Chapter 10
Gwen knew she looked frightful.
No amount of cool water or powder could erase the shadows beneath her eyes.
Still, when the clock neared the appointed hour, and the house had sunk into that particular silence that followed Howard’s orders, she expertly tiptoed through the servants’ passage with her cloak pulled tightly around her and then slipped outside.
The night felt sharper than before. Each stone beneath her slippers seemed to announce her approach. By the time she reached the garden gate at Greystone House, her pulse had climbed so high she could hear it in her ears.
The gate opened almost without sound. Victor stood behind it, the same dark outline, the same measured composure, as if he had been carved from the night itself and only borrowed movement now and then.
“Lady Gwendoline,” he greeted.
“Your Grace.”
He studied her face with a directness that made her wish for the blindfold again. “You are pale.”
“I am always pale,” she replied. “It is my most enduring feature.”
“Your most enduring feature is your refusal to answer questions,” he said quietly. “Come inside.”
She followed him through the dim corridor, grateful that the lamps had been turned low. The hush of the house had begun to feel almost familiar.
He did not lead her to his study this time, nor to the small circle of candles in the garden. Instead, he guided her toward a larger room where a soft spill of light and the faint echo of sound reached them before the threshold.
The music room was handsome, though not ostentatious.
A pianoforte stood near the windows, its polished case catching the candlelight.
A harp stood in a dignified corner, as if offended by neglect.
The air carried the faint scent of wax and something floral, as if his mother had passed through earlier.
Gwen stopped just inside the doorway. “You did not tell me we should meet here.”
“I did not know I would wish it until now,” he admitted. “You look as if your head has been used as an anvil all day. Violence suggests itself as one cause. I prefer music.”
“I do not play so well as to cure headaches,” she said.
“Fortunately—for both of us, it seems—I do,” he answered.
She could not quite tell if he was teasing her or not.
Before she could demand clarification, he went to the pianoforte, opened the lid, and sat down. His hands, so precise on ledgers and contracts, settled on the keys with an ease that startled her.
He played a soft, meandering tune, no particular song at first, only a pattern of notes that felt like a dream.
Gwen’s shoulders relaxed despite herself. She moved closer, almost against her will, and rested her fingertips on the cool wood of the instrument.
“You never said you played,” she murmured.
“You did not ask,” he pointed out. “Because you prefer to accuse first and then discover.”
“I do not accuse,” she protested. “I observe.”
“Then observe my left hand,” he said, adding a darker thread beneath the melody. “This is what one learns when one’s father insists that idle children are dangerous and sets a master on them whenever they linger by a window.”
That startled her into a small laugh. “Then I am grateful for his tyranny. It has bored me less than I expected.”
“High praise, indeed.”
The music shifted, taking on the shape of something she half remembered, a country air dressed up in finer clothes.
He glanced up at her. “You may sit, you know. My pianoforte does not bite. Though I cannot say the same for myself.”
“I am not afraid of your pianoforte,” she declared. “Or you,” she added, slightly weaker.
“That is the first honest admission this evening,” he drawled. “Sit.”
The corner of her mouth quirked up in reluctant amusement, but she rounded the instrument and sat beside him on the narrow bench, careful not to brush his arm.
His nearness made her acutely aware of her own body. The faint starch of his shirt, the warm scent of soap and something like cedar, the slow rise and fall of his chest, all stirred her senses as thoroughly as the music did.
He played another phrase, then lifted his hands. “Your turn.”
“I did not agree to a performance,” she protested.
“I did not say anything about a performance,” he reminded her. “Play whatever suits you. Even a scale. I promise not to cry out in pain.”
She gave him a look. “You mock me. It is unkind.”
“I do not mock,” he said softly. “I coax. The two are easily confused in poor light.”
She sighed, placed her hands on the keys, and settled on a simple piece she had learned as a girl, something cheerful and foolish, meant for young ladies to show nimble fingers at private musicales.
Her touch felt clumsy at first, every mistake weighing more than it deserved.
She could feel him listening. She could almost feel his eyes on her hands.
“Do not think,” he urged after a moment. “You are hammering the poor thing. Let it breathe.”
“I am not hammering it,” she huffed, indignant.
“You are treating it as if it has offended you,” he replied. “Keep going.”
