Page 41 of His Mad Duchess
He sighed, softer now, raking a hand through his hair again. “Of course, we’ll keep her. We nearly killed ourselves for her, didn’t we?”
A corner of Margaret’s mouth curled into the smallest, truest smile. “Truly?”
“Truly.” He stooped, brushing a smudge of bark from her sleeve. He didn’t let himself linger there too long. “And for the record, you’ve got it all backwards. Black cats aren’t ill luck.”
Margaret’s brow lifted, teasing. “No? Have you consulted your vast library on this?”
Sebastian leaned closer, lowering his voice in mock gravity. “In Scotland, there’s a proverb: Whenever the cat of the house is black, the lasses of lovers will have no lack.”
Her eyes widened, lashes fluttering. A flush crept to her cheeks—rose-bright and betraying her surprise. “You made that up.”
“Would I lie?” He tilted his head, grin crooked and suddenly boyish, reckless in a way that felt too easy between them. “Ablack cat’s a promise of luck, so they say. Even for mad girls who climb trees.”
Margaret’s breath caught. For a heartbeat, she did not smile; she only looked at him, the way one might look at a door half-cracked open on a warm room she’d never been inside.
Then she shook her head and gathered the cat closer. “Well. We’d better find her some cream, then. If she’s to be our luck, she should be well fed.”
Sebastian chuckled, low and genuine, the sort of sound that startled the last of the tension from his shoulders. He offered his arm, half a jest but half real too. “Come on, tree spirit. Let’s bring our luck home.”
She slid her hand through the crook of his elbow without thinking, and if his heart gave a traitorous leap at the warmth of her fingers, he told himself it was only the bruised ribs and the climb and the damned cat purring smugly between them.
CHAPTER 13
Margaret had not meant to pry. She’d been wandering again, her restless mind crowded with accounts she barely understood, menus for the week’s dinners she’d approved with Mrs. Fowler’s patient help. She still had lists of linen and household stores she was meant to inspect when she found the old piano room tucked behind a faded blue door.
Dust coated the corners, but the instrument itself sat proudly beneath a linen cloth, as if waiting to be remembered. She lifted the cloth with careful fingers. The keys, yellowed at the edges, felt cool under her touch. A child’s memory rose up—her mother’s small parlor, a cracked hymn book, her own awkward lessons that never went anywhere at all.
She sat anyway. Her cat curled up on the rug at her feet, flicking her tail as if to approve. Margaret pressed one key, then another. The notes fell softly, hesitant but sweet enough to make her smile.
She began to pick out an old air, a simple tune she half-recalled. Her fingers stumbled, found the shape again, stumbled once more. Still, the sound warmed the corners of the empty room.
Margaret struck the wrong chord and grimaced. “Hopeless,” she muttered under her breath.
“You’re doing tolerably well,” he said. His voice softened the shadows, threaded through the drifting notes.
When she lifted her gaze, she caught him in the reflection of the old glass cabinet. Sebastian, leaning against the doorframe, arms folded, one brow lifted in quiet surprise.
She shot him a look from the corner of her eye. “Tolerably? High praise from His Grace.”
He tilted his head, pretending solemn thought. “Well, you could benefit from a tutor. Or stronger fingers. Or perhaps less muttering when you strike the wrong note.”
She did not look at him. She pretended to study the page she had propped up, though there were no notes written there at all, only a yellowing folio of old songs.
He pushed off the frame, crossing the small space in a few strides. Without asking, he sat down beside her. The bench was narrow, so narrow that their knees brushed, and her skirts pressed along the line of his thigh. He smelled of open air andfaint leather polish, and it took all of her to keep from inhaling with her eyes closed.
He leaned in, just enough that she felt the warmth of him along her shoulder. “Go on, then,” he murmured, voice too near her ear. “Show me your half-broken song.”
Margaret’s fingers found the keys again, stumbling through the same melody. When she muttered under her breath as she fumbled for the next line, she felt him reach past, and his hand brushed hers. It was a steady, warm, fleeting touch that made her pulse leap.
“See, like I said, less muttering.” He chuckled.
Her elbow nudged his ribs before she could stop herself. “Hush, or I’ll leave you to play alone.”
His grin flashed like a reckless boy. “And rob me of my audience? Never.”
Margaret snorted, laughter rising warm in her chest. She hit another note, firm and true this time. “You’ll scare the poor cat if you mock me again.”
Sebastian glanced down at the cat curled smugly at their feet. “She looks unbothered. Unlike her mistress.”
