Page 33 of My Devoted Viscount (Brazen Bluestockings #2)

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After dinner that evening, everyone gathered in the drawing room as usual.

Matthew seated himself at the pianoforte and Vincent warmed up on his violin.

Fortunately, years of playing had developed calluses on his fingertips, so while parts of his hands were tender and sore from handling rocks last night, he could still play.

Miss Walden sat on the sofa, looking relieved she hadn’t been asked to play, absently petting Henry, who sat at her feet.

Shadows were finally visible beneath her eyes.

Vincent had indulged in two naps since their adventure in the cave last night, while she had remained awake and working with Aunt Gert.

Except for her nap he’d interrupted in the library.

He’d had the best of intentions, to wake her up only if Gert or Agnes approached.

He’d sat on the desk, watching her. With her head pillowed on her folded arms, she looked so small and vulnerable it was hard to believe she was the same fierce warrior who had flung rocks to dig them out of a cave-in.

He couldn’t resist twitching her scarf and tracing one fingertip beneath the long lashes on her silky soft cheek.

When she’d lifted her head and blinked at him in confusion, his heart constricted. An unfamiliar emotion washed through him. Something he didn’t have a name for, didn’t want to identify, but compelled him to follow through with his plan to ask her to be his wife.

And the minx wouldn’t let him say the words.

She’d pressed her finger to his lips, halting his proposal.

He should feel relief she wasn’t forcing him to the altar. Had anyone else been there when Matthew and the servants dug them out, the banns would be read starting this Sunday. If word got out she had been in there with him, Mr. Middlebrook could still be reading their names at church.

Marriage was such a simple solution to her problems. She wouldn’t need to keep looking for a job to go to after she finished helping Aunt Gert with her memoir.

Why wasn’t she accepting an easy way out of her difficulties?

Another element of the puzzle that was Miss Walden.

Was protecting Miss Ebrington her only other secret? He still didn’t know what she had written in that bizarre code on all those papers.

He would figure it out. Learn her secrets.

In the meantime, he was not above showing off a little. The music teacher enjoyed good music and performances? He’d give her one to remember.

Vincent launched into Vivaldi’s Concerto Number One in E Major , also known as Spring , a tune that required great skill of the violinist. His music teacher, Mr. Barrett, had been fond of Vivaldi, which meant Vincent had spent hundreds if not thousands of hours learning the Italian composer’s works.

Matthew gave him a shrewd look that said he knew exactly what Vincent was up to, and joined in. They focused on each other to stay in time, which meant Miss Walden was free to look her fill. From the corner of his eye he could see she was doing exactly that.

Let her look.

Finished, Matthew bowed from his seat on the bench and Vincent gave a low bow, still holding his violin, to raucous applause from Gert and Agnes, and slightly more restrained clapping from Miss Walden.

“I know you’re partial to Italian composers,” Aunt Gert said as the applause died away, “but won’t you play one of your own compositions?”

“Yes, yes,” Aunt Agnes added. “Something you wrote in school, perhaps, for one of the talent competitions?”

“You want us to hearken back to our school days?” Matthew took off his coat and tossed it to the back of a chair, a mischievous grin lighting his face.

“Your wish is our command.” He turned the pianoforte bench perpendicular to the keys and laid back on it, crossed his arms over his head, and played without looking.

He’d played several measures of Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca , as flawlessly as if he sat on the bench properly, when he stopped in mid-phrase. “Oi! You joining me or not?” he called to Vincent.

Vincent shook his head as he put the violin away. “You did not write that.”

“Don’t be a spoilsport.”

With a wink directed at Miss Walden, Vincent removed his coat and draped it over the back of a chair. Gert and Agnes were not unsettled by the break in decorum at seeing him in shirtsleeves, but he saw Miss Walden swallow hard.

Good.

He adjusted the bench at the harpsichord, laid on his back in a similar position as Matthew, and played a few notes to check his positioning.

“My favorite composition that I wrote requires ten fingers and one toe to play, and we’re already scandalizing poor Miss Walden by removing our coats.” Matthew played a glissando, running halfway down the keys.

