Page 18 of A Lady of Means (Roses and Rakes #1)

Chapter Thirteen

The Burn Book of Lady M

The Dowager Marchioness of Thorne: With Marcus gone, there was no one to corroborate the growing secret he left behind, that it wasn’t some trick designed to trap him. One day, Your Grace, you will answer for the way you shamed and blamed a young girl for falling victim to the monster you created.

* * *

When they made it inside Devyn’s foyer, Devyn kissed her like a dying man seeing the shore after months at sea. They were kisses Moria wished she’d saved just for this man. But then again, it took a counterfeit to help a person to spot the real thing.

When she looked back now, she saw the differences. Pity she hadn’t seen them before the differences had ruined her. But ruination wasn’t her greatest offense or highest pain. Only two mothers, hers and Marcus’, had known about that, and her mother had taken the secret to the grave.

Moria could still picture the burning bronze of her mother’s determined eyes, every time she was asked of her time, her good opinion, her company, her hand, in the years hence.

But now, when the Captain took her coat and hat, a worn callous on his thumb brushed over her skin, and her insides clenched at the subtle but heated contact.

There wasn’t a tawdriness or a secret possessiveness in that touch, but an open affection.

He’d waited for her. He had all but begged to love her in public, and she’d been the one holding back. Until now.

She brushed her fingers over his arm. He led her in the direction of the dining room and let her enter first.

“Och! You’re home early, Winter! I’ll grab a plate for ye, then.” Called a shirtless figure from the kitchen with his back turned. She recognized the same brogue and red hair from the man at the inn, he’d also been at the ball.

Devyn called back, “Grab two, and put on a shirt, you brute.”

When the other man turned around, he almost dropped the serving spoon he was holding.

“Ye might ‘ave given a mate some warnin’” he said, and if a man as tall and broad as he could blush, Moria was sure he came as close as he possibly could.

He handed Devyn what looked to be a crocheted potholder and excused himself.

Within a few moments, Moria was party to the weirdest and most enjoyable meal of her life.

She was seated at a scarred table in the most comfortable chair, across from a man who looked at her like he was contemplating making her his next course, and his roommate who had a filthy mouth and a quick sense of humor, eating the most delicious and comforting fare.

Devyn’s company was something quickly becoming more familiar and earnest than she wanted to admit and she didn’t want to leave.

When he stood from the table and took her hand, his friend said, “As your chaperone, I’d prefer the two of you stay to the common rooms,” in his most serious of tones.

Devyn shot him a look. And then Calum’s boots retreated from the room while she was still standing, staring at Devyn.

He gestured toward a divan for her to sit, but she couldn’t move.

The breadth of his shoulders and his height made a perfectly adequate-sized sitting room feel smaller.

She swallowed a lump in her throat. She needed something to do with her hands, they wanted to touch him so desperately.

Or was it simply that he had the kind of body, like some kind of lovingly hewn sculpture, that demanded appraisal and appreciation?

When she didn’t take his invitation to sit, he stepped closer. Calloused fingers brushed her own. They felt so small in his grasp.

“Come here,” he said, taking her hand, leading her to a wooden bench in front of a pianoforte in a corner.

He sat down, pulled her beside him. She liked being the one who told others what to do, where to go, where to sit, what to wear, but she found that following him and letting him lead didn’t cost her anything, and gave her reassurance in return.

The bench groaned under his weight, he had to place one leg off the edge to make room for her.

He was so close, she felt the scrape of his clothes and his body everywhere.

A solid shoulder was close enough that she could lean her head on it.

He had the kind of strength she could lean into, and he’d hold her upright.

But he was taking a small pair of glasses from a shirt pocket, unfolding them, wiping them on his shirt, and placing them on his face. A piece of music appeared in front of them.

He turned to look at her when a small laugh flew out of her.

“Is there…something wrong?” he asked, lips twitching, one brow elevated.

“A man as large and lovely as you…in a pair of spectacles. How do you continue to get more adorable? And how am I supposed to sit here and fumble through the notes with you so close?”

There was only affection in his laugh, so much affection, his laugh felt like a caress. If his affection was in his laugh, hers must surely be in her eyes.

