Chapter Twenty-Four #3
She picked up her spoon, then shifted her attention, pointedly, to Lynch. But she did not move her leg. It remained, for the duration of the meal, wickedly, clandestinely, daringly, interlocked with Trentham’s. And she wondered if he, too, was thrilled—or merely amused.
*
After dessert, the men remained in the dining room for their port. Dessie brought the ladies back to the parlor, where thankfully, a maid had cracked open the windows. While they made half-hearted attempts at conversation, Lady Elizabeth kept sighing and glancing toward the door.
At last, desperately, Dessie said, “My talented sister has been taking lessons from Elias Cameron. Play for us, will you, Ophelia?”
“Yes, of course. If you like.” There was no risk of anyone here leering.
“You play the piano?” Lady Coates asked, perking up.
When Ophelia nodded, she said, “Perhaps I can persuade you to play sometime for the children’s choir at the Asylum for Female Orphans?
Our current pianist is desperate to retire.
We’re trying to gather a list of willing ladies so that the burden will not fall all on one. ”
“I’d be delighted! I used to accompany a Sunday School choir back in New York, and I’ve missed it.” All true. Playing in public was not difficult when hiding in the background, behind children.
Dessie herded them to the music room. Ophelia sat down at the piano and began Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.
For several minutes, the ladies listened quietly.
Inevitably, they relaxed and conversation started to flow.
Ophelia played with passion, allowing the music to invade her body and soul, until a hairpin dropped onto the keys and a long, fat lock of hair fell down her back.
Oh, for pity’s sake! She stopped. Before she even faced her audience, she heard Dessie’s giggle.
“I simply cannot wear this style,” Ophelia said, rising and snatching up the pin. “Excuse me. I must go fix myself.”
The ladies made sympathetic noises. She tried to laugh away her embarrassment as she left the room. “These things happen!” To her. They happened to her.
Hopefully, she could stick the pin back herself, or else she would have to find Milly upstairs.
There was a mirror in the parlor, over the fireplace.
She headed there, but before she reached it, she heard the men’s voices emanating from it.
They must be done with port and were now waiting for the ladies to return.
She changed course, remembering a mirror in the library. She rounded the corner of the hallway, slipped inside the room, and shut the door.
“Not again!” Trentham laughed. Ophelia nearly jumped out of her skin.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, whirling about to see him emerging from the shadows near the shelves.
“I needed a few minutes away from the inanity of Lord Hayworth’s conversation. You?”
She gestured, mouth pursed with annoyance, to her hair.
“Ah.” He nodded. “It is the color of winter wheat, did you know? Come here. I think I can fix it. I briefly studied architecture at school.”
“I thought you couldn’t do droll tonight.”
“Come here.”
His tone was strange. Insistent, commanding, pleading. All of those. She crossed the floor and stood in front of him.
“Closer.”
She took another step. She was near enough to breathe in the woodsy scent of his cologne. He lifted the loose lock of her hair and twisted it once around his hand.
“Have you the pin?”
She put it into his free hand. He circled his wrist to wrap another loop around it. Shortening the slack. Tightening his hold. Her scalp tingled. Whatever he intended, she wanted.
“Are you very angry with me?” His voice was soft. Suggestive. “For…flirting? It was wrong. I shouldn’t have done it.” He lowered his head closer to hers. “I shouldn’t do this.”
She held her breath as he kissed her forehead. The tip of her nose. Then, using his hold on her hair, he tilted her head to run kisses along her jawline, sending a strange shock of heat down her neck.
She gasped. “Trentham.”
“May I?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
He touched his lips to hers. She yielded, clumsily, she thought at first. But his kisses grew firmer, guiding her, until self-consciousness deserted her and she gave in to all the wanting blossoming inside.
How long had they been dancing toward this?
The embrace deepened into something more frantic, more needful, tasting each other, breathing one another’s air, then abruptly, it all stopped.
Trentham disentangled his wrist from her hair and stepped back.
“That wasn’t very proper of me, was it?” He averted his gaze. She saw his Adam’s apple rise and fall.
“No,” she breathed. “I—I’ve never been kissed before.”
He was quiet a moment, his expression surprisingly blank. Then his lips twitched and he said, “I’m not sure of the correct response to that, given…well.”
She tried to smile but couldn’t. Of course, she’d been kissed before. He had kissed her. But this was so different, the other had not been a kiss at all. “I—I think I had better go find Milly. To fix my hair.” She wanted him to say don’t. She wanted more. She wanted—
Oh, for heaven’s sake! How weak she was!
“Yes.” He sighed. “Go. You had better. I don’t trust myself.”
The charming flirt. She shouldn’t trust him either.