Dread seeped up from Ellen’s stomach, filling her throat with bile and foreboding. Any present from Frederick was bound to bring ill will, if not worse.

Frederick bent into his curricle and withdrew a small potted plant. “You being the gardener in the family, I thought you might like a little cutting from Roxbury. You needn’t thank me.”

“Most gracious of you, nonetheless.” Ellen offered him a cool smile as he put the clay pot into her hands and then climbed aboard. “Safe journey to Town, Frederick.”

He waited, clearly wishing she’d look at the little plant, but then gave up and yelled at his tiger to let the horses go. The child’s grasp hadn’t left the reins before Frederick was cracking the whip, the horses lunging forward and the curricle slewing around in Ellen’s front yard as the boy scrambled up onto his post behind the seat.

And ye gods, ye gods, was Ellen ever glad to see the last of the man. She glanced at the plant in her hand, rolled her eyes, and walked around to the back of her property to toss it, pot and all, on her compost heap.

How like Frederick to give her an herb often used to settle the stomach, while he intimated he’d be tearing the roof from over her head. He’d been threatening for several years now, as winters in Portugal, autumn at Melton, a lengthy stint in London each spring, and expensive friends all around did not permit a man to hold on to decrepit, unentailed estates for long.

She should be grateful she’d had five years to settle in, to grieve, and to heal. She had a few friends in nearby Little Weldon, some nice memories, and some satisfaction with what she’d been able to accomplish on this lovely little property.

And now all that accomplishment was to be taken from her.

She poured herself a cup of tea and took it to her back porch, where the vista was one of endless, riotous flowerbeds. They were her livelihood and her solace, her greatest joy and her most treasured necessity. Sachets and soaps, herbs for cooking, and bouquets for market, they all brought a fair penny, and the pennies added up. Fruits and vegetables created still more income, as did the preserves and pies made from them.

“And if we have to move”—Ellen addressed the fat-headed orange tom cat who strolled up the porch steps—“we have a bit put by now, don’t we, Marmalade?”

Himself squeezed up his eyes in feline inscrutability, which Ellen took for supportive agreement. The cat had been abandoned at the manor house through the wood and had gladly given up a diet of mice for the occasional dish of cream on Ellen’s porch.

His company, though, combined with Frederick’s visit and the threat to her livelihood, put Ellen in a wistful, even lonely mood. She sipped her tea in the waning afternoon light and brought forth the memories that pleased her most. She didn’t visit them often but saved them for low moments when she’d hug them around her like a favorite shawl, the one that always made a girl feel pretty and special.

She thought about her first pony, about the day she’d found Marmalade sitting king-of-all-he-surveyed in a tree near the cottage, like a welcoming committee from the fairy folk. She thought about the flowers she’d put together for all the village weddings, and the flowers on her own wedding day. And she thought about a chance visit from that handsome Mr. Windham, though it had been just a few moments stolen in the evening sunshine, and more than a year had passed since those moments.

Ellen set her chair to rocking, hugged the memory closer still, and banished all thoughts of Frederick, homelessness, and poverty from her mind.

* * *

A life devoted to any creative art did not develop in the artist an ability to appreciate idleness, much less vice. Val had run his errands, visited his friend Nicholas Haddonfield, paid his duty calls to family—and that had been particularly difficult, as family was spread all over the Home Counties—and tended to every detail of his business he could think to tend to. He’d taken several sessions guest-conducting the Philharmonic Society Orchestra, because he’d promised his friend Edward Kirkland he would, but they were painful afternoons.

And amid all this peripatetic activity, his head was full of music. Mozart’s Requiem figured prominently, but it was all he could do not to let his hands wander over any available keyboard, tapping out a little rendition of the simplest nursery rhyme.

He owned two manufactories that built, of course, pianos. One for grands, one for cottage pianos. They did a surprisingly brisk trade, and because the Americans in particular had decided snobbery required well-made English goods, many of the grands were shipped overseas at very significant cost to the buyers.

Val had been in the habit of personally playing each instrument before releasing it for sale. The temptation to sit down and dabble just a little…

Dabbling, for Val, could go on literally for days. Oh, he’d heed the calls of nature—to eat, sleep, and tend to bodily functions—but when a particular theme got into his brain, earthly concerns were so many intermissions in the ongoing concert that was his life.

