Rudyard coughed. “I could not possibly do well enough for a voice like Miss Lithwick’s.” His tone sounded lower, rougher than usual.
“I confess I have been longing to hear your brother sing,” Lucasta said to Judith. She wanted to hear his rich baritone put to use, but even that small admission made the tips of her ears burn with embarrassment.
Rudyard cleared his throat. “Jude?—”
“Something simple, to please me,” Judith coaxed. “The True Lover’s Farewell?’”
Heat spread down the side of Lucasta’s neck. The song was a lovely, intimate duet. She rarely sang duets; she was never asked. “I know the tune,” she managed.
“I have never heard you sing, Jem,” Bertie said with a curious tone.
“Then you must,” Judith said firmly. “To please me, Jem.”
Lucasta drew in a deep, long breath as Rudyard moved closer. Heated awareness moved across her shoulders and down her arms as she felt his gaze settle upon her. She lifted her hands to the keyboard to begin the simple, familiar tune and let her eyes close for a moment as Rudyard began the first notes of the lover’s duet.
“Fare thee well, my own true love, and farewell for a while…”
She blinked back sudden tears. His voice was untrained but steady and clear, with a rich, deep timbre that made her feel like she’d partaken of strong spirits. Her throat closed as she listened to him sing the melancholy words.
“And the rocks may melt and the seas may burn, if I shall not return.”
She felt his eyes on her face, and a wash of heat filled and buoyed her. Lucasta swallowed, consciously relaxed her throat, and lifted her voice in the lover’s reply.
“Oh, do you see that lonesome dove, sitting on an ivy tree?”
It was almost too much to bear, having him so close to her, his attention bent on her so completely, as their voices rose and blended. The emotions of these ballads that had always seemed so overdrawn and silly suddenly took on a new dimension as she sang. For the first time she could understand how it might physically hurt to be parted from a beloved, how that longing could feel so intense.
Singing with Jeremiah Falstead was a magic she had never known. Harmonizing with him as they began the final chorus was as intimate as twining their hands in a dance. As intimate as sitting side by side in a carriage. As intimate as a kiss.
“I’m going away, but I’ll be back, if I go ten thousand miles.”
Lucasta let her hands rest on the keyboard as the last note faded away. Then she made the mistake of lifting her head and meeting Rudyard’s eyes.
His brown-gold gaze was a deep well. She might never stop falling. He looked as dazed as she felt.
“I…” Her voice was a whisper. “I believe that’s enough for now.” Carefully she closed the lid of the spinet, grateful to look away from Rudyard’s face.
She might fall as far as she wished, but then what would happen to her? A Lucasta Lithwick did not enchant a LordRudyard. Such things were not possible in the world in which she moved.
And she must, at all costs, protect herself from further exposure to him, for heartbreak was inevitable. He had already enchanted her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“You are silent,” Rudyard observed as they retraced their route to town, past the Queen’s Elm, past the tavern known as the Bell, back toward Knightsbridge. “Did we tire you?”
“Not at all. That was one of the most pleasant afternoons I’ve spent. Thank you.” Lucasta turned to include Bertie in her gratitude.
Bertie smiled sweetly in return. “Judith liked you,” she remarked.
“I like Judith,” Lucasta answered, and said the next without thinking. “I hope I might see her again.”
Though doing so would put her too near Rudyard’s orbit, make her aware of his every move, his mere presence. Such foolishness fed infatuations, rather than throttling them in the least painful manner possible. She knew that from experience.
“I do not imagine my siblings would be considered goodton,” Rudyard said, his mouth set in a grim expression. “I barely am myself.”
“You? Smart Jeremy?” She saw his eyes narrow and understood. “You do not believe you are admired?”
He clucked to the horses to wait their turn at the Hyde Park toll gate. “I believe it amuses women like Clara Bellwether to admire me,” he answered. “And then a new fancy will come along, as one inevitably does.”
