Nell St. Maur was not a creature of the morning hours. Simon woke her with a kiss only to watch her fall back asleep. He nibbled on her ear for a bit, which coaxed out an appreciative noise that collapsed into a snore. He sat beside her, at a loss for a moment, and then lost for a long minute in simply admiring how frankly her face advertised her spirit: the stubborn square of her jaw, the saucy point of her chin, the bold lines of her dark brows.
He ran a finger down her cheek. No response. She was dead to the world.
Whimsical thought: he wanted her awake because he missed her.
He leapt off the bed and opened the curtains, then watched in amusement as she rejected the daylight with a hand tossed—more accurately, flopped—across her eyes. When he returned to the bed and blew on her cheek, she made a small noise of irritation and rolled away from him.
An idea struck. He turned and padded from his own rooms into hers, where her blushing maid sat waiting beside a cooling pot of chocolate. No, he told the girl, he did not require her help to carry the tray.
Her smothered giggles followed him back into his apartment.
One wave of the cup beneath his wife’s nose brought her to scowling, rumpled life. The fingers shielding her face widened, allowing him a glimpse of lashes rising, falling, then rising again. With an audible sniff, she pushed herself up by an elbow. “Chocolate,” she said hoarsely, and seized the cup.
He sat back, smiling as she shoved a handful of chestnut hair out of her face. At the first sip, her eyes closed again and the look on her face made his body tighten. They’d enjoyed each other three times last night, but another day brought with it new opportunities. And they were, after all, in a bed together already.
“I do believe you prefer chocolate to me,” he said teasingly.
She lowered the cup and met his eyes. “No.” She cleared her throat. “I do not.”
The color rising on her cheeks riveted him. “Blushes?” She’d been so magnificently uninhibited last night.
“Not for shame,” she said softly.
“No,” he agreed, just as quiet. “That would be foolish indeed.”
Their look held, becoming magnetic somehow: comfortable yet all-consuming; he felt no need to look away and she did not lower her eyes. Perhaps this was what obsession felt like. Yes, he thought: he had a full-blown and still growing obsession with this woman he’d married.
Should it unnerve him? It had, in the past. He could no longer remember why. This blush, so lovely … Every moment he looked at her, she seemed to offer something new. “Drink,” he said.
She lifted a brow, then took his suggestion with enthusiasm. Once upon a time, she had slurped. No longer. The grime was gone; her accent was smoothing out; she no longer fell on her food as though she feared it might be taken from her. Often he found himself forgetting her roots entirely.
Or, no—he hadn’t forgotten whence she came. But lately he found himself marveling at her for reasons that had nothing to do with her history. He did not admire a guttersnipe’s quick wit or a guttersnipe’s grasp of sophisticated literary techniques; he admired, simply, her: a woman of unusual insight, unafraid of disagreement, but also generous in her concessions when he made a sound point; intelligent, quick-witted, delightful company.
Delicious company. She yawned, showing a small pink tongue, covering her mouth with one hand, kittenish, impossible not to touch. He caught a lock of her hair, rubbing the silken strands. How demure she looked, how small in his bed. Such a deceptive appearance of fragility. When the mood struck, she could deal a set-down as sharp as any her father ever authored.
The thought gave him pause. Perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence that the first woman to truly capture his interest in years also happened to be the first to disapprove of him so sternly. He wasn’t in the business of sticking his head into the sand: he could see that his feelings for her might contain an echo of his old, quixotic quest. In her disapproval, she bore more than a passing resemblance to Rushden—whom he’d tried to please, time and again, until it had become clear that his own spirit would be the cost for it.
He smoothed her hair back behind her ear and she gave him a frowning little look. Ironic that her disapproval should wreak the opposite effect of her father’s. It filled him with a frustrated, hungry, unnervingly intense desire to discover how to please her. How to locate, or fashion, the key that would unlock her trust—or, failing that, the spot to hit with a hammer to crack her open.
“What?” she asked. He’d been staring too intently. “Do I have chocolate somewhere?” She reached up to pat the corners of her mouth, looking flustered and entirely feminine.
“No,” he said. “No chocolate. Only you.” And that, he feared, was enough.
