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She sang quietly to his accompaniment. Ah, that sweet remembered voice. It did not have the full-bodied rich tone of a couple of trained sopranos he had heard in London, but it was pure and true. He had last heard it at the summer fete, just before…

“Oh, sorry,” he said as he stumbled, and suddenly his playing was no longer in time with her voice. He lifted his hands from the keys.

“No, no,” she said, reaching forward over his shoulder to point a finger at the music. “You were right. But so was I. Or that was the way Sir Ifor Rhys taught me to sing it anyway when we tried it out at the church organ one day, and I liked the result. You see here in the second phrase, einer Wurzel zart? For you all the notes have equal value. I sing a half note longer on -ner so I end up singing both syllables of Wur-zel a half note after you play them. But we finish the phrase together.”

“That is a relief at least,” he said.

Her free hand was lightly clasping his shoulder for balance as she leaned forward. She seemed suddenly to realize it and removed the hand rather as though she had scalded it on a boiling kettle. She straightened up.

“Does that make sense?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” he said crisply. “Poetic license. Or musical license in this case. Shall we start again?”

He played quietly and she sang quietly, and they got to the end of the two verses without any disaster more major than one ugly discord he played partway through. He discovered that he was familiar with the tune after all. That made his task easier.

“Good,” she said. “And the tempo was just right. May we vary it a little in some places, though? Speed up a little here?” She pointed to the music again but did not touch him this time. “And pull it back here? The same for both verses? And shall we agree on volume? It must start softly. But it must swell here and here.”

He had expected that she would be so reticent with him that she would do nothing more than sing her song a few times to his accompaniment, with no real musical connection between them. He would have adjusted his playing according to the way she sang it. He had accompanied other people even apart from Estelle and considered himself reasonably adept at it. But Stephanie Ware was quite professional about the whole process. She knew how she wished to sing the song, and she conveyed her wishes so he would be able to coordinate smoothly with her. She had had a good teacher in Sir Ifor, it seemed.

“Shall we try it again, more as we will do it tonight?” she said.

“Absolutely,” he said. “What introduction do you want me to give you? The first line of the verse?”

“The second,” she said. “If you play the first and then I sing it, it will sound as though I missed my cue the first time.”

“Right.”

And they did it again, this time with the adjustments she had suggested.

“We finished together,” he said at the end. “Is that a good thing?”

“It is to be hoped we can repeat that great accomplishment tonight,” she said. “Expect me to put more into it then, though. I shall sing the words and their meaning more than just the music. I hope.”

“You have a sweet voice,” he said, turning on the bench to look at her. “As I told you at the church on the day of the fete.”

She winced slightly, and he wished he could unsay the words. What the devil had he been thinking? Neither of them needed any reminder of that occasion.

“Thank you,” she said. And then, in a bit of a rush, “I am sorry for some of the things I said, since they are not true. You are not arrogant.”

“Did you say that?” he said. “I had forgotten.”

“I very much doubt it,” she said. “I doubt any woman had been as rude to you before then—or since. And it was uncalled for and untrue and unjust. I hope you can forgive me.”

Well.

“Shall we agree to forget it?” he said. “Can we agree to be…friendly acquaintances even if not close friends? We will almost inevitably meet each other again, after all, given my friendship with Owen and Winnie’s marriage to Nicholas.”

She drew a deep breath. Her cheeks were flushed. And she looked impossibly pretty, dash it all. “Agreed,” she said. “Have we done enough here? I do not believe we need to practice the song to death. And less than five minutes of our time remain anyway.”

“I believe we will muddle along together,” he said. “Or, rather, you will sing perfectly, and I will muddle along. Are you feeling as stifled as I am after being cooped up indoors all day? If it had snowed for Christmas, as it was threatening to do a few days ago, we might all have been outside this afternoon, engaged in a vigorous snowball fight or making snow angels or sledding down one of the hills. We would have been spoiled for choice out there. Alas, the sun was kind enough to shine for the wedding and has been shining through the daytime hours ever since.”

“It is a good thing too,” she said. “I would not fancy being inside a carriage coming up and going down the hill into Bath with snow on the ground. Or ice.”

“Oh, faint of heart,” he said.

“That is easy for you to say,” she said tartly. “You are staying here. But yes, I am feeling stifled.”

And he was committed. How the devil had he got started on this anyway? Had her unexpected apology made him light-headed?