Page 9 of The Duke’s Duet

Harper stood at the edge of Westfield's opulent ballroom, a barely touched glass of wine in his hand, listening to the subtle currents of conversation that swirled around him. The ton's whispers were like music of a different sort - here a note of admiration, there a sharp discord of disapproval, all weaving together into a symphony of judgment.

"...most unusual for a Duke to perform publicly..."

"...but for charity, you know, and the veterans..."

"...quite accomplished, I hear, though one wonders if it's entirely proper..."

The words washed over him like tepid wine, neither pleasant nor particularly objectionable. He had expected this scrutiny - had known from the moment that he agreed to step in as accompanist that society would have opinions. What he hadn't expected was how little their judgment seemed to matter, compared to the memory of amber eyes alight with passion for music.

"Brightwood!" Lord Westfield's booming voice cut through his reverie. "There you are, old fellow. Come, you must meet my sister - she's quite the musical enthusiast herself."

Harper suppressed a sigh as he allowed himself to be led across the room.

He knew exactly what this was - another carefully orchestrated introduction to a potential bride. The fact that Lady Harriet was Westfield's sister only made it more pointed.

She stood with a small group near the pianoforte, and Harper had to admit that she made a striking picture.

She was tall and elegant, with classic English beauty - golden hair, blue eyes, perfect posture. She wore a gown of pale blue silk that had probably cost more than most families earned in a year.

"Lady Harriet." He bowed over her hand, performing the expected courtesies with practiced ease. "I understand that you share my interest in music?"

"Oh yes, Your Grace." Her voice was perfectly modulated, sweet without being cloying. "I found your performance at the charity concert most... impressive."

But the way that she said it made it clear that she found it impressive in the way that one might find a trained dog impressive - an amusing novelty, nothing more. There was no understanding in her eyes of what the music truly meant, no passion for the art itself.

"Do you play yourself?"

He asked the question, though he already knew the answer. Every well-bred young lady played something, just as they all painted insipid watercolours and spoke schoolgirl French.

"The harp, Your Grace. Though I confess, I find it terribly difficult to maintain the proper feminine posture while playing. One must be so careful of one's appearance, mustn't one?"

Unbidden, an image of Melody rose in Harper's mind - her complete abandonment to the music, her utter disregard for anything but the pure expression of art. She would never worry about maintaining a ‘proper feminine posture’ while performing. The contrast made his chest ache.

"Indeed," he managed, though the word tasted false. "Most challenging."

"I should love to hear you play again," Lady Harriet continued, her fan moving in what he supposed was meant to be an alluring manner. "Perhaps something more... appropriate to your station? Mozart's simpler pieces are quite suitable for evening entertainment."

The subtle criticism in her words - of his choice to perform more complex pieces, of his willingness to accompany a professional singer - scraped against his nerves like a bow drawn wrongly across strings. Before he could formulate a suitably diplomatic response, Lord Pembroke appeared at his elbow.

"Lady Harriet, you must forgive me for stealing His Grace away. Business matters, you understand."

She simpered and agreed, though Harper caught the flash of disappointment in her brother's eyes as they moved away.

Once safely distant, Pembroke's diplomatic expression dissolved into barely suppressed mirth.

"Good God, man, you looked ready to expire from sheer boredom. Surely you can manage a more convincing show of interest in your future Duchess?"

"My future..." Harper nearly choked on his wine. "Hardly that."

"No? The ton seems quite convinced of the match. She's perfect for you, after all - beautiful, well-bred, impeccably trained in all the proper accomplishments. And her brother's connections would be most advantageous."

"Charles..."

The warning in Harper's voice only made his friend grin wider.

"Of course, she's not quite as... passionate... about music as some. I noticed she called Mozart's works 'simple pieces’. One wonders what she'd make of your midnight practice sessions, or your rather spectacular performances with Miss Piper."

Harper's fingers tightened on his glass.

"I wasn't aware that my musical activities were of such interest to society."

