“You think there’s a lot to be said for any kind of swiving.”
“I do.” Nick’s expression was dead serious. “More to the point, you were overdue, Valentine, and not just for some romping.”
“Maybe.” Val resumed walking, and Nick dropped his arm. “I was, probably. But one doesn’t always find what one needs when one needs it.”
“One doesn’t, but you’re doing a fine job improvising.”
Val glanced at him, seeking hidden meaning in Nick’s use of a musical term, but Nick’s handsome face was schooled to innocence.
By Tuesday afternoon Val had informed all of his tenants of the plans for the week and put both teams to work moving hay. The crews on the barn roof started to replace worn trusses and move material from the manor to the hay barn.
Val found Ellen at midday, arranging a bouquet in what would likely be his bedroom. She’d chosen red roses and bright orange daylilies.
“Interesting combination,” Val murmured, coming up behind her and inhaling her floral scent. “I like seeing you in this house, Ellen.” She went still, and Val knew a gnawing sense of stealing moments before time ran out.
“Hold me.” She leaned back against him. “I shouldn’t like being here so much, but I do.”
“Here in my arms”—Val tightened his embrace—“or here in my house?”
“Both.” She turned and slipped her arms around his waist. “And you shouldn’t be sleeping with me, either.”
“I’m protecting you.” Val dipped his head to kiss the side of her neck.
Ellen angled her chin. “As if locks won’t do that job.”
“They won’t, entirely.” He stepped back and took her hand. “Mama Nick has demanded our presence in the springhouse. What Nick demands, Nick gets.”
“He’s an odd man, but I like him.”
“His size sets him apart,” Val said as they moved through the house, “and I think he’s just used to being his own man as a result. I’m glad you like him—he can be overwhelming.”
Ellen shot him another look, and Val stopped and met her gaze. “What?”
“That man…” Ellen waved a hand toward the springhouse. “The one who so blithely hitched a team to the tree on my house, he’s an earl, Valentine. Your brother is an earl, and your friend Dare is an earl’s spare. What is the nature of your family that you associate so closely with so many titles, and your brother, of all the men who served long and loyally against the Corsican, was given an earldom for his bravery? Sir Dewey stopped entire wars, and he was only knighted, for pity’s sake.”
“What are you asking?” Val dodged behind a question, ignoring the insistent voice in the back of his head: Tell her your papa is a duke, tell her your other brother is an earl, as well, tell her, tell her the truth.
“I hardly know you,” Ellen said in low, miserable tones. “I don’t know who your people are, where you’ve lived, how you come to be a builder of pianos, what you want next in life.”
“My name is Valentine Forsythe Windham.” He stepped closer, unwilling to hear Ellen talk herself out of him. “My family is large and settled mostly in Kent. You’ve met my oldest brother, and I will gladly describe each and every sibling and cousin to you. I learned to build pianos while studying in Italy and thought it made business sense to start such an endeavor here. What I want next in life, Ellen Markham, is you.” He drew her against him, daring her to argue with that.
“FitzEngle,” she whispered against his shoulder. “Ellen FitzEngle.”
“Why not Markham?” Hell, why not Ellen Windham?
She would run, fast and far, that’s why, so he kept his mouth shut and held her on the porch of the carriage house for a brief, stolen moment. “We’ve been summoned.” Val smiled down at her, trying not to let a nameless anxiety show on his face. “But, Ellen, please promise me something?”
“What?”
“If you have questions, you’ll ask me, and I’ll answer. When we’ve caught our culprit, I want to talk with you. Really talk.”
“If you are honest with me, you will expect me to be honest with you,” she said. “I want to be, I wish I could be, but I just… I can’t.”
“You won’t,” Val reiterated softly, “but when you’re ready to be, I will be too, and I promise to listen and listen well.”
She nodded, and just like that, they had a truce of sorts. Val cursed himself for his own hypocrisy but took consolation in the idea Ellen might someday be ready to tell him her secrets. It was a start, and she’d already warned him about Freddy.
That was encouraging, Val told himself—over and over again. And if a truce sometimes preceded a surrender and departure from the field, well, he ignored that over and over again, too.
The next day, Ellen took the boys to market with her, leaving Val, Darius, and Nick to assist with the roof to the hay barn. At noon, Darius called for the midday break, and the crews moved off toward the pond, there to take their meals.
“Shall we join them?” Darius asked.
“Let’s stay here with the horses,” Nick suggested. “Doesn’t seem fair everybody else gets to take a break and the beasts must stay in the traces.”
“Wearing a feed bag,” Val said. “It’s cooler inside the barn, and I could use some cool.”
“I’ll second that,” Darius said, “and a feed bag for my own face.”
They took their picnic into the lower floor of the barn, the space set aside for animals. At Val’s direction, it had recently been scrubbed, whitewashed, and the floors recobbled to the point where it was as clean as many a dwelling—for the present.
“I like this barn.” Nick looked around approvingly. “The ceiling isn’t too low. What’s for lunch?”
Darius passed each man a sandwich and watched while Nick took a long pull from the whiskey bottle.
“Save me a taste, if you please.” Darius snatched the bottle back, leaving Nick to wipe his mouth and grin.
“Damned good,” Nick allowed, leaning back to rest against a stout support beam running from floor to ceiling.
The beam shifted, and that small sound was followed by an instant’s silence. Nick’s quietly urgent “You two get the hell out” collided with Val’s equally insistent “Dare, get the team.”
Val darted to Nick’s side and added his weight to Nick’s, holding the beam in place.
Dare got the team into the barn and wrapped a stout chain around the upper portion of the beam. While the horses held it in place—no mean feat, given the delicate balance required—Val and Nick fetched trusses to provide the needed support.
When they were all outside the barn, the horses once again munching their oats, Val turned to frown at the structure.
“Somebody was very busy with a saw on Sunday,” Val murmured. “I thought you were over here much of Sunday, Dare?”
“Sunday morning.” Darius scrubbed a hand over his chin while he eyed the barn. “Sunday afternoon I accompanied Bragdoll’s sons to help clear some trees off the other tenant farms.”
“So the hay barn became an accessible target. Who knew we’d be restoring the roof so soon?”
“Bragdolls for sure,” Nick said. “What they didn’t know was you’d be stuffing all the rest of the first cutting into the barn this week, as well. Without that added weight, the center beam might have held until some unsuspecting bullock tried to give itself a good scratch.”
“More sabotage,” Val muttered, grimacing. “I wasn’t planning on moving animals in here until fall.”
“So perhaps,” Darius said slowly, “the idea was to let the thing collapse once the new roof was on, thus imperiling your entire hay crop and the lives of the animals inside the barn.”