Abby rose and put her arms around Ellen, enveloping her in a cloud of sweet, flowery fragrance. “Whatever you think you did, it can be forgiven by those who love you. I know this, Ellen.”

“I am not you,” Ellen said, her voice resolute. “I am me, and if I care for Mr. Windham, I will not involve him in my past.”

“You’re involving him in your present, though.” Abby sat back, regarding Ellen levelly. “And likely in your future, as well, I hope.”

“I should not,” Ellen said softly. “I should not, but you’re right, I have, and for the present I probably can’t help myself. He’ll tire of our dalliance, though, and then I’ll let him go, and all will be as it should be again.”

“You are not making sense. I don’t want to leave you here alone.”

“But you should,” Ellen said. “The gentlemen will be done with their baths and hungry for their luncheon. I’ll take a tray here, if you don’t mind.”

“I’ll leave you the cheese and fruit for now.” Abby got to her feet, her expression unconvinced. “Perhaps you’re done with the wine?”

“I think some tea is in order. You mustn’t take my dramatics too seriously.”

“I won’t. I’ll make your excuses to the fellows and send you up some reading with your luncheon.”

“My thanks.” Ellen let herself be hugged again. All three times she’d been pregnant, Ellen had felt the same wonderful, expansive affection for everyone in her world—well, almost everyone, as there was no genuine affection to be had for Freddy or some of his friends.

“Perhaps I’ll take a nap,” Ellen suggested.

“I never realized how invigorating a nap could be,” Abby replied, drawing back and picking up the wine bottle. “Not that kind of nap, though those are delightful, but simple rest. My first husband frowned upon it, unless one was sickening for something or suffering a migraine.”

“What a disappointing man he must have been, and what a lovely contrast Mr. Belmont must make.”

“Mr. Belmont encourages me to nap when I’m tired.” Abby’s smile was feline.

“Out.” Ellen pointed to the door, smiling back. “Out, out, out, and thank you for the visit, the wine, and the privacy.”

Though when Abby had left her alone, Ellen did not nap. Indeed, it took her some time to cease weeping.

“You had that look at luncheon you used to get when you’d been away from the piano too long,” St. Just remarked as he and Val grabbed the cribbage board, a blanket, and a small hamper.

“I am preoccupied,” Val said, “but not with a melody.” He wished he might be, rather than the disturbing things he’d overheard between Abby and Ellen as they’d visited on their balcony just the other side of the rose trellis adorning his own. What on earth could the Baroness Roxbury have done that was worse than murdering her husband?

“What’s the worst offense you could commit?” Val asked his brother as they rooted through Axel’s library cabinets for a deck of cards.

“Worst in the sense of violating my honor?” St. Just eyed Val curiously. “I suppose it would be betraying Winnie, who as a child is more helpless and dependent on me than is my countess.”

“They are both your property,” Val pointed out, spying a deck of cards. “Or as good as.”

“True, but Winnie is helpless, entrusted to me by no less than The Almighty in every regard. Her health, her happiness, her education, her spiritual well-being…”

“Daunting?” Val smiled in understanding.

“I have Emmie and Winnie to lean on. We shall contrive.”

“If you don’t have a son, what happens to the title?”

“Goes to Winnie’s eldest son, even if I do have a son with Emmie.”

Val met his brother’s eyes, not sure if the man were teasing. “Are you joking?”

“Dead serious,” St. Just replied as he waved his brother through the door of the library. “His Grace saw to the drafting of the letters patent and knew I didn’t want the earldom in the first place. As it stands, I will have the title for my lifetime, then my adopted daughter—our dear Bronwyn, who is in fact the former title holder’s offspring—will inherit on behalf of her heirs.”

“What did you have to give up to get this concession from Moreland?” Val asked as they gained the kitchen.

“I didn’t give up anything.” St. Just piled their booty on the counter and went to the bread box, extracting two fat muffins. “His Grace knew I never wanted an earldom—despite Her Grace’s insistence that one be imposed on me—and came up with this on his own. It’s a few words in the letters patent about my firstborn of any description rather than firstborn legitimate natural male son, and so on. Why do you find it so hard to believe the duke might act on decent notions?”

“He can.” Val made the admission easily. “He’s been more than decent to Anna, but his own ends are usually the ones he’s most inclined to serve.”

“His Grace becomes fixed on his goals.” St. Just wrapped the muffins in a clean dishcloth and tucked them in the hamper. “He’s a man who pursues his aims with an untiring fixity of purpose, regardless of the price it exacts from him in bodily comfort or personal ease. You hold this against him with a great deal of determination, I note.”

There was something irritatingly older-brother in St. Just’s observation, as if Val were missing some obvious point.

“I wouldn’t say I hold it against him so much.” Val frowned at the hamper. What was St. Just getting at? “The way he is just… frustrates. He’s more human since his heart seizure, and he’s made his peace with you and Gayle, but he and I have never had much in common.”

St. Just cocked his head, a curious smile on his lips. “Dear heart, what do you allow yourself to have in common with anybody? You stopped riding horses with me when you were little more than a boy; you’ve kept your businesses scrupulously away from Gayle’s eye; you seldom went out socializing with Bart or Victor, though you’ll escort our sisters all over creation; and you’ve chained yourself to that piano for most of your adult life.”

“I believe we’ve had this discussion. Would you be very offended if I begged off our cribbage match?” There was only so much fraternal cross-examination a man could politely bear, after all.

“Of course I don’t mind. I’ll trounce Belmont instead, or the grooms, or maybe just cadge a nap under some obliging tree. Go to your lady. It’s clear you were pining for her all through lunch.”

Val scrubbed a hand over his face. “Was I that obvious?”

“A brother far from home suspects these things. There’s cake in the breadbox. You might take her some.”

“One piece and one fork.”

“Well done. And Val?”

Val turned, cake knife in hand, and waited.

“I’ll be leaving on Monday, once I’ve seen you returned to Little Weldon,” St. Just said. “I won’t stop worrying about you, though. And because I will be absent and Gayle is up to his eyes in nappies, you might consider letting His Grace know where things stand here. You need someone at your back.”

Val drew in a slow breath, nodded, and departed.

He made his way through the house, unsettled by his exchange with St. Just but unable to put his finger on the exact source. The Duke of Moreland was an old-style aristocrat—bossy, self-indulgent, and much concerned with his own consequence. To say he was high-handed was comparable to calling the Atlantic wet.

Val put the puzzle of his father’s machinations away as his steps took him to Ellen’s bedroom, and he debated at the last minute whether he should intrude. What could he say: What crime did you commit that prevents me from courting you?

Did he want to court her?

Ellen stared at the same page she’d been staring at for half an hour then put the book aside in disgust. Catullus and Sappho, indeed. What had Abby been about? Romance was little comfort to an impoverished, widowed baroness who ought to know better. So why had she even allowed herself to think, to acknowledge in her own mind she could be falling in love with Val Windham?