“Mr. McDonald.Youwill learn to play the violin. Hans will teach it you. Hans, do you comprehend?”
Hans slowly nodded, the very picture of rue.
Mr. McDonald, however, actually looked somewhat intrigued.
“We think Mozart’s variations on‘Ah,vousdirai-je,Maman’might be a suitably simple place for all of you to start. You, along with Mrs. Pariseau, will give a recital at the end of the week, so you’re going to need to practice a good deal. At which point we will have a party in the ballroom, and we will all dance and celebrate and drink and eat because we know this weather has beenverytrying for everyone and we like and value all of yousomuch. We are truly grateful to have you with us.”
They beamed beatifically upon them.
All of them, even Mr. McDonald, melted.
“And you can stay,” Angelique said sweetly, “if your performance goes well.”
Their smiles slowly faded.
St. John cleared his throat. “If I may...”
Delilah nodded regally.
“We were just bored,” he said quietly.
Angelique and Delilah exchanged a look. If ever a handsome young man needed his ears boxed...
“Mr. Delacorte taught you how to play chess, and look at how close you are to one day winning against him. Now you’ll have an opportunity to become adept in an instrument. You’re in grave danger of becoming interesting, St. John. And if you become interesting, you might just become genuinely devastating. Imagine that.”
Angelique and Delilah stood, and all the men on the settee leaped to their feet immediately and respectfully, and exited the room, chastened and charged with purpose.
On the morning of her thirtieth birthday, Daphne awoke to coffee, one scone, and an otherwise resoundingly empty suite.
Next to Lorcan’s empty plate was a note that read simply:
I will return this afternoon.
She studied his handwriting. The letters were large and bold, neat and careful. She supposed it was kind of him to alert her at all. Certainly he wasn’t obligated to do it.
Surely it was absurd to feel somewhat forlorn.
Or worse... relieved that he intended to return.
But in her experience men never remembered birthdays or other sorts of anniversaries. That was the point of women, as far as they were concerned. To remember the things they deemed not important enough to store in their own brains.
Lorcan had slept stretched out on the setteefor most of the previous afternoon. She’d crept around the place, feeling as though she’d been given a sleeping dragon to tend. Every now and then he shifted with a sigh, or a snort, and part of a great hairy limb emerged from his cocoon of blankets. She quickly covered him back up, lest something more startling than a calf or an elbow break loose.
She’d sat at the chair near the window and watched him for a time, a little furrow between her eyes, and a pair of gradually dawning realizations unsettled her: sleeping with such abandon must mean he trusted her.
The fact that she hadn’t really minded at all that he was sleeping in the middle of the room told her she trusted him, too.
She didn’t know why his trust should feel like a prize she had won. Or why this notion should settle like a glow in her chest.
He’d been awake and hungry by dinnertime but he hadn’t lingered in the sitting room. He’d gone up to bed early, well before she did. Perhaps because he’d known, but hadn’t told her, that he’d be out the door before dawn.
The rain still fell in sheets against a flat gray sky.
Her birthday choices seemed to be pensive self-pity, something in which she seldom indulged, or breakfast with the rest of the guests. She finally decided to go down to breakfast, where she found only straggler Mrs. Pariseau, munching on fried bread.
“If you’re at loose ends while your husband is out, dear, perhaps you can ask Hans for violinlessons. I’ve paid him a shilling and I’ve made marvelous progress. Isn’t it a pleasure to learn new things? One never gets bored!” she said happily, as she pushed herself away from the table.
Daphne wistfully somewhat envied Mrs. Pariseau, who as a widow had gotten her marriage over with and was now free to do as she wished.
