Devotion (28 page)

He smiled.

Oh, God,
he smiled!

Nay, not the droll and sarcastic twist of his lips denoting hate and anger.

It was a smile that touched his
eyes, that
lifted the grim and harsh lines from his face. He became human, suddenly, and breathtakingly beautiful.

Tears filled her eyes and beaded on her lashes. For an instant, the music faltered. "Don't stop!" she pleaded. "Nay, don't stop.
Your
Grace. 'Tis the most beautiful music I've ever heard. Nay, don't stop. I would stand here forever and listen."

His smile grew. His hands moved, fingers growing more supple, stretching, stroking while his body moved and swayed, feeling every nuance of every note; experiencing it as if it were a living, breathing being inside him.

Closing her eyes, Maria allowed the music to absorb her. Then it fell silent, and she forced open her burning eyes to discover Salterdon regarding her with a shadow of his old mood. Only then did she realize that she had allowed the tears to stream down her face, and her throat to tighten with emotion.

"'Tis the most beautiful music I've ever heard, Your Grace."

"Bach," he said, the word rattling slightly in his throat.

"Bach," she repeated simply, and he smiled again, and touched his fingertips lightly—so lightly—to the base of her neck.

"From . . . here, Miss . . . Ashton."

His fingertips touched like warm coals on the flesh of her throat, brushing as lightly as they had his worshiped piano keys. Dear God, he had actually spoken a complete sentence and all she could do was focus on the discomforting sensation the touch of his fingers caused in her. No fear now, but something else.

"You spoke," she murmured breathlessly, noticing in that very instant the book wedged between his hip and the chair arm.
The Vicar of Wakefield.

"You've been reading as well. Your Grace, is that why you've been so closeted the last days?
So moody and tired?
Have you been coming here at night to study?"

He opened his mouth to speak.

She did not give him the chance.

Grabbing the chair, she spun it toward her, fell to her knees before her master, and melting against his legs, grabbed his hands. "You
can
communicate, sir.
Ï
know you can. Speak to me.
Anything.
Tell me I'm the most infuriating 'chit' you've ever had the misfortune of knowing. Tell me I'm a nag.
That I'm disrespectful.
I'm a termagant and a witch. One sentence is all I ask and I swear I'll never demand anything of you again."

"My head . . . hurts to read," he said with hardly a bobble, closing his fingers around her hands that lay in his lap. "But . . . it's getting better."

"Indeed
. '
Tis certain to grow stronger with exercise, don't you think?"

"Yes," he said, and smiled, and squeezed her hands, not roughly, but gently, controlled, almost . . . fondly.

No, not fondly, surely not fondly!

With a laugh, Maria jumped to her feet and flung her arms around his shoulders, hugged him fiercely, her face pressed into his soft, flowing, fragrant hair that felt like silk against her cheek.

Eyes closed tight (God forbid that she cry any harder—he would certainly think her an emotional ninny) she smiled and clutched him more tightly, her lips brushing his ear as she spoke. "I prayed every night and morning for you, Your Grace. Your family will be so very pleased, as will everyone at Thorn Rose. I cannot wait to see the looks on their faces when we tell them."

They remained that way for several minutes, silent, with her arms wrapped around him, his face pressed into her shoulder, her breath falling softly, warmly against the back of his ear. Then his hands slowly, tentatively lifted, and he placed them along the small of her spine, palms flat, fingers spread.

She felt, suddenly, very small. Her skin grew warm beneath his hands, even through her nightdress.

The nightdress.

What a frail barrier!
It seemed to float away from her body; its folds pooled over Salterdon's legs; her unbound breasts, oddly heavy and sensitive, felt flagrantly conspicuous. For a hurtling moment she imagined him touching her breast again, and imagined her allowing it.

She pulled away, intending to flee, refusing to look at his face that, once terrifying, now was stealing the strength from her legs, causing her heart to thrum like thunder, her ability to breathe vaporizing like the smoke rising from the oil lamp hissing on the piano. A vision of his reaching out and cupping her breasts in both of his hands distracted her momentarily from her own acute discomfiture, and she could do little but stand rooted before him, watching those strangely burning eyes moving over her, and knowing she should be doing something to cover herself, but shamelessly doing nothing.

Suddenly she felt herself blushing, hideously embarrassed.

Turning away, she ran toward the door, her foot knocking aside the forgotten candle that had long since sputtered out and lay in a pool of its own warm wax.

"Wait," he called behind her, and the tenor of his deep voice resonated like the stroke of the felted hammer upon the piano wire. Clutching the closure of her nightdress, she looked back swiftly, long enough to acknowledge him sitting in the pool of gold lamplight,
no
longer the beast, nor the tyrant, nor the invalid.
Simply . . . the man.

