Not an onerous one. The condition, she knew with clarion certainty, was Lisbeth Redmond.
She was speechless. He was going about the business of marriage the same way he’d gone about the business of his life. Purposefully.
“The question remains . . . who takes care of you, Miss Vale?”
A sly ambush of a question to distract her from what he’d essentially just admitted.
She dodged it. “I might ask the same question of you, Lord Dryden.”
He seemed genuinely puzzled. “Oh, I’ve a host of servants. Marquardt, I suppose, in particular. And the likes of Sophia Licari—”
“Not,” she said softly, lest he expound along those lines because she really didn’t want to know, “quite what I meant. And not quite the same thing.”
He was about to acquire a wife who would need looking after and coddling, as she was sheltered, delicate, and demanding. Yet another person for him to take care of.
To whom did he surrender his burdens? He probably didn’t know how to surrender his burdens.
He looked at her a moment longer, then looked away. “With regards to my containment, as you’ve called it . . . in my defense, I never told any of those women who threw things that I loved them.”
Oh, for God’s sake. Men.
“Well, there you are, then. Of course they would never dream of falling in love with you in absence of a declaration. How dare they hurl things at your head?”
He laughed. Sounding very much like a wicked little boy.
“They’re human, you know,” she said huffily. “Not everyone has the advantage of your sort of self-control.”
“Hold.” The warning note was back in his voice. “Do you think for an instant I think of them as otherwise? As objects?”
“No, I just—”
He leaned away from the pillar, took a step toward her. Apparently he needed to stand very straight to make his point.
“Miss Vale, it’s a business arrangement that suits both humans right down to the ground. It is entered into voluntarily, and I am generous and attentive and much more skilled, I’ll have you know, than even any rumors you may have heard about me. I doubt Signora Licari would tell you otherwise. And though I cannot prevent hurt feelings, sought-after women are often as arrogant as the men who seek them, and I can assure you that the main thing hurt is pride when an association comes to a close.”
She suspected he knew she wasn’t nearly as sophisticated as he was, and was using words like “much more skilled” as a weapon.
“And humidors. And vases,” she managed.
“On occasion, yes.”
And then all at once it was strangely difficult to breathe. “Much more skilled.” The reaction was delayed and potent and she knew he’d wanted her to think about it. In seconds, she’d discovered that she’d swum out into deeper waters than she’d ever crossed.
He watched her.
She spent a silent moment flailing inwardly before she spoke.
“Nevertheless, my point is . . . they’re . . .” she gestured “. . . women. They’re not . . . Mr. Isaiah Redmond, with whom you can conclude a transaction with a shake of the hand and a hearty thank-you. You can apply the rules of business all you like, but emotions are . . . emotions are anarchic. They resist . . . legislation. Even by you.”
Too late she realized she sounded a trifle vehement.
He stared at her. “Know a little something about anarchic feelings, do you, Miss Vale?” There was that voice again. So low, so soft it was like a breath against the back of her neck.
Odd that she should say such a thing, when she was the one who had drummed her own wildness into compliance with facts and order. She was a fine one to lecture him.
“No,” she lied.
Which made him smile crookedly.
“I swear to you I have never given a diamond necklace to Isaiah Redmond,” he said finally.
And then they both smiled, picturing that. Vehemence dissipated into the air like smoke.
He sighed. “I accede you may have a point regarding my ability to . . . end associations gracefully. Congratulations, schoolmistress. You’ve imparted yet another lesson.”
The question was out of her before she could stop it. “Have you any associations now?”
There was a silence. A peculiar hesitation. She could have sworn the question startled him.
And then he fixed her in his gaze.
“No.” It sounded like a careful word.
He seemed to be waiting for her to say something more.
She was afraid that he might say something more.
And then into the silence someone who played pianoforte very well, perhaps an accompanist who traveled with Signora Licari, launched something beautiful and complicated.
The recital had begun.
Chapter 9
The music twined around Phoebe, and in moments held her fast, in thrall. She yearned to know the next note, the next phrase. It was a fresh and delightful shock when each was lovelier than the next. Anticipation ramped and ramped.
The voice slipped in almost unnoticed, like an interloper into a party. It insinuated itself between notes, and then surreptitiously, then ever more boldly, climbed, and climbed, and climbed . . . until it soared above the music. Brazen and glorious.
Dear God . . . the sound of it . . . it hurt, hurt to hear, such was its beauty. She felt swollen with it.
She reached out and clutched the marquess’s sleeve without realizing it. As if to prevent herself from launching skyward. “What is it? The song. Please tell me what it is,” she demanded on a whisper.
He looked down at her hand. And then down into her face.
If she had known his breath had caught when she’d reached out for him . . . if she had seen his expression . . . then she might have backed away, confused by the unguarded confusion and hunger there.
Or she might have flung herself into his arms.
She was owned by the music. She’d closed her eyes.
“It’s Galuppi’s L’Olimpiade,” he whispered, finally. It was his turn to soothe her, understanding she was overwhelmed by the newness and splendor of it. “The libretto is Metastasio. L’Olimpiade is about an . . . amorous competition, shall we say. From the Trial of the Suitors.”
