provided.
The extra iris roots were, of course, saleable, but she’d had good markets over the entire summer and had no real need of additional coin.
Val had seen to that.
“Lady Roxbury?”
The voice, so like Val’s, caused her heart to skip a beat, but as she raised her hand to shield her view from the sun, her caller’s face and form registered, as well. For an instant—a joyful, unbelievable instant—she thought it was Val, but then her senses took in the different muscling, the lighter hair, the more austere cast to the features.
“Lord Westhaven.” It had to be he, for he’d sent along a little warning note two days previous. Ellen was faced with having to rise so she could curtsey. Westhaven surprised her utterly by dropping to his knees beside her.
He nodded at the flowerbed. “Irises, I’m guessing. Can you spare a few? My wife and her grandmother adore them, and our house is not yet landscaped. Anna wants to do it herself, but there just hasn’t been time this summer.”
“You have a new baby, don’t you? They can be very demanding, and of course I have more than enough here to send some along to your countess.”
He asked her to show him how to separate the roots and soon had Ellen chatting about bulbs and tubers and offering to send some of the daffodils she’d separated, as well. She invited him in to tea, surprised at how comfortably the time had passed.
He was a less vibrant version of Valentine but a man Ellen felt an inherent ability to trust. He had Val’s instinctive sense of timing, too, as he steered her deftly but unerringly back to innocuous topics until the tea tray was delivered and the door to the parlor closed by the departing maid.
“How do you like your tea, my lord?”
“Later,” Westhaven said quietly. “I like my tea later, though feel free to indulge if you’re inclined. I think you’d rather hear what I came to say, though.”
“I would.” Ellen agreed, setting the pot down. “Or I hope I would.”
“He loves you, you know.” The earl frowned at her, an expression of considerable displeasure. “Valentine does. He hasn’t said that to me, but I am to note your dress, your appearance, any evidence of ill health or poor spirits. I am to question the help while I’m here and wangle an invitation to spend the night—propriety and my countess’s sensibilities be hanged—so I might reassure my brother the doors are conscientiously locked every night and the halls patrolled by a footman until dawn, and on and on.”
He stopped, and Ellen realized her amiable companion from the iris patch had been just a well-crafted facade. This man was going to be a duke and was comfortable with both the authority and the power that entailed. He was a gentleman, but he was Val’s brother and prepared to preserve his brother from heartache or folly at any cost.
Any cost.
Ellen added cream and sugar to the single cup of tea. “Then you must tell me, is he well? Is he sleeping? Has his hand continued to heal, and please—if you tell me nothing else—is he happy?”
The teacup began to shake minutely in her hand, and she just managed to set it down before it would have shattered against the table when it slipped from her grip.
“He’s miserable,” Westhaven said slowly, his eyes narrowing on the teacup. “He’s busy as hell, his hand is fine, but he’s perishing miserable; so you, my lady, are going to accept my invitation.”
Having spent weeks growing increasingly lonely and her nights increasingly convinced she’d made the worst mistake of her life, Ellen listened as carefully as she could to the earl’s next words then nodded her assent. If it was what Valentine Windham asked of her, she would have accepted an invitation to garden in hell.
If she hadn’t already.
“Mustn’t gawk,” the Earl of Westhaven whispered in Ellen’s ear. “You look quite the thing, and you’re in the ducal box. The entertainment is that way.” He discreetly pointed to the stage and cordially seated her to his left.
“So is this Val’s widow?” A jovial male voice sang out from the back of the box, and because she was watching her escort’s every move, Ellen saw Gayle Windham
“Percy!” A soft, female voice chided. “Really. Lady Roxbury is Valentine’s friend and was his neighbor in Oxfordshire. My lady, Esther, the Duchess of Moreland, pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Valentine’s mother, and this scandalous old reprobate is His Grace, Percival, the Duke of Moreland.”
Ellen would have fallen on her backside had Westhaven not had her hand tucked firmly on his arm. She curtsied, murmuring something polite, her mind whirling at the august personages before her and the casual manner in which they’d introduced themselves.
Maybe Val hadn’t known his parents were using their box tonight, she reasoned. This whole trip to Town had been so odd, with Westhaven explaining only that Val wanted her to attend the opening night of the symphony’s fall season. She’d been whisked to Town, spent the night in one of the most elegant townhouses she’d ever seen, presented with a peculiarly well-fitting bronze silk evening gown and all the trimmings, and now here she was.
“They’re growin’ ’em almost as pretty as my duchess out in Oxfordshire, I see,” the duke said, beaming at Ellen.
Did dukes beam? Something in the mischief of his smile tickled her memory.
“You and Val have the same smile,” she informed the duke. “And Your Grace”—she turned to the duchess, a stately, slender lady whose hair was antique gold—“Val has your eyes.”
The duchess leaned close to whisper, “But I think Valentine has your heart, hmm?” She straightened and took her husband’s arm. “Shall we be seated, Percy? One doesn’t want to disappoint the crowds.”
Westhaven stepped back, so it happened Ellen was seated between the duke and duchess, feeling nervous, excited, and thoroughly off balance. Where was Val? And why had he summoned her? Was this simply an outing for her? Was it a demonstration to Freddy that the Moreland consequence was being put in Ellen’s corner?
The first half of the program started off in a blur as Ellen’s mind continued to race and whirl from one thought to the next. She tried, in the dim lighting, to look around and see if Val might be watching her from a different box. Gradually, though, the music seeped into her fevered brain, and she began to calm. Maybe Val just wanted her to hear this music. The orchestra was in fine form, and Val’s family was treating her with great cordiality.
Westhaven took her arm at the interval and informed her they would be strolling in the corridor. They barely escaped the confines of the ducal box when Ellen heard a familiar baritone rumbling behind her.
“If it isn’t my favorite little gardener,” Nick Haddonfield pronounced. “Give a lonely fellow a kiss, my lady, and I won’t complain when you pinch me.”
“Nick…” She smiled up at him, not realizing how much she’d missed him too, until that moment. When he wrapped his arms around her, there in the theatre corridor with half of polite society looking on, Ellen felt tears welling. “I’ve missed you.”
“As well you should.” Nick nodded approvingly. “Women of discernment always miss me, though I’ve missed you, as well, lovey. You did not answer my letters.”
“A lady does not correspond with a gentleman, your lordship,” Ellen chided him, though her smile was still radiant.
Westhaven cast an assessing glance at Nick. “He’s no gentleman. He writes a very charming letter, nonetheless. Next time, Bellefonte, you do as David and Letty do with Val. Val writes a two-sentence letter to David and then a four-page postscript to Letty.”
“Strategy is always so tedious.” Nick sighed. “Here comes one of my two favorite brothers-in-law.” Ellen was hugged again as Darius Lindsey greeted her, looking strikingly handsome in his evening finery.
“I believe Her Grace will want to see you two,” Westhaven decided. “Why don’t you escort Lady Roxbury back to the box while I check on something backstage?”
A look passed between the gentlemen, something of male significance that had Ellen concluding Westhaven needed the retiring room. She let Nick and Darius each take an arm and was more than pleased when Her Grace invited them to stay for the second half. Westhaven slipped into the back of the box just as the ushers were dousing the candles.
