Chapter Sixteen
A s usual, Lady Brilliance didn’t mince words. Out of habit, Vincent’s first thought was that he didn’t want to mislead her. Yet, for the first time in a long time, her words were precisely in line with his wishes. He did, in fact, intend to court her. He did not have to dredge up those tired and trite words about enjoying the lady’s company while hoping she didn’t expect more from him.
Today, he could acknowledge that he was the one who wanted more.
“Yes, my lady, I would like to court you.”
“That’s good,” she said. “Then you may keep your arms around me, and you may kiss me.”
He needed no further invitation. However, when he leaned down, she asked, “You want children, do you not?”
He froze. That was a little further into the future than he had been pondering. There was the engagement, probably three months, then the wedding, followed by the honeymoon period as they settled in and got to know one another. And maybe after a year of being careful in the marriage bed, then they could allow nature to take its course.
“I ask because I have enjoyed being one of five. I like a large family.”
Then she curled her fingers into the hair behind his head and drew him down a little closer.
His eyes crossed while trying to look at her face a mere two inches from his own.
“Yes, a few children will be most welcome,” he said. And finally, he claimed her mouth.
She tasted like mint, which must be due to her tooth powders because he couldn’t imagine she’d chewed on mint with breakfast. But he forgot that as he molded her curves to his body and thought it astonishing how perfectly they fit. He couldn’t get her close enough and imagined a day when they would be bare skin against bare skin. If he had to marry her to accomplish that, so be it!
Happiness blossomed inside him at the idea of marrying her. The search he hadn’t even been aware of was over. And it had happened so easily. What’s more, he knew full well she would never betray him — Brilliance was frank and forthright. And he was a lucky man to have won her affections.
“Do you think we could lie down here on the grassy bank?” she asked. “I confess my knees are trembling and ready to collapse.”
“Yes,” he said. “No! We mustn’t. That would break the trust placed in us by my cousin. But you are so delectable.” He squeezed her waist. “Blast it!”
She giggled as he warred with his conscience. “Hold my hand, Lord Hewitt, and we shall stroll back and keep the trust placed in us, for which I am very grateful. If we were in London, it would be impossible for us to even promenade alone.”
Vincent was equally grateful. “I have a surprise,” he blurted when they were nearly back at his home. “I hope you’re ready for a small nuncheon.”
“I am indeed.”
He drew out her chair at the same wicker table, glad his cousin and the other two females, who had looked at him as though he was a juicy piece of beef, weren’t there.
Opening his back door, he called out to whoever was within listening range, “We’re ready for the cheese and bread. And we’ll have wine. Wait.” He looked back at Brilliance. “Tea or wine, my lady?”
The sun was on her bonnet, the very same one he’d given her. Her blue eyes gazed at him, and he vowed he felt pure adulation for this woman on his terrace.
“Tea, please. Unless ... no, I think wine if it’s red. Thank you.”
“Claret,” he yelled out, then realized his housekeeper was standing close. “Thank you, Mrs. Mullens.”
When the trays came out laden with rolls and butter, cheese and sliced apples, and a carafe of wine, Brilliance clapped.
“A wonderful surprise. I thought we wouldn’t be eating until Colonel and Lady Twitchard arrived.”
Feeling giddy with happiness, he said, “The food isn’t the surprise. Or rather, it is, but not all of it. Here, look at this.” He lifted the domed lid of the cloche. “For you, my lady. Brie!”
“Yes?”
“No, not Lady Bri. Brie,” he said, but she frowned. “This cheese. It is Brie.” He pointed at the creamy slices on the plate. “From France.”
“Oh, Brie!” And she laughed her delightful laugh again.
Vincent adored making her happy. He enjoyed watching her taste the nutty, smooth cheese for the first time, and he wanted to kiss the bread crumbs from her lips.
“It is like nothing I have ever tasted. I am the luckiest Diamond after all to be named for such deliciousness. I vow I could eat this every day for the rest of my life.”
“I vow I could eat you every day for the rest of mine.”
She dissolved into a fit of giggles, and he was grateful she didn’t understand the salacious thoughts inflaming his passions.
“I think wine was the correct choice,” she said. “Warm, milky tea would not have been nearly so good as this claret.”
“Agreed. But then, have we disagreed about anything?”
