Page 102 of Her Beast of a Duke
For a moment, as Isabella’s hand was guided over a melody she didn’t know, she marveled at the change in this man, who had once been full of impenetrable darkness yet now smiled a lot easier than he ever had. She leaned in to rest her head against his shoulder as she lifted her other hand to play alongside their chords.
“Heavens, I forgot you played the pianoforte,” Edmund said from across the room.
He sat opposite Hermia and Charles on a settee. At his side, Mary was pink-faced and full of the love she had found in the marquess. Isabella had noticed, of course. There had been enough knowing looks between the two of them throughout the last several months, but they were now married and freshly returned from their honeymoon.
“Perhaps you should forget again.” Oscar grinned. “Especially when I sit next to a very skilled player.”
“No,” Edmund retorted, smiling gently. “No, I think I shall remember this for a very long time, for I can see how content you are.”
Oscar just ducked his head, flushing, and Isabella was quite delighted.
“Isabella,” her husband said a moment later, lowering his voice as conversation around them filled the music room. “The days that we fought… I—” he cut himself off for a moment before continuing. “I was outside the music room listening to you play the pianoforte. It was the first time I had heard it, and I remember hearing so much anger in what you played. Something stirred within me. I was in such a dark, cold place, and yet hearing you play so vigorously, perhaps a note for every word I had prevented you from saying to me, it… it moved me.”
“I ran after you,” she told him.
The old wounds of that argument had long been paved over with morning kisses and dancing on every balcony they could after candlelit dinners. It had been mended through open discussions and Isabella being there through Oscar’s fading night terrors, and he had mended his own damage with assurances that Isabella was always enough.
“I made sure to be quick.” He laughed, shaking his head. “But your song sounded like a fight. Like… I do not know how to explain it, but I felt transported back to the battlefield in a way that stunned me. Because for once it was not guilt that sent me back there, nor regret, but a reminder of who I was. I was a fighter—one who had been fighting for the wrong thing. It took me too long to be able to realize how to truly and finally approach you. But I heard you, Isabella. I heard your anguish in that song.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly, still idly playing.
“My point is that I want you to play something different with me now,” he went on. “Play a ballad with me. Play a song to be performed by lovers reaching for one another on a balcony. Play a song that could be a first dance at a wedding ball. No more battles, Isabella.”
Taking her hands off the pianoforte, Isabella embraced her husband and buried her face in his neck briefly. She breathed him in. She clung to him and everything he was, and was so overwhelmed with how vulnerable he was being with her. He had been trying, had stuck to his word of working with her every day to make up for the pain of those weeks.
“All right, will there be any more music played?” Alicia asked loudly, sighing as though truly exasperated. “I am nauseated by how much love there is in this room. It makes me shudder, honestly.”
“Oh, Alicia,” Hermia laughed. “One day you will think differently.”
“I shall never,” Alicia swore with a huff. “Heaven forbid I become like Sibyl.”
At that, Sibyl scowled at her, and Alicia grinned, mouthing an apology. It was not said harshly, but Alicia was so fiercely stubborn in her independence and need to be outside of the ton’s strict guidelines that she sometimes spoke before she thought through her words entirely.
Isabella looked at her youngest sister, trying to imagine what sort of suitor would make her happy, would honor her personality and spirit. He needed to be the most special of men to be worthy of a lady like Alicia.
For a while, Isabella and Oscar played a soft melody to fill the happy room, and all the time her eyes swept over her sisters. She adored them. For every petty argument they had over the years, she knew she would do anything for them, as they would for her.
When the music stopped, the group retreated to the parlor, where wine was served, but, peculiarly, Mary refused politely.
Isabella’s eyes widened as she herself discreetly refused her own glass when Oscar was not looking. She was saving her news for later, when they were alone. Mary looked at her, and she looked back at her friend, and they embraced one another quickly.
Tears pricked Isabella’s eyes as she pulled back. “Together, we will support one another. Congratulations, Mary. Does Edmund know yet?”
Mary nodded eagerly, glancing at where Edmund and Oscar were speaking by the window. “He wanted to tell Oscar in private, so I imagine that is what is happening. Although we both asked for it not to be public just yet. How about you?”
“I am telling Oscar tonight.” Isabella giggled happily, hugging her friend once more, and then everybody settled in.
“I was reading the gossip papers the other day,” Sibyl mentioned as she began digging into the plate of macarons that had been served. “That awful Lord Stanton left England some months ago. Apparently, he was in quite a lot of debt, and an anonymous benefactor paid it off but demanded that he leave, so he has, and nobody has seen anything of him since.”
Oscar coughed into his fist, glancing at Isabella. She cocked a brow in confused question, but he only looked away, giving her an innocent smile. Her heart fluttered.
“I say good riddance,” Mary announced. “He was horrid. So very… sly and oily.”
“I am just glad he is finally out of my life and that there is no threat of our mother trying to match you with him,” Isabella sighed. “We are all safe from his persistence.”
“What we are not safe from is the smell coming off my baby brother,” Phoebe complained. “He alwayssmells.Hermia, you told me that Papa smells nice, so when do men start doing that?”
At the abrupt outburst—an innocent interruption of a conversation Phoebe didn’t have anything to contribute to, so spoke of her own thoughts—the room erupted into laughter.
