An Affair by the Sea, page 9
Her eyes brightened. “Uncle is abed during those hours, and Dorcas and Portia will be taking their dips in the sea. It’s perfect.”
His chest lightened. “Would you like me to meet you here tomorrow?”
She bit her lip. “I would actually love a moment alone with the piano, if you don’t mind. It’s been too long, and I’ve missed it so. Besides, there’s no practical reason for us to be alone together, if the purpose of our imaginary betrothal is to convince others that we are courting without actually compromising ourselves.”
Ah, yes. Their fake courtship. John should not allow himself to get carried away.
“But,” she added shyly. “I might be found at the promenade later in the day. If you should happen to take your constitutional at around the same time…”
“I shall contrive to do so.” He held out his hand. “May I escort you to your cousins?”
She winced. “I think you’d better. They really do need to be chaperoned. After the stories I’ve filled their heads with, there’s no telling how many gentlemen are in dire need of rescue.”
CHAPTER 10
The next morning, twice as many flowers arrived at the Townsends’ rented apartment. Half for Portia from her Mr. Mayhew, and half for Dorcas, who now had a suitor of her own.
“The legend is true!” Portia grabbed her sister’s hands and danced her around the parlor. “To find love, one need only spend the night at Siren’s Retreat with an open heart!”
Dorcas tried in vain to extricate herself from the celebratory dance. “I have a skeptical heart. I was positively curmudgeonly to Mr. Voss.”
“Then perhaps your closed heart doesn’t matter half so much as his open mind,” Allegra said with a laugh. “If he likes your curmudgeonliness, what could make a better match than that?”
Dorcas thought this over. “I don’t have to turn myself into Portia to find a husband?”
“Is that what you thought?” Allegra pulled Dorcas from her exuberant sister. “Portia’s best match is ideal because he’s looking for a Portia. Your best match is ideal because he’s looking for a Dorcas. A perfect suitor longs for the woman you are, not who you aren’t.”
Mischievousness sparkled in her cousin’s hazel eyes. “I should unleash full Dorcasness upon him and see if he survives?”
“You’ll see your flowers double,” Portia promised with conviction. “We’re at Siren’s Retreat!”
“Allegra didn’t receive flowers,” Dorcas said.
“Allegra got something better than flowers. Her true love returned across the choppy and dangerous seas to sweep her away at last.”
“She’s still here,” Dorcas pointed out.
“As I wish to be,” Allegra interjected. “I told my darling captain I would not hear of sailing away until both of you are happily betrothed.”
Portia’s expression turned distraught. “You wouldn’t leave us before our weddings, would you?”
“Happily married,” Allegra corrected. “Now, have you everything you need for the bathing machines?”
“Molly must.” Portia reached for the bell pull, only for the maid to sweep into the parlor at just that moment with a large basket in her hands.
“Off you go, then.”
“Are you meeting Captain L’Amour for a torrid rendezvous?” Portia whispered.
“I am meeting the wooden bouquet he gave me.” Allegra wiggled her fingers. “In the form of a glorious pianoforte.”
“You’re right. He is perfect for you.” Dorcas looked at her, impressed. “No doubt he has thought of a way to anchor a piano to the music room on his pirate ship.”
Portia looped her arm through Allegra’s. “Let’s walk down the steps together, so that your good fortune can keep rubbing off on me.”
“And me.” Dorcas took Allegra’s other arm with hope in her hazel eyes.
When they reached the reception area, Allegra bade her charges a fine morning at the bathing machines. Out of habit, she reached for a newspaper on the guest table.
Once her fingers touched the broadsheet, however, she drew her hand back empty. For the first time since realizing she would never have a come-out, the thought of perusing the obituary column did not bring her comfort.
Instead of smug superiority knowing her name would never be listed as the devastated widow left behind after losing her beloved husband, she felt a vague sense of…loss. As if by avoiding tragedy, she might be missing out on something that could bring her joy.
Allegra shook the silly thought from her head. She had lived through unspeakable heartbreak. Grieved for the loss of her parents every day for almost two decades. That was more than enough anguish to prove that no love was worth the pain. Not when she could avoid reliving that agony by remaining a spinster. A happy and independent spinster. With a home of her own, a piano of her own, and two delightful cousins whose future children would reap plenty of spoiling.
“Is everything all right?”
Allegra jerked her gaze up from the pile of newspapers and smiled at the proprietress. “Oh, yes, Mrs. Cartwright, thank you. Everything is perfect.”
The proprietress returned Allegra’s smile. “I am delighted to hear it. If there is anything I can do for you, please let me know.”
“Oh, no, I have everything I… Might I visit the kitchen?”
Mrs. Cartwright blinked. “Servants are welcome to prepare meals for their employers at any time. I’ve never had a guest wish to tour the scullery, but if that is what you wish to do… You can find it down that corridor through the second door on your left.”
Given the patchwork dress Allegra was wearing, she was grateful the proprietress hadn’t assumed Allegra to be the servant sent to cook in the kitchen.
“Just wondering. Thank you.” A glance at the tall case clock indicated it was five minutes to seven. Allegra would have to hurry if she didn’t wish to miss out on a single moment of her allotted time with the rented piano.