“God, woman, the things you say,” he said, punctuated with a capable hand wrapped around her jaw.

“And if I said that I’d like you to come to the country to meet my family?”

A finger caressed the soft skin of her cheek. “I think you already know the answer to that.”

She raised her brows, she needed to hear him say it, she couldn’t handle subtleties and half answers, not after Marcus.

“Your vicar friend visited me yesterday. We’ve worked out a plan.”

For a moment, Moria didn’t have words for what this answer did to her, she just kissed the palm of his hand.

“I look forward to you getting to know the ones that make me who I am, in the place where I am most my genuine self, rather than a…facade, a rehearsed performance of what I’m expected to be. ”

“No more solo performances, not with me,” he shook his head and Moria felt like she was tumbling, floating suspended in the celestial pull of those eyes of his.

“Do you know this song?” he gestured with his head in the direction of the sheet music on the piano.

She had memorized a repertoire of songs to perform in company, to impress the other sex, they all evaporated from her head the moment his thumb skated over her bottom lip.

There was silence, but no need to fill it.

Finally, he spoke. “I’ll play the right hand, you can play the left.”

Moria’s mouth fell open. “How did you know I was left-handed?”

“I’m a trained observer, remember?” the words came so close to her mouth, her eyelids flitted closed, a tear escaped. He brushed it away, kissing the corners of her eyes. A soft tendril of his hair had fallen in his eyes and brushed against her skin.

It was all too much. He was too much, she worried she wasn’t enough. She had never been.

“How long have you played the piano?” she asked, tilting her head to one side to look up at him. She wanted more of him, the inner workings of a man as solid as an oak tree, as gentle as the wind in its branches.

“Since I was about seven. My brother, Peregrine, was taking lessons and I wanted to be just like him. My mother thought that I was too large and jittery to sit at the piano with the discipline Peregrine did; so naturally, I took to it and worked hard to play the same songs my older brother was learning just to spite her.”

Moria let the laugh bubble out of her, unrestrained and unladylike. “I started for a very similar reason.”

“Something about older brothers, they’re quite smug, aren’t they?”

“Jasper was once…” she looked away pensively.

“But then we lost our parents within six months of each other, he had so much responsibility on his shoulders at the age of twenty-seven. He’s carried the weight of an entire family, siblings who needed him as more parent than brother, an estate needing his care, and he’s done it with grace. ”

She looked down at her hands fidgeting in her lap. Devyn brushed a stray curl from her face and held her hands to stop them from pulling at a hangnail.

“But there are things he can’t let go of.

For example, there’s no piano at our house here in London.

I’m not even sure what happened to it, it’s just…

. gone. I think it had something to do with the musicales and my mother always playing for guests.

She was a great proficient. And now that remaining connection to her, it’s missing. ”

He tipped up her chin with his thumb and forefinger, so her eyes were level with his.

“I get wanting to hold on to things that bring us comfort or connection, I feel the same about my own mother even though her passing was so long ago. My father was a hard man for the loss of her. So, trust me, you don’t need that piano to keep her close.

She didn’t leave you,” he shook his head.

“How could she? Look at you. Who could let something like death keep them away from a face like yours?”

How did he do it? Peer into her soul like the clearest window and pull out the words she needed to hear? Moria didn’t say anything, she just ran her fingers over the keys, her left-hand caressing middle C, an old friend.

“On my count,” he spoke. She nodded. He knew music would distract from anything she felt. Maybe he knew because he’d done the same.

The numbers rattled off, and his fingers were moving.

She followed, playing the lower keys. There were times he leaned an arm around her to reach the keys, to have an excuse to touch her.

His legs tensed and brushed hers as he played the pedals.

The sound of an A minor quintet filled the room, only a few notes missed or false.

No one had ever played with her, no one had ever offered, and no one had ever tried to keep up.

They admired her and lauded her performance, but that’s what it had always been, and she had always been alone.

Felt sad now that she thought about it, but the music didn’t let her stay there.

When the notes carried her higher, she felt pulled along with them, when the notes were lower, she didn’t fall with them.

When the music sped up, it only matched the rhythm of her heartbeat, the rhythm of two bodies creating the music of one.

And when the final chord was played, they crashed into each other.