Wicked in Your Arms (Forgotten Princesses #1)(21)

“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.