When she entered the music room, she shut the door behind her and leaned against it, breathing in the sweet scent of solitude. For the next three hours, this room was hers. Within these walls, she had the complete freedom to play the pianoforte to her heart’s content. No uncle breathing down her neck, no endless list of tasks to toil at, no responsibilities at all until ten o’clock.
A blissful sense of peace filled her as she seated herself before the piano and allowed her fingers to play as they pleased. She became the music. With each note, tension eased from her shoulders until only contentment and tranquility remained.
This was the happiest Allegra could recall feeling since arriving in Brighton. She adored her cousins, and the crowded beach was beautiful, but sometimes what Allegra wanted most was a moment alone. A chance to just…be.
When she was seated before a piano, the rest of the world disappeared. The piano itself became hazy. Her fingers danced across the keys of their own free will, allowing Allegra to fly with the music. It was as though the pianoforte had been created just for her, allowing her to escape into another universe, no matter where she was.
Even when playing as accompanist at the Townsends’ balls, even when forced to play specific pieces in a specific order, she still managed to lose herself inside her head and imbue each note with a hint of her own personality.
But this—this! John would never understand what a glorious, precious gift he had given her. A holiday, every morning from seven to ten. A brief visit to heaven. She would soak up the music in her skin, in her pores, in her soul, and carry it with her for the rest of each day.
The only way it could be better would be when she had a pianoforte of her own. When she would not need the kindness of others to find her inner joy. When she could sleep as late as she wished, and play for hours before breaking her fast if it pleased her. Or if she awoke in the middle of the night with a new idea, a change in chord progression, a new melody, she could dash to her parlor in her nightrail if she liked, and allow the music to flow out from her dreams and into the piano, right then and there.
And people felt sorry for spinsters!
Allegra could not wait to come into her inheritance. She didn’t even need a parlor. Just a room big enough for a small bed and a large pianoforte. Unbothered, unhurried, uncomplicated. An independent woman of leisure, with no one begging her to take the reins of anything but her own life.
When she glanced up at the clock in the corner, she was startled to discover it was almost ten o’clock already. Even though he had promised he would not interrupt, she had half-expected John to peek in on her anyway.
That he had not done so warmed her heart to him all the more. He had not just given her the perfect gift—he’d allowed her to enjoy it, in whatever way she wished.
She had thanked him already, but he deserved an even bigger gesture. Unfortunately, it would have to wait. She could not call upon a gentleman’s private lodgings, if that was even where to find him. Mornings at Brighton were for bathing. The men’s beach was on the west side, but she couldn’t go there, either. Unlike women, most men bathed in the nude.
Mm, the thought of glimpsing John naked wasn’t bad at all. Her fingers paused over the keys. Despite the tales she’d told her cousins, Allegra had never had a love affair, torrid or otherwise. She was not opposed to filling her holiday with adventure of the illicit kind. Or at least a stolen kiss or two.
The door to the music room burst open. Dorcas and Portia tumbled inside.
“What on earth?”
“It’s ten after ten,” Portia said breathlessly. “Dorcas wouldn’t let me enter until your time was up.”
Oh. Her time was up.
Allegra forced her fingers to her lap and felt her relaxed muscles start to tighten again. “Am I to be reprimanded for overstaying my allotted time?”
Dorcas shook her head. “The room is free until half past ten. I asked. They said if another guest arrives before that, you’re to relinquish your seat, as you’ve had your turn.”
“Of course. I suppose it was time to wind up anyway.” But she ran a finger longingly above the ivories. “How was the beach?”
“Cold.” Dorcas shivered. “And salty.”
“Who cares about the beach?” Portia bounced over to the piano. “Aren’t you going to ask about Captain L’Amour?”
Allegra’s eyebrows rose with interest. “Do you know where he is?”
“In the tea room.” Portia clapped her hands. “Lurking suspiciously from every corner. He might be planning a mutiny.”
“He’s not going to sack a tea room,” Dorcas said in exasperation.
“You don’t know! Pirates are unpredictable. Perhaps he wishes to keep his looting and pillaging skills sharp whilst on holiday.”
“Of all the…” Dorcas muttered.
Allegra’s inner smile rose to her lips. Her pirate was every inch the gentleman. Nearby, in case she needed him, but out of the way, in the event she did not.
“Go get him,” she told her cousins impulsively. “We seem to have a few minutes before the next scheduled renter arrives.”
More importantly, Allegra had been longing to see him. Already her heart beat a little faster. Yesterday on the beach, he had seemed so close to stealing a kiss…
CHAPTER 11
It wasn’t until Allegra’s cousins had gone from the room that doubts began to assail her. She was an almost-thirty-year-old rag doll amidst a menagerie of fashionable young ladies. Did he see her as an object of pity?
Or the opposite: was the dwindling window of opportunity to claim her dowry the reason for his attentions?
Before she could decide which would be worse, footsteps sounded outside the open door. Her cousins had returned. She leapt to her feet and made a futile attempt to smooth the new wrinkles from her mismatched violet gown.
