One week later, with the days of their hasty betrothal well underway, Tessa sat at the pianoforte in the Berymede music room while Joseph leaned against the instrument and watched her play.
Despite being a skilled musician, she barely acknowledged her talent and seemed to play only to entertain herself. The nonchalance intrigued him, because she was so very aware of all her other gifts. She flaunted her beauty and her cleverness with an ironic, flirtatious sort of vanity that, God save him, Joseph found charming. She was well aware that her dresses were expensive and beautiful and never grew tired of praise or second glances.
The music, however, she simply played.
Even now, she departed the memorized notes and improvised skillfully, timing the tempo and notes to the ups and downs of their conversation. His heart pounded as he watched her. The focused sort of... determination (there was no better word for it) that she brought to their early days seemed to dissolve when the wedding date had been set. After that, a playful vivacity took over, and the change took his breath away.
“But will you be gone a year?” Tessa sang, repeating her question. She clinked out dark notes of sadness and dread. She hunched dramatically over the keys, her blonde hair spilling forward, and pounded out a mournful refrain.
Joseph smiled and looked away. Everything she did delighted him.
“We cannot say how long we will be away,” he said, speaking over the music, “because we are learning as we go.”
“We are learning as we go...” Tessa sang lightly, switching to a lively march.
He made no effort to hide his amusement. Even this conversation was to be a performance. He could watch her, he thought, indefinitely. It required real restraint not to scoop her from the bench and pull her into his arms.
Still, he warned, “It would not hurt you to understand more about the expedition. Your dowry has underwritten it, after all. And it will take me away from you—”
“Yes, but not so long as a full year,” Tessa cut in, pounding out a series of ominous chords.
Joseph chuckled. He had never met anyone like Tessa St. Croix.
“Tell me,” she sighed, switching the music again, now a rolling melody, slowly building, the soft beginning of a great opus. “Tell me about the venture... underwritten by my dowry... that will take you away from me for nearly a year...”
“Will you stop playing?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Will you provide some incentive for me to stop?”
A flash of heat shot through him, and he glanced at the open door of the music room. He cleared his throat.
“Tessa...” he warned. She loved nothing more than to goad him.
She did not answer and he watched her play, allowing the music to wrap around him. He opened and closed his hands.
Their betrothal had brought him no end of delight and hope. Her parents wished to host a large wedding and elaborate breakfast feast, and he’d delayed his departure for Barbadoes to accommodate the grand affair. His partners had sailed ahead of him. He was grateful for the additional time with Tessa but also anxious to get underway. The sooner he reached Barbadoes, the sooner he could come back to her.
But before he went, he would have her comprehend what he was doing and why. His expedition had been oddly difficult to explain to her. She was loath to be serious, even for a moment, to speak of business and logistics. He, too, would like to be always in jest, to tease and flirt and nearly succumb to their considerable attraction, but he was determined. She must understand where he was going and how very long he would be away.
She glanced up from the pianoforte and flashed him a pout. He was pierced with another shot of lust.
She returned her attention to the keys with renewed volume.
“Your parents assign a great deal of trust in me, allowing us to spend time alone together,” he said. “I am meant to be listening to you play, not compelling you to leave the instrument.”
“Yes, but you’re the one who asked me to stop playing.”
“I want your attention, not your—” Joseph stopped talking. Of course he could not describe what he really wanted.
Tessa slid her left hand from the keyboard and picked out a few notes with her right, a spare little melody, just the tinkling of a few keys. “Will you come sit beside me, Joseph?”
He narrowed his eyes. She pushed the bounds of his self-control. It was as thrilling as it was frustrating.
“I promise to be a very good girl,” she vowed, alternating two notes together in a fluttery little trill.
“That remains to be seen. But will you listen to what I’m trying to tell you about the expedition?”
Another trill. “I will listen so very carefully.”
