Page 5 of How to Ruin a Duke
I shall be queen.
Lavender’s green, diddle diddle,
Lavender’s blue,
You must—”
She cut off the song in the middle of the line.You must love me, diddle, diddle,
’cause I love you.And then came the next verse, about lying together, and her cheeks burned at the thought.
How could she have forgotten how forward this song was?How hopeful and needy?It was embarrassing to sing those words as if they were her own.
Thorn halted his playing when she stopped singing, lowering the horn.“Didn’t you like it?”
“Of course.Your playing is lovely.I just don’t remember any more of the words,” she lied.
“Ah, I can’t help you there.I can remember a melody if I hear it even once, but I can never recall the words.”
She bit her lips.“Why did you choose that tune?”
He shrugged.“It’s called ‘Lavender’s Blue.’I was trying to think of a song, and you’re wearing blue.”
Indeed she was, a blue day dress she’d chosen because it matched her eyes.
His reply was matter-of-fact rather than flirtatious, which she liked.Please, let him not be an incorrigible flirt.If he were, he teased every woman, and his smiles meant nothing.
For the second time, Thorn packed his horn away.“Thanks again for your help.I’ll bring you that hairpin soon, all right?”
She waved this off.“I was only teasing.Don’t worry about it.”
“I don’t worry about hairpins, Miss Fairweather.But I’d welcome the chance to see you again.”
That grin, cheeky and sweet at once.Washe flirting with her?
Maybe she should have charged him a fee after all and sent him on his way.
Or maybe she should have sung more of “Lavender’s Blue” with him.
“Oh,” she said, just as when he’d entered the shop.
This incoherence seemed to please him, for the grin persisted even as his hand drifted from hers, as he left the building.The little bell over the door jingled its farewell to him, and then Rowena was alone.
Except for a wandering hedgehog underfoot, old Nanny upstairs, a sometime cook in the basement kitchen, and a maid dusting the few chambers that weren’t shut up.
They were relying on her.They all were.
She really should have charged Mr.Thorn a fee.But if she had, he wouldn’t come back again—and with the obligation of a hairpin hanging over him, he just might.
Not that it mattered if he did.She was a luthier, not a…a…horn-note-puller.A folk-song-singer.A hairpin-provider.
She pushed aside the velvet curtain and returned to her workroom.How to Ruin a Duketempted her from the table.The violoncello with the broken neck beckoned her from its resting place against the wall.
“Work first,” she decided.
Oh, she knew her financial problems couldn’t be solved one instrument at a time.They couldn’t be solved before the lease ended, not by anything less than a miracle.But miracles happened occasionally—and she wouldn’t find that miracle in the pages of a book, no matter how salacious.The Duke of Amorous’s problems vanished in the face of his infinite resources, but he wasn’t going to stop by to fix hers.She had to face them herself.
The thought was usually discouraging.But at the moment, as she loosened the tuning pegs of the wounded violoncello, then uncoiled the strings to free the broken piece of the instrument’s neck, she found herself humming.
