Her cheeks flushed with heat. She’d never used that word in her life—could not even recall how she’d even learned of it—but now that he’d mentioned it… Yes. She would like that very much.
But she would play along for now.
“Perhaps a stroll down High Street?” she suggested.
“Splendid.” He led her from the dining room.
As they approached the exit, a footman opened the door to the street for them. Tabitha thanked him as she and Hudson swept outside.
Unlike during the matchmaking festival, the street was virtually empty. Instead of hundreds of carriages and thousands of pedestrians, there was just Tabitha and Hudson, and one or two other passers-by in the distance.
“I can hear birds chirping,” she said in surprise.
“You didn’t hear them yesterday?”
“Yes, in the woods. But I didn’t realize how loud the matchmaking festival was. Either the birds flee whenever it’s underway, or else the noise of so many carriages and people completely obliterates the sound of nature.”
“Which way do you prefer it?”
“Like this,” she answered without hesitation, hugging his arm in contentment. “We have the entire town to ourselves. A festival for two.”
His gaze softened, and for a moment she thought he might kiss her, right here out in the open, in front of… well, no one in particular.
Instead, he asked, “Where to first?”
“The assembly rooms,” she decided. “One cannot visit a matchmaking town without spending time in its ballroom.”
“Do you think the assembly rooms are even open?”
“If not, there’s always the outdoor venue in the botanical gardens, where the musicians play in good weather.”
There was unlikely to be musicians playing at ten o’clock in the morning—or outside of festival week at all—but the town of Marrywell still seemed magical. The freshness of the air, the green trees and colorful flowers, the long rows of picturesque inns and the knowledge that thousands of hopeful hearts had found true love right here, year after year, for centuries.
To Tabitha’s surprise, the doors to the assembly rooms were indeed unlocked. Hudson opened the door for her, and they slipped inside.
The large, silent rooms felt like entering a cathedral. No one was in sight. Their soft footfalls sounded thunderous. It felt a bit like two naughty children sneaking somewhere they did not belong.
When they entered the ballroom, it was completely empty… save for a piano upon the musicians’ dais.
Hudson followed her line of sight. “Do you play?”
“Of course I do. I’m a ‘highly accomplished’ young lady. Which means my primary skills are piano-playing, embroidery, and doing as I’m told.”
He sent her a skeptical look. “From what I’ve seen, you’re dreadful at obeying. I’d hate to see your embroidery. You probably sew the openings closed when you darn stockings.”
She smacked his arm. “Ladies don’t darn stockings. We only sew useless things. Much like memorizing sonatas.”
“Prove it.” He nudged her toward the piano. “Play me something useless.”
“Will you dance?”
“Absolutely not.”
She grinned and arranged herself at the piano anyway. “Prepare to be stunned and awed by rote mimicry.”
“My breath is bated,” he assured her.
Tabitha placed her fingers on the keys and played. Despite her self-deprecating comments, she adored the piano. Like books, music was one of her few escapes. She could be somewhere else, someone else, for an hour or more at a time. No longer Lady Tabitha, betrothed since birth to a man who made her skin crawl, but the heroine of her own story. One full of fabulous adventure and sweeping scales, trilling with moments of pure joy in spite of the drum of the real world beating insistently in the background.
