Moonlight Square: Books 1-4 (Plus Bonus Prequel Novella), page 19
“They haven’t told us,” he replied. “It’s a surprise. Can I get you something to drink?”
She said she’d take a glass of white wine, while Mrs. Brown opted for a lemonade. Jason told the nearest footman and sent the fellow scurrying.
“How are you this evening, Mrs. Brown?” he asked politely.
“Humph,” was all the lady said, turning away to chat with an acquaintance.
Jason arched a brow at Felicity, then bent to murmur in her ear. “I take it she’s cross with me for coming over to see you yesterday?”
“No, she’s cross with me for not ordering the servants to wake her so she could sit with us. I got quite a tongue-lashing after she awoke.”
He winced. “Sorry I got you into trouble.”
“Nonsense. I assured her you were barely half an hour at the house, and besides, I’ve known you longer than I’ve known her. I did not argue with her, but I didn’t apologize, either. And why should I?” she whispered. “You came to help me. That is all. We did nothing wrong. Frankly, after talking to you, I realized maybe you were right.”
“About what?”
“Perhaps I’ve been the obedient companion long enough. I’ve done what they’ve told me. I’ve followed all the rules. But now, maybe it’s time I start taking hold of a little of my aunt’s independent spirit, since that was the whole point of her leaving me her fortune in the first place. Don’t you think?”
“I couldn’t agree more,” he said in amused approval.
“As dear Cousin Gerald pointed out, I’m not getting any younger. It’s not as though I’m a chit fresh out of the schoolroom anymore, like some of the debutantes here are, the sweet little things.” She glanced around at the sixteen- and seventeen-year-old girls clustered here and there, looking terrified, but if there were other females in the room, Jason had not seen them.
There was only her.
After a brief check with her chaperone, Felicity beckoned him closer. He leaned down breathlessly to catch her whisper in the noisy room and tried to hide his shiver of longing when her warm breath tickled his ear.
“Anyway, I have a sneaking suspicion that the real reason Mrs. Brown is annoyed is because she missed the chance to see my cousin Gerald.”
Startled out of his trance by this information, he straightened up with a roguish grin. “Really?”
Felicity nodded, her eyes dancing with wicked mirth. “She quite fancies him,” she mouthed, nodding at her chaperone’s back. “What we see as bluster, she views as strength. Decisiveness. She told me so once, and said Her Ladyship simply didn’t understand him.”
Jason laughed aloud, causing several folk to look at him strangely. “There’s your solution to the cousin problem, then.”
“Exactly. If Gerald hopes to avoid the sponging house, let him redirect his attentions to a lady who’d enjoy them, for I have no interest in the creature.”
“I see. And has any inspiration struck yet on what you might do with it in the interests of expanding this freedom your aunt intended you to enjoy?”
“Not yet. But I’m pondering the possibilities,” she said shrewdly.
As am I, Jason mused rather wickedly. Charmed by the sparkle in her eyes, he watched her take her wineglass from the footman, who had returned with the drinks he had requested.
Jason lifted the lemonade off the tray and offered it to Mrs. Brown with a penitent smile, but though she accepted it with a terse “Thank you,” she still eyed him with as much disapproval as any other matron in the room.
Ah, well.
“Cheers,” he said to Felicity as she lifted the wineglass to her rosy mouth.
Those lips…
“Cheers, Your Grace. To old friends,” she added meaningfully, and tapped her glass to his, holding his gaze as they each took a sip.
Her lips glistened, damp from the wine, and Jason flinched, forcing himself to look away. “Come,” he said, trying to emulate a breezy manner, “I saved you a seat. Best in the house.”
“You did? That was very thoughtful.”
“Unfortunately, I do not think it would be wise for me to sit with you, however.” He looked askance at her.
“Ah, I understand.” The grateful look she gave him said she was well aware that scandal tended to follow him. Though, honestly, it was never his intention.
