Page 20 of The Viscount's Promise
He opened his mouth silently several times before he blurted, seemingly without thought, “It’s you.”
Emily flinched at his unguarded words. Feeling the heat creep into her face, she went to press her hand to her cheek. Recalling his observations of her quirks from the night of the dance, she barely managed to stop herself. “Yes,” she said. An obvious statement, but then so was his.
“You were the one playing.”
So that was why he had been outside the room? He had heard her playing? And here she had thought that an early start would give her the privacy she had needed for such an intimate thing as to lay her heart out in music. She rose to go. To her surprise, he took a step toward her, his hands out in front of him.
“Please don’t leave on my account,” he said, the words rapid and a bit breathless. “Won’t you keep playing?”
“I’m done for the morning,” she mumbled. She made to hurry around him, desperate to escape. His hand caught at her arm, making her gasp as the heat from his fingers seemed to brand her skin. His reaction was just as strong, his hand jerking from her as if he’d laid it on a hot coal. He cleared his throat loudly.
“I would love to hear you play if you have the time for one more song.”
She shot him a quick, disbelieving glance, and immediately regretted it. They were close, closer even than they had been during the dance. Her mouth went dry.
“You want me to play for you?”
“Yes, please.”
“You have heard me play before,” she reminded him.
“Yes, but that was different.”
She frowned. “How?”
He looked flummoxed for a moment, as if he hadn’t expected the question and didn’t have the least idea how to answer it. Finally, he shrugged. “There was something more to your playing this morning. I cannot explain it.”
His eyes were fervent and wondering as he looked down at her. Had he truly heard the emotions she had poured into her music, the bit of her soul she had bared in her playing? It touched her deeply that he sensed it, for he had been the one to inspire it in the first place.
Something warm unfurled in her chest. In that moment she would not have denied him anything.
“Very well,” she whispered.
On shaky legs she returned to her place at the pianoforte. He sat halfway across the length of the room, as if he were trying to maintain some space between them. And yet Emily could feel his gaze on her like a physical touch. Taking a deep breath, she laid her fingers on the keys and, closing her eyes, began to play.
She could have chosen a piece of incredible difficulty to lay every bit of her skill out in front of him. Instead her fingers glided over the keys, finding and weaving through a soft, plaintive melody. It was slow and deep, reflecting her heart and what Malcolm was pulling from it.
For he was dragging emotions from her she never thought to feel.
Every strike of the hammers on the strings vibrated through her, from her fingertips to her very core. Tears pressed against her closed lids. Did he hear it? Could he feel what she was putting into the song?
All too soon the last note died away. The echo of it was slower to leave her, flowing through her body, swirling about her heart. She was almost bereft when that, too, died away. But with the loss of it, she became aware of something else missing as well. There was not a sound in the room. Had he left? With great will she opened her eyes, quickly blinking away her tears, and looked in the direction he had been sitting.
He was there still, his dark eyes intent on her, his expression rapt. That look was like a spark to dry tinder; suddenly it was as if the music had started up again, the magic of it touching her very soul.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice hushed and fervent. He smiled, and a bit of the scar that had grown, protective and tough, around Emily’s heart fell away. As she watched him go, she clutched her arms about her waist, more frightened than she had ever been.
Chapter 8
Despite the prestigious guests that had traveled far and wide to Willowhaven to celebrate the marriage of Caleb Masters, Marquess of Willbridge, to Miss Imogen Duncan, the wedding itself was a simple affair. There were no great swathes of silk and satin, no enormous bouquets of hothouse flowers, nor elaborate cakes shipped exclusively from Gunter’s. The bride wore a simple pale blue gown that she and her sisters had fashioned themselves and a crown of apple blossoms in her light brown hair. The village church was ancient and small, barely able to hold the guests that crowded within its stone walls. Ordinary folk mingled with the nobility on the polished benches. It was not uncommon on that morning to see a viscount and the innkeeper rubbing elbows.
Yet never had anything sounded so beautiful to the guests’ ears as when the couple’s voices echoed about the chapel, strong and clear in the surety of their vows. By the time the groom turned to his bride and took her in his arms, sealing their promises to one another with a tender kiss, not a dry eye could be seen. It was then that quiet happiness turned to raucous joy, and the celebration, quick in the actual planning but long awaited by both families, commenced.
As the revelers made their way from the church and down the lane headed for Willowhaven, Malcolm hung back. He was happy for his friend. He truly was. But there was a horrible tightness that had begun to fill his chest as the ceremony progressed. Now that it was over, that tightness had turned into a steel band that made it difficult to even breathe. The group walked on, leaving him behind. He was glad for it. He did not want anyone, especially Willbridge and Tristan, to witness his loss of control over his emotions.
Willbridge’s copper head, growing farther away with every second, drew his eye like a punishment. Malcolm leaned against a tree for support. Black dots swam in his vision, and he shook his head to dispel them. Swirling in his mind were many such scenes from his past: his mother and father driving away, promising their swift return; his uncle turning his back after one of his many tirades; Lydia, as she walked away from him for good in order to marry another. And now one more scene added to that, the loss of one of the two men in this world he had believed would never abandon him.
What a damn fool he had been.
