The Duke of Bolingbroke swept a bored glance over the room. His gaze passed over Grier and Cleo as if they were not even present. Grier followed his gaze where it did rest, stopping with interest on Lady Libbie. Apparently the prince wasn’t the only one interested in her. She was lovely and elegant as she played, the perfect wife for the likes of a duke. Or a prince.
Lady Libbie finished and Cleo was called upon next. Grier listened with pride, impressed that her sister played so well. Even with a household overcrowded with children, Cleo’s mother had installed a pianoforte in their small cottage to ensure that her daughters all knew how to play. Not such a surprise, she supposed, from a woman who named her eldest daughter Cleopatra. She had high hopes for her daughters . . . hopes that might come to fruition, after all, with Cleo.
The duke’s eyes followed Lady Libbie’s lithe figure as she reclaimed her seat between Persia and Lord Quibbly’s granddaughter, the plump, apple-cheeked Marielle. The contrast between the two girls was marked. Swathed in a gown of peach chiffon, Libbie was a vision. Grier couldn’t help taking a peek to see if the prince gawked in the same manner as the duke.
Indeed, he did not. He was not looking at anyone really. Angling her head to the side, she studied him curiously, wondering what went on inside his head. He gazed down into the great hearth. The fire’s red-gold flames appeared to mesmerize him. In that moment he didn’t look arrogant, he simply looked intense, troubled. She wondered what could possibly plague him. His country was war-free after many years. He was the toast of every gala, the most coveted guest on any list. He had his pick of brides. He should be carefree, not this darkly pensive man.
Cleo finished and Miss Persia Thrumgoodie rose to take a turn. She played liked a goddess. As much as Grier disliked the girl—or rather as much as the girl appeared to dislike her—she enraptured everyone in the room, Grier included.
The men were especially spellbound. She risked another glance from the corner of her eye, satisfied to see that not every man had fallen beneath her spell. The prince still gazed into the fire as if he was above everything else taking place around him. Even a beautiful woman like Persia Thrumgoodie was beneath his notice.
Deciding she’d spent enough time contemplating a man who certainly did not waste a moment’s thought on her, Grier snapped her gaze away from him, telling herself not to look in his direction again. The last thing she wanted was to be caught ogling him. He might think she wished to accept his indecent proposition from the other night.
Watching Persia, however, was a rather lowering experience. The female knew how to win over an audience.
She played with her whole body. It was quite the sensuous display. Everyone watched, riveted as she rolled her shoulders and dipped her cleavage toward the keys. Lord Tolliver watched with his lips parted. Grier thought she even detected a small amount of drool gathering at the corners. If he wasn’t smitten before, he was well enamored of her now.
Despite her avowal of moments ago, Grier feigned interest in the cuff of her sleeve and slid a look at Prince Sevastian beneath her lashes to see if he showed any similar effects.
She breathed easier. Although he no longer stared down into the fire, he looked out at the room dispassionately, not at all agog over the stunning Persia. Her performance made no impact on him. He wore his usual impassive expression, not even the hint of a smile cracking his face. For once his stoicism didn’t annoy her.
Dipping her head, Grier smiled, slow and satisfied, as she recalled the only time she had seen him smile had been in her presence. She’d brought out his smile, and the realization gave her a surge of feminine power.
Then her smile fled with sudden memory. Her brow furrowed as she recalled that he had been smiling in the course of propositioning her—as if she were the lowest female and not a lady given due accord.
“Miss Hadley, can you hear me? It’s your turn now.”
Grier winced as Cleo elbowed her ungently in the side.
“Perhaps she is deaf.” Marielle giggled inanely.
The dowager stared at Grier expectantly from her overstuffed chair. With a imperious cock of her eyebrow, she motioned to the pianoforte.
As the hum of Persia’s final chords faded on the air, Grier felt like cornered prey.
“Yes, Miss Hadley. I should love to hear you.” Persia rose with a soft swish of her skirts.