She fled to her room.

She awakened the next morning with the sweet melody of piano music still floating through her mind, with the image of Salterdon's unfathomable gray eyes smiling at her, with the warm feeling of his hands pressing into her back. For an hour, she lay in her bed, suspended in an odd sort of
pleasure,
as if the soft mattress beneath her were little more than clouds and the mural of St. Peter above her was, literally, heaven on earth.

He—the Duke of Salterdon—had actually smiled, and, oh, what a fascinating and awe-inspiring transformation it had been! The choir of thrill that had surged up inside her at that very instant had resonated like a thousand harmonious tones sounding together.

At breakfast, she perched on the edge of her chair and watched her master manage his breakfast with little problem. He poured his own tea and cut his own meat. They even staggered through a brief conversation, with

her
trilling like a bird and him rumbling like imminent thunder:

"Good morning,
Your
Grace!"

"Morning, Miss Ashton."

"Isn't it a wonderful morning, Your Grace?"

"If it pleases you to think so, Miss Ashton."
(With a touch of his old sarcastic drawl.)

Obviously his disposition was still sadly lacking. She had not managed to coerce a solitary smile, or even a smirk from his handsome?—oh, my, now she was considering his lips attractive!—the entirety of breakfast but she was certain that even his good humor would rally in time. No doubt the gloriously positive turn of events had left him feeling somewhat overwhelmed.

In truth, the entire exhilarating experience the evening before had left her . . . dizzy. There simply was no other way to describe the incredible sense of lightness that seemed to lift her.

When learning of the sudden turn of events, Gertrude wept with pleasure, danced up and down with Maria until the two of them collapsed in a fit of laughter.

"'Twas the most incredible moment of my life!"
Maria confessed as, spinning on her toes, she hugged herself. "He smiled at me,
Gerti
, he actually smiled.
And held my hand!"
Holding her hand up before her, she gazed at it as if it had suddenly turned into gold.

Gertrude watched, eyes round and little teeth biting her lower lip.

"His music—oh, his music—I have heard a thousand choirs sing and not one of them could compare to the heavenly sounds roused by his magnificent hands.

Oh, but his hands
are
incredible. Wouldn't you agree,
Gerti
? Has he not beautiful hands?"

Gertrude nodded, and her eyes grew rounder.

"And when he smiled."
She spun again and laughed, grabbed the bedpost for support and sank against it.
"'Twas radiant.
Transforming.
I was . . . mesmerized." She sighed and her eyes grew drowsy.
"When he spoke to me my very being trembled as if with thunder.
My every nerve seemed to vibrate. I couldn't breathe. I felt as
if . . .
I would faint. Yes, as if I would faint."

"Oh my."
Gertrude pursed her lips. Her brows drew together.

"His voice," Maria mused, "is dark blue velvet.
Rich and deep and soft.
Deeper, I think, than his brother's. I felt . . . impassionedly jarred to the very marrow of my being."

"Oh
lud
," Gertrude muttered and clasped her hands together.

"Forgive me if I act the ninny. No doubt these emotions are not unlike that which a mother feels upon seeing her infant manage his first step at last. Months of training, of waiting in anticipation and then . . .

"In truth,
Gerti
"—she laughed lightly, if not tightly, and hooked her arm around the bedpost "I often suspected that such a triumph would spring from here." She pressed her fist to her heart. "And it did. It does, only, from here as well."
Her stomach.
"And here."
Her throat.
"My entire body feels as if it wants to fragment and scatter like sparks in a whirlwind!"

With one raised eyebrow, Gertrude moved toward

Salterdon's
door and asked, "And how do
ya
imagine
he
feels 'bout all this, lass?" She pushed the door ajar and peered in.

Maria danced up behind her; they gazed secretly into the room, finding Salterdon dressed and sitting in a winged-back chair before the crackling fire, an open book in his lap. Fie.
however
, stared into the flames, his features far less hostile, but remote.

"Isn't he remarkable?" Maria whispered. "Is he not grand?
Handsome?
Distinguished? Oh,
Gerti
, is he not the most incredible man you've ever seen?"

"We
are
talkin
' 'bout the Duke of Salterdon, right? The same man
ya
was
callin
' a beast, incorrigible, and detestable just yesterday
evenin
'?"

"I was blind then. Now I'm . . . I'm . . ."

"I got
a disturbin'
idea wot
ya
are," the servant muttered under her breath, and shook her head. "God help
ya
,
love, if I'm right."