Chapter 3 #2
“I assume accurately. There is a difference.” He accepted a fresh glass from a passing footman.
“You intend to find a match this season, do you not? If that is your genuine intention, you should know that a significant portion of the men who will approach you tonight have histories your brother would find objectionable.”
“Every man in the ton has secrets,” She huffed, as if she were pointing out that the sun rose in the east.
“Yes. But not all secrets are equally objectionable.” He let his gaze travel the room.
“Lord Hartfield, at two o’clock, was engaged once before.
The engagement was broken. He has never said why.
His previous intended is now married to someone else, lives in the country, and does not come to London. ”
Annabelle followed his gaze and looked back with a frown. “That could have several explanations.”
“It could.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You are not going to tell me which one you believe.”
“I don’t need to.” He watched her register this. “I am not saying that you must find a perfect man. I am saying that a good man and a respectable man are not always the same thing. You believe you can tell the difference; I am saying that requires information.”
“I don’t want a perfect man,” she said, with a directness that cut through the room’s ambient noise rather effectively.
“I want a good one. Decent character. Someone who treats people well when there is nothing to be gained from it.” She held his gaze without wavering. “That is the only measure I need.”
He considered this for a moment. “That is a simpler test than most women apply.”
“Most women have been told to measure in other ways.” She tilted her head. “Can you point me toward anyone who passes it, Your Grace?”
He scanned the room. “Give me the evening.”
She held his gaze for a beat. Then Lady Rosenhall returned with Miss Thrupton, and the moment dissolved into the usual social machinery.
He spent the next hour moving through the room, and occasionally found himself watching Lady Annabelle rather than anyone else. He told himself it was because she was his best friend’s sister, and it was his duty to ensure she was not being snared by anyone disreputable.
This was a serviceable enough reason. He kept to it.
The piano was playing when Annabelle came through the door.
Three notes. Then again. Then a fourth, attempted twice.
Helena and Lady Rosenhall were still in the entrance hall behind her, trading observations about Cousin Edith’s new bonnet. Annabelle set down her evening bag and went toward the sound.
The music room door stood open. A single candle burned on the side table. Not hers, she had left none lit—
And James, the Duke of Silverford’s nephew, sat at the piano bench, his feet not quite reaching the floor, pressing solemnly through the sequence she had shown him at Lucien’s ball.
She leaned against the doorframe.
The boy noticed her after the third repetition. His hands came off the keys.
“The door was unlocked,” he said, before she could speak.
“I see.” She came into the room and crouched to his level. “How did you get here, James?”
“I walked.”
“From Silverford House? Alone? In the dark?”
He looked at her without apology. “It’s next door.”
She pressed her lips together. “It is. And your uncle?”
“He was out.” James looked at the keys. “Miss Hartley said no. But she didn’t say I couldn’t go next door.”
“I expect she meant to include next door.”
He said nothing. His hands moved back to the keys and rested there without pressing.
“James.” She kept her voice even. “Why here?”
He looked up at her then. “Uncle doesn’t let me.” He pointed at the piano. “You do.”
Annabelle looked at the instrument, then at him. His eyes were entirely steady; there was no manipulation in them, no performance, just the plain logic of a child who had found a problem and solved it in the most direct way available.
“You have to go home,” she said. “Your uncle will be worried.”
“He won’t.”
“He will. He will come home and find you gone and it will frighten him, even if he doesn’t show it that way.”
James’s brow pulled down. He did not look convinced.
“James.” She held his gaze. “I will not let you stay. That is final.”
His mouth went flat. He looked at the keys.
“But,” she said, and waited for him to look up, “if you go home now, and you go without argument, I will speak to your uncle about playing the piano here. During a proper social call.”
He studied her face. “Promise?”
“I keep my promises. You know that already.”
A long pause. His feet swung once against the bench legs. Then he climbed down without another word and held out his hand.
She took it, led him out into the hall, and went to tell Helena she would be a quarter hour.
Dominic returned to Silverford House at half past eleven to find the entrance hall lit and his staff arranged in the posture of people about to deliver unwelcome news.
Mrs. Greer stepped forward. “Your Grace. Lord James—”
He waited, discerning another trouble already brewing.
“He had his supper. We thought he’d settled. But he went for the music room again after Miss Hartley put him to bed, and when we told him no, he—” She paused. “He was gone before anyone checked his room a second time.”
Dominic looked at the front door. “Send the footmen out. Check the perimeter first.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
He went back out into the street himself.
He would not fail to care for the boy.
He had been on the pavement three minutes when the door to the neighboring townhouse opened, and Lady Annabelle Stanton came out with James at her side.
She saw him and stopped.
James looked up at him, then sideways at Annabelle, then slowly down at the pavement.
“He was in my music room,” she said. “I came home and found him at the piano.” She passed the cat to Miss Thrupton, who had appeared in the doorway behind her. “He told me his uncle doesn’t let him play.”
Dominic looked at the boy. James studied the flagstones with great attention.
“I told him I would bring him home,” Annabelle finished.
“James.” He said it quietly. “Inside.”
James went past him without a word, and the footman held the door.
Dominic turned back. Lady Annabelle was watching him with her arms at her sides.
“He only wanted to play,” she said.
“He has left this house twice without permission in two days.”
“Because you’ve locked away the one thing that interests him.”
“Because he cannot simply go where he pleases.” He kept his voice level. “He is six years old and in my care, and twice now he has disappeared from this house without a word to anyone.”
“He found a piano,” she said. “Both times. He was not wandering the streets. He came next door. He only wants to learn music. Why is he forbidden from it? James said that you told him the piano isn’t for playing. The one in your house, I mean. What does that mean?”
“It is a matter of principle,” he said. “He misbehaved, and there are consequences for that.”
“A matter of principle?” She waited. He held her gaze and said nothing, and she pressed on regardless, which he was beginning to understand was simply her nature. “It seems that this principle is specifically against pianos. Is this because of something in you, rather than anything James has done?”
“Lady Annabelle,” he said, “Your concern for my ward is noted. Thank you for bringing him home. Good night.”
“Your Grace—”
He turned toward the door.
Then, from somewhere inside, he heard it: a small, sharp rattle, repeating. The handle of the music room door, pulled and pushed in turns.