Val blinked. “My thanks.”

“I’ll see your boots cleaned and leave them at the door.”

Axel repaired to his library, there to start a letter to Nick Haddonfield, generally regarded to be Val Windham’s closest friend. And while Axel would not violate a confidence, something had to be relayed to Nick regarding his brother-in-law Darius and his friend Lord Val, if only placatory generalities. Darius had attached himself to Val at Nick’s request, after all, and this little plan to foster Day and Phillip in Windham’s camp had been Nick’s casual suggestion, as well.

Casual, indeed.

Ellen unpinned her hat and surveyed the gracious, airy guestroom. “You weren’t joking about a bath, were you?” Maids were trooping in, each one dumping two buckets of warm water into a large copper bathing tub.

“Travel in summer is often a dusty, uncomfortable business,” Abby Belmont said as she closed the drapes to the balcony doors. “And being around Day and Phillip can leave anybody in need of some peace and quiet. Shall I send a maid in to assist you?”

“Oh, good heavens, no.” Ellen blushed to even think of it, and Abby regarded her curiously.

“Axel told me you don’t use the title. By rights we should be ladyshipping you and so forth. Let’s get you out of that dress, and you can tell me how the boys really behaved.”

Grateful for the change in topic, Ellen pattered on cheerfully about Day and Phillip until she was soaked, shampooed, rinsed, brushed out, dried off, and dressed for luncheon.

“You didn’t love your first husband the way you love Mr. Belmont, did you?” Ellen asked before they’d left the privacy of the guest room. The question would have been unthinkable even an hour ago, but pretty, dark-haired Abby Belmont—formerly Abby Stoneleigh—had a comfortable, unpretentious air about her.

“That is a difficult question,” Abby replied slowly, “but no, I was never in love with Gerald and probably never truly loved him, though I was—however mistakenly—grateful to him. I am in love with my present husband, but even he, who loved his first wife dearly, would tell you a second marriage is not like a first.”

Ellen said nothing—the topic was one of idle curiosity only—and let Abby link their arms and lead her to the family dining room.

In the course of the meal, Ellen watched as Val consumed a tremendous quantity of good food, all the while conversing with the Belmonts about plans for his property, the boys’ upcoming matriculation, and mutual acquaintances. At the conclusion of the meal, Belmont offered Val and Ellen a tour of the property, and Abby departed on her husband’s arm to take her afternoon nap.

“May I offer you a turn through the back gardens while we wait for our host?” Val asked Ellen when the Belmonts had repaired abovestairs. “There’s plenty of shade, and I need to move lest I turn into a sculpture of ham and potatoes.”

He soon had her out the back door, her straw hat on her head. She wrapped her fingers around Val’s arm and pitched her voice conspiratorially low. “Find us some shade and a bench.”

He led her through gardens that were obviously the pride and joy of a man with a particular interest in flora, to a little gazebo under a spreading oak.

“Did we bore you at lunch with all of our talk of third parties and family ties?” he asked as he seated her inside the gazebo.

“Not at all, but you unnerved me with your familiar address.”

Val grimaced. “I hadn’t noticed. Suppose it’s best to go on as I’ve begun, though, unless you object? They aren’t formal people.”

“They are lovely people. Now sit you down, Mr. Windham, and take your medicine.” She withdrew her tin of comfrey salve, and Val frowned.

“You don’t have to do this.” He settled beside her on the bench that circled five interior sides of the hexagonal gazebo.

“Because you’ll be so conscientious about it yourself?” She’d positioned herself to his left and held out her right hand with an imperious wave. Taking Val’s left hand in her right, she studied it carefully.

“I didn’t get to see this the other night. It looks like it hurts.”

“Only when I use it. But if you’ll just hand me the tin, I can see to myself.”

“Stop being stubborn.” She dipped her fingers into the salve. “It’s only a hand, and only a little red and swollen. Maybe you shouldn’t be using it at all.” She began to spread salve over his knuckles while Val closed his eyes. “You have no idea why this has befallen you?”

“I might have overused it. Or it might be a combination of overuse and a childhood injury, or it might be just nerves.”

“Nerves?” Ellen peered over at him while she stroked her fingers over his palm. “One doesn’t usually attribute nerves to such hearty fellows as you.”

“It started the day I buried my second brother,” Val said on a sigh. He turned his head as if gazing out over the gardens or toward the manor house that sat so serenely on a small rise.

“You didn’t tell me you’d lost a brother.” She switched her grip so Val’s hand was between both of hers and her thumbs were circling on his broad and slightly callused palm.

“Two, actually. One on the Peninsula under less than heroic circumstances, though we don’t bruit that about, the other to consumption.” His voice could not have been more casual, but Ellen was holding his hand and felt the tension radiating from him.

“Valentine, I am so very sorry.”

“How did your husband die?” Val asked, desperately wanting to change the subject if not snatch his hand away and tear across the fields until he was out of sight.

“Fall from a horse.” Ellen said, though she did not turn loose of Val’s hand. “He lingered for two weeks, put his affairs in order—not that Francis’s affairs were ever out of order—then slipped away. I thought…”

“You thought?”

“I thought he was recovering.” She sighed, her fingers going still, though she kept his hand cradled in both of hers. “There was no outward injury, you see. He took a bump on the head, and there was some bruising around his middle, but no bleeding, no infection, nothing you’d think would kill a man.”

“He might have been bleeding inside. Or that bump on the head might have been what got him.”

“He was upset with himself to be incapacitated,” Ellen said softly. “The Markhams have bad hearts, you see. Their menfolk don’t often live past fifty, and some don’t live half that long. They are particularly careful of their succession, and so my failure to provide a son stood out in great relief. Francis was upset with himself for not seeing to his duty, not upset with me. His first wife had done no better than I, though, and that was some comfort.”

“I didn’t know you were a second wife,” Val said as Ellen shifted her ministrations to his wrist and forearm.

“She died of typhus. They were also married for five years, and I know Francis was very fond of her.”

“Fond.” Val winkled his nose at the term. “I suppose that’s genteel, but I can’t see myself spending the rest of my life with somebody of whom I am merely fond. I am fond of Ezekiel.”

“Your horse.” Ellen smiled at him. “He is fond of you, as well, but when you have nobody and nothing to be even fond of, then fond can loom like a great boon.”

“Nobody?” Val cocked his head, addressing her directly. “No cousins, no uncles or aunts, no old granny knitting in some kitchen?”

Ellen shook her head. “I was the only child of only children and born to them late in life. The present generation of Markhams was not prolific either. There’s Frederick, of course, and some theoretical cousin who enjoys the status of Frederick’s heir, but I do not relish Frederick’s company, and I’ve never met the cousin.”

“What is a theoretical cousin?”

“Francis called him that,” Ellen said, switching to long, slow strokes along Val’s forearm. It was a peculiarly soothing way to be touched, though Val had the sense she’d all but forgotten what her hands were doing. “I gather Mr. Grey might be joined so far back to the family tree as to make the connection suspect, or he might have been born to his mother long after she’d separated from Mr. Grey.”