Page 50 of The Virtuoso
Val glanced over at her, wishing he had a hand free to hold hers, but he was toting both her traveling satchel and a toolbox. “I feel as if for all we’ve been plotting and planning this weekend, for all that you and I have cleared the air regarding the rents, we’re still left with a distance between us.”
“Knowing somebody is contemplating arson, at least, and more likely murder, leaves me preoccupied. Mr. Windham.”
“I am sorry,” Val said as they reached her back porch.
“Sorry?”
“I’ve brought this trouble to you,” he said, pushing the door open for her. “You were safe and content here, then I go tearing up your peace, and now you are afraid for your own safety. When we find out who’s behind this, I will hold him accountable for that more than anything.”
“Come in,” Ellen said, stepping back into her kitchen, “and welcome. I don’t believe you’ve been inside before.”
“Except to put Sleeping Beauty to bed in the dark of night.” Val smiled slightly, glancing around. “This is like you. Pretty, tidy, organized, and yet not quite the expected.”
The dominant feature was the large fieldstone hearth, raised to allow feet to be propped on it, socks dried, or water heated. Two insets in the stonework sat ready for dutch ovens or warming pans, and a sturdy potswing held a cast iron cook pot. For those times of year when the fireplace would not be used, a small cast-iron stove stood in a corner of the kitchen opposite the sink. The fireplace opened on two sides, both on the kitchen cum sitting room, and on the bedroom behind it.
There were sachets and scent bowls in corners and on end tables, giving the whole cottage a fresh, floral air.
Ellen stood in her kitchen, arms crossed. “Well?”
“May I peek at your bedroom?”
The room was light and airy with only sheer curtains over the window, and a breeze coming in to flutter those. A shelf built over the bed held books, a wardrobe contained Ellen’s dresses and shoes, and a chest of cedar at the foot of the bed likely her more delicate apparel. The bed, wardrobe, and shelf were pine, a pedestrian wood, but light in color and pretty to the eye.
And the bed… It was probably intended to be a canopy, but stood without the hangings, covered by a worn white quilt gone soft and thin with age. Val entered the room only far enough to stroke a hand over the quilt and inhale the lavender scent of the bed linens.
“Lovely.”
“Humble,” Ellen countered, standing beside him and gazing down at her bed. “It was a guest room set that was being moved up to the servant’s wing at Roxbury. I appropriated it and did not ask permission.”
“It’s pretty and sensible.” Val left off inspecting her personal space and met her gaze. “Like you, and if we don’t leave this room right now, Ellen FitzEngle, I’m going to want you in that bed, naked and panting my name while I make you come so hard you can’t see.”
Eight
Ellen sat on the bed, dropped onto it, more like, her expression thunderstruck.
“Ellen?” Val knelt to peer up at her where she sat. “Shall I leave?” He put a hand on her knee then slid it up to her hip, holding her gaze as he did. She laid her fingers over the back of his debilitated left hand. They’d been heading for this moment for weeks, but now that it was upon her, she looked not just surprised but stunned.
“I’ll leave,” Val said, settling back onto his heels and resting his cheek against her thigh. “If you ask it of me, I’ll get up and see about your locks, share a cup of cider and an apple tart, ask you your plans for the week, and understand.”
“Understand?”
He brought his other hand around her waist and held on, knee-walking in close to hug her middle on a sigh.
“Now isn’t the time,” Val suggested. “You don’t feel ready, you’re having second thoughts, or you don’t particularly relish getting involved with a man who’s the target of impending mayhem.”
Much less, he thought, one who had only one reliably functional hand, even after more than a month of abstaining from his music. He was pushing her, but he wanted out from under the uncertainty of his reception in her arms. It had been almost a week since they’d been what he could call intimate, and in the intervening days his desire for her had only grown.
“Now is the time,” Ellen said softly. “But if you let me think about it, I’ll lose my nerve and make excuses, and I don’t want…”
He pulled back to survey her velvety brown eyes, finding them so somber as to unnerve him. He wanted this joining to be pleasurable for her, joyous even.
“You don’t want?”
“To never have known what it’s like,” she finished the thought, “to be with you like that. To be your lover.”
Warnings went off in Val’s head, as her words could mean she wanted only a single experience of him, wanted a taste, a sample, nothing more.Hewanted more, he wanted more than he deserved of her; he wanted to devour her, to make a feast of her, and to offer himself for her delectation too.
Ah, well.