He showed her to the seats he had reserved for her and Mrs. Brown in the front row. His gloves were on one chair and his hat on the other. He had chosen for himself one of the chairs on the side, where the U-shaped row curved around opposite the pianoforte. The players would be in profile from his vantage point and the sound would’ve been better in the middle, but what mattered to him was that he would have an unfettered view of Felicity.
Which was all he had really wanted.
Taking leave of the ladies, he went and sat down.
He quickly found that Azrael Chambers, the Duke of Rivenwood, had ended up beside him.
They were both members at the Grand Albion, which, in addition to the exclusive gentlemen’s club on the ground level, contained the famed Assembly Rooms on the piano nobile, as well as a few luxurious hotel suites on the top floor.
Though Rivenwood was not really a member of his set, they got on well enough and occasionally played cards. Still, Jason had to admit the highborn loner was endlessly mysterious. He seemed a haunted man, and struck Jason as, well, just a little damned strange.
At first, Jason had assumed they’d had the same idea—to watch the ladies rather than the concert—but then it occurred to him that, with Rivenwood, you just never knew what was going through that head of his. Rivenwood, the enigma, had a tendency to watch everyone and everything, but mostly kept his conclusions to himself.
Of course, he was pleasant enough, and rich as Croesus, but as for reputation, where Jason was called scandalous, Rivenwood was viewed as rather eerie. The rumors that surrounded his family were considerably darker than the merely adulterous tales of Jason’s own. Word had it he had seen his father murdered as a boy, but nobody in memory dared speak to him about it.
Rivenwood even looked mysterious, with his long, straight hair as pale as moonlight pulled back into a smooth queue. He was a tall, elegant man in his early thirties, with high cheekbones and strong, symmetrical features, but his intense eyes were the ice blue of a glacier.
What sort of father names his child Azrael, anyway? Jason wondered as he nodded to his acquaintance and took his seat. To be sure, the odd name fit.
Apparently, the previous Duke of Rivenwood had had some fixation with the occult secrets of antiquity and had thought it a fine idea to name his son after the archangel of death.
Poor beggar. And I thought my childhood was bad.
“Netherford,” his fellow duke said as Jason joined him.
“Rivenwood.” Jason flipped the tails of his coat aside as he sat down, then tugged his white silk waistcoat into place. “Evening.”
They sat in silence for a moment while the rest of the audience snatched up fresh drinks before settling into their chairs for the first hour of the recital.
“So who’s the young lady?” the archangel of death drawled under his breath.
Jason looked askance at him, briefly wondering about the reason for his interest as he met the man’s wary, pale blue eyes.
“That’s Felicity Carvel,” he conceded.
“Ah. The Kirby heiress I’ve been hearing so much about?”
“Yes.”
An idle pause while he contemplated her. “And who is she, exactly?”
“Do you know Major Peter Carvel?”
“Heard of him. Gentleman soldier turned explorer. You’re funding his expedition, no?”
Jason nodded. “Great friend of mine since boyhood. That’s his sister. Known her all my life. I’m keeping an eye on her for him while he’s away.”
“Now there’s a pleasant task.” Rivenwood was now studying Felicity intently through narrowed eyes. “What is her lineage?”
“Why do you want to know?” he asked, forcing a tone of amusement, though his thoughts were otherwise.
Don’t even think about it. You’re too damned strange.
Now, now, he scolded himself. The attentions of multiple dukes would help any girl in Society. Even dukes known as scandal hounds and spooky quizzes.
Rivenwood waited.
“She’s the niece of the Marquess of Sandonhelm,” Jason told him.
“Ah, so she’s Elmont’s cousin.”
“Yes.” They exchanged a knowing look, having both heard the stories about that particular dandy.
Rivenwood furrowed his brow. “If Elmont doesn’t sire an heir, isn’t Major Carvel next in line for the title?”
“Yes. Lord Sandonhelm only has the one son.”
“Hmm,” said Rivenwood.
