Page 5 of Haunted
And then the boy seized his hand. “Come and meet my papa!”
George kept his gaze on the boy, holding on to her words,He’s playing, that he did not quite believe. They had all said “Papa” was dead. The men at the inn who had called her a widow, Mark, Mrs. Hazel herself. Was he being fooled in some way again?
It did not happen often, and he had taught himself to recognize the flim-flam men and women, the liars and the cheats. There weren’t many of them, and he had felt no such alarm bells with her.
The boy was smiling, but his eyes were serious. He really wanted George to meet someone. Without looking at Mrs. Hazel, he rose and let Mark lead him to the sofa.
“This is my papa,” the boy said proudly. “Papa, this is George, who was caught in the storm. We’re letting him stay because he is kind.”
George looked where the boy was looking—at the back of the sofa—and felt a little frisson of memory, one deeply buried in his own childhood. Showing a very different adult someone no one else in the room could see. And just for a moment, he imagined hedidsee a man sitting on the sofa—a misty, insubstantial figure with wild, merry eyes and a sensitive mouth. He shivered, and the illusion vanished.
Mark laughed. “Papa says you had better be, but he is only joking. I can tell he likes you.”
“Enough, Marco,” his mother interrupted, as though she were trying not to speak too sharply. “It is past time for bed, and the storm is quieter. Say goodnight to Sir George.”
For some reason, the name surprised him. People either called him Sir Arthur, or just George, depending on when and how they knew him. He wasn’t quite sure why he had told the boy he was called George, except that there was an honesty in such young children, and George was more closely related to who he was. Sir Arthur was who he had become, the miracle that enabled him to travel where he willed, meet interesting people, learn from more than just books, make decisions. But at heart, he was still George.
“Good night, Sir George!” Mark said enthusiastically.
George smiled. “I feel I should be slaying dragons when you call me that. Good night.”
“Can I help slay the dragons?” Mark asked over his shoulder as his mother led him from the room.
“Of course. You shall be my apprentice.”
Mark grinned at him, in clear expectation of an exciting new game. But it was Francesca’s smile that stunned him. Part amused, part grateful, it softened her watchful, anxious eyes and made them sparkle. Her whole being lit up with a beauty that deprived him of breath.
Fortunately, she turned away from him, so she couldn’t have begun to suspect the effect of her mere smile upon him.
Mere?There was nothing mere about it.
George liked to look at beauty. Beautiful women were no exception, but they did not usually tongue-tie him. Some of his closest friends were beautiful women—Lady Hera, for example, his first true friend who had shown him the way to freedom and truth.
But this girl, this mother, was nothing like Hera. Nor any of the women who had moved him since. She was a widow, the wife of a great musician, yet someone the villagers had felt free to play unkind tricks on. He should not be here, threatening her already precarious reputation, and yet the many layers and facets of her character fascinated him.
Of course, he was given to obsessions. Once he had solved the puzzle or revealed everything to his own satisfaction, he was usually prepared to move on to the next. For this woman’s safety, he should move onnow.
He was pacing between the shuttered window and a large, beautiful pianoforte that he had barely noticed before. He used it now as a quite deliberate distraction, running his hand over the smooth, polished curves, depressing the occasional key to appreciate the tone and timbre of a single note, perfectly in tune.
“Do you play, Sir Arthur?”
Her voice from the doorway took him by surprise. He realized he was sorry not to be Sir George to her still.
“No.” He straightened. “I never learned. The pianoforte was always in the drawing room. But I like to listen.”
She looked slightly confused by that but did not ask anything, for which he was grateful. He did not want to say to her,I was an odd child who embarrassed my parents in front of guests, so they kept me hidden, pretending I was ill and then dead.“Do you play?” he asked hastily.
“Sometimes.” Another flash of lightning penetrated the room, and her breath caught. Her shoulders tensed as she waited for the crash of thunder. “I used to be quite good.”
“Used to be?” He frowned. The rumble of thunder was quite distant, and she relaxed visibly.
“Yes. I used to play all the time. Now, I need to be in a certain mood. One has to practice constantly to keep the skill honed.”
Something slotted into place in his mind. “You were a player, like your husband.”
She tilted her head with a hint of defiance, daring him to criticize. “It was how I met him. We performed at the same theatre in Naples, and then played together many times.”
“But his death changed everything for you,” he guessed.
