A Passion for Pleasure(3)
“We’ve permission to bring in our equipment,” she replied. “We must start to assemble Millicent and her harpsichord. And I’m not alone. My uncle’s assistant, Tom, is just outside unloading the remaining crates.” She glanced behind him to the piano resting beside the stage. “Are you rehearsing for a performance at the ball?”
His jaw tensed. Six months ago, he might have been here in rehearsal. Now he was here to ensure the safe delivery and tuning of his Broadwood piano, which he had offered for the Society of Musicians’ indefinite use. Were it not for the fact that the Rossmores were friends of his father, Sebastian would have spent next Saturday evening wreathed in the smoke and noise of the Eagle Tavern.
“I will be at the ball,” he said, “but not performing.”
“Oh.” Clara Whitmore looked faintly confused. “Well, I do apologize for the interruption. I didn’t even know that anyone else would be here. Once Millicent is assembled, we’ll leave you to your work.”
Work. The piano was all the evidence she needed to assume he’d been working.
He was about to respond with a sharp tone—though he had no idea what he’d say—when a needle of rational thought pierced the fog in his brain.
At the very least, he needed to be civil to Clara Whitmore if he wanted to learn more about her uncle’s projects.
Or perhaps he should be more than civil. Women had always responded to his attentions. Even if now those attentions were corroded with neglect, Miss Whitmore didn’t appear the sort who had much to judge them—or him—by.
The thought that she might possess no touchstone by which to judge him was strangely liberating.
“Would you care for a currant muffin?” She opened the basket. “I thought I’d better bring something to eat since I don’t know how long Tom and I will be here. We’re not quite as adept at assembling Millicent as Uncle Granville is, especially when it comes to the machinery contained within the harpsichord bench. I’ve also got apples and shortbread, as well as a bit of seed cake left over from tea…”
She kept talking. He stopped listening.
Instead he stared at the curve of her cheek, the graceful slope of her neck revealed by her half-turned head. He watched the movement of her lips—a lovely, full mouth she had—and the way her thick eyelashes swept like feathers to her cheekbones.
She looked up to find him watching her. The hint of a flush spread across her pale skin. With a sudden desire to see that flush darken, Sebastian let his gaze wander from her slender throat down across the curves of her body, her tapered waist, the flare of her hips beneath her full skirt. Then he followed the path back to her face.
There. Color bloomed on her cheeks. Her teeth sank into her lush lower lip. Consternation glinted in her violet eyes. He wondered what she’d look like with her hair unpinned, if it would be long and tangled and thick.
“I…er, I should carry on with my work,” Clara went on, ducking her head. “Tom will be in directly, and there’s a great deal to do. Please, take a muffin, if you’d like.”
Sebastian rolled his shoulders back. A cracking noise split through his neck as he stretched. He realized for the first time that day he’d almost forgotten the headache pressing against his skull.
“Thank you.” Again he experienced that wicked urge to provoke a reaction. “I’m not hungry. Not for food.”
Her lips parted on a silent little gasp, as if she wasn’t certain whether to be offended by his indecorous tone or to ignore it altogether. Expressing offense, of course, meant she’d have to reveal that she had recognized the implications of his words.
She gave a nonchalant shrug and shifted, then held Millicent’s head out to him. “If you please, sir—”
“I please, Miss Whitmore.” His voice dropped an octave. “Often and well.”
He was drunk. Or recently had been.
That didn’t explain why Clara’s heart beat like an overwound clock, or why the rough undercurrent of Mr. Hall’s words heated her skin, but at least it explained him.
She tried to breathe evenly. Although ten years had passed since she had last seen him, she recalled with striking clarity the way his presence had made her pulse quicken. She remembered him leaning over her shoulder as he demonstrated the position of his fingers on the piano keys. She remembered the assured tone of his voice as he spoke of quarter notes and major scales…but he’d been distant then, a brilliant pianist, a dashing young man who already attracted beautiful women, who would one day perform for kings and emperors.