Thankfully, Lord and Lady Pelletier stood up in front of the orchestra before his friend asked any more probing questions about Felicity. Jason found himself wanting to keep every luscious detail about her all to himself.
Their hosts were all smiles as they faced their two roomfuls of guests to introduce the evening’s entertainment. Egads, they were holding hands in front of everyone.
Jason furrowed his brow, slightly embarrassed for them. It was ghastly unfashionable how in love they were, despite having been married for more than twenty years. Pelletier did not keep a mistress, and not even Byron had succeeded with the lively countess. They were that rare thing in the ton called faithful.
Lady Pelletier was the real music aficionado, as Jason knew from the friendly tug-of-war they’d had over Herr Schroeder. Alas, Her Ladyship’s charm had won out with the German over Jason’s money.
Their hostess welcomed everyone to their home, thanked them all for coming, and reminded them of the light supper that would be served at the end of the recital. The earl said nothing, just stood there beside his wife, gazing at her with a doting look that said, Ain’t she clever?
“And now I give you our dear Herr Schroeder,” she finished. Then she and her lord skipped off to their seats.
The German bowed to the audience, then took his seat at the pianoforte across from the other two members of the trio, on violin and cello. The rest of the ensemble waited in the background for their cue.
Schroeder looked at his fellow soloists, and all at once, they launched into the Sonata in G major by the crowd-pleasing Ignaz Pleyel.
It was a smart way to start off the performance and warm up the crowd before unveiling his new piece, Jason thought. The light, charming composition showcased the famous Austrian composer’s hallmark sweetness.
Jason watched Felicity enjoying the music and felt an idiotic glow of warmth stealing into his heart. The entire atmosphere of the room had changed for him with her arrival.
The sense of drifting through Society unanchored had vanished, and he congratulated himself on his foresight in placing her well in view.
That girl wants out of mourning, he thought with a private smile. Her head was bobbing to the music, and she sent him a big grin, as though delighted with her excellent view.
So was he.
He had offended several people by reserving that seat for her, but it was worth it to see her happy, especially after all she had been through of late.
She was clearly enjoying the music, but then, everybody liked Pleyel. It was popular, uncomplicated music that everyone had surely heard before at some point, and did not ask much of its hearers.
Jason didn’t mind such stuff, but as a discriminating aficionado, he reserved the full measure of his admiration for the wild, moody brilliance of Beethoven. He had read that the famed composer’s London publisher had just released the sheet music for a new piano concerto fresh from the maestro’s pen. Jason had not yet heard it played.
The tempestuousness of Beethoven’s music comforted his own stormy soul, but what he liked best about the master on the whole was how Beethoven did not try to please everybody. In that regard, at least, Jason felt he had one small thing in common with the genius. Then he thrust the towering figure out of his mind, as it wasn’t fair to Schroeder to make comparisons with the man’s own efforts next on the program.
There was applause after the third and final movement of the Pleyel sonata, and then Herr Schroeder’s moment came.
His fingers alighted on the keyboard, unleashing a delicate, arpeggiated cantabile, full of the feeling and tenderness common to the nocturne form. As the single movement developed, gathering intensity, soon Schroeder’s hands were racing up and down the keys with passionate force.
Hmm, Jason thought, impressed. Didn’t know he had it in him.
He glanced over at Felicity to get her impression. She was staring at the performance, tapping her toe in time with the tempo…and Jason somehow became fixated on watching that dainty, slippered foot bobbing up and down.
The wicked drift of his imaginings was, in his defense, not intentional. He barely noticed it at first, paying more attention to the music than the impulses forming in his brain.
Well, not his brain, exactly. Other regions of his person.
Watching that lovely little foot rocking up and down, he imagined sliding his finger into her shoe, tickling the arch a bit, guiding it off her, perhaps. And then his mind flitted further into forbidden territory as he realized he could just make out the slim line of her ankle each time her foot lifted with the rhythm.