Her flush was spreading down her throat, into smooth terrain concealed by the sheet hiked beneath her arms. It occurred to him that he’d wondered about that blush. He reached for the sheet and she squealed, leaning away from him. “Hey! What’s this?” she demanded.
“A husbandly inquiry. I believe I once expressed a need to know how far your blushes extend.”
“Oh.” She eyed him for a moment before breaking into an impish smile. “Well, then,” she said, setting aside the cup of chocolate. “Why don’t you come find out?”
Some two hours after they awoke, Simon escorted his new wife from his apartment toward the breakfast room. “I am quite serious,” he said, speaking over her laughter. “I’m going to carry you over some threshold or another. It’s quite scandalous that I didn’t even lift you into my rooms. I can’t imagine what I was thinking last night.”
With a sparkling look from under her lashes, she said, “Oh, I can think of one or two things that were on your mind.” She lowered her voice, mocking his own: “Took you long enough,” she said gruffly.
He laughed back at her. He was in charity with the world, too amazed with his good luck, with the wondrous kindness that fate had performed in presenting him this woman. “Take care,” he said. “I might have hauled you over my shoulder long before this: to the magistrate, that first night.” The memory of it now amazed him. How fortunate for him that he hadn’t. So easily she might have been lost to him.
“You’re lucky I didn’t get away,” she replied promptly. “If I hadn’t been kind enough to tarry and chat with you, I’d have made a neat job of it, too.”
“I’d like to hear how,” he said. “One shout from me and the entire house would have been up in arms.”
She snorted. “Right here,” she said, waving in front of him; they had reached the top of the staircase. “I would have slid down this banister, past all your gawping servants, and shimmied on out the door.”
“The balustrade?” He ran a skeptical eye down its length. “A happy thing you decided to tarry, then. You’d have broken your neck.”
She snorted. “This here is a prime prospect for sliding, St. Maur.”
He opened his mouth but was startled by a dim recollection that caused him instead to laugh. “You’re right.” As a boy he’d had these exact thoughts: it was the perfect banister for sliding. He’d never done it, of course; it hadn’t taken long to realize that banisters in this house were not meant even for gripping: a proper gentleman should make his way down the stairs straight and stern and untroubled by any obstacle, even a missed step.
A devil seized hold of him. “Let’s do it,” he said. Why not?
Disbelief deepened her smile. “You can’t be serious.”
“God help us, but that’s a phrase nobody should have taught you,” he said. “Now you sound like every stuffed-up lady I’ve ever known.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Stuffed up, am I? I’ll wager you can’t keep your seat past the curve.”
He eyed the drop from the aforementioned curve. A good ten feet to the marble flagstones below. It could crack a man’s head. “For the sake of the St. Maur line, one hopes otherwise. But I suppose there’s only one way to find out.” He leapt up to sit on the rail.
She shrieked. “No! I wasn’t—”
“Serious?” he finished for her, and then let go.
Like flight. No friction: his staff was too well trained; they oiled this banister morning and night. Nell continued to shriek above him. He laughed as he leaned into the curve, exhilarated and also aware of how absurd this was, to laugh his head off at a boy’s game. Such a simple pleasure. Such joy.
The bend flew by; he was home free now, bound at startling speeds for the bottom of the staircase. He remembered this skill at the level of muscle and sinew; he pushed himself off the rail and landed on his feet at the base of the stairs.
He turned around. She stood at the top of the stairs, hands cupped over her mouth.
“Graceful as the breeze,” he called up.
She dropped her hands to her hips. “More like a lunatic!”
“And you’re a braggart. All talk. No follow-through.”
He could see from here the sudden tilt of her chin. Another laugh welled in him as she stalked over to the banister, her movements jerky with spite. She was too easy.
But she didn’t hop up on the railing quite as easily as he had. Of course. Her skirts would impede her.
Concern overlaid his amusement. “Don’t,” he said. “I was only jesting. You’re not dressed for—”
He made an aborted movement to mount the stairs. But she was moving too quickly; he would be as likely to knock her off as catch her. His mind began to calculate the best place to position himself on the ground floor, so that when she fell backward and came tumbling down, he could break the fall—
And she whooped. “Here I come,” she cried, and he realized she was going to make it.
Laughing himself—from relief as much as from delight—he stepped backward to provide her space to land.