She did.
The second attempt came easier. He joined her, adding a quiet harmony above her melody that made it sound less like a girl’s exercise and more like something that belonged in a proper room.
“That is unfair,” she complained. “You make me sound better than I am.”
“Perhaps you are better than you think you are,” he answered. “You are in the habit of judging too harshly. Yourself more so than any other.”
“I am in the habit of being judged,” she countered. “I have merely learned to start the task before others.”
His hands moved deftly, weaving around hers. It began to feel almost like a conversation. She tried a small embellishment, and he followed it, turned it, answered it with one of his own. The tight band in her chest loosened a fraction more.
“It works, you know,” he said at length.
“What does?”
“The music. Your shoulders no longer sit at your ears.”
“They were never at my ears.”
“They were very nearly there,” he insisted.
She stole a glance at him. His expression, for once, had softened without him seeming to notice it. That made something inside her ache in a way she did not have words for.
She missed a note.
“You are distracted,” he observed.
“Your rudeness is distracting,” she retorted.
“Then my rudeness has done some good.” He let the music fade into a gentle tune that settled between them like a sigh. “Tell me why you are white as chalk tonight.”
She withdrew her hands from the keys and let them rest in her lap. “I am always pale, as I told you.”
“You are evading the question,” he said. “Again.”
She traced the edge of one key with a gloved fingertip, watching the way the light caught the ivory. “I will be leaving sooner than expected.”
“How soon?”
She swallowed. “Soon.”
“That is not an answer,” he said. “It is a curtain.”
“Would you prefer I lie?” she asked, without looking at him.
“I would prefer you trust me,” he replied calmly. “But I have learned not to ask for luxuries at the outset. I will take truth in half measures if that is all you will offer.”
She closed her eyes for one brief second, gathering the frayed bits of her composure. “My stepfather has decided that the Season is a waste for me… due to the rumors. He intends to send me away.”
He stilled. “Where?”
“A place where I shall not trouble anyone,” she said lightly. That lightness cost her. “I have not yet admired its charms, and I do not intend to.”
His gaze sharpened. “You’re avoiding the point.”
“I am very good at that.” She shrugged. “As are you.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “You are. But not with me.”
The silence that fell felt different from the one that had filled the garden.
Victor had always been a man of control. Tonight, Gwen could feel the edges of his control, see the faint cracks where concern pressed against habit.
“You agreed to seven nights,” he continued. “You speak now as if there may not be seven.”
She managed a small, brittle smile. “I dislike failing to keep account. I will try to arrange my life to satisfy your mathematics, Your Grace.”
“Gwendoline,” he said.
Just that. Her name. No jest, no title, no shield of courtesy. It hit her like both a plea and an accusation.
She looked down at the keys again, because they did not look back. “Let’s play another piece,” she suggested softly.
Victor did not move for a long moment. She could feel his gaze on her profile, hot and searching, as if he wished to untie every knot she had pulled tight around herself.
“We can play,” he relented at last. “But you will not succeed in drowning me in notes.”
“You are very determined to be difficult,” she huffed. “I came to forget my future for an hour, not to hold a committee over it.”
“You did not come only for that,” he said.
She ignored the truth in that and placed her hands on the keys again. Her fingers felt clumsy now, too aware of him, too aware of herself. She began another melody, more serious this time, something minor and thoughtful. It steadied her, or so she told herself.
He joined her again, filling the empty spaces her playing left. The chords deepened, grew richer, yet the unease inside her only sharpened. Each note began to feel like a step closer to a question she could not answer.
She faltered, before her hands stilled on the keys.
“The nunnery,” he uttered quietly, as if naming an ordinary destination. “Is that it?”
Her head snapped up. “I did not say that.”
“You did not need to.” His lips twisted. “There are not many places a troublesome girl may be sent when a man wishes to silence her.”
Cold slid through her veins. “I am not troublesome.”
“You are troublesome to him,” Victor emphasized. “Not to me.”
It should not have mattered. But it did. The distinction made her eyes sting.
She looked away quickly. “He believes I am useless. A burden. I suppose it will be a relief to have me tucked safely away where I cannot ruin anything further or bring more shame to my family.”
“Do you believe that?” he asked quietly.