Page 74 of The Virtuoso
“You miss your Emmie,” Axel observed, a curious smile on his face. “And you are anxious to start your journey north.”
“I am, though I am not pleased to be leaving my brother in such unsettled circumstances.”
“I’m not unsettled.” Val tossed the jug of cider to him. “I am looking forward to moving into my house and living like a human for a change, instead of some forest primate in the tropics. Why is it always the big trees that come down?”
“Not always.” St. Just took his drink and passed the cider to Axel. “Your oaks have withstood centuries of storms.”
“My oaks?”
“As in the oak trees growing along the lane of the property you own and have still refused to name.”
“It isn’t that I’ve refused to name it.” Val slipped the reins of the waiting team around his shoulders and under one arm. “A name just hasn’t come to me.”
“Names.” Axel grunted as he took an axe to a sturdy root. “I can’t get Abby to name our unborn child.”
“She will.” St. Just took up a second axe and began to hack away at the root in alternating swings with Axel, while Val used the team to keep tension on the entire tree. They kept a steady chop-chop, chop-chop, until Val began to hear something like a clog dance in his head. Hearty, energetic music that managed to be both buoyant and solidly grounded at the same time.
“Look sharp, Val,” St. Just called as he heaved the axe in one mighty, final swing and hacked the root in twain. The team jumped forward but hawed obediently as Val steered them over to the side of the lane, dragging the great weight of the tree trunk with them.
“This one will keep you warm for while,” St. Just said, wiping his brow. Val urged the team forward to get the remains of the tree as close to the woodshed as possible.
“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 isafterhe 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.