She made nearly a perfect dismount. But the speed caught up to her, so that she came stumbling forward, right into his arms.
No, he thought—a perfect dismount all around.
She was breathing hard, flushed, her eyes sparkling. “Told you,” she said. “I would have gotten away.”
“And I would have caught you then, too.” As his attention fixed on her mouth, he remembered, with a pleasant shock, that they were married. He could kiss her wherever in his house he liked.
He leaned down. Her eyes widened, then her soft hands were covering his elbows, drawing him closer as she went up on her tiptoes. Their lips brushed, a hot reminder, too sweet not to be a prelude to something more.
“Upstairs,” he murmured into her mouth, and felt her soundless laughter warm his lips. He was physically turning her, goading her to mount the stairs again, when a throat was pointedly cleared behind them.
Hemple. Blast the woman. Simon would have ignored her on any day but this one. Sighing, he transferred his hand from Nell’s hip to the more decorous perch of her muscled upper arm. “Mrs. Hemple,” he said in greeting. Nell’s instructor looked pink. “I was just fetching your charge for you.”
“How fortuitous,” said the matron, looking between them anxiously. “It’s an important day for her ladyship. A very momentous day, indeed. We cannot waste a minute.”
He felt his bride tense. “What happens today?” she asked.
Christ, had he forgotten to tell her? He caught her hand and kissed it in apology. “Tonight,” he said, “you make your debut into society.”
Nell moved through the day like a drunkard, silly with thoughts of Simon. Hemple put her through her paces, demanding that she mime all manner of situations—being introduced to a fellow countess (a fellow countess!); to a marquess; to a princess; to some sorry baron who barely merited even a curtsy (and what an idea that was—that there were nobs now who ranked beneath her!). Nell bobbed as directed, her body barely registering the indignities. Her flesh no longer seemed her own. At the very thought of her husband, it throbbed.
Dressing for society was no small task. It began immediately after a late tea, when Sylvie, nervous as a fluttering bird, drew her upstairs to choose a gown. Apparently Simon had set her into a tizzy by informing her that the party would be small but exclusive.
Exclusive was the word over which Sylvie fretted. The heliotrope satin was cunning but its flounces, she argued, were too bold for elegance. The sapphire velvet would look lurid beneath the Allentons’ electric lights; best save it for gas. The lavender-tinted taffeta—was it not too girlish? But the emerald silk shot through with threads of peacock blue, over which floated an overskirt of green tulle—this gown was sprightly yet mysterious in a feminine way, sure to strike a most elegant picture.
Nell, who hadn’t known dresses had personalities, felt relieved to be offered the chance to approve. She rose to don a chemisette of fine silk in preparation to being strapped into her corset.
As she stripped off her woolen combination, Sylvie hastily averted her eyes. Nell looked down for the cause and found a love bite on the upper slope of her breast.
She felt her face catch fire. The high color still lingered when she sat down at the toilet table a quarter hour later so Sylvie could dress her hair. Could this feverish, bright-eyed girl in the mirror—this girl whose knees were quivering with thoughts of the night past—really be herself? For so long she’d believed that the only safe way to enjoy a man was to enjoy him less than he did her. But this giddiness that had seized her didn’t allow for caution.
They were married. Surely she was safe now to feel as much as she liked?
Sylvie turned her hair into a high roll at the crown of her skull, then threaded the roll with a fine chain of emeralds that glimmered like green stars. “Very elegant,” she pronounced.
“Half naked,” Nell suggested. The gown had long, tight sleeves but it dipped very low in the front. Her breasts popped up like fresh-baked muffins.
“Elegant,” Sylvie said adamantly. “Like a countess.”
“Beautiful,” came a low voice from the doorway.
Simon came forward, long and lean in a black evening suit, a leather box in his hand. He circled her once, a smile playing on his lips. “Elegant as well, of course—but the word is too bloodless to suit you.”
His mouth was so beautifully shaped. Full, well-chiseled lips. She wished he wouldn’t waste them on flattery. They had such better uses.
Her next words sounded hoarse. “Thank you; that’s very kind.” Mrs. Hemple had told her that a lady never argued with a compliment.
His smile widened briefly before disappearing. “This is for you,” he said in a different, more formal voice.