An amorous competition? she thought. Well, that was a little too close to home.
For a moment she couldn’t speak. She suffered from the beauty of it.
So she did what she usually did to ease suffering: she requested information.
“The Trial of the Suitors? An opera based on Herodotus?”
“Herodotus.” He shook his head. “She said Herodotus,” he said to the sky. “Another splendid word. Have you read everything there is to read, Miss Vale?”
“I read. Frequently. Tell me, please.”
“Yes. Herodotus.”
Her eyes were open now. He held very, very still. As though a lovely bird had lit upon his arm and he didn’t want to frighten it away.
And at last she sighed with deep happiness.
And then smiled and gave her head a little shake, as if trying to clear her head of laudanum.
“Goodness,” she finally said, very inadequately.
“You’ve never before heard opera, Miss Vale?” His voice was gentle, and she didn’t think she’d heard him sound truly gentle. She wasn’t certain she liked it, because gentleness was sometimes perilously close to pity, which she could not for an instant tolerate. But there wasn’t a shred of irony in it.
“No.” It was awestruck and almost plaintive, the word. She gave a short rueful laugh. “I just . . . I had no idea. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .”
He shook his head, and her words trailed off.
They listened together as his former mistress’s voice clambered like a monkey up over impossible scales, soared like a bird, really made a mockery of the notion there might be limitations to what a human voice could do, every bit of the acrobatics achingly beautiful, her voice so enorm
ous an army could have marched with Signora Licari into Jericho and accomplished the same thing as Joshua, sans trumpets.
“It simply takes one that way, sometimes,” he said softly. “It doesn’t take everyone that way, but some.”
She suddenly became aware that she could feel his breath, smoky and warm, on her cheek when he spoke. How did they come to stand so close? She didn’t move away.
“I remember the first time I heard an opera,” he continued. “It was—”
“Shhhh.”
He grinned, a bright flash in the dark.
Sophia Licari’s voice gamboled up a scale, then tumbled down it again in a series of remarkable, acrobatic trills. It taunted and demanded, teased, implored, and finally it came to an end on a note that by rights ought to have shattered the chandelier and sprinkled the gathering guests with crystal.
The crowd gathered in the Redmond ballroom thundered its approval.
Phoebe felt both exhausted and fulfilled. “Clapping seems inadequate,” she murmured.
“Oh, it is, I assure you,” he murmured, as he wasn’t at the mercy of any sort of spell. “She would prefer obeisance. And I will tell you this, Miss Vale. She sounds like a goddess. But she’s a human, by God. A vessel, if you will. An expensive, demanding, easily bored vessel for an otherworldly talent, who snores as loud as she sings and bathes less often than one might suspect.”
She laughed, and then bit her lip to punish herself for laughing. “For shame! You oughtn’t tell me things like that. It’s not gentlemanly.”
“I gave her a gift and showered her with luxuries and she tried to kill me. I just . . . everyone is human, Miss Vale. No one is flawless. We all have foibles, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And the beholder oftentimes gets it wrong.”
Was he trying to convince her or himself? Was he trying to tell her something important?
Or did everyone in the ton have the wrong of it, when it came to him?
“I don’t imagine you do obeisance well, Lord Dryden.”
“Right again,” he said with grim cheer. He wistfully studied his cheroot, which he’d smoked down to a nub. Contemplating perhaps whether to give it another suck.
It was only then she noticed she was clutching his sleeve. She relinquished it, abashed.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered foolishly. “I didn’t know I had . . . I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said, with a soft vehemence all out of proportion to the circumstance. “Don’t be,” he added more softly, as if correcting himself.
She could smell him now, that heady, unique manly scent of him. She could feel the heat radiating from him, as if he were a fire burning low. It was both soothing and disturbing.
She could not recall the last time she’d reached out for anyone, for safety or protection or sharing.
But protecting people was apparently what he did.
In between dodging hurled humidors.
He spoke, very softly, paving over the unnerving moment. “I know I’m supposed to pretend to dislike or merely tolerate opera, as it’s considered the manly thing to do. But I find it . . . transcendent. That is, when a true talent is behind it. And there is a veritable universe of difference, mind you, between opera and most musicales. I find musicales . . .” he searched for the proper word “. . . distressing.”
Phoebe couldn’t help but laugh at that. And the laugh fully restored her to her body when the music had all but taken her out of it and shook off the last of her awkwardness.
“Do you play the pianoforte, Miss Vale?”
She laughed. “You should hear the trepidation in your voice, Lord Dryden! Yes. I play competently at best. But I enjoy it very much,” she warned him. “Doubtless you would suffer through my playing. You may yet need to do just that during your visit here.”
“Oh, for you I would be polite for the duration. I wouldn’t yawn or scratch or shift so much my chair squeaks.”
“I am relieved to know it.”
He nodded graciously.
She smiled, and wrapped her arms around her shoulders again. Without the shelter of music, the night began to nip at her exposed places. In more ways than one.