"Oh, come now. A Duke performing publicly? And performing rather brilliantly, I might add? Of course it's all anyone can talk about. Though I must say..." Pembroke's voice dropped lower, "it's not just your playing they've noticed. The way that you watch her when she sings..."

"I watch her because we must coordinate our performance," Harper cut in, perhaps too quickly.

"Is that what we're calling it now?" Pembroke's eyes danced with knowing amusement. "Coordinating? Because from where I sat at the last concert, it looked rather more like..."

"Charles." This time the warning in Harper's voice was unmistakable. "You go too far."

But his friend's expression had turned serious.

"Do I? Or do I not go far enough? You're different when you perform with her, Harper. More alive. More yourself. I haven't seen you so genuine since before your father's strict training began."

The observation struck uncomfortably close to home. Harper turned away, ostensibly to place his empty glass on a passing footman's tray.

"You're imagining things."

"Am I? Then why have you spent the last quarter hour comparing every young lady here to her? Don't deny it - I've watched your face. Lady Harriet was just the latest in a long line of ‘not quite right’."

"You're being ridiculous," Harper said, but the words sounded hollow even to his own ears. "I simply find these social occasions tedious. You know I've never enjoyed the marriage mart."

"No, but you've always played your part perfectly. Tonight..." Pembroke gestured subtly towards where Lady Harriet still stood watching them, "you can barely maintain the pretence of interest. And don't think others haven't noticed. Lady Jersey was commenting just yesterday about how your musical partnership with Miss Piper has made you quite... distracted."

The implications in that observation sent a chill down Harper's spine. If Lady Jersey was commenting, the entire ton would soon be speculating. He could not allow scandal to touch Melody's reputation.

"Our partnership is purely professional," he said stiffly. "And temporary."

"Is it?" Pembroke's voice gentled. "Because the way that you look at her when she sings... that's not temporary, old friend. That's not professional. That's a man seeing something he desperately wants but thinks he can't have."

Harper's carefully maintained control cracked.

"What I want is irrelevant. I have responsibilities, duties, expectations—"

"To whom?" Pembroke challenged. "Your father is gone. Your mother, for all her managing, wants your happiness above all. The title? It would survive if you chose to marry someone who actually makes your eyes light up when she enters a room."

"Charles—"

"No, listen to me. I've known you since we were boys at Eton and Oxford. I watched your father grind every spark of passion out of you, turn you into this perfect Ducal automaton. But when you perform with her..." He grabbed Harper's arm, forcing him to meet his gaze. "When you perform with her, I see my friend again. The one who used to compose music in secret, who lived for more than just duty."

The words struck Harper like physical blows, each one finding its mark with devastating accuracy. Before he could respond, a burst of laughter from nearby drew their attention. Lady Harriet had moved to the pianoforte, where she was apparently demonstrating her perfect posture while playing a simple melody.

"Just look," Pembroke said softly. "Look at what society says you should want. Then think about Miss Piper, and tell me which makes your soul sing."

The image rose unbidden in Harper's mind - Melody at the pianoforte in his music room, her entire being alight with passion for the music, her voice soaring with pure emotion as their harmonies blended together. No concern for appearance, no thought for propriety, just the pure joy of artistic creation.

He needed air.

Without a word to Pembroke, he turned and strode towards the terrace doors. The night air hit his face like a shock, blessedly cool after the stuffiness of the ballroom. He moved to the stone balustrade, gripping it until his knuckles turned white.

Behind him, the sounds of the ball continued - elegant music, refined laughter, the subtle whispers of the ton passing judgment. Everything he'd been raised to consider normal, natural, right. Everything that suddenly felt as artificial as the painted scenery in a theatre.

How had this happened? How had one passionate, talented, utterly inappropriate woman managed to shake the very foundations of his carefully ordered world?

*****

"Brightwood?"

The Dowager Duchess moved to stand beside him at the balustrade, her silk skirts rustling softly in the evening breeze. The familiar scent of her French perfume - the same one she'd worn throughout his childhood - wrapped around him like a memory. Moonlight caught in the amethysts at her throat, the same ones his father had given her when Harper was born. She'd told him once that they were a reminder of music - his father had said their deep purple matched the colour of her voice.