She felt a flicker of unease as he opened the box—something in his manner put her on the alert. But the contents within the velvet-lined compartment robbed her of her wariness.
The necklace sported emeralds the size of robin’s eggs. Those on the bracelet were not much smaller. The stones seemed alive in the light, casting a sparkle so vivid that she hesitated to touch them for some irrational fear they would singe her.
These jewels were fit for a queen.
“These have always belonged to the Countess of Rushden,” Simon said. “Your mother wore them. She particularly loved the bracelet. In many of my memories of her …”
She looked up as he trailed off. His expression was impassive but she wasn’t fooled. He had a knack for making his face unreadable at those moments when he felt the most.
“I loved her, of course,” he said lightly. “Now they’re yours.”
She had no idea why tears suddenly stung her eyes. She reached up to touch his face. His eyes held hers, deeper and graver than she’d ever seen them. “Thank you,” she said.
Her throat felt thick as she turned to face the mirror. She watched as he laid the necklace around her throat. His mouth touched her nape, a light, warm brush that made her shiver. His fingers slid along hers as he coaxed the bracelet onto her wrist, promises in the slow stroke of his fingertips.
The woman in the mirror colored. She took a large breath, then smiled—a strange and wise smile that sent a shock of recognition through Nell.
It was not a factory girl she saw in the glass, but a woman with jewels at her throat, with assurance in her proud carriage, with serene confidence in her eyes.
She had seen this lady before, in a photograph that hung in a shop window.
The Allentons’ drawing room was candlelit. From the high ceiling, rosy Grecian gods looked down on guests who gleamed in silk and satin. The gold brocade of the damask upholstery winked in the low, inconstant light; gems flashed on throats and wrists. Some sweet, subtle spice scented the air. The soft bowing of a violinist hidden by a screen of ferns vied with the pleasant, steady murmur of conversation.
Nell’s stomach cramped as she hesitated on the threshold. Here was a perfect dream of wealth. Right and left, luxury and smiles and gentle, understated laughter flourished. These people had no idea that they were about to meet a factory girl—about to curtsy to her, even.
Simon leaned near. “You belong here,” he murmured.
She forced a smile to her lips. “I’m not nervous,” she lied. She knew she wasn’t a coward. On a deep breath, she took the step across the threshold.
Simon steered her gently around to greet their approaching hostess, a short, plump, auburn-haired matron with the unremarkable but pleasant features of a Madonna.
The woman laid eyes on Nell and her serene smile collapsed. “I …” As Lady Allenton drew up, she looked rapidly between them. “Lady Katherine, good evening to you.”
“Ah, I fear you misunderstand,” said Simon courteously. “Lady Rushden, may I present Lady Richard Allenton? Lady Allenton, my wife, the Countess of Rushden.”
Hearing her cue, Nell watched her own arm pop out like the stiff limb of a cranked automaton. Harmonic poise, Mrs. Hemple’s voice silently chided.
But their hostess was too startled to note the finer points of the performance. “My goodness,” said the lady. Bright color bloomed on her cheeks as she took Nell’s fingers. She gave them a light press and bent her knee slightly.
There: the first curtsy. It triggered in Nell a rising tide of hilarity. Somebody with a Lady before her name had just curtsied to her.
Simon’s shoulder brushed hers—a subtle nudge. Right. She wet her lips. “How do you do,” she said.
“Very well,” Lady Allenton said breathlessly. “But I had no idea—that is, my very best wishes to you, Kitty.” Pursing her lips, she corrected herself: “Lady Rushden.”
Nell’s breath briefly stopped. “Lady Allenton,” Simon said gently. “I fear you mistake my wife for her sister.”
The lady’s hand clamped around Nell’s, then just as quickly let go. She retreated a pace, her eyes huge. “I—” She swallowed. Shook her head. Then managed a little laugh. “Did I mishear you? I don’t quite …”
“Forgive me,” Simon said, “for breaking the news so suddenly.”
Nell dared a brief look at him. His eyes met hers, the smallest smile curling the corner of his mouth. Didn’t he look bloody jolly! She tried to smile back but her lips wouldn’t do it.
“Well!” Lady Allenton shook her head once, then fell silent, as pop-eyed as a reverend at the devil. A pulse was beating visibly in her throat. Was she going to throw them out? Would she call for a guard? Would she—”You naughty, clever boy,” she said, a look of humor entering her face as she turned to Simon.
