Miss Watton, infuriatingly, had understood it immediately. She had soothed Tessa with a few quiet words, softened his daughter’s stubbornness with nothing more than patience, and had challenged Wilhelm himself without hesitation.
Henry’s voice cut through his spiraling thoughts. “If she unsettles you so deeply, perhaps it is because she sees you more clearly than you are willing to be seen.”
Wilhelm bristled. “She does not see me.”
“Wilhelm,” Henry said dryly, “every man alive knows when a woman sees him.”
Wilhelm jerked his gaze away, ignoring the heat that crept up his neck. “This conversation ends now.”
Henry only sighed. “Very well. But you will have to face it eventually.”
The rest of the ride passed in silence, broken only by the steady rhythm of hooves crunching over frost.
As Kirkford Hall drew nearer, Wilhelm’s thoughts drifted involuntarily back to the moment in the corridor.
It had been a mistake to allow himself to experience desire.
Desire was not a priority. Tessa was. And Tessa would forever be his priority.
He swung down from his horse as they reached the stables, handing the reins to a waiting groom. Henry dismounted beside him, studying his face with quiet understanding.
“You are not alone in this, old friend,” Henry said softly. “Whatever path you take.”
Wilhelm nodded once curtly.
But as he and Henry walked back toward the hall, the cold air stung his cheeks. And he knew… he could not escape the truth settling heavily inside him.
Miss Madeline Watton was already a disruption. An irritation. A distraction he could not afford. And yet, no matter how fiercely he tried to deny it, he could not ignore the spark she had ignited within him.
One he feared he was losing the battle against.
CHAPTER 6
“Papa says this room echoes,” Tessa announced as she hopped toward the pianoforte bench, her boots clicking lightly across the polished floor. “So if I make a mistake, everyone in the entire house will hear it. That’d be quite an embarrassment.”
Madeline set her sheet music on the stand and hid a smile. “Then I suppose we must make sure your mistakes are deliberate and charming.”
Tessa gasped as though this was a revolutionary idea. “Mistakes can be charming?”
“If one plays them with confidence,” Madeline replied, lowering herself to sit beside the girl. The pianoforte gleamed beneath the morning light that poured through the tall windows, every key polished, every brass hinge shining. “Now place your hands here.”
Tessa obeyed at once, though her fingers hovered stiffly, as if she feared the instrument might bite.
Madeline softened her voice. “Relax your hands. Yes, like that. Curved, not flat. And your shoulders should drop a little.”
Tessa forced her shoulders down with exaggerated effort, as though she were attempting to hold the entire pianoforte in place by sheer will.
“Like this?” she asked, her voice pitched somewhere between earnest concentration and the pride of performing a great feat of posture.
Madeline bit back a smile. “Much better.”
The girl straightened immediately, her spine lengthening, her small chin lifting with such purpose that Madeline could not help admiring the attempt. A cascade of curls bounced with the motion, framing her face like a halo of unruly light. Determination sharpened across her features, tightening her little mouth into a line of focus.
Madeline lifted her hand and pressed a key gently, allowing a single clear note to shimmer into the air. “We begin with middle C,” she said, her tone soft and instructive. “Your thumb goes here. Yes, just there. Now press.”
Tessa lowered her hand slowly, almost ceremoniously, as if she were reaching out to touch something sacred. Her thumbdescended, hesitant, then firmly enough to make the key respond.
A soft, pure chime floated through the room.
