Sophie snorted and shoved at Maddie’s shoulder.
Maddie leaned into it, undeterred. “You’ve told me how hard it was to have a concert go wrong,” Maddie said. “Don’t you want another chance to get it right?”
“Of course I do.” Sophie abruptly sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees. “I have a confession to make.”
Maddie rolled onto her side. “Sounds ominous.” What on earth could Sophie Roseingrave have to confess in such a tone?
Sophie’s hands fussed with the coverlet, tugging at the velvet pile as though she were plucking each thread out one by one. “Ilovebeing the center of attention.”
Maddie had to slap a hand over her mouth to keep her chortle from being heard by the rest of the house. And possibly by Mrs. Devereaux next door to boot.
“It’s terrible,” Sophie went on, with a quelling frown. “Every time I hear someone playing or singing, or go to the theater, or read concert descriptions from the musical magazines and papers, I am overwhelmed by the purest and most powerful jealousy. I want to be the one up there! Icravethe chance to stand on stage, alone except for the piano, while everyone listens raptly. I want the audience to grow larger and larger—I want to play harder and harder pieces—I want to show off my own best work to an adoring throng and have everyone go wild with applause at the end.”
Maddie could hardly breathe for laughing with delight. Finally she wheezed out: “Andwhyis that terrible?”
Sophie chewed her lip. “Because: What if I don’t deserve applause? I have a horror of trying to be something I’m not—and looking ridiculous for it.” Her hands plucked faster. “Like the jackdaw who tried to pass himself off as a peacock, strutting about in feathers everyone could see did not belong to him.”
“So you’re a jackdaw now?”
“Don’t be a ninny,” Sophie said. “I thought it was well established that I am a sparrow. Round and brown and designed to be overlooked.”
Maddie shoved herself up to her knees. “Right,” she said. “That’s quite enough of this sparrow talk. One, brown is a very sensible everyday color and it suits you and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. And two—I know what kind of small brown bird you really are, and it isn’t a sparrow.”
“Oh?” Sophie cocked a head skeptically and her hands balled up the coverlet. “What is it, then?”
“You, my love, are a nightingale.”
Sophie’s eyes went wide as the world.
Maddie leaned forward. “They might look like sparrows—but only to the eye. Nobody who hears a nightingale sing would ever confuse the two.”
Sophie’s hands slid up Maddie’s cheeks, fingers slipping into her hair and pinning her in place. Her voice was low and throbbing and undid Maddie entirely: “That is the most beautiful thing anyone has said to me in my entire life.”
Maddie’s cheeks ached from smiling. “We’re still young. Give it time. I’ll do even better, I promise you.”
Sophie’s mouth swallowed Maddie’s smile, coaxing tenderness into something ravenous and needy. Maddie arched back as Sophie straddled her hips, the weight of her solid and exquisite, her breath tangy and earthy from the beer. Salt touched Maddie’s lips and she licked it away—then realized Sophie was weeping. “What’s wrong?”
Sophie broke the kiss with a sound like pain. “I want to make you feel as beautiful as you made me feel just now. Not just tell you how pretty you are.” She quirked an eyebrow. “Surely people have done that before.”
“I’m vain enough already,” Maddie said with a low laugh.
Sophie’s thumbs stroked possessively over her cheekbones; Maddie hummed at the yearning that shot through her.
“I want to make youfeelit,” Sophie repeated. “In your skin—in your heart. So you’ll never forget it as long as you live. So that—so that it transforms you, just a little bit.” She pulled in a shaky breath. “I suppose that’s terrible too, in a way.”
Maddie’s arms went tight around Sophie’s waist. “It’s not terrible to want things.”
Sophie’s lips curved shyly. “I want to surprise you.”
Oh, that made Maddie’s heart ache. “Sweetheart,” she murmured, “you already have.”
Chapter Thirteen
You, my love, are a nightingale.
Sophie wore those words like a ribbon tied around her heart, bound tight to keep it from bursting with happiness as she walked home the next morning. All day every bird in Carrisford seemed to be singing at her: robins hallooing the morning, sparrows chattering in the afternoon, chickadees singing for scraps of supper outside the Mulberry Tree. She whistled back whenever no one was around to hear her and think her silly.
And when the shop had closed and she sat down to the piano to work on the waltz, the melody came like it had only been waiting for her to listen properly: a whistling warble of a tune that flew liquidly from note to note. The wall, that damnable barricade she’d once felt between her hands and her heart and the music vanished—as though it were no more substantial than a cloud. Sophie’s hands felt like wings; her fingers were feathers, arching out to snatch at the sky.
