Page 106 of The Virtuoso
“If there is a child I will tell you.”
“Well, then.” Val resumed their progress. “I think that’s all there is to say, except, once again, I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Ellen replied, wishing she’d given him the words so much more often and under so many different circumstances.
“Good-bye, my dearest love.” Val bent and kissed Ellen’s cheek, not taking her in his arms. “Be safe and call upon me if there’s need.”
A final nod as Val slipped a hankie into Ellen’s hand, and then he mounted up and turned his horse, putting Zeke first to the trot then moving the horse up to a brisk canter. Ellen got a final sympathetic glance from Nick, and then he and Darius were off, disappearing down the drive in a clatter of hooves and dust.
And thensilence.
She’d had a great deal of silence in the past five years, and for the most part, she’d come to treasure it. But this silence was different, as it wasn’t just the lack of sound, it was also the lack of Valentine Windham.
***
“A caller, Lord Val.” David Worthington’s butler, like every member of the staff at David’s townhouse, knew how to give the impression it was his pleasure to serve. Val glanced up from where he was bent over the desk in the music room and blinked.
“Who is it?” Val asked, glancing at the clock. Blazing hell, it was nearly teatime already.
“His Grace, the Duke of Moreland.” The butler didn’t make a face, but in his voice there were pinched lips and pruney expressions.
“No avoiding him,” Val muttered. “Best do the tea and crumpets drill, and he’s partial to crème cakes, if I recall aright. Let’s use the family parlor, since the formal parlor faces the street.”
“Very good, my lord.” The butler bowed politely and withdrew, leaving Val to roll down his cuffs and shrug into his coat.
With a longing glance over his shoulder, Val mentally strapped on the familiar armor of indifference and strolled—deliberately—off to the family parlor.
“Your Grace.” Val bowed politely. “You are looking well.” His father looked ever the same—tall, lean, blue-eyed, with a thick mane of white hair, his ensemble impeccable even in the middle of a wet and chilly fall day.
“I am looking old,” the duke shot back, “and tired. I trust you are well?”
“You may tell Her Grace that I thrive,” Val said with a small smile. “Shall we sit?”
“Of course.” His Grace plopped onto a pretty little chintz sofa, one likely reflective of Letty’s influence. “Too deuced miserable to stand around nattering. When will you come see your mother?”
“I did visit Morelands several weeks ago.”
“And you haven’t since,” the duke retorted. “And what kind of visit was that? You spent one night, and then off again to see Bellefonte, and then it’s back to London—and in this bloody raw weather, Valentine?”
“Bellefonte is a very good friend,” Val said, grateful for the interruption of the tea tray. “Now, there’s hot tea, and by purest coincidence, a few crème cakes. I’m not sure how many are on the tray, so I couldn’t possibly report to Her Grace how many you ate.”
The duke’s blue eyes warmed with humor. “Smart lad.”
“Tea or something stronger?”
“Tea with lots of sugar and a dash of whiskey, though the whiskey we’ll find here is probably too fine to deserve such a fate.”
“Fairly’s cellars are to be envied, but you didn’t brave London in this rain to discuss whiskey.”
“I most assuredly did not,” His Grace replied, arranging three cakes on a small plate—it would not hold more. “I got your letters.”
Val sipped his tea—his undoctored tea—and merely raised an eyebrow.
“Took a while.” His Grace demolished a cake in two bites. “Summer, you know, people are rusticating and off to fornicate their way through various house parties. You cannot know how relieved I am Her Grace did not indulge in that folly this year at Morelands.”
“I’m surprised she hasn’t left for Yorkshire yet. A new granddaughter must have her in alt.”
“We are pleased.” The duke’s eyes twinkled as he appropriated the royal first person plural. “But we are also getting appallingly old, and St. Just, canny fellow, has hinted he might bring Emmie, Winnie, and the baby south for the winter. Her Grace and I would rather see that—so the entire family can then enjoy St. Just’s visit—than we would like to make a progress of hundreds of miles.”