A shadow crossed her face, and he knew it was about his music, but he wasn’t ready to discuss “Sonata in A,” which he’d once foolishly called “Lydia” and that idiot had named “The Hummingbird.” It would only put a blight on this otherwise perfect day.
On the other hand, he was ready to grant her request.
“Will you do me the honor of listening to some of my music?”
She pushed her chair back and was on her feet before he could even stand. “The honor is all mine, my lord.”
“Vincent,” he said.
She tilted her head and considered. “How funny. I recall now when your cousin introduced you, I was thinking of a hundred other things, of how handsome your face is and how attractive your velvet gray eyes are. I have thought of you as Hewitt until this moment. However, Vincent suits you nicely.”
There were so many compliments in her words, he felt his cheeks warm. But all he said was, “Thank you.”
He took her into the room he never took anyone, not for many years, not since Lydia and Ambrose obliterated his trust. Strangely, he felt a little shy.
“I noticed when I was here last,” she said, “you did not invite us to see this room. Thus, I am doubly honored.”
Somehow, she understood! He relaxed and looked around his conservatory with her. It held little except his piano and a bench, which he preferred to a stool, and a divan. When the music overwhelmed his brain, he often reclined upon it with closed eyes. Sometimes, the notes would sort themselves out more easily than if he remained doggedly at the piano keys.
“I thought it would be strange having someone else in here, but I feel perfectly comfortable with you.”
Instead of seating herself on the sofa, she went to his piano and leaned against it with her elbows propping her up, facing where he would sit.
“Now I feel a little less comfortable,” he quipped.
She smiled. “I thought you didn’t suffer from stage fright.”
“I don’t. But above anyone else, I want you to like my music.”
Brilliance rolled her eyes but had a satisfied look on her face. “Go on,” she said, encouraging him with a gesture of her hand. “Please. Play as though I am not even here.”
But that was nigh to impossible. Quite without an ounce of self-consciousness, she was leaning over, giving him a thoroughly distracting view of the upper curves of her beautiful breasts. For a few moments, his mind emptied of music, and all he could think of was burying his face between their bounty.
“Vincent,” she prompted into the silence.
“Very well,” he said. “But I also feel like the rudest looby for taking a seat while you stand.”
“Stop procrastinating,” she ordered.
Vincent thought playing might be different, but it wasn’t — as his fingers depressed the keys, the world around him shrank and dwindled until there was only the music. It had been that way since he was very young.
His parents had possessed an ancient pianoforte with the old style of black keys and white sharps. It was more for decoration than for playing, as neither his mother nor father were musically inclined.
Vividly, he still recalled the first time he’d knelt on the stool, which had nearly toppled over. Steadying himself, hours had passed while he explored each note. Something inside him already knew how to put them together.
Within a year, his parents had bought him his first modern piano from Broadwood & Sons with gleaming white keys and shiny black ebony sharps. He had watched with fascination as the tuner opened the case and made sure each key was true to tone. And then Vincent had spent every waking hour at the magical instrument. His mother’s calls to the dining table or even to bed had fallen on deaf ears.
With lessons while he attended Harrow, where he first met Ambrose Castern, he had begun to compose long pieces. Later at Trinity College before going to study with Liszt, he had relied on music to carry him through all his other studies, which he often found pointless and boring.
And then he had fallen in love.
He stopped playing suddenly, feeling breathless, recalling the desperation of his music being taken from him. That pain trumped the heartache over losing Lydia. When his gaze fell upon Brilliance once again, he drew in a long breath, and smelled her tantalizing fragrance.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“No.” Vincent made sure he was sitting up straight, and he played another piece, one he hadn’t thought about for years.
To his delight, after a few stanzas, Brilliance sat on the edge of the bench beside him. When it was over, she clapped. He hadn’t heard anyone clap for his playing in a long time.
“It was beautiful,” she said. “Was that something new?”
“No. I have not composed much lately. It was an older piece, over a decade.”
She appeared shocked. “You wrote that music when you were a youth?”
“Sixteen,” he said. “Not so young.”
“Young for such depth of emotion.”
He shrugged. “When I was at Harrow, I wrote a barcarolle for orchestra. That was much more difficult. How did that go?” His fingers remembered more than he did and soon, the lively piece was coming back to him.
When he reached the end of the piano solo, he stopped.
