Entangled

Chapter 7

By the following evening, the ballroom had devolved into mutiny.

It was time to dance. The famous musicians from London had not arrived. Might never arrive.

As much as the debutantes wished to impress Nottingvale with how accomplished they were at the pianoforte, none of them wanted to miss their opportunity to dance with the duke.

“I’ll do it,” said Gertie. “I’ll play for the rest of the party.”

Cynthia swung out an arm to block her cousin’s forward movement.

“No. I shan’t make you marry anyone who doesn’t suit, including the duke, but there are dozens of other gentlemen in this ballroom.

If you’re not going to entertain the thought of Nottingvale, then you must promise every dance with a new gentleman until you find someone you like. ”

“Every dance?” Gertie repeated doubtfully. “What if I played the pianoforte for eight out of ten dances? I like the pianoforte. I would marry the pianoforte. The pianoforte and I are an excellent match.”

“Tell that to your father,” Cynthia said, then wished she hadn’t.

Gertie had told her father. It had been the only occasion in Cynthia’s knowledge of Gertie standing up for herself to the earl.

It had been a disaster.

A “professional” pianist? bellowed the earl, his face livid. No daughter of mine...

Gertie hadn’t got a single word in edgewise.

Afterward, she rarely spoke at all. Not to her father. She poured her frustrations into the keys and disappeared into her music.

I’ll turn that deuced contraption into kindling, said the earl. If you haven’t a suitor by the end of the year, I’ll find one for you!

Four days remained, and already the earl had made good on his promise. An oily lech who thought nothing of trading a choice piece of land for a bride forty years his junior.

Unless Cynthia worked a Christmas miracle before the end of the party.

“Promise me,” she told Gertie. “You’ll dance with a different man every set until you’ve met them all. And you’ll consider them. You’ll try to talk and be yourself and see if you might suit. After we find your match, I’ll break the news of your betrothal to your father.”

Gertie’s face was white, but she nodded jerkily. “I’ll dance.”

“You have no choice,” Cynthia said softly. “Not if you want any hope to control your future. Meanwhile—”

Meanwhile, the Duke of Nottingvale had just stepped into view.

Her breath caught.

Cynthia supposed she was meant to be awestruck by the whiteness of his cravat and the exquisite tailoring of his coal black breeches and tailcoat, but when she looked at him all she could think of was how it felt not to see him.

When she’d been lying on the dais with her eyes shut tight. Waiting for him to come to her. Wondering if he would kiss her. Cracking open one eye and discovering him...

There.

“I don’t suppose you can summon a pianist,” he said gruffly.

“Er,” Cynthia said.

Gertie did a horrendous job of looking away from the pianoforte.

“I’ll do it,” Cynthia said before her cousin’s resolve weakened.

Nottingvale looked startled. “You can play the pianoforte?”

“I can climb a tree and shoot a pistol.”

“What has that to do with the pianoforte?”

Fair enough.

“I know a few tunes,” she assured him. “And I’m all you’ve got.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the encroaching army of debutantes eager for a dance, then swung his resigned gaze back to Cynthia. “All right, go. Play a melody we can dance to. Thank you.”

And with that, he disappeared into the sea of adoring young ladies.

“You know what to do,” said Gertie.

“You know what to do,” countered Cynthia. “Find someone your father would deem at least somewhat acceptable. No falling in love with a footman.”

Gertie brightened. “Like Horace and Morris?”

“Especially not a matched pair of strapping country footmen. Your father would expire on the spot.”

“And then I could marry the footmen and be a professional pianist,” Gertie said dreamily. “All at the same time.”

Cynthia turned her cousin’s shoulders around to point her toward a shamefully overlooked group of ton bucks and dandies. Gertie had met them all during her come-out. “Fish in that pond first.”

Gertie took a deep breath and set off to stroll within eyesight of beau monde approved rakes and bucks.

Cynthia hurried to the pianoforte and placed her fingers above the keys.

She did know what to do.

Give Nottingvale something to dance to.

The rousing, bawdy opening bars to A Soldier Goes A-Wenching burst from the pianoforte as Cynthia’s fingers flew merrily over the keys.

Rather, A Spinster Goes A-Wenching.

Nottingvale shot her a wide-eyed glance of abject horror.

She puckered her lips in the form of a kiss without breaking the flow of music and transitioned seamlessly into a traditional country dance.

Only Nottingvale and the naughtier of the gentlemen had recognized the ribald tune before the familiar melody of Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot filled the ballroom.

Pairs were made and patterns formed as the company squared off into the dance.

Luckily for Nottingvale, Cynthia knew more than enough reels and quadrilles to keep the party dancing from now until Twelfth Night.

Unluckily for Cynthia, the raised dais was a perfect vantage point from which to watch Nottingvale dance with pretty young lady after pretty young lady after pretty young lady.

The debutantes were right.

This was a terrible view.

She tried to concentrate on the keys, rather than the duke whirling other women about the dance floor.

Cynthia didn’t want or need to know what it might feel like to dance in the duke’s arms in front of all and sundry. Proximity to Nottingvale addled her brain. Their hands had touched on no less than three separate occasions, and the memory still caused palpitations.

A proper dance would kill her.

And a kiss...

She did want one, damn him.

Even though he wasn’t courting her, a kiss would allow her to live the fantasy, just for a moment.

And only a moment.

If the thought of being a duchess terrified Gertie, to Cynthia the prospect was positively laughable.

She could follow rules if she wanted to, but she didn’t want to.

Cynthia didn’t give a flying fig about fitting in with the world that had shunned her, year after year, no matter how slavishly she’d followed its arbitrary conventions.

She’d rather be single forever than wade back into that cesspool.

Even for a duke.

Gertie was the more pressing concern.

