The Virtuoso Read Online Free Page A

traveled toward the largest outbuilding. “And the springhouse looks large and sound, and the carriage house nearly so.”
    â€œWhere is your home farm?”
    â€œThat direction, being worked by a tenant most likely.”
    â€œYou’re fortunate to have stone walls.” Darius frowned as he turned slowly where he stood. “They’ll take some effort to repair, but the materials are at hand, and most of your tenants should have the skill.”
    â€œIt so happens, while in Yorkshire enjoying my brother’s hospitality, I acquired the skill. It’s more a matter of wearing gloves, cursing fluently, and not being able to walk or rise from one’s seat the next day.”
    â€œAnd who wouldn’t enjoy such an undertaking as that?” Darius smiled as he spoke. “Are we going inside?”
    â€œNot tonight.” Bright morning light would serve better for an inspection, and Val had seen enough for now. The place still stood, and that was what mattered.
    Though why it mattered escaped him for the present.
    â€œLet’s peek inside the carriage house, though, shall we?” Val suggested. “There might be usable quarters above, and the first thing we’re going to need is a stout wagon to haul supplies and debris.”
    â€œYou’re staying?”
    â€œThink of the privacy.” Val’s smile widened at the incredulity on Darius’s face. “The insipid teas and dances we’ll miss, the scheming young ladies we won’t have to dodge under the arbors, and the unbearable stink of London in summer we won’t have to endure.”
    The pianos he wouldn’t have to abstain from playing. Hot cross buns… Hot cross buns…
    â€œThink of your back hurting so badly you can hardly walk,” Darius rejoined as he crossed the yard beside Val. “The endless small talk at the local watering hole, the pleasures of the village churchyard on a Sunday morning, where no man escapes interrogation.”
    â€œYou’re not”—Val paused in mock drama—“ afraid , are you, Lindsey?”
    While giving Darius a moment to form the appropriate witty rejoinder, Val pushed open the door to the carriage house. No doubt because vehicles were expensive and the good repair of harness a matter of safety, the place had been built snugly and positioned on a little rise at the back of the house. The interior was dusty but dry and surprisingly tidy.
    â€œThis is encouraging.”
    Darius followed him in. “Why do I have the compulsion to caution you strenuously against going up those stairs, Windham? Perhaps you’ll be swarmed by bats or set upon by little ghoulies with crossbows.”
    â€œOh, for God’s sake, what could be hiding in an empty old carriage house?”
    ***
    Ellen had meant to take herself off for a little stroll in the dense woods separating her cottage from the crumbling manor, but the chamomile tea she’d drunk must have lulled her to sleep. When she awoke, Marmalade was curled in her lap, the kneading of his claws in her thigh rousing her even through her skirts and petticoats.
    â€œDown with you, sir.” She gently put the cat on the porch planks and saw from the angle of the sun she’d dozed off only for a few minutes. Something caught her ear as she rose from her rocker, a trick of the time of evening when dew fell and sounds carried.
    â€œDamn them,” Ellen muttered, leaving the porch with a swish of skirts. Bad enough the village boys liked to spy on her and whisper that she was a witch. Worse was when they ran tame over the old Markham manor house, using it as a place to smoke illicit pipes, tipple their mama’s brandied pears, and practice their rock throwing.
    â€œLittle heathen.” Ellen went to her tool shed and drew a hand scythe down from the wall pegs. She’d never had serious trouble with the boys before, but one in particular—Mary Bragdoll’s