“The poor lady was perhaps unwell,” Rose murmured noncommittally. Lady Charlotte snorted.
“She must be five and thirty and has been married to Captain Hornby for a dozen years. It has taken her a great deal of time to discover what most of us learn very early in marriage. Men are faithless creatures.” She shrugged. “But there is nothing to be done about it.”
Rose gripped the sheaf of music between her hands while the other woman prattled on and on.
“I am lucky, I suppose,” she mused complacently. “With my husband, there has only been one other woman. A mistress he has had since before we married three years ago.” She paused and laid her hand on Rose’s arm, her expression sympathetic. “I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for you, my dear.” When Rose stayed silent, Lady Charlotte’s hand fell away, and her smile gradually died, to be replaced by a look of anxious concern.
Rose couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Everything in her was given over to fighting back the tears that had risen to clog her throat and prick her eyes.
“Oh dear!” Lady Charlotte whispered, palpably dismayed. “I do apologise, Lady Stanhope. Joshua is always saying I have a tendency to prattle on.”
Just at that moment, the gentlemen entered, and Lady Charlotte hurriedly excused herself. She joined her faithless husband, a man who looked like a bemused sheep. Rose stayed where she was, next to the pianoforte. When she looked back at the music sheets in her hands, they were too blurry to make out, just something to direct her hot, aching eyes at so no one would see the tears that threatened to fall. Eventually, Mrs. Drayton came to her rescue.
“Gilbert tells me you play the pianoforte, Lady Stanhope,” she said in a friendly way. “Would you be good enough to entertain us? I am afraid I am a woeful musician.”
“Yes, of course. I love to play. And this is a lovely instrument.” She smiled her thanks at Mrs. Drayton and settled herself on the piano stool, her back to the room, safe from the curious eyes of the other guests, her lowered head excusable now.
She flexed her fingers. In the background, the conversation murmured.
Bach’s Goldberg Variations. So well-known to her she didn’t need the music; her fingers found the notes of the opening aria unerringly. She let herself linger over the notes and pauses of the music, playing it the way she did at home, more slowly than was conventional, the melody giving voice to the aching sadness in her heart.
The variations were soothing to play. All that mathematical precision, that intellectual beauty. But at the end, when she played the Aria da capo, it was like waking up again, waking up and remembering the real music. Not the dazzling fireworks but something so real she felt it deep in her body.
As the last notes resonated through the drawing room, she realised the rest of the guests had fallen silent and were all watching her. Surprised applause erupted, and Mrs. Drayton asked her to play again. Rose demurred that she’d already monopolised the instrument too long, and eventually, two other guests were prevailed upon to perform while Rose drifted back to the main part of the room.
Gil rose from his chair and walked toward her, smiling, though with a hint of uncertainty about his eyes.
“That was beautiful,” he said when he reached her, his voice low and intimate. “I remember you playing that piece at Weartham, but it sounded very different tonight.”
She frowned, thinking back to his arrival at Weartham two months before. “I don’t recall playing that at Weartham when you were there.”
“Oh, you did. When I first took you there, I mean, after our wedding. You played it straight through without any music, and I remember how impressed I was.”
Rose stared at him, surprised he remembered something she’d evidently forgotten from all those years ago. Even more surprised that she’d impressed him.
“Would you like some tea?” he asked.
“I’d rather go home,” she replied, her voice barely above a whisper.
Gil looked rueful. “We should stay a little longer, if you can bear it. We are the guests of honour.”
He was right, of course, and she sighed and nodded her agreement, allowing him to lead her to a chair and fetch her a cup of tea.
She made an effort to converse with the other guests seated around them, but it was a trial. The last thing she wanted to do was to make idle chitchat. After a while, she excused herself and made her way to the ladies’ withdrawing room, for no other reason than that she longed to be alone, if only for a few minutes.
She was just reaching out her hand to push the door open when the first voice spoke up, ringing with astonishment.