Chapter 3
This was a terrible mistake.
He was a terrible mistake.
Seraphine let the final note of the Christmas lullaby slip past her lips and drift through the massive hall that was so beautifully decorated and full of such wonderful people.
That song… What he had done to her with it.
She could still recall her nanny singing it to her every Christmas Eve when she was small.
It was a song of the people who worked the land, not the people of high halls, and so it was made more beautiful by the intensity of its love.
Now, her eyes stung, and she felt a longing she had barely allowed herself to feel in years.
She should not have come. She should have stayed with her mother at the Crestfield estates doing her duties, but she had wanted to see this. She had needed to see her brother’s transformation.
But now, sitting next to Laertes Ripton, Viscount Hawthorn, she knew that she had made a strategical error because here, beside him, with his music swirling around her, she felt for the first time in years as if she was not a prisoner of the expectations of her position.
She felt for the first time since she was a little girl, sitting with her mother, that she did not need to think about other people or what they thought of her. No, she simply allowed his music to transport her to a place where she could be whatever she wanted, and her voice was pure and true.
It had not started out that way. She had come over and spoken to him in the artful manner which she had learned to do over the years. She was a master of it. Banter was her masterpiece.
She knew how to play gentlemen. She knew how to tease and talk and how to make them feel as if they were the most important in the world because one day, she would marry a prince or an archduke.
She had a few who were considering her.
The marriage proposals, all with potential contracts, were being considered by her mother.
A viscount who was a future earl would never be allowed.
Her heart ached. Oh dear God, how it ached, because for the first time since she’d promised her mother that she wasn’t greedy, she wanted to be greedy. To take more than she’d been given.
She wanted to throw all that she’d worked for away and simply sing. She wanted to be next to a man who adored her voice, who adored her passion. She could feel it in the way Viscount Hawthorn looked at her, leaned towards her, let his music lift her voice.
In but a few moments, he had given more to her than most men ever had promised in vain.
The way he looked at her hungrily, as if he longed to get down on his knees and worship her, yet show her the power of his desire?
Oh dear God in heaven!
And it was the most terrible thing that she’d ever experienced because she could never have him. It was impossible. And she knew that she’d been terrible because she’d made him think that perhaps…
She swallowed and stood abruptly.
The room was still held in her thrall, and when she stood, they thought, of course, that she was going to take a curtsy, but she did not.
She stared around the crowded room full of the viscount’s family. Soon to be her brother’s family, and her family too, she supposed.
The applause thundered around her. She knew the thunder of applause.
It followed her wherever she went. She captivated people.
She had cultivated approval from all from behind a mask that was more elaborate than any Venetian carnivale master could ever make.
Yet, here, under the gaze of dozens of Briarwoods, she felt her legs tremble and she did not know what to do.
She gave a quick curtsy then because she had to. There was no choice. Then she gestured with her hand rather grandly to the viscount.
And he stood and gave a bow too.
“Another,” a striking woman called out.
Seraphine shook her head and said with forced, practiced cheer, “Our next performance shall be when, my lord?”
“Whenever the company dictates,” he said easily.
“Ah,” she tsked. “I have heard the Briarwoods love the theater, and as I understand it, one must always leave an audience before they tire of you and keep them eager,” she teased. “So I say we do not play for them again until—”
“After the wedding,” Laertes declared grandly.
Her voice died off and her air caught in her throat. “Wedding?” she echoed.
For a single moment, she could see herself standing beside him before a vicar saying I do and giving herself heart, body, and soul to him for all time. Because he did not demand perfection from her. Instead, he brought truth from her…in music.
He understood the honesty of music.
Very few people did. They understood the complexity of it. They understood that it was powerful and meticulous and could make people feel certain ways, but the soul that it took to make music that truly captivated people was something else and he…
“Not our wedding,” he teased at last. “My cousins’.”
A shaking laugh tumbled past her lips. “Of course.”
And with that, she turned swiftly away from him. She had to get out of this room. It was suddenly stifling hot.
She gazed over at her tall brother, who towered over the company, but he only had eyes for Lady Phoebe. She was glad. She did not want him to see any hint of distress in her, but she was a master at hiding that distress now.