Nell exhaled. Simon’s dimple was flashing. “What can I say?” he replied.
“I can’t even begin to imagine.” Lady Allenton’s eyes turned back to Nell. “I—what a pleasure! I don’t expect you recall—” Her words now picked up speed, tumbling breathily over one another. “I knew your mother, of course, but you were so small—no, you wouldn’t—but how devastated we were, afterward, how hopeless—” Her lips clamped shut, but her wondering gaze continued to rove over Nell’s face. “I must ask,” she burst out. “Where have you been?”
“And here you are!” A strapping, ginger-haired man bounded up to clap Simon on the shoulder. He sent a quizzical glance toward his frozen hostess, then looked onward to Nell. “Oh,” he said, swallowing noisily. “Quite—quite right. Lady Rushden, then?”
“Lady Rushden,” Simon said equably. “My lady, Lord Reginald Harcourt, a friend of old.”
Nell gamely extended a hand, but the redhead had bowed too quickly for her. “Terribly glad to meet you,” he said as he popped up again, the grin on his face putting her in mind of a jack-in-the-box. She recognized his type. Sporting, jolly: he’d be comfortable down at the pub, singing sailor songs at the bar with the lads who liked to brawl after their fifth or sixth glass. “Expect you’ve come to set the crowd on its ear, eh?” He cocked an eyebrow at Lady Allenton. “The first victim.”
“I am quite well,” Lady Allenton murmured.
“No doubt of that,” the man agreed. “Soiree of the season, what? A hard title to come by, once June rolls around, but I expect Rushden has clinched it for you.”
The words seemed to rouse Lady Allenton. She looked around her as though coming awake. Her eyes narrowed as they returned to Nell, and then she smiled, suddenly and perfectly delighted.
“But what an honor,” she said. “What an honor, that you should choose my little party to announce this—this miracle!” Her trilling laugh steadied, edging into robust glee. “Oh, yes. Lady Rushden, you must allow me to introduce you.”
And so, at their hostess’s direction, they walked from group to group, the first and second knots of guests greeting Nell with confusion—and then shock, much as Lady Allenton had done. But as their progress continued, leaving astonished exclamations in its wake, the entire room began to catch on. The genteel atmosphere dissolved into a sharp, increasingly frenetic babble that drowned out the violins. Only two words leapt clearly out of the hubbub: Cornelia Aubyn.
To her own surprise, Nell relaxed; she actually began to enjoy herself. Mrs. Hemple had framed this evening as a test, but Simon had been more correct: it wasn’t a test as much as a spectacle, and her part in it barely required words. With each new person, she extended her hand, made a shallow curtsy, and then settled back to let them gawp and ogle her. Simon managed all the rest: he guided the stunned guests through their disbelief and into excitement; dexterously deflected their more complex inquiries about her former whereabouts; laughed often, generously, until his interlocutors laughed, too; accepted compliments on her behalf; and smoothed over those moments in which a question was put to her that she had no idea how to answer. “No, she’s not so fond of hunting, but what a lovely invitation; and, yes, I’m working to change her mind”; “The gown is Worth, I believe, but altered by Madame Poitiers; you know she has a gift for muting the harsh French angles”; “Why, no, we were discussing it just last night; she hasn’t chosen a favorite yet, but I’m wagering on Hunsdown’s filly to take the race.”
Nonsense, clever nonsense, all spun in Simon’s low, smooth voice. He was a bloody genius with these people, slicker than any confidence artist, more popular than whisky in a room full of Irishmen. People doted on his remarks. They courted him and he rewarded them for it, lavishing his charm on anyone who wanted it, using his free hand to flirt, to deliver glancing brushes over ladies’ wrists and solid, manly claps to gentlemen’s shoulders. He radiated approval, amusement, belonging, and people gathered to him like stars around the moon. Under his influence, their avid curiosity about her shifted into simpler warmth; they looked at her anew, seeing not a grotesque surprise but a delightful discovery, Rushden’s discovery.
When somebody pressed a glass of champagne into her hand, Nell lifted it to him in a silent toast, congratulating his cleverness. His eyes laughed back at her; in the pretext of inclining to speak in her ear, his lips brushed her temple. “Steady on,” he said. “You’re doing brilliantly.”