The hint of ankle made him inevitably think of her silk stockings. Were they black to match her mourning? Or virginal white? Or pink, perhaps? With lace? His wonderings filled his fancy with an alluring fascination. He pondered skimming his fingers up her calves to touch her ribbon garters, which he decided would be blue.
His body began to feel hot as he imagined untying them with his teeth. A faint sweat dampened the back of his cravat as the mental picture of her elegant knees only made him want to part them. And then…
His heart was now pounding, but music apparently was the food of love. Or at least lust. Because he could not stop—and didn’t try very hard, in truth—from imagining what happened next between them.
The room had disappeared and all the people, her chaperone most especially. His pulse hammered as he stared, unmoving, at this woman he’d wanted for so long. In his fantasy, it was only the two of them and a plush piece of furniture atop which she reclined on her elbows, watching his every move with the same fire he had seen in her eyes so many times when she had looked at him over the years. For he might pretend not to notice, liar that he was, but he was well aware she wanted him, too. Had wanted him for a long time. This understanding was not born of arrogance but of torturous self-denial. He’d known he would only hurt her if he gave in to it. But in his nocturne fantasy, Jason had yielded completely. He set those pretty feet on his shoulders as he knelt down before her, lifting her black skirts and kissing his way up her thighs.
He was nearly panting where he sat, legs crossed to try to hide his swelling member. Mentally cursing the current fashion of tight pantaloons, he watched her ravenously in real life, flinched when she licked her lips, then went on teaching her pleasure in his mind’s eye.
He was horrified at himself but past caring. He had never claimed to be a good man.
All the same, he was relieved—and extraordinarily frustrated—when the piece ended. No wonder some said the new Romantic music was dangerous, the same claim they’d made of the poetry and the novels.
Thankfully, the emotional intensity of Schroeder’s new piece backed off when the ensemble took up J.C. Bach’s Piano Concerto no. 5 in E-flat major. The cooling logic and light, orderly elegance from “the London Bach” helped Jason scrape his wits and his one shred of decency back together.
By the time it ended, he was no longer throbbing.
Now he just felt guilty. Not only had he mentally deflowered his best friend’s little sister, yet again, he had failed to pay the proper attention to Schroeder’s key change, as the man had asked.
Damn.
For the final performance of the first half of the concert, they rolled the harp forward, and a popular tenor of the London stage stepped up to perform several of the Irish Melodies by Lord Byron’s friend, Thomas Moore.
One could never fault an Irish folk song, Jason conceded, but he personally could have done without all the melancholy crooning.
The first song moaned with sorrow over some green valley back in Ireland, where the singer’s young beloved had been buried.
Why was it everyone died tragically in Irish songs? he mused. English as he was, it seemed to him that in their music, the Irish, for all their charm, were always either homesick or ready to get into a fight. And indeed, next came the patriotic war song, right on schedule, though, of course, being of the tragical persuasion, “The Minstrel Boy” died, too.
The third piece was different—a touching musical reassurance from an old husband to his aging wife that he’d still adore her even if she lost her looks.
And after all this naked sentimentality, thank God, the singer livened things up to close the first act of the night with some cheeky Irish humor.
A few bouncy bars introduced the well-known favorite “When Love is Kind.”
When Love is kind,
Cheerful and free,
Love’s sure to find
Welcome from me.
But when Love brings
Heartache and pang,
Tears and such things—
Love may go hang!
“Hear, hear!” a few young bucks in the room agreed, applauding between verses. Laughter rippled through the room. Even the rakes knew the words, Jason thought in amusement, for such rollicking fare often served as tavern songs. Verse two proceeded.
If Love can sigh
For one alone,
Well pleased am I
To be that one.
But should I see
Love giv’n to rove
To two or three,
Then—goodbye, Love!
Felicity looked over at Jason meaningfully and arched a brow.
What? he mouthed at her, feigning innocence.
Her knowing smile reminded him of certain Gingers and Velvets of his acquaintance. Humph.