Grier blinked and looked around. She suddenly found herself the center of attention. A most unwelcome sensation, to be certain. She stopped breathing, watching with a sick twisting in her stomach as Persia moved smoothly through the room to reclaim her seat. How did she sway her hips like that?
With all eyes fixed on her, there was only one stare she felt as keenly as the prick of a knife. She knew it was he, knew the prince was watching her.
“M-me?” Despising the quiver in her voice, she spoke again, her voice firmer. “You wish to hear me play?” She flattened a hand against the bodice of her gown.
“Yes, Miss Hadley. Do take a turn.” The dowager motioned to the pianoforte with a sweep of her heavily beringed hand. “Such a lovely evening we’re having. Our own impromptu musicale. Let us continue with it. “
“Indeed. Most entertaining, however . . .” She moistened her suddenly dry lips.
Cleo sent her a sympathetic smile, well aware that Grier did not know how to play. In fact, she’d never even seen a pianoforte until arriving in London.
Grier cleared her throat to finish. “Oh, I’m not very good, you see—”
Persia clapped her hands together. “Oh, I’m certain you’re most accomplished. Please, don’t deny us.”
“I can play!” Marielle volunteered, half rising.
“That’s quite all right, Marielle, we’ve heard you play before. We’d like to hear Miss Hadley.”
The marquis’s granddaughter dropped down with a pout.
The viscount smiled at Grier kindly. “Shall I turn the pages for you, Miss Hadley? I’d be most happy to oblige.”
Miserable heat washed up her face. Even Jack looked sorry for her, no doubt aware that she couldn’t play. Playing the pianoforte was a ladylike occupation, and Grier was no lady.
She moistened her lips again and admitted, “Truth be told, I can’t actually play.”
“Oh.” Persia blinked with mock surprise, a slender hand drifting to cover her mouth as if Grier had just confessed to murder.
Grier glared at her, not fooled for a moment. Persia wasn’t the least surprised. She’d guessed that Grier wouldn’t know how to play an instrument that was commonplace in all elegant households of the ton. Heat crept up Grier’s neck. Was it that obvious she was an impostor among them? A simple, common girl playing at being a lady?
Persia lowered her hand. “I-I didn’t realize. I assumed you . . . well—” There was a beat of silence as her words faded. A moment of silence in which Grier felt that infernal yawning gulf again . . . between her and everyone else in the room.
The one person she both wanted and didn’t want to glance at—to see how this evidence of her lack of breeding registered upon him—stood silent. She could not bring herself to look at him again, to see in his eyes the conviction that he had been right. She didn’t belong here. The dowager’s kitchen maids were better suited to the role of lady than she.
“She can sing,” Jack abruptly volunteered. “Like an angel!” His ruddy face looked anxiously at the dowager.
Grier glared at her father, shaking her head at him in mute appeal. His eyes stared earnest and hopeful back at her and she realized he thought he was helping.
He’d once walked in on her in the library singing an old Welsh ballad as she was browsing for a book. She had a passable voice. He’d remarked on the song, that it was one her mother used to sing, which, at the time, had quickly silenced her. She didn’t want any comparisons made to the mother who had been so weak-willed as to fall for Jack
Hadley. As far as Grier was concerned, marrying Papa was the only good thing her mother ever did.
Grier wasn’t like her. She was stronger. She would marry. She would be a proper lady.
“Sing for us,” the dowager commanded.
“Oh, I’m not really very—”
“Cease being so reticent, will you, Miss Hadley.” The dowager was beginning to look annoyed.
Grier sighed in defeat. “Very well.”
Rising, she moved near the pianoforte, reminding herself that her voice was passable. She wouldn’t embarrass herself on that account . . . and it wasn’t as though anyone here would understand the lyrics. They were in Welsh, after all.
As she opened her mouth and began to sing, she took secret delight in knowing that she sang a tawdry tale of a buxom milkmaid to a room full of nobles.
