The thought afforded him the only glimmering of amusement he had felt all evening.
Sometimes—just sometimes—he wished that he had not been born to a privileged and decadent class. But he wondered if any class was totally different if one just knew the truth. Perhaps people were people wherever one looked.
The duchess, flushed and laughing, sat down on a love seat.
“You always were wonderfully clever at charades, Thomas,” she said, smiling up at him until he seated himself beside her. “I am very glad I was of your team. Now we need something quiet and soothing to calm us down.”
“I could think of something without even trying,” Sir Hector Chesterton said.
Her grace reached out to tap him sharply on the arm with her fan. “I said quiet and soothing, you naughty man,” she said. “Who can sing? Walter?”
“No breath, I do assure you, Sybil,” that gentleman said. “Let one of the ladies play us a sonata.”
“Not I,” Mrs. Runstable said. “I am quite hagged.”
“I make it a practice,” Lady Mayberry said, “to be out of practice whenever I am from home.”
Laughter greeted her words.
“It seems that my suggestion was not such a foolish one after all,” Sir Hector said, seating himself on the arm of the chair occupied by Mrs. Runstable.
“Music is the soul of love,” the duchess said, smiling and wafting one delicate arm in the air. “Give me music, do.”
“How I wish I could sing,” Lord Thomas said, taking her hand and carrying it to his lips.
“I know of someone who can play like an angel,” Lord Brocklehurst said, “and who is not at all hagged from playing charades all night.”
His grace felt an uncomfortable premonition and shifted in his chair as Sir Philip Shaw yawned delicately behind a hand.
“And who is this paragon of endless energy?” he asked.
“Miss Hamilton, the governess,” Lord Brocklehurst said.
“Ah.” Sir Philip fixed him with a languid gaze. “So you have a prior acquaintance with the damsel, do you, Brocklehurst, you lucky devil? And even succeeded in discovering that she plays like an angel? Ah, the pianoforte, I assume you mean? Let us have her down by all means, Sybil.”
“It is late,” the duke said. “Miss Hamilton is quite possibly in bed.”
“Is she, by Jove?” Sir Philip said. “Your suggestion begins to sound more attractive by the minute, Chesterton.”
“We do not like to keep our servants busy beyond their working hours,” the duchess said.
“But, Sybil, Sybil.” Lord Thomas reached for her hand again. “If Miss Hamilton plays like an angel and if it will give Bradshaw pleasure to hear her play, then you really should humor your guest. And if she is in bed, Adam, then you must cancel morning lessons for Pamela and allow her governess to catch up on her sleep. Nothing could be simpler. Bradshaw, pull the bell rope beside you, my dear chap. We will have the governess sent for.”
It must be close to midnight, the duke thought as restrained applause greeted his brother’s suggestion. Perhaps he should have spoken his protest more firmly. But it was too late. Thomas was giving instructions to Jarvis.
Fifteen minutes passed before the doors opened again to admit Fleur. Such a length of time suggested that she had indeed been in bed.
His grace jumped to his feet even as his brother got to his, and crossed the room to her.
“Miss Hamilton,” he said, “my guests have requested that you play the pianoforte for us for perhaps half an hour.”
Her face was shuttered, her eyes calm. She looked very much as she had looked in that bedchamber at the Bull and Horn, except that now she was healthy and beautiful. He had not realized then, as he realized now, that she often wore a mask to hide the real and vivid Fleur Hamilton.
And it struck him suddenly that she must think that he had betrayed her, that he had given her access to the instrument in the music room and listened to her each morning just so that he might use her talents for such an occasion as this.
“Will you, please?” he asked her.
“We have been told that you play like an angel,” Sir Philip Shaw said.
But they were not my words, his grace told her with eyes that hardened against the cool expression in hers. It was just such an expression that had angered him on that first occasion and had changed the course of his encounter with her.
“She is shy,” Lord Thomas said, bowing to her. “Miss Hamilton, would you please do us the honor?”
His grace held out a hand for hers, but her eyes had shifted to his brother, and she stepped past him and across the room to the pianoforte without looking back to him.