She flushed at the compliment, though she hardly deserved it. In this hullabaloo, nobody noticed if her vowels occasionally collapsed on certain syllables; if, once, she slipped up and called a marquess your lordship, like a servant. But oh, sweet irony! Her tutors would have despaired at how this richly dressed crowd stared and stammered. As Lady Somebody-or-Other gabbled at her about the glorious righting of terrible injustices, she nodded and patted the woman’s hand and thought, Mind your E’s, there, duck, and don’t step so close when you speak to a girl: it ain’t polite.
When that lady finally stepped away, another took her place: a scarlet-gowned woman whose pale, heart-shaped face might have blurred with all the others had the sight of it not caused Simon to hesitate briefly before issuing a greeting.
The Viscountess Swanby was tall and dramatically curved, with pale blue eyes as sharp in their sparkle as glass. She received news of Nell’s resurrection with unusual serenity, nodding through the introduction and then immediately inquiring whether or not Simon had received her invitation to a performance by some Hungarian pianist.
“Thank you, I did,” he said.
Mrs. Hemple had told Nell one wasn’t meant to allude to invitations in public, lest one’s companions realize they’d been omitted from the guest list. But the blonde did not seem to realize her faux pas. “You can’t miss the performance,” she said. “I believe his piano is another man’s pianissimo.”
The Hungarian bloke had taken somebody else’s … piano? Was a pianissimo a fancy brand of piano? Nell glanced uncertainly to Simon, who was nodding. “Certainly he has an unrivaled grasp of the counterpoint,” he said.
Counterpoint. Now there was a word that sounded plain enough, but Nell couldn’t imagine the meaning.
The viscountess, however, seemed clear on it. “Oh, yes,” she enthused. “He makes me look with new wonder on the connection between musician and instrument. Why …” Her voice lowered. “I’ve never encountered a softer, more skillful touch.”
Touch. In the viscountess’s purring voice, the word seemed suggestive. Nell looked sharply toward Simon and saw that he was not smiling. For the first time all night, he made no effort to appear entertained. “Is that so?” he asked.
“Well, I’ve experienced it only once, of course,” the viscountess replied. With a cold start, Nell realized that she was inching closer to Simon. “But I’ve never managed to forget it.” Her ice-blue gaze trailed down Simon’s body to the vicinity of his … hands. “Ever since, I’ve been longing to have him perform again.”
Comprehension iced through Nell’s stomach. This conversation might have been in Chinese and she still would have sensed the undercurrent here. “I suppose it might be more complicated than you expect,” she said flatly. She could send her own message; she understood the idea of a performance, at least. “For you to arrange another show, I mean.”
Simon’s arm tensed beneath her hand. Yes, she thought blackly, I’m not an idiot.
The viscountess flicked her a dismissive glance. “Does Lady Rushden take a real interest in the arts, then?”
“She has a remarkable instinct for them,” Simon said, his voice unreadable. “I should trust her opinion on any question touching on such matters.”
For a second, faced with this bloodless exchange, Nell doubted her own suspicions. But then the viscountess lifted her brows, and her thin lips took on a superior, sneering curve as she said directly to Nell, “How lovely! Of course, when it comes to the arts, one must wish for a variety of diverse opinions, the better to invigorate the debate. Don’t you think?”
The sneer in her voice dispelled all doubt. In Nell, this woman saw a rival.
Nell took a hard breath. In Bethnal Green, a wife would be lifting her fist about now. A wise husband would be retreating. Nobody would tolerate this odd, elliptical sparring. “I expect the right opinion is the only one you need,” she said.
“If you’ll excuse us,” Simon said, but Nell resisted the pressure he was exerting on her arm, for the viscountess was opening her mouth to speak and you didn’t turn your back on a snake.
“I must solicit your opinion, then,” the viscountess said to her. “The last time I spoke with Lord Rushden, we had a very passionate discussion of Andreasson’s tone-color effects. I feel that Bach’s fugues tolerate it very well, but perhaps you do not.” Her tone was pleasant, but her eyes nailed into Nell’s, steady and hard, as though she saw straight to the truth and knew Nell had not an inkling of such matters. “Such a hot debate under way! May I know where you stand?”
