Page 42 of The Duke's Dream
William rose. “And the music score?”
The valet approached with the pages.
“Dr. Flemming sent a note. The doctor asked to speak with you about your mother. And Lord Thornley’s secretary came here twice today.”
William didn’t look up from scanning the notes on the score. “Not now. Tomorrow.”
He crossed the threshold into the music room, the sheet clutched in his hand. The Erard grand piano gleamed beneath the candlelight, silent and waiting.
His father had despised it.“Music stirs the passions, William. It softens the mind, weakens the will. A man rules with logic, not lust.”
He’d said it with disgust the day he caught William playing a nocturne, eyes closed, lost in feeling.
“Feel too much, and you become a danger to others. And to yourself.”
But his father was not here now. Only the Erard, his fingers, and the Sylph's call.
William’s hands hovered over the keys, fighting a pull stronger than gravity. He knew that music seemed light as mist, but it churned oceans beneath his ribs. He knew the dangers of giving vent to such feelings. He'd seen what happened when men surrendered to the whims of the heart—nations fell, marriages dissolved, people died…
He held back for one heartbeat, two.
Yet, he succumbed.
When his fingers descended, the cool ivory greeted his touch—familiarly forbidden. He stirred the music, and the music stirred him. Could logic ever wield such power?
The overture bloomed, rising like mist from ancient moss. Oaks whispered old secrets. Moonlight flickered behind drifting clouds. Somewhere, in that imagined glade, a being made of mischief and hummingbird wings yawned awake, stretching in a shaft of silver light. William’s heart surged and then soared. The notes weren’t simply played—they breathed, casting a spell that shimmered over the room like dew on leaves.
His right hand flitted across the upper register—fluttering sylphs in flight—while his left thudded a steady mortal rhythm, the grounded ache of the man who yearns for them. The melody spilled from his fingers and swept him along. He wasn’t playing the overture. He was inside it. He moved with it. Longed through it. A man chasing the story and becoming it.
The music showed him so much. He saw Helene entering the stage, he saw her turning into her toes, he saw her painting the music with her gracious hands and her lightning-quick feet. He could listen to her dancing it, just as he could see the notes.
Too soon, the final chord burst like a floodgate. He released a breath he hadn’t known he’d held. The music fell into silence. The spell, broken.
But the yearning didn’t fade with the last note.
He sat, eyes closed, pulse still racing.
Slowly, reason crept back into his mind, steady and cold.
If she rose to stardom, keeping her as his mistress would be impractical. But keeping her from rising? Unthinkable.
Doubts flew from his mind. He had done the right thing. This part could belong to no one else.
His Helene was La Sylphide.
Helenesteppedontothestage on the balls of her feet. Her first rehearsal as a principal! To dance with Vestris, the company’s virtuoso, and be coached by Langley? It felt like a dream.
She dropped her handbag and turned in a slow circle, like an awed Hamlet contemplating the ‘majestic roof fretted with golden fire.’ Her heart swelled with pride and a pang of longing. What would her mother say if she could see her now? A small hiccup escaped her throat, and she quickly wiped the moisture from her eyes. Here she was—overwhelmed before the overture!
“Ah, Helene, there you are.” Langley’s voice snapped her back to the moment.
The choreographer beckoned her and Vestris. Helene rushed to the front and curtsied.
Vestris acknowledged her with a friendly nod. Gas lamp light reflected on his blond hair, and his muscles rippled beneath his practice tunic. Famous throughout Europe for his jumps and turns, he was ballet’s most celebrated virtuoso—an Apollo in white stockings and ballet slippers.
Langley smiled indulgently and caught her hand. “La Sylphide will be the greatest ballet this stage has ever witnessed. It will have it all — the best dancers in the world, costumes by Karinska, state-of-the-art scenery, and the first ballerina to dance a full ballet on the tips of her toes.”
Helene glanced at the empty boxes. If the duke could see her now, would he consider her more than an object?