Had been his life.

For the first time, Val was forced to consider what younger sons of the nobility actually did with themselves. They could apparently drink, whore, duel, and what? The Corsican had met his match at Waterloo, which left gambling.

It boggled the mind but certainly did not entertain for long.

Glancing at his cards, Val felt a wave of despair. Here he was, seated amid the power and plenty of the realm’s aristocracy, and he was about to burst out cursing for lack of ability to play “Hot Cross Buns.”

A fucking, bedamned nursery rhyme was denied him.

“Your turn, Windham,” Darius Lindsey drawled. By some unspoken accord, Lindsey had become Val’s latest carousing companion, though Val had his suspicions as to how this had come about. “Or not, if you’d rather cash in.”

Val glanced again at his cards and felt the heavy irony of divine humor at work. In the two weeks since he had stopped making music, his luck had become uncannily good at all games of chance. The pile of chips before him was obscenely ample, but he was comforted to note Lindsey was managing fairly well, too.

Not so young Baron Roxbury, seated across from Val. The man was playing too deep, visibly sweating in the candlelight.

“You can’t back out now,” Roxbury said, desperation in his voice. “Wouldn’t be sporting in the least. A fellow needs a chance to win back his own, don’tcha know?”

“Believe you’re about out of chips, Roxbury,” Lindsey said. “Why don’t we all call it a night, and things will look less daunting in the morning?”

“Not a bad idea,” Val chimed in on cue, for he had no intention of spending the entire night watching Roxbury dig himself even deeper in debt. “My eyes grow tired. The smoke is rather thick.”

“One more round.” Roxbury’s hand shot out and gripped Val’s right wrist when Val would have swept his chips to the edge of the table. “All I need is one more.”

“My dear,” Lindsey’s voice cut in softly, “I don’t think you can make the ante.”

“I can.” Roxbury’s chin went up. “With this.” He fumbled in his breast pocket and tossed a document on the table that bore the ribbons and seals of legality.

“I’m out.” Darius stood. “Roxbury, if you need a small loan to cover your losses, I’m sure it can be arranged until next quarter. Lord Val, you coming?”

“He can’t.” Roxbury answered for Val as the other two players murmured their excuses and left the table. “He owes me one more hand.”

“He owes you nothing,” Lindsey said. “You’re half seas over and the cards aren’t favoring you. Do yourself a favor and call it a night, Roxbury.”

“One more hand.” Roxbury held Val’s gaze, and it was difficult for a decent man to decide what would be kinder: To allow Roxbury what he thought would save him or to minimize the man’s losses.

One more hand, Val thought, the irony quirking his lips.

“One more.” Val nodded, meeting Lindsey’s exasperated glance. “But call for our hats and gloves, would you, Dare?”

Lindsey took the proffered excuse to leave but said something to the two men loitering by the door as they finished their drinks. With his peripheral vision, Val noted both sidled over to the corner and topped off those drinks. Witnesses, Val thought, realizing Lindsey brought a certain sophistication Val lacked to the suddenly dangerous business of gentlemanly idleness.

“Shall we cut for the deal?” Val asked. “Perhaps you can tell me exactly what you’ve tossed into the pot.”

“An estate.” Roxbury turned the top half of the deck over, smiling hugely when he revealed the knave of diamonds. “A tidy little property a short day’s ride from Town, out in Oxfordshire. Been in the family but doesn’t merit much attention.”

“Doesn’t merit much attention?” Val quirked an eyebrow and cut the queen of hearts—of course. He sighed inwardly as the little mi-re-do tune to “Hot Cross Buns” ran through his head. “My deal.”

Roxbury shrugged in what Val supposed was an attempt at casual disregard. “It’s not the family seat. Haven’t spent a night there myself, so there’s little point to keeping the place staffed, but it’s worth a pretty penny.”

“How many acres?” Val asked, dealing—with his right hand.

“Few thousand.” Another shrug as the final cards were dealt. “Home farm, home wood, dairy, pastures, a few tenants, that sort of thing.” Roxbury picked up his cards, and from the man’s expression, Val knew with sinking certainty this unstaffed, neglected, miserable little ruin of a country estate was all but his.