Grace Burrowes - The Virtuoso

“That’s the last of the big ones.” Axel glanced at the sky. “I’m guessing it’s close to teatime. Let’s call it a day.”

“Amen,” St. Just muttered as Axel bellowed instructions to his sons. They waved from where they were sawing branches off another fallen tree and signaled they’d follow by way of the farm pond.

An hour later, the men were scrubbed and presentable for dinner while the boys had yet to be seen.

“We’ve company, wife,” Axel said as he passed Abby a small serving of wine. “The boys should be here in time for dinner on those rare occasions when we allow civilized folk to dine with them.”

“It isn’t like them to be rude,” Abby replied, “we’ll just enjoy our drinks and be patient a while longer.”

“One hopes,” a baritone voice intoned from the door, “there is a drink for my weary little self?”

“Nick!” Val watched as Abby passed her husband her drink and pelted across the room to fling herself against the newcomer. “Oh, Nicholas Haddonfield, you are a sight for sore eyes. Axel, did you do this?”

“I was warned.” Axel smiled at his wife where she stood in the careful embrace of a blond, blue-eyed, enormously tall, enormously good-looking man.

“Professor.” Nick’s smile gleamed with a pirate’s sense of mischief. “I see you’ve been busy, and holy matrimony is agreeing with our Abby. And my little Valentine.” Nick beamed at Val. “Gone ruralizing in the wilds of Oxfordshire, leaving me all by my lonesome in Kent. I am desolated without you, Val.”

“You are happily married without me,” Val chided, but he stepped into Nick’s arms anyway, as one just did.

“And who have we here?” Nick turned to Ellen and flashed her a charming smile.

Val performed the introductions. “Ellen, may I make known to you Nick Haddonfield, the biggest scamp in the realm, and since his marriage, the happiest. Nick, Ellen Markham, Baroness Roxbury, my neighbor and friend.”

“Baroness.” Nick executed a very proper bow but kissed Ellen’s hand—a shocking presumption—rather than merely bowing over it.

“Ignore him,” Axel warned. “Any attempt to chide, flirt, or comment only encourages him, and this is after he has found a woman willing to marry him.”

“And bear my children,” Nick added, eyes twinkling. Talk from there wandered over mutual acquaintances, family, and various females in confinement.

“Does your countess cry a lot?” Nick asked St. Just as they moved in to dinner. “Poor Leah cries at the sight of a kitten, a puppy, or a foal. Of course, this necessitates that I comfort her, which I am all too willing to do.”

“One would think she’d cry at the sight of you,” Val said.

“Oh, she does.” Nick’s teeth gleamed, and his blue eyes sparkled. “With rapture.”

“Nicholas,” Abby chided, but Nick only grinned more broadly.

“Pass my starving Valentine the peas,” Nick suggested. “He’s likely to chew my leg off if we don’t get him some more food. Aren’t you keeping well, Val?”

“I’m working hard,” Val said, but he did take another helping of peas. And potatoes and more ham. “It tends to whittle off the lard. You look to be in good health.”

“I am. Leah insists I stay more in one place, and as long as she’s in the same place, I am content.”

“How did we merit a visit?” Abby asked. “Though I’m delighted to see you.”

“Likewise, Abby love.” Nick blew her a kiss. “But this one”—Nick tilted his chin at Val—“has abandoned my townhouse for this estate renovation project, and I must see what prompts his desertion. Leah was worried for you, Val, and we cannot have my wife worried when in a delicate condition, for that worries me.”

“Can’t have that,” Val remarked between bites, though he couldn’t entirely mask the affection from his tone. “So you’ll be jaunting out to Little Weldon with us tomorrow?”

“I will if you can tolerate my company.”

“I will be delighted to have your company, but the accommodations are rustic at best.”

“This,” Nick scoffed, “to a man whose height means he must camp half the time rather than be squashed into what passes for a bed at the typical posting inn. We’ll manage, Val, and I’m curious to see what has lured you into the shires. But, St. Just, I am also curious to know how you fare up north. Our families are related, I think.”

A general round of what-does-that-make-you followed, with cousins and removes and in-laws being bandied about the table, since Nick’s wife was distantly related to St. Just’s stepdaughter and to Abby, as well.

“Abby.” Val addressed his hostess in a break in the conversation. “I know we’ve yet to enjoy our chocolate cake, but I find I could use a little constitutional before the final course. Would there be objection to having cake on the back terrace thereafter?”

