Not helpful, she told herself.Focus on Thorne.If he thinks you’re ignoring him in favor of another man now, after the way Lucy gave him the cut direct on her way out, he will be beside himself.
And no one lashed out like an incredibly wealthy, entitled, spoiled duke.
Which Thorne proved with his next demand.“I say, sing for us, why don’t you, Little Gem?It’s been an age since we heard that sweet soprano of yours.”
Gemma hesitated.She’d never made much headway in any of the virtuous womanly arts like embroidery or sketching or the pianoforte.But she’d had vocal lessons from a young age, and had been known to sing for the company at a musicale or a small soiree among friends.Whenever Father hosted a gathering, she abruptly remembered, tight-throated, he’d used to cajole her to give his friends a song.
It had been a long time since Gemma had felt like singing.
To be honest, she didn’t much feel like it now, but from the implacable smile on Thorne’s handsome face and the added blandishments and encouragement from the ladies Rosalie and Lavinia, she wasn’t going to be given much of a choice.
The trouble was, what to sing?Unlike their resident songbird, young Flora Pickford, Gemma didn’t have a plethora of sprightly country airs at her fingertips.Most of the songs she’d learned with her singing master had been operatic arias in Italian or devilishly tricky pieces by Handel.
Looking around the public taproom of Five Mile House, Gemma tried to envision herself belting out “Se pietade avete” from Haydn’sArmidawithout any accompaniment, and quailed.
“Of course I’ll sing, if you like.I can do Robin Adair,” she said brightly, naming one of the most popular Irish airs that had been a favorite at musicales the past year.It wasn’t as bawdy or funny as Flora’s country ballads with their ill-disguised puns and broad humor, but it was jaunty enough, and most importantly, short.
Unfortunately for Gemma, the Duke of Thornecliff was in no humor to grant concessions.He leaned back in his chair, his gaze going heavy-lidded and slumbrous, dark with the indefinable malaise of the man who had everything.
“I was thinking more along the lines of Handel,” he said softly.“’Endless pleasure,’ perhaps.”
“’Endless pleasure.’Right.Of course.”
Gemma swallowed hard against the rising of a knot of nerves in her throat.She couldn’t afford anything that compromised her vocal chords now.
Handel’s most famous aria from his operaSemelewas among the most difficult pieces attempted by amateurs at the sort of salons and musical evenings Gemma had attended.The trills, the multitudes of grace notes dancing about the upper register, the extended final notes that were meant to hang on and on and on in an unending climax of passion—Heaven save her.At least it was in English.
Every part of Gemma’s body was beginning to feel cold, numb almost, with a slight tingling that she thought might mean she was about to swoon.
Heaving in a great, deep breath, Gemma did what she always did when someone dared her—she held her head high, swept a dramatic turn to take in her entire audience of a taproom full of roughly-dressed, work-weary farmers and shopkeepers, and resolved that making it through the song without collapsing wasnotenough.Oh no.
If she was going to do this, she would make such a performance out of it that people would still be talking of it years hence.
Holding her head high, Gemma began to sing.
At first, only Thorne and his two ladies paid any attention.He crossed his arms over his chest as he took in her theatrical performance, a reluctant glint of admiration in his black eyes.But soon, the high, fluting repetitions of the words “endless pleasure, endless love” and a few bits about reclining on her bosom, and the tables nearest them were beginning to take note.
Knowing this was not the sort of toe-tapping number most of this crowd was used to, Gemma threw herself into the drama of the lyrics, which were all about a woman who was thrilled at becoming the lover of a god.
She sighed her way to the top notes, and moaned through the low notes.Conversation around the room ceased.Her chest flushed.The taproom felt terribly warm and close now that it was quiet but for her singing.
Her voice trembled on a repetition, and without meaning to, she glanced over at Hal.He had come out from behind the bar to lean against it in that way that made his thick-thighed, strong legs look a mile long.The way he was watching her sent a delicious shiver all through her body.
He looked almost exactly as he had when they met, that first day here in the public room.But instead of an insolent stranger, his gaze held the memory of every searing, aching moment she’d spent in his arms.
Gaze locked on him and mind far off in a flowered meadow flooded with sunshine, Gemma didn’t register movement behind her until Hal’s attention turned to something happening over her shoulder.
Trying to keep it casual, still singing, Gemma turned to look.And she saw Thorne stalking back from the piano with something in his hands.She squinted in the dim light, trying to make it out.
It wasn’t until Thorne passed the object into the waiting hands of a farmer at one of the other tables, and Gemma heard the clink of coins hitting the bottom of the terra cotta jug that she realized what it was.
It was Flora’s tip jar, from earlier.The Duke of Thornecliff had sent around a tip jar…for Gemma.
No, don’t, she wanted to cry, as farmer after laborer after shopkeeper opened his purse and added his meager pennies to the pot.They had so little, but what they had, they shared.It was so kindly meant, and so terribly embarrassing all at once, Gemma nearly lost her footing.
Stop it,she wanted to say.I’m a fraud!You don’t need to!
Her voice thinned and quavered, but when Hal took a step toward her with clenched fists, clearly ready to challenge someone over something, Gemma rallied.She locked her knees and delivered her final notes strongly, with a steady pitch and a fluid cadence she was actually proud of.