The prince watched her, his gold eyes inscrutable as her lungs expanded and the words rose up from inside her to hang mournfully on the air. She tried to look away from him, or at least let her stare sweep over the room, but it was hard to do so when he stared at her as if he understood every word. As if he could see into the inner workings of her mind.
When she finished, the room was silent for a moment. Then the clapping began.
“What language was that? Gaelic?” Persia asked over the applause as Grier passed her on her way back to her seat.
“Welsh,” she replied.
“My, how . . . rustic.” ’
“It was simply haunting,” Cleo exclaimed, still clapping. “I have chills.”
“That was lovely, Miss Hadley, and sung with such feeling,” said the viscount. “You must tell us what it means.”
Several others in the room echoed the request. Except Persia. Her face flushed at the viscount’s praise.
“Oh, a love ballad, I’m sure,” Cleo insisted.
“Of course.” Grier lowered her gaze at the lie. “A love song.”
“How quaint,” Persia inserted, her voice tight. “Peasant songs always have such charm. Thank you for treating us. It’s not something we get to hear every day.”
Grier’s cheeks caught fire. Trust Persia to deliver a thinly veiled insult.
Perhaps not so thinly veiled. A heavy pause of silence filled the room as Persia’s words sank in. No one save Persia could meet Grier’s eyes. Lord Tolliver seemed suddenly fascinated with the carpet pattern. The implication was there—that Grier was a peasant.
“You were marvelous, Miss Hadley.” The rich, rumbling voice broke the deep silence. Grier started at the sound of it, her gaze flying to the man near the fireplace.
All heads swiveled in the direction of the usually aloof prince. Everyone stared at him, clearly surprised that he had spoken such high praise on her behalf. Of course, no one was more surprised than Grier.
Did he mean his words? A glimpse of his face hardly indicated that she’d managed to impress him. And yet if she hadn’t impressed him with her singing, then why had he spoken up? It was unfathomable that he should wish to spare her from Persia’s ridicule. Why should he care how others treated her?
His face still looked carved from stone. The jaw square hard and chiseled, but his eyes glowed molten.
“Quite the highlight of my evening,” he added with a sharp nod of his head. Goose bumps broke out across her skin and the tightness in her chest eased.
She fought off the ridiculous urge to smile. “Th-thank you.”
“Quite so!” Jack exclaimed. “I told you she was a fine singer.”
“Indeed. It was a lovely ballad. Reminds me of the songs my nanny used to sing to me when I was a girl. She was Welsh, too, you know.” The dowager began to rise. The viscount rushed forward to assist her. “You remind me of her.”
Panic fluttered in Grier’s belly. The dowager didn’t understand Welsh, did she?
“Also like my dear nanny, you’ve practically lulled me to sleep.” She stopped before Grier and smiled rather sleepily. “Thank you for a splendid end to the evening.” She gave Grier a fond, two-fingered pat on the cheek.
After her departure, the other guests also began to rise.
The prince departed without a word or glance. She watched the broad expanse of his back as he vanished from the drawing room, still wondering why he had bothered to speak out on her behalf.
Her father, the duke, and Lord Tolliver moved toward the library for a round of cards.
“That’s my girl.” Jack gave her shoulder a squeeze of approval as he passed her. She shouldn’t have cared, but the simple gesture made her feel a warm glow of pleasure. Almost like he might really care for her as a father cares for his child.
Persia sent her a baleful glare as she swept from the room, apparently unhappy that Grier did not completely fall on her face tonight. All thanks to Prince Sevastian.
Marielle took the marquis’s elbow and guided him through the room. His knees popped as he passed Grier, but that did not stop him from looking her over with a salacious light in his eyes. Grier tore her gaze from Lord Quibbly with a shudder.
“Are you coming?”
Grier nodded.
Cleo looped her arm through Grier’s and grinned. “You were wonderful. Even the prince said so.”
“Yes. Why do you think he said those things?”
“Because you were good. Obviously.”