“Excellent suggestion.”

Nick met Abby’s gaze. “And I will provide mine hostess escort, with your permission, Professor?”

“Abby?” Axel cocked his head at his wife.

“A stroll sounds like just the thing.” Abby rose and leaned over to kiss her husband’s cheek. “Particularly if Nick is to depart tomorrow and it might be my only chance to pry confidences from him.”

Axel smiled at Nick. “Take care of her, or I’ll kill you where you stand.”

“But of course.” Nick bowed graciously and held his arm out for Abby.

“Ellen.” Val raised an eyebrow. “Would you join me?” She went to him with something that could only be gratitude in her eyes, and they silently took their leave.

“Last night was so violent,” Val observed as Ellen strolled silently on his arm, “and tonight is lovely. One wonders how the creatures and plants are supposed to cope.”

“Some of them don’t cope. Axel will put a number of trees to rest in his woodshed this fall, and I can only wonder what shape your home wood is in.”

“Hadn’t thought of that.” He hadn’t wanted to think of that, really. “These summer storms are sometimes very localized. So what did you think of Nick?”

“Nick?” Ellen’s voice held the slightest chill. “Don’t you mean Lord Reston? I met him before, you know, when Francis was alive and we occasionally spent time in Town. He’s charming, if a bit too flirtatious, but Francis liked him. What I cannot decipher, Valentine, is why you’re trying to keep me from finding out that your friend—for the man clearly is your friend—has a title. You’ve already mentioned as much, so can you explain your prevarication to me, please?”

“You have something against titles?” Val kept his tone excruciatingly neutral as they strolled along.

“I am titled,” Ellen said, “so no, I don’t have anything in particular against titles. I do not hold them in any great esteem either, however. When Francis died, I was surrounded by titles at his funeral, and they all said kind things and murmured the appropriate platitudes. They even sent letters of condolence, but I can tell you, Valentine, not a one of those kind, caring titles has bothered with me since.”

“That is certainly plain speaking. Nick would agree with you.”

“Lord Reston,” she said again, very firmly.

“He’s the Earl of Bellefonte now. Viscount Reston was his courtesy title. The old earl died only a few weeks ago and the loss is quite fresh. How well do you know Nicholas?”

“Not well.” Ellen’s tone relented a little. She kicked a pebble out of her path. “We were introduced twice, a couple years apart. I do not believe he recognized me, but he leaves an impression.”

Of course he did. Between Nick’s great height and his gorgeous, blond, blue-eyed appearance—and his outrageous flirting—Ellen would probably recall meeting Nick Haddonfield when she couldn’t recall her own name.

“Nick dropped out of sight for a few years because he did not want to be forced to marry,” Val said. “He traveled to Sussex and took a position as a groom, then as stable master on a rural estate.”

“He worked with his hands?” There was grudging curiosity in her tone.

“With a muck fork, more likely. That was the time I got to know him. He was just Wee Nick to me, an occasional companion to sport about Town with. If I omitted his title, it was an oversight, but Nick did not correct me.”

“He did not,” Ellen agreed, and some of the starch seemed to go out of her. She leaned a little more on Val’s arm, her weight welcome and even comforting. “And are you in the habit of having him check up on you?”

“He moves around a lot and checks up on most of his friends,” Val explained. He did not want to defend Nick—Nick needed no defending—but he wanted Ellen to understand why Val considered the man a friend. “This spring I moved in with him for a few weeks during the Season. I’d come down from the north and was at loose ends and was most assuredly not willing to dwell in one of my parents’ residences.”

“Hence the appeal of your new acquisition,” Ellen concluded. “You are taking more than a passing interest in it.”

“I am.” Val smiled at the observation. “Home was anywhere there was a decent piano.”

“You were that serious?”

“I was; then this happened.” He held up his left hand. “One must make a different plan sometimes, and really, spending the rest of my life on a piano bench wasn’t much of a plan.” To his surprise, he could make this honest observation without any rancor.

“But you make furniture,” Ellen protested. “That must take up some of your time.”

“I make pianos, Ellen,” Val said, feeling a curious relief to have this truth revealed. “Or my employees do. It’s very lucrative, at least for the present.”

“Pianos?” Ellen stopped in the middle of the path, cocked her head, and regarded him.