For several long moments, she said nothing more, and Harper felt his tension mount. His mother's silences had always been more eloquent than words, more effective than any direct confrontation.

She'd wielded them like weapons during his youth, especially when he'd disappointed her - or worse, when he'd disappointed his father.

The gardens below lay silvered in moonlight, the formal paths and carefully tended flowerbeds a testament to mankind's eternal desire to impose order on nature's wild beauty. Rather like society's endless rules and restrictions, Harper thought bitterly. Always trying to contain, to control, to force everything into acceptable patterns.

A strain of music drifted out from the ballroom - a waltz, elegant and precise and utterly soulless. Harper found himself mentally rearranging the notes, hearing how it should be played, how it would sound with real feeling behind it. How Melody would interpret it...

"Lady Harriet is quite accomplished," his mother said finally, her voice carrying that careful neutrality he knew so well. "Her watercolours were much admired at Lady Jersey's morning gathering last week. And her musical education has been most thorough. The Westfields spared no expense in her training."

"How fortunate for Lady Jersey." The words emerged more sarcastically than he'd intended, but he couldn't bring himself to regret them. "Though I noticed that she considers Mozart's works 'simple pieces’. Hardly the observation of someone who truly understands music. Or anything else of real value."

"She understands what a Duchess needs to understand." His mother's rebuke was gentle but unmistakable. "The social graces, the proper accomplishments, the importance of maintaining dignity and decorum at all times. She has been trained since birth for exactly this position."

"And is that all a Duchess should be? A perfectly trained ornament? Someone who has never felt real passion for anything in her life?" He turned to face his mother fully. "You weren't trained from birth to be a Duchess. You were the daughter of an Italian count who sang in her garden and made my father forget every rule of diplomatic protocol."

Colour rose in his mother's cheeks.

"That was different."

"Was it? You were foreign, Catholic, with no connections to English society. By all the rules that you now hold so dear, you were completely unsuitable."

"Your father was only the second son then," she said softly. "He had more freedom."

"Until his brother died, and suddenly duty became everything." Harper couldn't keep the bitterness from his voice. "I remember, Mother. I remember how he changed. How the music died in our house. How you stopped singing."

She flinched slightly, one hand rising to touch the amethysts at her throat.

"Your father did what was necessary."

"Did he? Was it necessary to become so rigid, so cold? Was it necessary to strike his own son's hands for daring to play with feeling instead of precision?"

Moonlight caught the tears that had gathered in his mother's eyes.

"I never knew... about your hands. He never told me."

"Of course he didn't. It wasn't proper to discuss such things." Harper turned back to stare at the garden. "Just as it's not proper for a Duke to perform in public, or to enjoy doing so, or to feel..."

"To feel what, Harper?" Her use of his given name made him stiffen. She so rarely called him anything but Brightwood these days. "What is it that you're fighting so hard against?"

The question hung in the air between them, weighted with all the things he couldn't say. How could he explain what he himself barely understood? This desperate yearning for something real, something true, in a world of careful facades and measured responses.

"Do you remember," he said instead, "the night that you taught me that Italian lullaby? The one your mother sang to you?"

"Ninna nanna, ninna oh." His mother's voice caught on the words. "You were seven, I think. Couldn't sleep because of the thunderstorm."

"Father found us in the music room. You were singing, and I was trying to pick out the melody on the pianoforte. Do you remember what he said?"

She closed her eyes, pain flickering across her face.

"He said that it was charming to see a child play at music, but that you must learn proper English pieces now. That there was no place for Italian folk songs in a future Duke's education."

"That was the beginning, wasn't it? When everything started to change? When music became about proper form and correct technique instead of..."

He broke off, struggling to find the words.

"Instead of joy?" His mother's voice was barely more than a whisper. "Instead of the pure pleasure of creating something beautiful?"