“Don’t mind me,” Miss Walden quickly said. “I’ve seen people play in that position before. Just … not as a duet. And, ah, only after imbibing quite a bit of alcohol.”

Vincent had barely had half a glass of brandy all day, and only one glass of wine at dinner, but something about making music with friends sent him back to their carefree school days, when they could be silly or serious in equal amounts.

Back to before his father’s recognition of his own impending mortality bore down on Vincent, when the earl would try to force his son to win the accolades in music he had never won for himself.

Before Father would fill Vincent’s every waking moment that he wasn’t rehearsing with learning stewardship principles for the estates he would one day—hopefully a distant day—inherit.

Back when music was just for fun.

He couldn’t see Matthew from this position. He grinned at Miss Walden, who glanced expectantly between him and Matthew, and heard Gert and Agnes chuckle in anticipation.

“One, two, three—” Matthew counted them in. They started from the beginning of Rondo Alla Turca .

Vincent had played this tune so many times, properly seated on the bench as well as overhead this way to win a wager or three, that he didn’t have to concentrate very hard. Which left his mind free to wander.

To wonder what it would take to convince Miss Walden to accept his proposal. For her to let him finish saying the words.

To wonder if he truly wanted to pursue a match with her if she didn’t even want him to propose. He certainly hadn’t intended on finding a wife when he set out to visit his aunt, on his way to boarding a ship to visit his grandmother in Italy.

He glanced at her and almost missed the key change. She was rapt, her head tipped to one side, her gaze darting between himself and Matthew, studying their hands on the keyboards.

Had the buttoned-up music teacher ever performed this particular parlour trick?

Imagining her on her back sent his thoughts in inappropriate directions, far more suited for when he was alone in his chamber. He ruthlessly yanked them back to the present.

Matthew and Vincent played the final notes and sat up, shaking their arms before putting their coats back on.

“Again,” Aunt Gert said after the applause, as though speaking to a recalcitrant child, “I asked you to play one of your compositions.”

While he and Matthew consulted on which song they could both play from memory and on which instrument, Marshall, the young footman, entered to light the lamps and candelabra. The last of the day’s rays were sinking behind the hedge maze outside the drawing room terrace.

On the footman’s heels came Enid with a tea tray. Matthew had to snap his fingers in front of Vincent’s face to get his attention away from the platter of petite jam tarts.

Sophia sat back with a cup of tea and a tart, ready to be entertained again.

Her eyes felt gritty from fatigue but she couldn’t possibly retire for the night yet, even though she’d now been awake for more than thirty-six hours.

Not when Lord Fairfax was about to sing again in his glorious voice.

At least, she hoped he was going to sing.

Tomorrow, after she’d had a solid night’s sleep, she would ponder why she’d not allowed him to finish speaking his proposal.

Marriage to a viscount, one who was heir to a marquess no less, would solve her financial difficulties.

No need to worry about finding employment after her project with Mrs. Digby ended.

No need to teach music. As a viscountess, she’d have all the time she wanted to compose and play.

Ah, but there was the rub. Listening to Mildred play the other night had reminded Sophia how much she loved teaching.

How much joy she derived from a student’s mastery, when they went beyond the technical skills needed to be considered a polished, accomplished society lady, and learned to play for the sheer joy of making music. How could she give that up?

A husband could make her give it up. According to society’s expectations as well as in the eyes of the law, a husband could dictate her actions.

Be in charge of her life. Mildred’s father had affianced her to a man she’d never met, someone who was triple the girl’s age, and she’d had no say in the matter.

Girls came to an academy like Madame Zavrina’s for the purpose of learning all of society’s rules and how to follow them, to make a good match, to be a good wife.

Most matches were business arrangements rather than love affairs, but the girls and their husbands would usually learn to rub along tolerably well. Some liked each other, perhaps some even grew to love one another.

As Sophia’s parents had.

They’d scraped together the funds to gift her one Season when she turned eighteen, after she’d completed her studies with Madame Zavrina. Sophia enjoyed the dancing and carriage rides in Hyde Park, but the musicale evenings had been equal parts torture and bliss.

Torture to hear unskilled girls humiliating themselves with public performances, goaded on by mamas eager to show them off and secure a match.