The Virtuoso Read Online Free PDF Page B

cordially unremarkable tones she could muster. “One is always pleased to know one’s gardening efforts are memorable.”
    â€œUntil tomorrow.” Mr. Windham took her hand and bowed over it, but he also kissed her knuckles—a soft, fleeting contact of his mouth on the back of her hand, accompanied by a slight squeeze of his fingers around hers. And then he was swinging up on a big chestnut, saluting with his crop, and cantering off into the darkness, Mr. Lindsey at his side.
    Ellen sat, her left hand closed over the knuckles of her right, and tried to think whether it was a good thing her flowers had left an impression on Mr. Windham.
    It was a bad thing, she decided, for Mr. Windham was a scamp, and a scamp as a neighbor was trouble enough, particularly when she liked him, and his every touch and glance had her insides in a compete muddle. And while he might recall her flowers, she recalled quite clearly their one, very thorough and far beyond neighborly kiss.
    ***
    â€œYou are going to trifle with the widow,” Darius predicted as the horses ambled through the moonlight toward Little Weldon. The night was pleasant, the worst heat of the day fading to a soft, summery warmth made fragrant by mown hay and wild flowers.
    â€œShe is a widow,” Val said, “but I don’t think she’s that kind of widow.”
    â€œWhat kind of widow would that be?”
    Val ignored the question, more intent on a sweet recollection. “I was out here last spring on an errand for David Worthington, supposedly looking at rural properties that might be for sale. I accompanied Vicar Banks on a courtesy call to what I thought was an elderly widow who’d missed the previous week’s services. I saw a floppy straw hat, an untidy cinnamon-colored braid, and bare feet before I saw anything else of her. I concluded she was an old dear becoming vague, as they say.”
    â€œVague does not apply to Mrs. FitzEngle. Just the opposite.”
    â€œNot vague,” Val agreed, He’d kissed the woman before taking his leave of her on that long-ago afternoon, an impulse—a sweet, stolen moment with a woman whose every feature left a man with a sense of warmth. She had warm brown eyes, a warm sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and hair a warm shade exactly midway between auburn and blond—cinnamon came to mind rather than chestnut. “She isn’t dreamy or given to flights but there is something…”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œUnconventional,” Val said, though that term wasn’t quite right either. Her hands on his body would be warm too, though how he knew this, he could not say. “Ellen could be considered eccentric, but I prefer to think of her as… unique.”
    Darius said nothing, finding it sufficiently unique that Valentine Windham, son of a duke, wealthy merchant, virtuoso pianist, and favorite of the ladies, would think of Mrs. FitzEngle as Ellen .
    ***
    Val peered over the soffit as several slate tiles slid down from the roof on the newly constructed slide and bumped safely against the cloth padding the bottom of the chute.
    â€œIt works,” he said, grinning over at Darius, the only other occupant of the house’s roof.
    â€œOf course it works.” Darius sat back on his heels, using his forearm to wipe the sweat from his brow. “I designed it. I don’t recall you ordering another entire wagonload of goods from town.”
    Val followed Darius’s gaze down to the yard, where a farm wagon pulled by two exceptionally sturdy horses came to a halt before the house. A handsome black saddle horse was tethered behind, not one Val recognized. Val and Darius both availed themselves of the slide to get from roof to yard, causing the lead horses’ ears to flick and the occupants of the wagon to start whooping with glee.
    â€œSettle down, you two,” barked the driver. “Lord Valentine will think he’s set upon