“I doubt she has ever contemplated the question,” said Simon. “I confess I never gave it much thought myself after our discussion. Neither I nor my wife pay much attention to these passing salon styles.”
Whatever Simon meant, it looked to be the equivalent of a slap, for the woman reddened and retreated a pace. “Yes, I see your point. My goodness, is that Marconi I spot on the other side of the room? If you’ll forgive me—”
“Oh, we would never keep you,” Simon murmured.
The viscountess turned on her heel and stalked away. Watching her retreat, Nell felt sick. Maybe the champagne was souring in her stomach. “What’s a salon style?”
“A musical term,” said Simon. “That’s all.”
No, it wasn’t. Her husband might as well have been speaking a foreign language with that woman—some cozy, secret talk that Nell couldn’t hope to understand. Like adults around a child, she thought, spelling the words to keep the nipper from catching on.
“You’re some sort of musical expert?” she asked. How important did he account this business?
He shrugged. “I’m considered a reliable critic by circles who don’t know very much about it.”
“But you write music. You play the piano every day.” Those weren’t the signs of a man only mildly engaged by a passion.
“Yes.” A line appeared between his brows. “Does that trouble you?”
She shook her head and looked blindly across the room. Lady Swanby was in close conference with a lady in sapphires, both of them smiling, creamily satisfied with themselves. Her pale blue eyes flashed in the light, finding Nell’s briefly, her smile never faltering as she glanced onward.
What if Simon came to long for somebody with whom he could discuss such matters as—as tone color?
“Nell,” he said softly, insistently, until she had no choice but to look at him. “There is no cause on earth to let any woman here trouble you.”
Her throat thickened. Sure and he felt that way now, but in three months, or six, when this current between them dimmed, her ignorance might start to trouble him.
A balding, rotund baron staggered up with three glasses of champagne. “A toast,” he chortled. “A toast to Rushden’s newest find! Ain’t you the clever one, Rush! Should’ve known if anyone would find her, you would.”
Nell took the glass with an effortful smile, the liquid sloshing as people pressed in to join the cheer. Simon lifted his flute, making some joke that set everyone to laughing.
A queer chill ran through her. Simon was a man at a party that had started without him but now revolved entirely around him—Nell herself perhaps only the excuse for what was the natural order of things: people crowding forward to bask in her husband’s attention.
She looked down at her glass, at the bubbles popping and disappearing. He’d told her his reputation was too black to win a more conventional heiress—that fathers wouldn’t approve of him, that people talked poorly of him. She didn’t think he’d been lying to her, but obviously he had been lying to himself.
She wondered what had given him such a black view of his own prospects.
She wondered if that black view explained why he’d looked no higher for a bride than a guttersnipe.
She drowned the wicked thought in a long swig of champagne.
An hour later, the company was still buzzing when a man walked into the room and made directly for the vacant piano, where he flipped out his coattails and took possession of the bench.
“Ah,” said Lady Allenton, returning to Nell’s elbow. “Andreasson has deigned to appear!” She directed a delighted look toward Simon, clearly pleased with her party; were she to glow any more brightly, there’d be no need for all the candles. “Your discovery continues to enchant,” she said to him. “I find his music quite … transcendent!”
Nell sighed. Her spirits had started to lift again—the occasion was too merry, the scene too beautiful, to sulk for long. But if everyone was going to start talking music again, she’d need another few glasses of the bubbly to brace herself.
The pianist picked out a few notes, testing his instrument. A hush descended—gradually, incompletely, stray voices still leaping out here and there. Simon took the opportunity to draw Nell back against the wall, putting a foot or two between themselves and the hostess. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said, and with his hand on her arm, she meant it.
He returned her smile with one of his own. “What do you think of the crowd tonight?”
She felt as though she’d been walking through a cloud of butterflies, all of them flapping in her face, angling to be noticed. Mostly harmless. Mostly amusing. “They’re friendly,” she said. But not because of me.
A thunderclap of chords split the air. The remaining chatterers fell silent. Anticipation sharpened the pause that opened. And then Andreasson filled it, slamming his hands onto the keyboard and launching forth a dark, vigorous sort of … marching tune, Nell thought. Violent and jangling. The sort bound to give a girl a headache.
