Page 19 of The Governess’ Unlikely Suitor (The Dashworth Brothers #2)

E dward’s large presence as he’d towered over her, trying, and failing, to teach her the pianoforte, had distracted Kate to the point she’d barely heard what he was saying.

Every time he had leaned forward, she’d caught a new detail on the back of his hands – the dark hair, blunt fingernails, their latent strength – and her attention had snagged on it, pulling her away from the notes he had been valiantly pointing to.

The stool had seemed wide, and when he had suggested he sit next to her instead, she had thought anything had to be less diverting than him standing tall above her. It had not been the case.

The wide stool had shrunk to the size of a postage stamp.

There was now no getting away from him or else she was not trying hard enough.

Either that or Edward had some magnetic power over her that was causing her to shift ever closer to him.

Shuffling away did no good, because seconds later, she found herself back in his orbit.

Every time he showed her a note, she caught the faint smell of his skin, soap and something else she could not name.

The scent was distracting her, rendering her completely unable to concentrate on his words and actions, but he seemed to be completely unaffected by their proximity.

Every word out of his mouth was an instruction, not a hint of flirtation or any indication he was struggling not to touch her.

Her mind held on to that, thankfully stopping her from doing something witless.

They laboured through the left-hand piece, her fingers slipping on the keys as she concentrated on not making a mess of the simple music.

‘Thank goodness the pianoforte is a kind instrument,’ she murmured as she hit the wrong note for the one thousandth time.

The hairs on the back of her neck raised at his soft chuckle. ‘You are doing well.’

‘You are being kind.’

She felt his answering laugh in the shaking of his shoulders and she jolted, realising how close she had moved to him again.

Kate wondered if she’d had a different teacher, Emily maybe, whether she might have been able to concentrate on the notes and perhaps have at least a slight understanding of what she was meant to be doing.

With Edward, all she could really think about was the width of his palm.

Hands were not something she’d given much thought to before.

They were there and functional and that was it.

But there was something mesmerising about the flex of Edward’s long fingers as they moved over the piano, pointing out notes to her.

It seemed imperative to her to find out whether the skin of his palm was soft or callused and her mind flittered over ways to make that happen, none of which were plausible and some of which were downright ludicrous.

She had to keep reminding herself again and again of their relative stations in life but that didn’t seem to help her.

She may have developed a secret infatuation with the man but it must remain that: a secret.

Revealing her growing fascination with him would give him too much power over her, and although he wasn’t Chorley and she didn’t think he would abuse it, she didn’t want to concede it either.

No good would come from spending time getting close to a man who was wrong for her in every way.

If she developed more than these innocent longings for him, if she came to care for him more than she should, she might start to entertain thoughts of marriage, and a man like him did not marry a woman like her.

She had lived on the fringes of Society for long enough to realise that men in the Ton might dally with the governess, might even care for her, but they would marry one of their own.

Deeper feelings for Edward would only end up with her soul getting bruised and she did not need to add experiencing heartbreak to everything else that had happened over the last few years: the fear, the loneliness and constant worry about homelessness that had plagued her daily life. She needed peace, not drama.

‘Now,’ he said in an upbeat voice, much like the one she used when addressing small children, unaware of her internal wranglings, ‘try putting it all together.’

Highly doubtful that anything pleasant sounding was going to come from her pounding of the keys, she shot him a quick glance. If he was smirking, he was hiding it very well. As he’d been very patient with her, she hoped to goodness she would show at least a tiny amount of improvement.

Placing her fingers over the keys, she held her breath, ready to begin.

‘Before you start,’ he said, ‘you need to move your fingers to the left. No—’ his lips twitched as he valiantly held in a laugh ‘—not those, those.’ He pointed.

Trying not to think about what she was doing, especially after the internal lecture she had just subjected herself to, she purposefully moved to the wrong place.

‘It is good it is not me who is a governess,’ said Edward, laughter lacing his words. ‘I am clearly not a very good teacher.’

‘It is me. Perhaps I am too old to learn something new.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘You are hardly in your dotage. May I?’

He held out his hand, his fingers hovering over her wrist.

‘Of course,’ she murmured, getting exactly what she had been aiming for.

Placing his thumb and forefinger on either side of her wrist, he lifted her hand gently but firmly and moved it towards the correct placement. His skin was warm against hers, the touch barely there. Her breath slowed and the skin on the back of her neck tingled.

‘Your fingers…’ he began, his voice gruff. He cleared his throat. ‘May I show you?’

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

‘Are you…? I do not want…You must not think I…’

She was arching towards him, but she could not find it in herself to pull away. ‘Yes, I am sure,’ she managed. ‘Please show me.’

His fingers slid slowly over hers, lightly brushing against her skin.

Sensation shot through her body, her breath catching in her throat as it flooded through her, waking up nerve endings she hadn’t even known existed.

Slowly, achingly slowly, he moved her forefinger so it was resting over the right key.

‘There,’ he murmured gruffly.

She had no words.

‘Would you like to try again?’ he asked quietly.

She nodded, her mind blank. He let go and her whole body sagged as if she were a puppet and he had cut her strings.

She could sense his chest rising and falling, feel the soft puff of his breath as it brushed against her hair.

Her fingers rested unmoving on the keys. Staring at them, she willed them to move, but it seemed his simple touch had destroyed her mind.

