Page 17 of The Butler's Forbidden Fancy
All afternoon, she had prepared herself for her performance. She’d drunk hot tea, camomile. Two glasses of brandy, too. Though they had put her to sleep…and to good end. Before she’d descended the main staircase, she’d checked every inch of her appearance. In a new gown of salmon satin, she looked rested and pert.
Del perfectly performed her numbers. Her beau, Lord Bromley, turned pages for her. And even though Bee’s beloved, Alastair Demerest, had abruptly left the room, Del continued to entertain the guests.
Del at the end of a number, glanced at Eliza and tipped her head in question.
She lifted her chin. Of course, she would do this!
It was time.
She looked over the score to reassure herself of the notes and hugged it to her bosom.
Octo could not resist her.
* * *
Led on by Riverdale’s odd references to war and Eliza as his angel, Simms watched her now as if he were an owl secluded in the forest of his never-ending duties.
Yes, he scoffed. At himself.
It was not as though he’d simply wished to ignore Eliza. His sanity depended on it. He was a red-blooded male. He’d been initiated into the arts of intercourse at the tender age of sixteen when one of his friends had purchased an afternoon with a wench who lived in the London East India docks. Young fool that he was, curious and naive, he enjoyed the coupling. Or it was more truthful to say, he thought he had. As he grew older and more sanguine, he understood that what he had experienced was lust. The speed of the act, the indifference of his partner and the shame he felt afterward dissipated over the decades. And the liaisons he’d conducted while an agent in Reims had illustrated the degrees of physical attraction. All had shown him the vast difference between physical desire and emotional attachment.
The difference became more apparent to him each time over the years he’d seen Eliza. Most recently, he’d spied her one day months ago descending from her town coach in London in broad daylight. Awareness of how he’d never possess her had hit his senses like a six-pounder. He’d followed her, quite unseen. Drawn like a magnet to her, he could not look away and for more than an hour, he was her shadow. Her smile to her coachman and her kindnesses toward shopkeepers had combined to blow his few remaining conclusions about love and lust to smithereens. He wanted her, as he had never needed any other. Her openness, herjoie de vivre, her chuckle low and melodic. He had taken countless women to his bed in France over the four years he’d been assigned there. He’d learned how to entice with a sly smile. How to lure with darkened brow. How to seduce using the bass of his voice, the brush of his fingertips, a half smile, a wink. How to lower a woman to his bed, undress her with alacrity, caress her with the press of his palm and the nip of his teeth. How to lick her and pet her and make her wet and wanting, wild and ready to offer up everything he needed. Her breasts, her thighs, her hot wet core, her groaning release…and yes, even her secret codes that would betray her and all her comrades in arms.
Like all those women who had worked for Bonaparte, Eliza certainly was clever. She was intelligent, alert and precocious. But one thing she was not was deceitful. All she did came from the font of her personality which was giving, gracious and kind. In that, as he trailed her that afternoon, he reacquainted himself with the reasons he loved her.
He saw her rise now to Del’s invitation and from the back of the music room, he met her gaze and smiled. She was a delight as a soloist. Her mother had recognized her talents when Eliza was just ten and had hired a music teacher, an Italian master. She’d been blessed with the voice of a coloratura soprano, a bird with delicate articulation and an octave range that could make the gods weep.
He crossed his arms and for the moment, relaxed in the knowledge that Eliza’s performance would stun the guests into silence. They’d offer up their praise for the fine gift of her efforts on this night when one celebrated the gift that God had granted in the birth of his son.
Eliza, resplendent in an oddly colored gown of peach that frankly did her little justice, put one gloved hand to the piano and surveyed her audience as if she were the queen.
Del began the introduction.
He expected Mozart, perhaps Handel. An opera. Those she was best at rendering. He’d once heard her perform a portion of the three-act opera,Agrippina, by George Handel. The story starred the mother of Nero, Agrippina, as she sought support to kill the emperor Claudius and place her son on the Roman’s throne. Eliza had acted like a harpy and seduced the audience into believing she could be older, manipulative, cunning and brutal. Her voice had that sterling, magical ability to capture one’s imagination. By her posture, her imperious lock of her emerald gaze upon those in the room, Eliza opened her mouth…and what came forth was a country song.
The opening bars were so…undemanding…unworthy of her talents, he scowled.Why sing this?
Yet, he noted how a few guests leaned forward. It was true that few women were courageous enough to sing in such a large gathering. Especially those who were not her family and not inclined to be kind if she faltered.
Eliza didn’t fail…until she did. And then, she slid on what should have been an agile run. She recovered, her eyes alight without any indication she understood she’d missed a note quite badly. She went on…and on as if she had not broken. As if she did not notice how she mixed the tempo. That Del had to pause and start a bar again. That the flat should have been a sharp.
He frowned.
Was she ill?
She didn’t seem that way. She looked extremely healthy.
In fact, she went on….
Dear god.
And on.
He knit his brows. She was quite awful. He was in pain.
Why was she not?
She must know that she sang as if she’d lost her hearing. All sense.
