Grace Burrowes: The Virtuoso

It boggled the mind but certainly did not entertain for long.

Glancing at his cards, Val felt a wave of despair. Here he was, seated amid the power and plenty of the realm’s aristocracy, and he was about to burst out cursing for lack of ability to play “Hot Cross Buns.”

A fucking, bedamned nursery rhyme was denied him.

“Your turn, Windham,” Darius Lindsey drawled. By some unspoken accord, Lindsey had become Val’s latest carousing companion, though Val had his suspicions as to how this had come about. “Or not, if you’d rather cash in.”

Val glanced again at his cards and felt the heavy irony of divine humor at work. In the two weeks since he had stopped making music, his luck had become uncannily good at all games of chance. The pile of chips before him was obscenely ample, but he was comforted to note Lindsey was managing fairly well, too.

Not so young Baron Roxbury, seated across from Val. The man was playing too deep, visibly sweating in the candlelight.

“You can’t back out now,” Roxbury said, desperation in his voice. “Wouldn’t be sporting in the least. A fellow needs a chance to win back his own, don’tcha know?”

“Believe you’re about out of chips, Roxbury,” Lindsey said. “Why don’t we all call it a night, and things will look less daunting in the morning?”

“Not a bad idea,” Val chimed in on cue, for he had no intention of spending the entire night watching Roxbury dig himself even deeper in debt. “My eyes grow tired. The smoke is rather thick.”

“One more round.” Roxbury’s hand shot out and gripped Val’s right wrist when Val would have swept his chips to the edge of the table. “All I need is one more.”

“My dear,” Lindsey’s voice cut in softly, “I don’t think you can make the ante.”

“I can.” Roxbury’s chin went up. “With this.” He fumbled in his breast pocket and tossed a document on the table that bore the ribbons and seals of legality.

“I’m out.” Darius stood. “Roxbury, if you need a small loan to cover your losses, I’m sure it can be arranged until next quarter. Lord Val, you coming?”

“He can’t.” Roxbury answered for Val as the other two players murmured their excuses and left the table. “He owes me one more hand .”

“He owes you nothing,” Lindsey said. “You’re half seas over and the cards aren’t favoring you. Do yourself a favor and call it a night, Roxbury.”

“One more hand.” Roxbury held Val’s gaze, and it was difficult for a decent man to decide what would be kinder: To allow Roxbury what he thought would save him or to minimize the man’s losses.

One more hand , Val thought, the irony quirking his lips.

“One more.” Val nodded, meeting Lindsey’s exasperated glance. “But call for our hats and gloves, would you, Dare?”

Lindsey took the proffered excuse to leave but said something to the two men loitering by the door as they finished their drinks. With his peripheral vision, Val noted both sidled over to the corner and topped off those drinks. Witnesses, Val thought, realizing Lindsey brought a certain sophistication Val lacked to the suddenly dangerous business of gentlemanly idleness.

“Shall we cut for the deal?” Val asked. “Perhaps you can tell me exactly what you’ve tossed into the pot.”

“An estate.” Roxbury turned the top half of the deck over, smiling hugely when he revealed the knave of diamonds. “A tidy little property a short day’s ride from Town, out in Oxfordshire. Been in the family but doesn’t merit much attention.”

“Doesn’t merit much attention?” Val quirked an eyebrow and cut the queen of hearts—of course. He sighed inwardly as the little mi-re-do tune to “Hot Cross Buns” ran through his head. “My deal.”

Roxbury shrugged in what Val supposed was an attempt at casual disregard. “It’s not the family seat. Haven’t spent a night there myself, so there’s little point to keeping the place staffed, but it’s worth a pretty penny.”

“How many acres?” Val asked, dealing—with his right hand.

“Few thousand.” Another shrug as the final cards were dealt. “Home farm, home wood, dairy, pastures, a few tenants, that sort of thing.” Roxbury picked up his cards, and from the man’s expression, Val knew with sinking certainty this unstaffed, neglected, miserable little ruin of a country estate was all but his.

He could throw the game, of course.

Hot cross buns, hot cross buns.

One ha’ penny, two ha’ penny,

Hot cross buns.

He wasn’t going to throw the game. The place might be useful as a dower property for a relative, or a retreat for Val that wasn’t surrounded by friends and family. If it required attention, so much the better, because nobody sane spent the entire summer sweltering in Town.

Surrounded by pianos at every turn.

Val looked at his cards and almost smiled. Of course, a full house, queens over knaves. How fitting.

“This brings back memories,” Darius said from his perch on a solid piebald gelding.

“The trips to university and back,” Val replied from aboard his chestnut. They’d had good weather for their trip out from London, thank God, though this particular stretch of road was looking oddly familiar. “Jesus pissing in the bloody blazing desert.”

“Original,” Darius conceded. “But apropos of what?”

Val retrieved the deed from the breast pocket of his riding jacket and scowled at the document. “I am very much afraid I know this place.”

“You know the estate or the town nearby?”

“Both.” Val felt a reluctant smile tugging at his lips. “And if this is the place I think it is, it’s in godforsaken shape. The roof was on its last prayers a year ago and the grounds are an eyesore.”

“Famous. So why are you smiling?”

“It needs rescuing. It has good bones and a lovely setting, and it’s just far enough from London I won’t be plagued with relatives and friends. There’s a decent tavern in Little Weldon, and a market, and the folk are pleasant, as long as you’ve no pretensions to privacy.” Val tucked the deed back in his pocket and urged his horse forward.

Darius brushed his horse’s mane so it rested neatly down the right side of the animal’s muscular neck and put his gelding to the walk beside Val’s mount. “You are telling me we are to bivouac in Oxfordshire among a bunch of toothless old men and church biddies?”

“Nonsense,” Val said, his smile broadening. “Both Rafe and Tilden have a few teeth, and we’ll be camping only until I can put a few rooms to rights.”

“I see.”

“Lindsey.” Val peered over at him. “Didn’t you and your brother ever camp in the home wood at Wilton? Play Indians, roast a few hapless bunnies over a fire, and swim naked in the moonlight?”

“I am in the company of a pagan.” Darius smoothed his hand over the horse’s already tidy mane. “If you must know, Trent and I were not permitted such savage pastimes, and I’d not have indulged in them if we were.”

“You’ve never sat in a tree reading Robinson Crusoe ?”

“Not once.”

“Never snitched a picnic from Cook?” Val was frowning now. “Never pinched your papa’s second copy of the Kama Sutra to puzzle over the pictures in the privacy of the hay mow?”

“He had no such thing in his library.”

“Never crept down to the study in the dead of night and gotten sick on his brandy?”

Darius’s brows rose. “God in heaven, Windham. Did Her Grace have no influence on her menfolk whatsoever?”

“Of course, she did. I am a very good dancer. I have some conversation. I know how to dress and how to flirt with the wallflowers.”