Cynthia didn’t wish to alarm her cousin, but she would not be at all surprised to learn the earl had a marriage contract drafted and ready, in case Cynthia failed to match Gertie with the duke.

Her heart ached.

Cynthia was well past the age of majority, but for Gertie it was still years away. If they didn’t find someone reasonably respectable to pair her off with, the earl would have her in front of the altar by January.

This would be Gertie’s final fortnight of freedom before beginning an entire lifetime of misery.

Cynthia could not allow that to happen.

She wanted Gertie to be happy. If that meant marrying a tavern-keeper’s son or a footman, Cynthia didn’t care in the least.

The earl, on the other hand, would have no scruple breaking an unadvantageous contract in order to pack Gertie off to a roué willing to pay for the privilege of possessing her.

There had to be someone in this ballroom capable of mollifying the earl and being a good husband to Gertie.

Cynthia prayed Gertie found the lad quickly.

Three in the morning tolled by the time Cynthia played the final boulanger.

The crowd had dwindled down to the last dozen or two dancers. If the other guests were like Cynthia, they had their eyes on the morning balloon ascent advertised in the Cressmouth Gazette.

The revelers who remained were either slogging through the last steps or slumped tipsily against the wall between the decimated refreshment table and the door.

When she played the final chord, Nottingvale bid each of his guests a good night.

After the final straggler exited the ballroom, the duke climbed up the dais to the pianoforte and sat down on the wooden bench next to Cynthia.

“Thank you,” he said softly. “You saved the evening.”

She stretched her fingers. “What’s a ditty or two between friends?”

“You played for five hours,” he pointed out. “Without stopping.”

She hadn’t done so for him.

She’d done so for Gertie.

Oh, very well, Cynthia had helped for his sake, too.

“Interesting opening,” he said.

She grinned at him. “I’d hoped you’d like it.”

He gestured at the ivory keys. “I’m ready to hear your inappropriate alternate lyrics.”

She folded her hands in her lap primly. “Guests are asleep, Your Grace. It would not do to wake them up to the sound of my skill with rhyming ‘rocked me fore and aft’ with ‘the length of his shaf—’”

Nottingvale closed the lid of the pianoforte.

“You’re right,” he said hastily. “They’re not prepared for the nuance of your lyrics.”

She shook her head in resignation. “No one ever is.”

Nottingvale cleared his throat. “Speaking of—”

“Turgid shafts?” she supplied hopefully.

“Music,” he corrected firmly. “You were wonderful tonight. Really.”

“I’m not embarrassing,” she admitted. “But I’m also not Gertie.”

“Your cousin was astonishing at the pianoforte the other day,” he agreed.

“Every day, if Gertie can help it. If you think she has a knack with songs by Playford or Gallini, you should hear the arias and cotillions she’s invented on her own.”

His surprise was evident. “Lady Gertrude composes her own music?”

Cynthia nodded. “Scores of it. Literally.”

He seemed to think this over. “Do you think she’d agree to—”

“No.”

Of course Gertie would agree to be the party’s official pianist. She’d sleep on this bench every night just to be closer to a pianoforte.

“I’ll do it,” Cynthia said. “Gertie needs to dance. I’ll play for the rest of the party, if you need. I wasn’t going to dance anyway.”

He frowned. “Why not?”

“I never stood up for a set, back when I was hoping to dance,” she reminded him. “No longer trying makes it less awkward for everyone.”

He didn’t look convinced.

“Besides, I have things to do,” she said quickly.

“You can’t do other things whilst entertaining at the pianoforte,” he pointed out.

“That’s just at night. During the day, I’ve so many activities planned, I’d need to double myself to have a prayer of seeing them all. Oh, not here,” she assured him. “All of the fun things are happening out in the village.”

“As the host of this party,” he said, “I should be offended by such a statement.”

“As a guest of this party,” she replied, “I should be offended that it’s true.”

He glared at her.

She grinned at him.

“Come with me,” she said impulsively.

To her surprise, he looked tempted. “I can’t. I’m the host. I’m stuck here every second of every day.”

“Do you always do what you’re supposed to do?”

“Yes,” he answered simply.

She patted his hand. “That’s too bad.”

“Almost always.” He trapped her hand in his.

She stared at him.

He lifted her fingers to his lips. Slowly. Deliberately.

This time, he wasn’t playacting at charades for an audience.

This time, his actions were for her.

“Are we reenacting the moment?” she asked. She meant her tone to be flippant, but instead it sounded eager and unsteady. “Should I smash your hands to my breasts next?”

“I am exceedingly amenable to that suggestion,” he said. “But first...”

He lowered her palm to his heart and angled his head until his mouth hovered a mere breath above hers. “May I kiss you?”

“Be quick,” she whispered. “I have things to do.”

“No. You have this.”

And he kissed her.

His lips were soft and firm, at first gentle, then more demanding.

He hadn’t been stalling, she realized. He’d been containing himself. Wrapping himself tight in the should-dos because to cut the strings that tied his hands...

Would lead to moments like this.

This wasn’t one kiss. It was ten.

A hundred kisses.

Her fingers were no longer splayed on his chest, but diving into his hair, clutching him to her. He showed no sign of letting go.

His hands cupped her face, cradling her gently even as he demanded entry into her mouth, claiming her with his tongue as well as his mouth.

This was a different kind of kiss.

Shockingly intimate and deliciously erotic.

She had goosebumps everywhere, despite being enveloped by his heat, with her bodice pressed tight against his chest.

A spinster could get used to kisses like these.

Cynthia could get used to Nottingvale, in specific.

Breathless, she broke the kiss while she still could.

Within a week he would be betrothed to some other woman. It would not do to indulge a tendre for a man she could not keep.

Cynthia was not so silly as to risk her heart.

She hoped.