In the Arms of an Earl Page 2

  He’d nearly dismissed Lucinda’s friend as another such girl until he looked again. The sparkle of tears glistened in her wide, hazel eyes. Her skin glowed with an inner fire, a rapture he realized he had caused. Mesmerized, he’d watched her long fingers dance across her knees in perfect imitation of the pianist, picking up the notes and measures until he could almost hear the symphony emerging from the folds of her dowdy skirt. He’d seen, too, the faded toes of her shoes peek from beneath her hem, tapping and keeping time.

  His days of introducing himself to an unmarried miss were long over. As a confirmed bachelor of thirty-four, Frederick did not foresee a wife and children in his future. But this girl was no potential spouse. In her, he’d found a vessel in which to pour his heart and soul. To reach the heart of another through his music was all he’d ever wanted. He had no other interest in her beyond music. He was perfectly content to retire to his extensive property in Shropshire, basking in the companionship of a few close friends and the comfortable loyalty of his tenants. The enthusiastic women he’d known in his youth were gone, a direct result of his returning scarred from battle. Female companionship of the sort his brother Henry, the fifth Earl of Falconbury, favored held no interest for him.

  He grimaced as a tremor shot through his left arm and ended in a fiery tingling sensation at the ends of his missing fingers. Repugnance, or worse, pity was the usual response of the ladies he’d met since the war. He normally eschewed attending even casual occasions such as this musicale, but the desire to hear his latest, and perhaps, finest piece played before a real audience had conquered his reticence.

  And the fact he could not play it himself was another reason.

  A spasm struck him. He squeezed his eyes shut, holding back a groan with gritted teeth while he waited for it to pass. Inevitably, the pain lessened as the pins and needles in his lower arm and hand—the hand no longer attached to his body—began.

  He massaged the stump through his carefully sewn cuff, but it brought no relief. He hadn’t expected it to. The expensive London physicians Henry had summoned told him the pains and tingling were a mere fancy conjured by his imagination. Besides, how could he feel pain in an appendage that was no longer there?

  He fumbled inside his coat and withdrew a slim silver flask. Grimacing, he held it between his knees while he pulled out the stopper. As he sipped, the sherry taste of laudanum slid down his tongue, filling him with an artificial heat.

  He put the flask away, noting it was nearly empty. He couldn’t remember when he’d last filled it but would have to make a request of his valet, Dixon, to procure more. He’d withstand Dixon’s inevitable disapproving silence, knowing the man would serve his needs despite his objection to his master’s choice of sedative. It was either laudanum, or he could douse his pain in hard liquor, which had killed his father.

  He scowled at the unbidden memory of his father. Quick to punish and miserly with praise for his sons, the late earl had governed his tenants and three boys with an iron hand. Frederick often wondered if their father’s brutality was why he and his brothers had no children. Henry and his wife, Alice, had tried for years with no luck; while his other brother Edwin had fled to the other side of the world to India, to minister to the poor.

  Frederick liked to think he would have been a good father, but over time, hopes of marriage and fatherhood had vanished. He required a compassionate woman for such an endeavor and no longer believed such a woman existed.

  Slowly, the drug worked its way through his body. The numbing effect was temporary, but by the time it wore off, he hoped to be knee deep in ale surrounded by the kind of men who didn’t notice a soldier’s injury. His mouth watered with anticipation of a drink, and he frowned at the sign of his need.

  The jostling carriage had a lulling effect on his spirits, bringing thoughts of more pleasant things. An image of a heart-shaped face wavered in his mind—a face with a shy smile and eyes slanted like a cat’s, golden brown shot through with shards of emerald. Lucinda’s friend, the intriguing little spinster. If only for an instant, he’d felt a connection with her.

  “There may be hope for you yet, Blakeney,” he muttered.

  Chapter Two

  “Hold your pose, Jane. I’ve almost finished your right arm,” Lucinda mumbled through the mouthful of paintbrushes dangling from her lips.

  Jane buried her discomfort. Today, she was Arachne at a loom. Yesterday, she’d been a garden fairy, her hair swarming with paper butterflies and birds. And tomorrow…Lucinda had hinted of wood nymphs and something to do with a costume “Papa will find less than modest, I’m afraid.”