"Yes." The simple word felt like it had been torn from his chest. "That's what she has, Mother. What she brings to every piece we perform. Not just technical skill - though God knows she has that - but real joy. Real passion. She makes me remember what music felt like before... before duty killed everything genuine in our house."

"Miss Piper," his mother said carefully, "is undoubtedly talented. Her passion for music is admirable, and her influence on your playing has been... remarkable. But Harper..." She touched his arm gently. "She is not of our world. She cannot understand the weight of responsibility that comes with your position."

"Cannot understand?" He gave a harsh laugh. "Mother, she understands better than any of the perfectly trained young ladies in there. She knows what it means to have real obligations - to support her family through her art, to maintain her dignity in the face of society's condescension, to pour her heart into her music even when people treat her as mere entertainment."

"And is that what draws you to her? Her understanding? Her artistic integrity?" His mother's voice remained gentle, but her eyes were sharp. "Or perhaps something more personal?"

"What would you have me say?" He pulled away from her touch, pacing the length of the terrace. "That I admire her courage? Her dedication to her art? Her refusal to let society's rules crush her spirit? Yes, I admire all of those things. But more than that..." He stopped, again gripping the balustrade until his knuckles whitened. "More than that, I envy her freedom to be true to herself."

"Freedom?" His mother's laugh held no humour. "You think she's free? A woman who must perform to earn her bread? Who faces the ton's judgment every time she opens her mouth to sing?"

"At least she can be honest about who she is, what she feels. She doesn't have to pretend that music means nothing to her, that passion is somehow beneath her dignity."

"No," his mother said softly.

“No?”

He had to ask, had to understand what his mother meant.

"No. She merely has to face the possibility of ruin if she puts a foot wrong. Has to endure the advances of men who think her profession makes her available for their pleasure. Has to navigate a world which will never truly accept her, no matter how talented she might be."

The words struck him like physical blows, each one highlighting the impossible gulf between his world and Melody's.

"I would never let anyone..."

"You would never let anyone what?" His mother's voice sharpened. "Harm her? Compromise her? And how would you prevent it? By offering her your protection? Do you think that would help her reputation, or destroy it completely?"

Harper closed his eyes against the truth of her words.

"I don't... that's not what I..."

"My son." The gentleness in her voice was almost worse than anger would have been. "I see how you look at her when she sings. I recognise that look - I saw it in your father's eyes once, in a garden in Florence. But he was a second son then, free to follow his heart. You are the Duke of Brightwood. Your choices affect not just yourself, but everyone who depends on you."

"I know my duty," he said, the words tasting like ashes in his mouth. "I know what's expected of me."

"Do you? Because from where I stand, you seem to be teetering on the edge of something dangerous. Something that could harm not just you, but her as well." She moved closer, reaching up to touch his cheek as she had when he was a child. "I don't say these things to hurt you, Harper. But I remember what it was to be young, to believe that love could conquer all obstacles. The world is not so simple."

"Then what would you have me do? Marry someone like Lady Harriet? Spend my life pretending to be content with shallow conversations and proper accomplishments?"

"I would have you remember who you are, and what that means. Not just for you, but for everyone around you," she hesitated, then added softly, "including Miss Piper."

The implications of her words hung heavy in the air. Before he could respond, the music from the ballroom changed - a new dance beginning, one that would require the Duke's presence.

"They'll be looking for you," his mother said. "Lady Harriet was most disappointed when you left earlier."

"Let them look."

But even as he said it, he knew that he would go back inside.

Would dance with Lady Harriet and all of the other suitable young ladies. Would play his part in this endless performance that was his life.

But as his mother turned to leave, one last thought crystallised in his mind.

He would do his duty, yes. But he would also perform that duet with Melody at the next concert. One small act of rebellion, one moment of pure truth in a world of careful lies.

His mother paused at the terrace door, looking back at him.

"Harper... be careful. Not everyone can afford the luxury of following their heart."

She disappeared inside, leaving him alone with the moonlight and the memory of Melody's voice, singing of choices between duty and desire.