With great effort, she lifted her head and peered intently at the sheet of music in front of her, acting like she understood the strange shapes on the thin lines, hoping desperately that if she looked at it enough, she would be able to remember something, anything.

The notes did not rearrange themselves, turning no more legible than the other one hundred times she had looked.

Oh well, there was nothing for it but to begin.

The resultant tune could best be described as a clanging of discordant notes strung together by an uncoordinated snail.

‘That was…’ There was a soft wheezing sound, like air being pressed through a very narrow pipe.

‘Please do not feel you need to be kind.’

One of his hands was resting against his chin, his fingers loosely covering his smile, his shoulders shaking with suppressed mirth. Her heart thudded oddly, as if it had missed a couple of beats and was now racing to catch up.

‘It might need some practice,’ he managed.

His laughter was disarming and for a moment she was able to forget he was the son of a duke and she was an unemployed governess with an unfortunate infatuation, and laughed along with him.

The more she giggled, the more he laughed, big gusts of unrestrained hilarity bellowing out of him.

Tears leaked from the sides of her eyes and she brushed them away with the pads of her fingers.

‘It was awful, was is not?’

His shout of laughter was her only answer.

It was the release she needed. The pent-up frustration of being so close to him ebbed away as she held her sides, her amusement making her ribs ache.

‘Perhaps,’ she said when they were more composed, ‘you could show me how it is done.’

‘You would like me to play?’

‘Yes, I am assuming you are better than that.’

He adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves as his lips curved in a smile. ‘I hope you will forgive my rudeness when I say that Charlotte playing, with no lessons, would be more pleasurable to listen to.’

‘I thought you said it was a good start?’ Pressing a hand to her heart, she feigned hurt.

‘Are you sure that is what I said? I am pretty sure I told you, you were doing well.’

‘Is that not the same thing?’

‘It is perhaps relative.’

She snorted. ‘I see. Well, let me see what you can do.’

Straightening, he placed his fingers on the keys, about to begin the piece she had just mangled.

‘Can you play something else?’ she asked. ‘I do not think I want to hear how bad I am in comparison to someone who knows what they are doing.’

Moving his hands assuredly, he began to play almost as soon as she had finished talking, like he had been waiting for the moment to unleash his music to the world.

The notes filled the room, softly at first but building, piling on top of one another, until there was nothing else.

Gone was the stern man who had greeted her at the door, gone was the thoughtful man who had talked her through dining etiquette, gone too was the kind uncle who held his niece gently.

In that moment, Edward Dashworth was the music, the pianoforte an extension of his lithe body as he moved, commanding the instrument to his will.

The piece was building towards a crescendo and she could no more tear her eyes away from him than she could swim.

When the music finished, the final notes seemed to float through the air as though, if she just looked closely enough, she would be able to see them.

‘That was spell-binding,’ she said after several long moments of complete silence.

He shrugged off the compliment. ‘I made several mistakes and I am not as convinced by the middle section as I used to be.’

The significance of his words slowly dawned on her, but when they did, she realised he was even more talented than she had first thought. ‘Did you write the piece yourself?’

‘Yes.’ He took his hands from the keys and placed them on his knees. ‘A few years ago. I have not played it for a while. I should have practised before trying to show off.’

‘It was beautiful.’

‘Should I be insulted at how incredulous you sound?’ He half turned towards her, his lips tilted in a lopsided smile.

‘You told me you filled your days with boxing, fencing and other things you seemed to imply were equally frivolous. You did not say you spent your days composing music.’

He closed the lid of the piano, the light fading from his eyes. ‘I do not do so any more.’

‘Whyever not? You are clearly very talented.’

He scratched his neck. ‘Without wishing to be rude…’

‘The last time you said that, you were spectacularly blunt.’

‘Well…’ he grinned, the teasing glint back in his eyes ‘…I suppose I was about to be, yes, and I would not want to be thought of as anything less than a gentlemen. Forget I said anything and I will take the compliment you supplied me with, and that will be the end of things.’

‘Oh no. Do not think I am going to let you get away with it easily. What were you about to say?’ She knew he was about to insult her playing and she did not mind. It did not take a virtuoso to realise she was a terrible pianist.

‘I was going to suggest that perhaps anything sounded good after…’ He raised one eyebrow, his eyes shining with mischief.

‘Oh, I see. That is how it is, is it?’ Her cheeks ached and she realised she was smiling so widely, it hurt.

‘You can prove me wrong by practising and becoming better than me.’

He must understand as well as she did that she could spend the rest of her life pressing the keys; she would never be able to play like him.

If he wanted to continue the pretence his ability was nothing special, she was not going to challenge him.

At least not until she knew him a little better.

‘You are right,’ she agreed with him instead.

‘I will practise daily until I am a master.’

‘Very good. I shall look forward to it. Shall we say, the same time next week for another lesson?’

She nodded, her heart squeezing at the thought that she would get to do this again.

Perhaps it would be a weekly thing. She could indulge herself by enjoying her time with him, but not get close enough for it to hurt her.

Yes, she could do that. She had been compartmentalising her life for as long as she could remember; she could do so with Edward too.

If a little flirtation with him kept her happy, it was not hurting anyone and no one need ever know.

When her time was up at the Dashworths’ house, she would move on as she had done many a time before and she would remember her brief infatuation with this handsome man fondly.

For the first time, the months of her brother’s prolonged absence did not seem long enough.