  Her fingers skimmed the keyboard of her friend’s remarkable, and sadly neglected, pianoforte. She ached to play it and gazed longingly at the stacks of music on the ivory-inlaid cover. She hadn’t had much of a chance to play since coming to the Parkers’ house the month before. The only enjoyable outing they’d had was the musicale.

  Her cheeks burned at the thought. She could still picture the composer’s dark eyes, filled with humiliation and embarrassment at her unintentional slight.

  She shifted in her chair, and Lucinda scolded her for moving. Resigned, Jane imagined herself as the clever Arachne, who’d tricked a vain goddess. She didn’t feel particularly clever. In fact, she was tired and bored. Despite the Parkers’ friendliness, she longed to cut her visit short. Mamma would be disappointed as she’d hoped her luck in obtaining a husband might increase with a change of scenery.

  Her arm tingled in protest from holding the same position for several minutes. “How is it coming along?”

  “I am almost finished. I cannot seem to get the drape of your toga. Too bad you won’t put on a real one.”

  “I will not parade around in a bed sheet.” Jane craned her neck to see the painting, but Lucinda blocked it with her body.

  “Not yet, Jane, I beg you. You will be very pleased with it. Depending on how it turns out, I might make you a present of it.” Her brush was laden with dull, brown paint, and Jane knew Lucinda was starting on her hair.

  “Do you ever play this pianoforte?”

  Lucinda stared at the canvas, lost in thought. “Not very much. Hardly at all. I prefer art to music. Papa said I might go to the Continent next year, if he can persuade my Aunt Matilda to take me.”

  “What if you’re married by then?” Jane brushed her fingers lightly over the keys without making a sound.

  Lucinda laughed. “Married? Pooh! Wealthy girls needn’t marry unless they really want to. Besides, I do not understand all the fuss about marriage. Papa spoils me terribly, and if all bachelors are anything like Jeremy, I’d rather live with Papa the rest of my life.”

  Jane pressed the keys. Music drifted out of the pianoforte, easing some of her discomfort. She remembered the haunting tones of F.B.’s work and played a chord as softly as she could so Lucinda would not object.

  “Not all men are like your brother. My sisters married very respectable, kindly gentlemen.”

  Lucinda stared at Jane’s hair with a frown. She dabbed at the canvas again. “Your sisters are very fortunate, indeed.”

  Jane studied one of Lucinda’s paintings on the wall. Jeremy’s blue eyes stared back. Lucinda’s brush had captured the sardonic lift of the brow and the perpetual smirk on his lips. He’d ignored her when she’d first arrived but lately had been paying her the oddest compliments.

  “Surely, you’ve had suitors of your own,” Lucinda prodded. “I, myself, was proposed to. Well, almost proposed to—by the Earl of Warwick’s third cousin’s stepson.”

  Jane lifted her fingers from the keys. “Really? What happened?”

  “He was too young and had no prospects. Papa thought I should wait a while longer.”

  “That sounds like good advice.” She couldn’t see Colonel Parker ever desiring his only daughter to leave him.

  “Come now, Jane.” Lucinda pointed her paintbrush like an extension of her finger. “You must tell me of your own suitors.”

 
Jane pushed the tickling strands of hair from her cheek. Lucinda’s maid had dressed it in the fashion they imagined a Roman maiden would have worn. Jane wondered how Lucinda knew anything of ancient Rome, since she had yet to observe her with a book.

  “I do not wish to have suitors.” She pretended her single status was of her choosing and not due to lack of interest on the part of any bachelors. “My sisters were always occupied in the pursuit of husbands. I prefer to stay at home, and read, or play…” Her finger touched the keys again. A single note held and faded.

  “You prefer music over the attentions of a swain?”

  “My sisters suffered while waiting for their beaux to propose marriage. I would not desire the same despair. Sleepless nights…”

  “Whispers and sighs,” Lucinda interjected, and sighed herself.

  “Distracted to a fault.”

  “Focused on a pair of handsome eyes.”

