the balance, and where, if anywhere, lay the path of hope.
“I’m not going anywhere until the house and farms are completely functional,” he said. “That will take a few more weeks.”
“Weeks.” Ellen stood very straight in his arms. “And then you’ll go?”
“If that’s still what you want and you’ve told me the reasons why by then,” Val said, tossing his entire future into the hands of a fate that hadn’t dealt with him very kindly of late. “And until I go?”
“I will be your mistress,” Ellen said, her posturing relaxing.
“No.” Val turned her in his arms and tucked his chin against her temple. “You will be my love.”
What followed for Val was a period of peculiar joy, mixed with acute sorrow. He respected Ellen’s choice as one she felt compelled to make, not easy for her, but necessary.
He also hoped when he heard her reasons, he could argue her past them, and the hoping was… awful. Hope and Val Windham were old enemies.
Best enemies.
He’d hoped his brother Victor would recover, but consumption seldom eased its grip once its victims had been chosen.
He’d hoped his hand wasn’t truly getting worse, until he couldn’t deny that reality without losing use of the hand entirely.
He’d hoped his brother Bart would come home from war safe and sound, not in a damned coffin.
He’d hoped St. Just might escape military service without substantial wound to body or soul, but found even St. Just had left part of his sanity and his spirit at Waterloo.
He’d hoped he might someday do something with his music, but what that silly hope was about, he’d never been quite sure.
And now, he was hoping he and Ellen had a future. The hope sustained him and tortured him and made each second pass too quickly when he was with her. But he couldn’t always be with her, because Ellen insisted she have time to tend her gardens and set up her little conservatory.
Val sent Dayton and Phillip back to Candlewick, with hugs and thanks and best wishes all around. He hired a few servants and commissioned the wily Hazlit to complete a few more errands. He wrote to his brother Gayle, who controlled both the Windham family finances and the Moreland exchequer, and he wrote to David and Letty