Grier gave her a doubtful look. “He doesn’t strike me as the type to praise someone for being merely good.”
Cleo squeezed her arm. “Perhaps he fancies you.”
“Unlikely.” Grier snorted.
“Well, who cares? The evening was a success. Lord Tolliver certainly looked at you with approval.”
“Yes,” she murmured. All due to the prince. A fact that would greatly mystify her late into the night.
Chapter Eight
Grier couldn’t sleep. The wind howled a mournful tune outside her window, the perfect lulling song to help one fall asleep. Only she couldn’t sleep. The only thing she could think about was the prince’s rumbling voice. You were marvelous, Miss Hadley.
Her face flushed with warmth. Giving up on the notion of sleep, she tossed back the coverlet and donned her robe, tightening the sash about her waist. The corridors were empty as she made her way downstairs, the house silent as a graveyard.
She paused at the library doors, making certain the gentlemen had long since quit their cards and retired for their beds. Not a sound greeted her. Intent on selecting a book, she entered the quiet room. The fire in the hearth still burned high. A log crumbled and sparks flew and popped. She must have just missed the others.
She edged closer to the fire, drawn by its heat. Holding out her hands, she sighed with pleasure, letting them get almost too warm.
“Careful. You’re standing close.”
Grier gave a small shriek and jumped, a hand flying to her pounding heart.
The prince lounged on a chaise just behind her. Stretched out, booted feet crossed in a relaxed pose, he looked beguiling. Not at all his usual stiff self.
“I didn’t see you there,” she said breathlessly, her pulse racing against her neck.
He gripped a handful of papers loosely above his chest. Several others littered the small rosewood table to the right of the chaise. A few even littered the carpet. She’d obviously interrupted him reading.
She’d never seen him like this before. He’d removed his jacket and neck cloth. Her mouth dried at the sight of smooth flesh peeping out from his loosened shirt. He looked human—an absurdly handsome man who was suddenly much too approachable.
“H-hello,” she added, feeling silly but unsure what to say. Her breath shuddered past her lips.
“Hello,” he returned, his deep voice a feather’s stroke on the air.
He removed the papers from his chest and dropped them all on the table. “Have you come to sing for me, Miss H
adley? Perhaps you wish to honor me with a solo performance?”
For some reason his question made her feel shaky inside, driving home the reminder that they were all alone. “No. I thought I would pick a book to read. What are you doing?”
He motioned to the mass of papers. “Going over correspondence from home.”
She stepped closer, fidgeting with the ruffled edge of her night rail. “All that?”
He ran a hand through his hair, sending the ink-dark strands into wild disarray. “I receive this much every week. I’ll spend a good portion of my day tomorrow replying.”
She arched a brow. “Indeed?”
“With my grandfather ailing, many matters need my attention. I’ve lingered here for much too long.” For a brief moment, he looked frustrated, before the calm mask fell back into place.
She frowned, seeing him in a new light. Apparently his life wasn’t all leisure and vain indulgences as she had assumed.
“I won’t disturb you further.” She crossed her arms, suddenly chilled. “Good night.” She took only one step before his voice stopped her.
“Please. Stay. You came for a book, did you not? Pick one.” He motioned to the many books lining the shelves.
“Thank you. I will.” She turned and tried to focus on the titles, angling her head to read the spines. The letters swam before her eyes. She could only think that he sat a few feet behind her. That she wore only her night rail. That he looked delicious and relaxed and thoroughly accessible.
That they were all alone.
She snatched a book off a shelf and whirled around, prepared to flee to the sanctuary of her bedchamber.
“What did you find?”
She blinked, stopping. “What?”
“Your book. What did you select?”
“Um.” She glanced down and turned the book around in her hands. Her stomach sank. “A Comprehensive Study of Oxen Husbandry.”
He snorted.
Heat swamped her face.
“Sounds fascinating,” he murmured. “A real page turner. I must read it after you’ve finished.”