Page 58 of Miss Devon’s Choice

“Begin whenever you like, Rebecca.”

She looked at him from the corner of her eye and he finally caught a different expression on her lovely face. Her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed. Skepticism.

Christian sat back, surprised.

Rebecca cleared her throat, pushed a loose curl behind her ear, and swallowed twice before daintily put her fingers on the keys. Finally, she assumed the proper posture at the bench.

Rebecca began to play the same song she had been practicing the first time he heard her play. She wasn’t nearly so accomplished as he on the instrument, but her abilities were fair enough for private performance. She had made it halfway through the first movement when Christian interrupted her by clearing his throat.

She froze, her fingers still pressing down, and turned to him.

And all at once, his irritation arose. She looked like she expected him to have grown a second head. Had she finally grown weary of his appearance? Of his company?

And she was doing the music a disservice.

“Would you, I wonder, indulge me for a moment?” he asked, leaning forward in his chair. “You are a talented player, but you are playing as though your only desire is to finish the piece.”

She blinked at him, hardly reacting. Had the woman lost all her emotions?

“Isn’t that the point?” she asked. “To play a song to its conclusion?”

“No, carina.” He spoke the endearment with less fondness than normal. Why had he begun calling her that anyway? “The point of music is not to finish, but to become lost in the journey. When you play, do not think of attaining the last note as the goal. If you feel nothing, your audience will feel nothing. If you are playing to get to the end, then your audience will not be pleased until you do so.”

A symphony of emotion played across Rebecca’s face, everything from hurt, surprise, frustration, and even fear appeared and disappeared again. She said nothing. Rebecca chewed her bottom lip, faced her music again, and started over.

What is it? He longed to ask her. But the answer could undo him. Somehow, he’d given her the power to hurt him. He realized it in that instant, when he was too afraid to ask. Frustration clawed at him, his inability to do anything about it made his temper raise.

He stopped her earlier, moving to sit on the edge of his seat. “No. No. I can hear it. You are indifferent to what I have said. That is almost worse.”

She didn’t look up at him, though every muscle in her body grew tighter, winding up like a spring, with each word he said. Rebecca didn’t speak. She began again. Each movement nearly violent for all that it was so small as moving her fingers across the keys.

“Are you trying to murder the keys?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral.

She slammed her hands down on the instrument, the discordant notes assailing the air, and spun on the bench to face him.

“At least I am putting my emotion into the music,” she said sharply, throwing her hands in the air. “I am not attempting to earn the praise of a master musician, my lord, but to get through an evening of forced performance without scandalizing or disgracing anyone. I have completed my formal instruction and have no need of a tutor. If you think you can do it better, perhaps you ought to take my place in the program.” Her words flowed quickly, with heat.

Christian’s chest tightened and his temper flared dangerously. He pushed himself up from the arm chair and glared down at her. She stared up at him, mouth slightly open, skin pale.

His heart sunk. He’d frightened her. Of course he had. He was tall, ugly, and built like an ox. He felt as stupid as one, too.

But Rebecca pushed away from the pianoforte and stood, arms at her sides and fists clenched tightly. “What else would you like to tell me about how I play? Or perhaps you wish to criticize some other facet of my life. My clothes, perhaps? My lack of other accomplishments? Or my looks? Would you like to berate me for anything at all? Because I have heard it all, Lord Easton.” She said his name haughtily, raising her chin and giving him an icy glare.

“Have you?” he asked, his voice low, almost mocking her sudden flare of anger. What had she to be angry about? “Then you needn’t hear any of it from me.”

She winced and he nearly did as well.

“Wonderful. Tell me, then, is there anything about me that pleases you at all? Have I done anything right in your presence?” She raised a hand and gestured between them. “I thought we could, at the very least, be friends. I meant every word I said about being honest with you, about trying to care for you.”

“I am so very difficult to care for, after all,” he threw in, narrowing his eyes, daring her to admit it was the truth. “I never asked for that from you, Miss Devon.” He could throw titles around as easily as she could. “In fact, I asked that you treat this betrothal as the practical arrangement that it is. You couldn’t even do that simple task.”

Rebecca’s hands flew up, dismissively, and she turned her back on him. Her shoulders were stiff, her posture straight and trembling with what he assumed to be fury.

“Because, unlike you, I have a heart. I cannot bear the thought that I will live out the rest of my life with someone who has no more care for me than a stranger.” Each word burned into him with her fury and hurt.

Was that it, then? Did she finally accept he couldn’t and wouldn’t love her? If so, her love had never been true. Yet the loss he felt at her declaration, the way her words pierced through to his heart, cooled his anger and left something else in its place.

I’ve lost her affection. And I’ve no one but myself to blame.