“Indeed, I do,” he said.
He gestured to the piano bench and raised his eyebrows. She scooted to the side to make room and he settled beside her. He smelled like brandy.
“The house is in Blackheath,” he said. “A small Georgian mansionette, I believe it’s called. Mostly empty, except for a bed and a card table. And a pianoforte.”
“But you don’t play,” she said.
“No. I don’t.”
Before Tessa could stop herself, she said, “Is the pianoforte for me?”
“Yes.”
She wanted to ask when he bought it. She wanted to ask when he bought the house, and did he love it, and did he love London?
Would he consider leaving the house or the city for a place like Hartlepool on the North Sea?
Was he aware that when she said she wanted to move to Hartlepool, what she really wanted was for him to move there with her, or somewhere else they chose together?
The questions piled, one on top of the other, like the rising notes of a sonata, and Tessa tried to sift through them, to light upon the most innocuous one, but each one seemed more pointed and telling and demanding than the last. And she was not ready to hear him sayno.
Not yet,she thought.
And so she let the questions accumulate, let them build into a very high, teetering pile, and then she raised her hands to the keys, and she played them all away.
Joseph had left his discussion with Falcondale in curiously good spirits. He’d thought he might tell Trevor everything, consider the older man’s opinion, and then try again to mesh his Plan for the Future with his ever-evolving knowledge of Tessa and Christian and their plans.
Instead, he’d told Trevor everything and walked away... invigorated. Propelled. Incited. Trevor had surprised him with advice that, only in hindsight, seemed predictable.
Stop playing the bloody coward, be a man, make some overture to her. A real overture. And suffer or enjoy the consequences, come what may.
“Don’t take the tedious, unnecessary journey I took, Joe,” Trevor had said. “Don’t wait until she falls from a balcony and nearlydiesto admit that you require her. Youdorequire her, don’t you? I’ve not misread your ravenous looks or generalized misery?”
Joseph had drummed his fingers on the table and not answered. “But Piety’s affections for you were never in doubt,” Joseph had countered. “Tessa has given me no certainty. She may want nothing from me—well, nothing save a cottage in County Durham.”
Trevor had simply shaken his head. He waited.
Joseph had gone on, “It would be impossible to overstate my devastation when she confessed the reason for our marriage. All those weeks, I’d been completely take in. Her affection had seemed as authentic as my regard for you, or your love for Piety. As a result, I can’t trust any suggestion that she might still want me. And let’s not forget that she’s just asked me to move her to the bloody North Sea.”
“Coward,”Trevor had said. He’d raised his glass in a mock toast.
Joseph had rolled his eyes.
“So what if she might not still want you?” Trevor had sighed. “And by the way, if you go in seeking this milquetoast level of interest—‘any suggestion,’ for God’s sake—I hope she rejects you on the spot. Bloody hell, Joe. Spare me the flaccid, head-bowed side shuffle. As if Piety and I have not been beating girls from your path since you were a boy. Rarely have I known you to be without some young woman swooning over you.”
Joseph had considered this. Flaccid? Head-bowed side shuffle?
“Would you like to know what I think?” Trevor had asked.
“No, but I feel sure that you will tell me.”
“I think you’re suffering from your first-ever rejection. Or potential rejection. By a woman, that is. And not just any woman, a gentleman’s daughter who you thought you didn’t deserve from the start.”
“Perhaps I do not deserve her.”
“Likely you did not,” Trevor had said. “But not for the reason you think. You see yourself as a servant and her as a lady, and you believe, ‘She only chose me because she was disgraced.’ The truth of it is, none of us deserves these women. Certainly, I don’t deserve Piety, and I’m a bloody earl. And you don’t deserve Tessa, despite being so much more than a servant. Please tell me the money and effort I’ve devoted to your education has earned this, at least. That you are fully aware that you are so much more.”
Joseph had refused to comment. He’d taken a drink.