No. She just needed to slip away. She tried to make for one of the open doorways, ready to cut through the crowd and din.
“Do not go too far,” the viscount urged. “The wedding shall be soon. And I know we should all like you to attend.”
She blinked, her feet failing her, though she continued to walk to what seemed like escape. But she was so dazed by the whole turn of events that she hesitated just before exiting, enveloped in a rare spot in the room that was not packed.
Again an image of herself and Laertes came to mind. There she was standing before a vicar. “Wedding?” she repeated again, clearly unable to say much more. “I truly don’t understand.”
He slipped up behind her then, his voice rumbling softly.
“Before you make your quick escape, I realize I should clarify that it is my cousins’.
Three of them. They were responsible for the play that you saw, and, in it, your brother giving himself over entirely to dance.
They are marrying today when darkness falls. They wished to be wed by candlelight.”
She blinked, shocked, hardly able to take it in. Slowly, she turned to him. “Weddings take place in the morning,” she pointed out, “and then there’s a wedding breakfast.”
“Weddings can be whatever one wants them to be,” he stated.
She laughed. It was a full, absurd laugh at his suggestion. But then she realized he was in earnest. She blinked again, for this was the first time she could recall feeling entirely off foot. “Apologies. I did not mean to be rude.”
“You’re not. You’re simply showing what you believe versus what is.”
“What I believe,” she echoed, arching a brow.
“Yes. It’s rather limited, even if you do sing so freely.”
Her jaw dropped, just like his had done when she had spoken so boldly to him. “Is it?”
He nodded. “It seems we have both surprised each other. It should be like that. I’m glad.”
“I’m not,” she sputtered. “I’m rather used to—”
He gave her a rather merry look. “You’re used to ruling a room when you walk into it and charming anyone you speak to.”
She pressed her lips together, shocked at his correct assessment, but then she gave a nod. “Yes,” she said.
“That probably won’t happen here,” he rumbled. “Though we shall all admire you greatly for your skills, your intellect, and your boldness, but as taken in as I am by it, I can also see that…”
“What?” she demanded quickly.
He eyed her slowly, his gaze traveling over her face with those piercing, wounded eyes of his.
Heavens, he was handsome. Achingly beautiful.
And it felt as if his soul was old. As if he had lived a hundred times and seen it all.
Seen the good. Seen the bad. And had not been ruined by it, but saddened instead.
“Not yet,” he whispered as he bent his head, his lips hovering near her ear.
“Not yet, what?” she demanded.
“No. No,” he insisted, his broad shoulders straining slightly against the cut of his fine morning coat. “You are not ready for the prognostications of Briarwoods and their ilk. I think we need to get you a glass of spiced punch. You deserve it.”
He took her hand and placed it on his forearm. She was amazed at what he was doing. Gentlemen usually clamored to go and get her a glass of punch, begging for her approval.
But not him. He didn’t need approval. How unusual! How wonderful! Even so, it left her at a loss.
The viscount all but dragged her to the punch table.
He was taking charge. She was used to the one being in control, whether the gentleman realized it or not.
She was quite good at maneuvering men. It wasn’t that hard when one understood their fundamental wants, and she had been trained on how to intrigue powerful men so that she could tempt a powerful husband.
But he? He had no interest in maneuvering or being maneuvered. He was only interested in taking care of her, it seemed. It was a rare thing. Most men didn’t care for her at all. They wished to own her beauty, her wit, her lineage, and her dowry.
He took up a cup of punch which was in an exquisitely engraved silver bowl with a delicate handle and pressed it into her hand.
“Drink that,” he urged. “You’ve had a long day’s travel and a bit of a shock, and now you seem to not know what to do.”
“Is it that obvious?” she said, rather annoyed that he’d put into words how she felt.
He nodded. “My family has an effect on people.”
She drank the punch and nearly swooned at the delicious spices. She rather thought he might taste delicious too. The sensual thought nearly made her drop the cup of Christmas punch. “Obviously, since my brother has fallen in love with one of them.”