His lips grazed my temple. “When I play this…,” His right hand played a short, high-pitched melody. “…pluck these to complete the phrase.”
He directed me to hook three strings using my fingers and my thumb. He placed his left hand around my arm, trusting me with my part in the song.
Derrick played the short melody and then I tentatively strummed the final three notes.
He let out a short laugh. “You can do better than that. Listen to how the music is feeling and try to match it.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. His nonsense sounded similar to Brietta’s. I could not match a feeling using myhands.
He played again. The melody was a sweet and hopeful tune, but not exactly triumphant. Like the first star of the evening, a tiny red ember in my heart glowed. I channeled the warmth from the ember into my fingertips and strummed the last three notes to match.
The final note vibrated in my ears and the warmth from the ember intensified.
Derrick smiled against my skin. “Just like magic. I knew you could do it.”
My hand dropped into my lap. A small flicker of triumph made my own smile appear again.
He wrapped his arm around me and started playing, surrounding me with a slow, lovely tune. “The poems in your letters inspired me to play, you know.”
The poems Brietta wrote. I swallowed all the lies I could never tell again. “How?”
He was quiet for a moment, letting the music fill every empty space in the room.
“When I was younger, words would often fail me.” The melody dipped lower. “Music was the only way I could be heard, so my hands would say what my mouth could not. And when you sent me the most beautiful lines in your letters…I loved them so much that I wanted to hear them for myself. Even though we were separated for seven years, I heard your voice reciting those lines in my music.”
I bit my tongue. He had imagined my voice speaking Brietta’s words.
The music picked up tempo. “I used to be so terrified of even opening my mouth. But then I started practicing your lines in the mirror.”
His breath warmed my neck as he recited:
“For you I hope for, for you I yearn,
If I do not have you, the whole world will burn.”
I held my breath. Damn, Brietta.
He laughed. “I recited that one over and over until I no longer tripped over the words. Even Father was pleased that I started speaking better. Your words were my salvation.”
I was a damn snake.
I shifted in his lap. The truth that I had not actually written the poems bubbled up in my throat, ready to spill.
“But I fell in love with you long before the poems.”
Hewhat?
I tried to make the question sound easy, like banter between old lovers, but it came out shaky. “When did you fall in love with me?”
His hands slowed and the notes were long and spaced out. “Ravenwood Manor.”
My plan for seven years had been to trap him into falling in love with me so he would choose me as his future Duchess. If he had been in love with me that whole time, all that plotting had been for nothing.
My hands began to tremble, but Derrick’s melody became long and light, like a dewy meadow in the early morning haze.
“It was my last night there,” he said. I was in the garden and you came around the iron gate with a sack full of treats that you stole from the kitchen. You had this determined glint in your eyes and a wicked little smile. And just like that, my heart was yours.”
I still could not breathe. My mouth went dry as I whispered, “You love me because I am wicked?”