  Jane turned abruptly away from Jeremy’s portrait. “Lack of appetite.”

  “Yes, but an appetite for something more desirable than food.” Lucinda giggled, while Jane retained her composure. Lucinda studied her for a second and then sniffed dismissively.

  “Mark my words, Jane. There’s a daring romantic hiding within your stern breast. How could there not be? All those books you’ve read must have bred something of the poet within you. Still waters run deep, Papa always says.”

  “Your papa is quite mistaken, I assure you.” Jane stretched, her back creaking in protest from the unnatural pose she’d been forced to hold. She ran her hands over her tightly corseted frame for some relief and opened her arms, flustered.

  “Look at me, Lucinda. I’m not a celebrated beauty like my sister Amelia or clever like Rosalind. I have mouse-colored hair. I am more comfortable at home than at a party or ball. Men do not like girls like me. Marriageable men, at least.”

  The old doctor in her village had always enjoyed her company, but she suspected it was for her lack of squeamishness over a new disease or accident victim than anything else. Other than he, she’d been ignored by the eligible bachelors in Weston, few though they were.

  “There is nothing wrong with your hair,” Lucinda said firmly. “Mice have lovely fur, if you get a good look at them. All soft and velvety brown. I should think most men would prefer a wife who remains at home. They do not have to spend all their money on a woman who would rather read than hire a new modiste every season.”

  “Not the men in Weston, I’m afraid.” Jane left the bench to examine the painting. Posed over an imaginary loom, her hands looked slender and white, not nail-bitten and stained with ink. Her figure was lithe and feminine, not boyish and lacking in curves.

  The crowning beauty was her hair, a glorious mane of richness hanging over her shoulders in voluptuous waves. Lucinda had painted in tiny strands of pearls, which echoed the dewdrops on the spider webs emerging from the loom, as if to pound into the observer the portrait depicted Arachne.

  “Except for the hair, it doesn’t look remotely like me, though it is lovely.”

  Lucinda dabbed a dot of pink on the canvas, transforming her from a bookworm into the rival of a jealous goddess.

  “It is quite you, Jane, I assure you. I would not be surprised if you received many proposals after this is shown at the Royal Academy.”

  Though it was improbable the painting would ever have an audience at the Academy, it was more unlikely she would receive a marriage proposal.

  “Marriage?” Jane shrugged. “We are of the same mind, Lucinda. Besides, I think gentlemen only want ladies who spend their days mooning after them. I would never lose a moment’s care over any gentleman. And young ladies who do are silly creatures.”

  Lucinda’s laugh tinkled like a bell. Jane had imitated it once, but a guttural bleat had come out of her mouth instead.

  “I quite agree with you, Jane. ’Tis a pity we cannot live in the same house together as cheerful old maids, and you can play all day whilst I paint.”

  “Why would anyone want to play the pianoforte all day?”

  Jane’s stomach fluttered at Jeremy’s entrance. She returned to the pianoforte and began picking out a tune.

  “Jane and I were discussing how silly it is to moon over a suitor rather than pursue more worthwhile hobbies.”

  Jeremy’s grin brightened the room, and Jane was sure he knew it. “Perhaps the pursuit of a husband is a worthwhile hobby.” He gave Jane such an inscrutable stare she lowered her gaze to the instrument again. He cleared his throat. “Miss Brooke, will you play for us tomorrow? Father’s having a guest, and Lucinda’s playing is dreadful.”

  “What about your playing, dear brother? You had Mr. Colton’s instruction when he was here last spring. You should provide the entertainment, and Jane and I will pretend to listen.”

  “I hardly paid any attention to shriveled up old Colton. Besides, our guest doesn’t like my playing. I play far better than he does, now.” His laughter sounded innocent, but Jane glimpsed the cruel twist of his mouth.

  Lucinda jabbed the end of her brush at him, but he dodged her, walking instead to where Jane sat. He took the sheet of music off the rack in front of her.

  “Herr Haydn will do. Practice the rest of the day, and you should impress Blakeney. I should have played more as a boy, but I’d much rather ride. Do you ride at all, Miss Brooke?”

