Page 95 of The Virtuoso
Val chose to walk her home through the wood, which had been gradually cleaned up as time from other tasks allowed. As it had the afternoon he’d met her, sunlight slanted enchantingly through the trees, birds sang, and a breeze sent the sturdy, spicy fragrance of the woods into the nose and the imagination.
“I want to kiss you,” Val said, tugging Ellen to a sudden stop. They’d reached the place where he’d kissed her more than a year ago. He wanted to trap her in their woods, shut out the world, shut out the march of time, shut out the impact of the truths bearing down on their future.
To his great relief, Ellen stepped into his arms when he turned to face her.
“You will listen?” Val asked, breathing in the scent of her.
Ellen nodded against his neck. “I promise I will listen.”
They completed their journey with their arms around each other’s waists, and Val had the impression Ellen didn’t relish this truth-telling any more than he did. When they reached her cottage, she sat him on the swing and brought them each a mug of cider.
“I love you,” Val began, wondering where in the nine circles of hell that had come from. He sat forward, elbows on his knees, and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m sorry; that came out… wrong. Still…” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “It’s the truth.”
Ellen’s fingers settled on his nape, massaging in the small, soothing circles Val had come to expect when her hands were on him.
“If you love me,” she said after a long, fraught silence, “you’ll tell me the truth.”
Val tried to see that response as positive—she hadn’t stomped off, railed at him, or tossed his words back in his face. Yet. But neither had she reciprocated.
“My name is Valentine Windham,” he said slowly, “but you’ve asked about my family, and in that regard—and that regard only—I have not been entirely forthcoming.”
“Come forth now,” she commanded softly, her hand going still.
“My father is the Duke of Moreland. That’s all. I’m a commoner, my title only a courtesy, and I’m not even technically the spare anymore, a situation that should improve further, because my brother Gayle is deeply enamored of his wife.”
“Improve?” Ellen’s voice was soft, preoccupied.
“I don’t want the title, Ellen.” Val sat up, needing to see her eyes. “I don’t ever want it, not for me, not for my son or grandson. I make pianos, and it’s a good income. I can provide well for you, if you’ll let me.”
“As your mistress?”
“Bloody, blazing… no!” Val rose and paced across the porch, turning to face her when he could go no farther. “As my wife, as my beloved, dearest wife.”
A few heartbeats of silence went by, and with each one, Val felt the ringing of a death knell over his hopes.
“I would be your mistress. I care for you, too, but I cannot be your wife.”
Val frowned at that. It wasn’t what he’d been expecting. A conditional rejection, that’s what it was. She’d give him time, he supposed, to get over his feelings and move along with his life.
“Why not marry me?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
She crossed her arms too. “What else haven’t you told me?”
“Fair enough.” Val came back to sit beside her and searched his mind. “I play the piano. I don’t just mess about with it for polite entertainment. Playing the piano used to be who I was.”
“You were a musician?”
Val snorted. “I was a coward, but yes, I was a musician, avirtuosoof the keyboard. Then my hand”—he held up his perfectly unremarkable left hand—“rebelled against all the wear and tear, or came a cropper somehow. I could not play anymore, not without either damaging it beyond all repair or risking a laudanum addiction, maybe both.”
“So you came out here?” Ellen guessed. “You took on the monumental task of setting to rights what I had put wrong on this estate and thought that would be… what?”
“A way to feel useful or maybe just a way to get tired enough each day that I didn’t miss the music so much, and then…”
“Then?” She took his hand in hers, but Val wasn’t reassured.Hismistress, indeed.
“Then I became enamored of my neighbor. She beguiled me—she’s lovely and dear and patient. She’s a virtuoso of the flower garden. She cared about my hand and about me without once hearing me play the piano, and this intrigued me.”
“You intrigued me,” Ellen admitted, pressing the back of his hand to her cheek. “You still do.”