He shook one arm out of his coat, and was preparing to get out of the other sleeve in order to drape it about her shoulders.
She realized what he was doing and took a startled step backward.
He froze. One arm in his coat, the other out. And then wordlessly, expressionlessly, he reinstalled his arm into his coat.
They were silent now, awkward again.
His hands fumbled at his cheroot. They weren’t quite shaking, but he hadn’t command over them. He looked down at the spent thing accusingly.
The man who was known for grace.
She suspected they were both a little shaken by how right the gesture seemed, how spontaneous and innate. He wanted to protect her.
She’d shied away.
She was a schoolteacher and a paid companion and he was a marquess, and really, he oughtn’t to hang his coat over her shoulders any more than he ought to hang it over the cook’s shoulders. And she’d never really known how to let someone take care of her, anyway.
“Lisbeth plays pianoforte very well,” he mused after a moment, sounding a little too hearty and casual. “One might even say she possesses actual talent.”
And money. And beauty. And prospects. And family. And beautiful clothes. And a fan that reminds you of her.
Does she have your heart?
Or is your heart subject to “business arrangements” only, too?
“That she does,” she agreed softly. Because she was above all things honest, and because it was the right thing to say and do in the circumstances.
The safe thing to do.
Nonsense. It was the cowardly thing to do, she told herself, suffering.
Suddenly Lisbeth’s Chinese silk shawl burned in her hand. She turned her head nervously back toward the door. Bloody hell! How long had she been gone?
He must have sensed she was poised to bolt, because his voice came quickly.
“I’ve never told another soul about the vases and the humidor and . . . the like.”
She froze.
She drew in a breath, and her suddenly racing heart made the breath shudder out when she exhaled. A part of her was furious and impatient. It was very unfair of destiny to arrange for her to be alone in the dark with a soul-stirring man and soul-stirring music. She was only human, too, and though she was strong she had nowhere near his fortitude. She wanted to stomp her foot.
Don’t burden me with your friendship. Don’t gift me with your thoughts! Don’t seek me out. Nothing good will ever come of this. I’m only twenty-two! I haven’t the answers. I just wanted to be near you.
“Perhaps you told me because I’m . . . safe.”
I’m nobody. I wouldn’t dare gossip. I’m leaving the country.
Even she didn’t think that was true. She did, however, want to hear what he would say about it.
He lifted his head slowly. And as she followed the clean line of his profile with her own eyes, it felt as though it were being etched into her heart, one curve, one angle, one hollow at a time.
When he spoke, his voice was soft again. Mildly incredulous.
“Oh, you’re not safe, Miss Vale.”
Meaning rippled out from the words. Like water disturbed by the skip of a stone. They contained warning and promise, bemusement and bittersweet irony.
And because, despite uncertainties and gulfs, they were both rogues at heart, their smiles were simultaneous, crooked, slow.
She shook her head. Wonderingly or warningly or exasperatedly, she wasn’t sure.
The space between them, both the distance and the nearness, just shy of inappropriate, was suddenly fraught with meaning. It seemed ridiculous, when really, by right of natural law, she ought to be in his arms.
And then something spritely and raucous began on the pianoforte, and she jumped.
“I’ll go in
side and listen to her now.” She was all bright babble now. “After all, I didn’t jilt Signora Licari, and her voice is beautiful and rare. And loud. At least you shall know when it’s safe to return, because it shall be apparent when she stops.”
He sighed, acceding to the broken spell. “Is she staying beneath this roof tonight?”
“One can hardly send a famous soprano to the Pig & Thistle to sleep in the room behind the bar. But I understand she has another engagement in London, so she’ll be leaving straightaway. Perhaps even this evening.”
“Perhaps I should sleep at the Pig & Thistle.”
“There’s always the barn.”
He grinned suddenly again, looking like a boy. She wondered if he was relieved that the moment had been shattered, too.
How long had she been gone? The length of an aria, at least. However long an aria was. And now the panic was a thing with claws. She hadn’t the time to fetch her own shawl now. She held up Lisbeth’s shawl. “Lisbeth might be in there shivering even now. So—I—”
She spun on her heel and almost dashed. She could hear her own footsteps, and it worked on her nerves as though someone or something was in pursuit of her.
My own desires, she thought melodramatically.
She was nearly to the door when his voice rose, called after her.
“Where in London, Scheherezade?”
She turned and walked backward a few feet before deciding to answer. He was asking where she’d been born.
“Seven Dials.”
Mull that out here in the dark, Lord Dryden.
“And you owe me a gift,” she added.
Her heartbeat matching the staccato beat of her footsteps, she disappeared into the house.
Chapter 10
She hadn’t realized quite how cold she was until she burst again into the heat of the house and began to rush back to the salon, her slippers nearly skidding over marble. She deliberately slowed her pace to the sedate one expected of a schoolmistress/paid companion, straight-spined and square-shouldered, one foot in front of the other and . . . well, how about that. Very like walking a tightrope.
How the Marquess Was Won Page 9