  “I…no, I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Colonel B. is coming?” Lucinda interrupted. Her eyes widened. “Ooh, Jane—take care you play your very best. Father’s friend is a celebrated musician. I’ve always refused to play when he’s here, for fear he shall show me up with remarks and instruction.”

  Jeremy laughed again. “You mean he was a great musician. Can’t play much anymore, can he?”

  Lucinda frowned, and then giggled. “You should not say such things, Jeremy. Oh, Jane, are not men impossible?”

  Jane stole a glance at him from under her lashes. Thick, golden hair, like his sister’s, curled gently over his perfect ears. She’d never seen a more comely gentleman, for as much as she adored her sisters’ husbands. But their presence did not cause butterflies to wobble around inside her stomach.

  “Impossible, indeed,” she replied, although she could not fathom why a man should be more or less impossible than a woman.

  Jeremy tossed the music aside, and Jane slapped her hand on the papers before they scattered to the floor. “Miss Brooke, you have nothing to fear from stodgy old Blakeney. Your playing isn’t half as bad as Lucy’s. Besides, we’ve no other entertainment at home. Edinburgh will be a refreshing change after all the dullness around here.”

  “Jeremy’s going into the law,” Lucinda explained.

  He snorted. “As if I have a choice, Lucy. Father’s ultimatum was either the law or soldiering. We’ve seen how soldiering turned out for Father and Blakeney. No, thank you.” He sauntered out the door, his hands in his pockets and whistling under his breath.

  Jane hid her dismay at Jeremy’s behavior. Her father would have put a stop to such antics, but the widowed Colonel Parker was nothing if not an indulgent father. She turned to Lucinda. “Your father’s guest is a talented musician?”

  “Talent does not apply in this case. Papa always said if Colonel B. had not gone into the regiment, he might have known great success as a musician. It’s very sad, really. He lost his heart to one of the season’s beauties last year, but she spurned him because of his hand.”

  “What’s wrong with his hand?”

  “Why, he lost his hand in the war, and no one will have him. Mind you, if he were the firstborn son, no one should mind if he had three hands. Papa always says…”

  Jane paid no attention to what Papa always said. Her heart pounded as if she’d walked a mile. Colonel Parker’s guest sounded identical to the composer she’d so admired and accidentally insulted. It was not possible. Flustered, she clung to Lucinda’s words. “Who was the lady?”

  “Susanna Olivier. I think Jeremy knows her. He knows ever
yone in town. We can ask him later.” Lucinda had plainly grown tired of the subject. “I do hope you’ll permit me to plait your hair. It will be wavy tomorrow, when I paint you as Aphrodite. You did promise you’d sit for me again.” Lucinda frowned. “Jane? Are you quite all right? You look as if someone just walked over your grave.”

  Jane forced a wan smile. “I am well. I was only wondering…” She pretended to peruse the sheet music on the pianoforte. “Was your father’s friend—was Colonel Blakeney at the musicale today? There was a composer, F.B.—”

  Lucinda pursed her lips. “I should think not. He hasn’t written a thing in years. Besides, he would have said hello, and I did not see him.”

  Jane wanted to suggest Lucinda had been too busy gossiping with her friends to notice anything else, but pushed her worries aside. After all, the initials F.B. were not so uncommon. “How tragic this Miss Olivier rebuffed the colonel.” Surely, the colonel and the composer were not the same man. Only her lingering embarrassment caused her to worry.

  “I do not see what all the fuss is about. Love is a very curious thing, and I, for one, do not care to look for it.” Lucinda gave a little giggle. “Unless he was as wealthy as Croesus.”

  “I would never marry for wealth.” A memory of the composer’s pained expression resurged. Jane gave herself a little shake. They could be the same person. Only a man suffering from a broken heart could compose such beautiful music. Perhaps he’d written The Symphony of the Sea as a tribute to his lost love.

  “You would marry for love, Jane? I mistook you for a pragmatist.”

  “I shouldn’t marry at all, I suppose.” Lucinda appeared amused by her statement, and Jane hastily reached for her tea. The cup clattered on the saucer, spilling some of its contents.