This time, she didn’t clap. Instead after a long moment of silence, she said, “That was magical. How can you make a piano seem like a wistful lover? It was romantic and expressive. Actually, I don’t have the words to describe your music.” She touched her hand to his shoulder. “Why don’t you compose any longer?”
Vincent rose to his feet as if he was sitting on hot coals. “It’s not important. For the past few years, I thought I had said everything I needed to say through music.”
Standing, she eyed him carefully. “Then you have many more works to share?”
“I do. For years, the music flowed out of me like ...”
“Like a river?” she asked, moving closer.
“It was never that easy, but it was steady. Perhaps a constant trickle, more than a deluge. Themes, feelings, tempo, as soon as I had completed one piece, I was already composing the next.”
Unthinkingly, he reached out and let his hands span her waist before pulling her against him.
“It has been too long since I kissed you.”
He felt her laughter ripple through her body. They both knew it had only been a few hours. But as long as she was willing ...
His mouth claimed hers. Within seconds, their passion heated to boiling. With the tip of his tongue requesting and being granted entrance, he slid it between her lips, his heart beating hard in his chest. When her tongue tentatively stroked his, he groaned before sucking it gently.
This was definitely not what his cousin would approve of, but Alethia had to have expected it, nonetheless.
When they broke apart, breathing hard, she stared, wide-eyed. Then she put a hand to his cheek. “I believe you have much more music flowing in you.”
Vincent wanted to kiss her again, not talk. He wanted to sink his fingers into her hair while he lowered his mouth to hers. But if he didn’t start talking, then they would soon be in a compromising situation that would remove any choices for both of them.
Leading her to the divan, he tugged her hand until she sat beside him. “You’re correct. I do still have many melodies inside me.” Suddenly feeling exposed, even vulnerable, he added, “Very recently, I have begun to compose again.”
She smiled. “I am very glad.”
“I might as well,” he added. “The music plays regardless.”
Brilliance cocked her head in question.
Could he explain his busy mind? He could try. “Sometimes, I desperately need a little peace and quiet,” Vincent said. “Whether I am composing or not, there is constantly music playing.”
Brilliance looked around the otherwise silent room of his conservatory.
“It seems very peaceful,” she said, reaching out a delicate bare hand and laying it atop his where it rested on his knee. He felt her touch like a flame burning through him.
Yes, he had fallen hard for this woman . And he wanted her to understand him, as much as he wanted to learn every nuance of her nature.
With his free hand, he tapped the side of his skull. “I constantly hear music in here.”
Her curious expression was adorable. She leaned closer. “That makes me want to put my ear to yours.”
Her ear? “What do you mean?”
“So I can hear it, too,” Brilliance said without irony.
Vincent refused to laugh at her. She was so purely earnest and sweet. “I am explaining it poorly. The curse of having perfect pitch —”
“I confess I don’t know what that is.”
“Meaning, I inherently know how each note sounds. I can tune an instrument quite easily by matching the string to the sound I hear inside my head. Although I use a tuning fork to verify.”
She nodded. “The smallest fork at the place setting. Alas, I use it only for prawns and occasionally cockles.”
He stared, his mouth slightly open, until Brilliance grinned at him. “I know what a tuning fork is, my lord. Go on.”
Relief flooded him, and he felt ashamed. Would it really have mattered if she didn’t know what one was?
“Anyway, the fork has nothing to do with —” he began again.
“One could call it a pitchfork !” she said and laughed heartily at her own joke. “Perfect pitch, tuning fork. Do you see?”
“Yes.” He had heard the play on words before but never from the lips of such a delightful lady. Vincent knew he had a foolish expression on his face. How could he live without this ray of pure sunshine in his life? “You are clever.”
She beamed at the compliment. “Please continue telling me about music. I won’t interrupt again.”
“I like it when you interrupt. Besides, all I am trying to explain is that I hear either my own music or great works I’ve studied playing in my head, even when I don’t want them to, even if I would rather be quiet. Upon going to sleep, for instance.”
“A nuisance, I imagine,” she agreed.
“In truth, the curse of perfect pitch is a gift,” he confessed, “and I would not trade it. I believe it explains how Beethoven could compose even after he went deaf. I merely would like to turn it off at my bidding.”
“ Hm ,” she murmured, cocking her head. “Are you hearing music now?”
Vincent had a stunning realization. “No, actually, I am not!”