When John strode through the door, heat filled his stormy gray eyes upon sight of her. As though when he looked at her, he did not see an aging spinster in dowdy attire, but rather a dashing piratess fully capable of doing some plundering of her own—and him, the willing captive, eager to remand himself to her sensual custody.
He took her hand in his and brought it to his warm lips for a kiss, without ever dropping his gaze from hers. “Was the piano to your liking?”
“The what? Oh, the piano. Yes. Everything is very much…to my liking.”
He still hadn’t released her hand. Not that she wanted him to. Allegra wondered if the fifteen minutes that remained was enough time to progress from chaste-hand-kiss to bent-backwards-in-his-passionate-embrace.
“The music was lovely,” he said softly.
“You could hear it from the tea room?”
“Just barely. It was as though bits of your essence floated through the walls and into my body. My heart beat in time with your music, and my chest swelled with a slice of your joy.”
“I… That’s… the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me.” Allegra’s stomach fluttered at the idea that she was not simply pouring her emotions into her music, but also injecting a tiny part of her directly into his soul.
“Play him something else,” Portia blurted out in excitement. “Play the game!”
John’s brows rose. “The game?”
Allegra slipped her hand from his with reluctance and reseated herself on the bench before the pianoforte. “Press any two keys and tell me a mood. I’ll start there.”
He looked at the piano doubtfully. “Any two keys?”
“Or more. It’s up to you.”
He hunched behind her, one strong arm reaching around from either side of her, as though preparing to envelop her in a warm hug. Instead, his fingers pressed two discordant keys. His lemon-scented breath tickled a tendril of hair by her cheek as he murmured, “Pining.”
“What did he say?” Portia called out. “We couldn’t hear it.”
“You’ll hear it when she plays it,” Dorcas admonished her sister.
John stepped aside, and Allegra let her fingers fly.
Pining. She was rapidly learning a thing or two about that emotion. The keys he’d chosen were perfect to set off a round of stumbling and bumbling and wanting and needing and backing away only to charge forward again with hope and joy and, no, more waiting, more infernal waiting, and wanting, and watching, and praying. Pining.
The last note hung in the music room as though suspended from a taut wire before fading back into the shadows.
Portia clapped her hands. “Was it ‘unrequited love’? It felt like unrequited love.”
“It was desire,” Dorcas said with confidence. “Desire that could absolutely be requited if the person doing the desiring wasn’t terrified of their dream becoming reality.”
John’s eyes met Allegra’s. “That is indeed what it feels like.”
His voice was too low for her cousins to hear, but still managed to slip beneath her bodice and wrap around her jittering heart.
“My turn!” Portia bounded over and pressed two keys. “Do…jealousy!”
Allegra tore her gaze from John’s and focused on the game, playing melody after melody, matching each mood upon request.
She and her cousins spent many a rainy afternoon engaged in just this manner back home in the Cotswolds. Just the three of them and a piano. They had never before shared this game with anyone else. Uncle would be appalled, and balls had strict expectations of what sort of musical accompaniment was to be provided.
If the day ever came that they were to be caught in the act of playing such a silly game, Allegra had expected to be… well, not embarrassed, exactly. She was proud of her music. It need not be classical or even danceable to have value in its own right. But she did not expect anyone else to understand, much less revel in it the way her cousins did.
John was turning her world upside down.
The problem was abundantly clear: She liked him. Even if he was only pretending to like her back—playing the smitten swain, just as they’d agreed he would do—he acted the part so well that when they parted ways, she would not need to feign a sense of loss at his departure.
She would turn it into music, of course, as she always did. She didn’t need people when she had a piano, and she had no interest in acquiring a new man to be master over her life. But for as long as the fake courtship lasted…she would allow herself to enjoy the charade.
“This way,” came a harried voice from the hallway. “The music room is right—oh! Do we have the wrong time?”
At the sight of a young governess with two small charges, Allegra leapt up from the bench at once. “Not at all. We were just leaving. Please come in, the room is yours.”
Portia and Dorcas stepped out of the way as well. They exchanged amused looks at the sight of two little girls wearing pinafores and eager smiles, trailing their governess to the pianoforte.
Nostalgia twisted in Allegra’s chest. That had been them, once. Well, it still was, obviously, here they were in a music room. But many years had passed since her wonderful cousins were waist-high. Soon, they would be married with children of their own. Who knew where in England they might reside, or how often Allegra would be able to see them.
She would have to pour that loss into her music, too.
When they stepped out into the corridor, John lifted his eyebrows at the ladies. “I was considering a walk along the beach. Would you care to join me?”
“Oh, of course you miss the ocean,” Portia said in sympathy. “You poor dear. It must be dreadful to spend so much time on dry land.”
Only Allegra’s cousins would deem a bloodthirsty pirate a poor dear.
“He’ll have to spend some time on land,” said Dorcas with obvious concern. “You promised you wouldn’t spirit Allegra away to the high seas for a decade at a time.”
“I will keep that promise,” John assured her.
“Then go on.” Portia made shooing motions at John and Allegra. “Take her to the edge of the sea to promenade all day…and all night…” This word was delivered with an utterly unsubtle wink. “Dorcas and I can mind ourselves.”