But the crowd seemed to like it. Half of the eyes that had pressed upon her a moment ago now turned toward the piano. Nods of approval spread right and left, looks of appreciation on thoughtful faces.
She bit her lip. Didn’t take Mrs. Hemple to guess that laughing would be rude.
Simon leaned down. “What do you think?”
“I think he can’t play nearly as well as you.”
“You’d be wrong,” he said. “Technique aside, though—he’s quite innovative in his compositions.”
The snooty tone rubbed her wrong. He wasn’t talking to Viscountess Swanby. “I can bang on some tin pots for you,” she offered. “I guess that would be original if I did it in a drawing room.”
He snorted. Heads turned and he smiled down at her. “You’ll ruin my reputation with such talk.”
Now he was teasing. “If this pianist didn’t harm it, I’d say you’re ironclad.”
His smile faded a little, growing softer, more intimate, like the look he’d showed her in bed this morning. “You haven’t learned yet when to lie.” Slowly, as if the words were being dragged from him, he added: “I confess, Nell, I hope you never learn.”
She found herself staring at him. Unsteadying thought: there was something hot in his eyes that wasn’t purely want. It was too tender, too … affectionate.
Under that look, secret places in her fluttered to life. Look at me that way forever, she thought. She’d learn everything there was to know about music as long as he always looked at her so.
A dark thought intruded: he might be looking at her, but if he thought she didn’t know when to lie, then he was watching a woman who only existed in his imagination. Nell could lie through her teeth all the day long. Sorry, Michael, only fourteen shillings this week. Hannah, the gloves are lovely. Simon, I don’t care what you’ve done with that viscountess; this marriage is only for money, after all. I could leave you and never regret the loss …
The piece segued into another—and Simon’s expression went blank at the same moment she recognized the music: the piece he’d written when heartbroken.
Lady Allenton approached, evidently deciding that the bride and groom had enjoyed enough privacy. “Have you had many opportunities to enjoy Mr. Andreasson, my dear? I hope Lord Rushden is not selfish in sharing his coterie’s talents!”
“Not yet,” said Simon, speaking before she could open her mouth. “But I’ve an artist in mind for our wedding portrait. A very unusual talent. There’s a deceptive simplicity to his palette, but his brushwork is extraordinary. The results are astoundingly rich.”
“You must give me his name,” Lady Allenton said.
Nell tried to tune out their banter. The music continued to unroll, aching as a bruise, blue as an autumn twilight. It was too sad for company. Listening to it was a terrible pleasure, like putting a frozen hand too close to the fire after a trek through the bitter cold.
But Lady Allenton wanted more of her attention. Inching closer, she said, “Argos. My favorite piece of his. Remarkable, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Nell said softly.
“Some people say he’s a misanthrope,” the woman continued. “But I fancy there must be some other reason for his seclusion. Illness, perhaps. A man who could write such music—he must have a very large heart, don’t you think? I can’t imagine he would scorn the world.”
“Who?”
“Argos,” Lady Allenton said. “The composer of this piece.”
“But this is—”
“Your taste,” Simon said, shooting Nell a look that made her clap her mouth shut, “is superior, Lady Allenton.”
Lady Allenton preened. “Yes, well, I spend a good deal of the winter in Paris, as you know. In such a city, one receives an incomparable education from a mere willingness to listen.”
Nell gaped at him. He let people think this was someone else’s music? He’d never struck her as a modest man, much less a shy one.
The piece drew to a halt. Stunned silence settled—to be punctured, hesitantly at first and then with building, resounding, enthusiasm, by applause. Click click click went the ladies’ fans, tapping against rings and jeweled bracelets. Andreasson stood, making his bows, a scowl still fixed firmly on his brow.
“Oh, have we missed the performance?” came a sweet voice—one that caused Simon to catch hold of Nell’s upper arm as though to keep her upright. She glanced up, startled, and then followed the direction of his grim, instructional nod.
The first thing she saw beyond her hostess’s swiveling head was a tall, string-thin man gaping at her in open horror.
And then she saw the girl beside him, one hand frozen where it had lifted in greeting to Lady Allenton. Lady Katherine’s smile was crumbling from her mouth as she locked eyes with Nell.
“Oh, splendid! I was hoping you’d join us,” said Lady Allenton.