Page 34 of The Spinster's Stolen Hear
Almost everybody was fascinated, held captive by her spell. One older woman lifted a shaking hand to her lips, as if reeling from some long-forgotten sorrow brought to mind by the music.
Not everybody was listening so intently. Lady Randall was glancing up and down the table too, looking anxious and a little annoyed. She looked up at her daughter with a frown, as if wishing she would stop playing. Lady Henrietta, the Dowager, had her lips pursed together in obvious disapproval.
Lord Barwick was stifling a yawn, and Nathan found himself longing to throw a plate at the man’s head.
How could they not see how beautiful the music was, how talented Miss Randall was? Did they truly not see, or did they not wish to see?
Abruptly, the music came to a sweeping crescendo and ended. Miss Randall opened her eyes, as if waking from a dream.
Applause broke out up and down the table. Nathan leapt up from his seat to applaud, and he was not the first one on his feet. Miss Randall blinked at them, seeming almost a little stupefied.
Eleanor stood up, beaming, still clapping.
“Well, Pippa, that wasbeautiful! Everybody loved it, of course. You are most talented!”
Miss Randall blushed. “My father taught me.”
Abruptly, Lady Randall seized her by the wrist, pulling her down into her seat. The younger woman lost her grip on her bow, which clattered across the paving stones. She scrabbled for it with an intense urgency, and Nathan had to look away.
“That’s enough, Pippa,” Lady Randall hissed, probably a little more loudly than she’d intended, as Nathan clearly heard and so did others.
Eleanor fixed the woman with a pointed glare.
“Right. Well, then, shall we eat?”
*
The dinner passed swiftly. Nathan found his gaze diverted down the table again and again, where Miss Randall sat. She didn’t seem to speak much. In fact,hergaze was fixed on the plate in front of her, although she barely ate. Her mother and Lord Barwick talked over her head a good deal. The violin had disappeared somewhere, and Miss Randall’s hands, laid gently on the table beside her plate, occasionally flexed, as if wishing she had the instrument once again.
When the food was being taken away and people were lounging around the table in a more relaxed fashion, Nathan noticed a few people making their way towards the gardens, in twos and threes, obviously with the aim of taking a light stroll. There would be games after – croquet, or perhaps bowls, with a chessboard and backgammon board being promised for later.
“Poor thing, she looks bored to death,” Rose commented, nudging Nathan and nodding in Miss Randall’s direction. “If he’s trying to court her, he might want to try and speaktoher.”
Miss Randall was in the same position as before, between Lord Barwick and her mother. They were talking animatedly about something or other, Lady Randall clearly trying to impress the marquess. Neither of them even glanced at Miss Randall.
They don’t need to impress her,he thought, with a rush of anger.Lady Randall knows that her daughter will marry where she’s told, and Lord Barwick is too full of vanity to imagine that he might need to woo any woman at all. He probably imagines she’s in love with him already.
She didn’t look like a woman in love. She looked like a woman plotting escape.
Nathan was on his feet before he realised what he was doing. Rose blinked up at him, perplexed.
“Nathan? What is it?”
“Excuse me, Mother,” he answered, determined not to give himself time to lose his nerve. His feet carried him down the length of the table, until he was standing before the three of them.
Miss Randall noticed him at once, staring up at him with large eyes. It took a moment for Lady Randall and Lord Barwick’s conversation to falter away. Once there was silence, he smiled tightly.
“Excuse me, I only came to see if Miss Randall would like to take a turn around the rose garden over yonder. There are quite a number of guests walking there, in full sight of the terrace. It’ll be quite safe.”
And, more to the point, quite proper.
Lady Randall’s eyes bulged. “Sir, we are having a conversation.”
“Are you sure?” Nathan found himself saying, before he could think twice about whether or not it was a sensible thing to say. “Because I have not seen Miss Randall open her lips in the last half an hour. I believe your conversation has moved on without her.”
She flashed him a taut smile. “My daughter does not…”
“Yes,” Miss Randall blurted out. “Yes, Lord Whitmore. I’d like to come.”
