Once Upon a Tower (8 page)

Twelve

E
die prepared for bed in something of a dreamlike state. She bathed and put on a nightdress and a wrapper, then sat on a stool as Mary took the pins from her hair and brushed it out.

Gowan was such an odd mixture: grave and intense, with just the faintest strain of sardonic humor. His heart was true. But he was a complex man who, in her estimation, revealed almost nothing to anyone.

“Would you like to slip into bed now, my lady?” Mary asked.

“Not just yet,” Edie said, smiling at her. “I must practice first. Thank you; that will be all.”

After Mary slipped away, Edie took her cello from its stand by the wall and began to tighten the bridge. Even weary as she now was, she had to play for at least an hour. Tomorrow, the day of the wedding, would be entirely lost.

Years ago, when she had begun to refuse to travel without her cello, her father had had a special case constructed, padded and lined in velvet, a near duplicate of his own. Now their instruments traveled in a separate carriage, their protective cases so heavy that they needed two grooms to carry them between house and vehicle.

She began with Vivaldi. The “Winter” section wasn’t going well. A half hour later, she was working hard on her bowing, playing two phrases again and again until she was satisfied.

With that, she started again from the beginning, intending to play the piece all the way through before allowing herself to retire at last. She was concentrating so hard on her music that she started when a sudden gust from the French door leading to her balcony ruffled her score and blew a few pages to the floor. Her fingers slipped, and with a muttered curse she started over.

She didn’t need the score by now: the music swept through her mind a half note ahead of her bowing. The notes slid like water from her cello.

A breeze stirred the pages again, but this time her concentration didn’t break. She was almost at the end when the door to the corridor opened without notice. She jerked her head up with a scowl. Mary knew just how much she hated to be interrupted during practice.

But it wasn’t Mary; it was her father, carrying his cello. His face was drawn, his eyes dark.

She lifted the bow from the strings and nodded to the chair on the other side of the fire, near the window. As he carried his instrument across the room, she tugged at her gown so it covered her legs again. Because she often played before bedtime, all her nightdresses were made with a very high slit, which freed her legs while allowing her to be decently covered.

Her father understood the limitations of playing sideways. No serious cellist could tolerate the restriction of her arm movement.

Now he sat down and drew his bow across the strings, tuning his instrument to hers.

“The new arrangement of Bach’s Italian Concerto?” she suggested. Playing duets was the heart of their relationship. From the time she was a very small girl, she treasured his evening visits to the nursery. She had begun working hard at music in order to earn a smile from him . . . but she kept working once it got into her blood.

The earl was never very good at demonstrations of affection. But he had come to the nursery every single evening, without fail, and had taught her to play. The time had come when there was nothing left to teach her, but still they practiced together.

He nodded now in silent agreement to the Bach. They drew their bows at the same moment, having played together for so long that they followed each other without conscious thought. The piece she had suggested was powerful and rich, the notes deep and nearly sobbing from their strings.

She played the counterpoint, her notes dancing around his, picking up the severe bass line, blending it with the melody, weaving a strand of sunlight into midnight. Her father sat facing her, his expression a mix of joy and fierce concentration.

Halfway through, the wind stirred again and she glanced up. Her bow nearly faltered even as the arrangement sent her notes soaring above her father’s strong bowing. His utter absorption was fortunate, because to her complete astonishment, Gowan was standing just outside the open French door behind her father, on the balcony.

Her left hand flew up and down the fingerboard automatically as she stared at the Duke of Kinross. Then her father lifted his bow and the music stopped abruptly, leaving her notes to fall into the air like thin versions of what they should be. Had he heard something? She lifted her bow as well, scarcely breathing.

“
Da capo
?” he said. To her relief, there was no suspicion in her father’s voice, merely an acknowledgment that she was no longer
in
the music. Little wonder: it was impossible to maintain the intense concentration needed for a piece like this when one’s fiancé materializes like a Scottish specter on a tiny balcony, twenty feet above the ground, outside one’s bedroom. How on earth had he got there?

If her father were to turn around . . .

The vain part of her wanted Gowan to believe she was a sensuous woman whose crimson lip color advertised her inner self. She twitched her nightdress and it fell open, exposing her left leg. Her father would never notice; no musician looked at another while playing. Indeed, he often closed his eyes while he played.

“Yes,” she replied. “Or rather,
no
; instead, let’s play the Largo from Vivaldi’s Concerto in G Major. I was working on Melchett’s cello arrangement earlier.”

“Do you need the score?”

“No. I worked on it quite a lot in the month before I became ill. I’ve been playing the second cello, if you would take the first.”

Her father nodded. “Remember the lyricism in the music, Edie. Last time, you were concentrating too much on the fingering and not listening to what the music meant.” The weariness had fallen from his voice.

Reassured that her father was oblivious to Gowan’s presence on her balcony, Edie relaxed a bit and let herself glance at the duke again. He was still leaning there, silent, outlined against the sky. The feeling she had for him was so odd.

Meeting his eyes, seeing a glint in them that was surely lent by the devil . . . she felt as great a pull inside her heart and body as she had upon hearing the cello for the first time.

Her father bent his head and repositioned his bow. Edie drew her bow long and slow in the first section, and fell into the music.

She wanted Gowan to understand this passion of hers, to see that it wasn’t a mere pastime. So she pushed him out of her mind, and moved back into the music with the weight of years of experience behind her, her bow now playing an elegant flurry of notes above her father’s melody, now providing a stately counterpoint.

Slowly the music swelled around them, taking the air and distilling it into sounds so sweet that they were emotions become audible. Her body swayed in unison with her bowing. They neared the most difficult part of the piece. Edie bent her head, making absolutely certain that her fingers leapt flawlessly from note to note.

She did not stumble. Her bowing had never been better. Her father didn’t look at her, but with a musician’s perception she knew there was the deep joy spreading through his body. His taut despair was gone now as he breathed music, created music. The last measures were slow breaths, music and air winding together.

As the final note floated across the evening air, her father at last raised his head. Edie twitched her gown so it fell back over her leg, while keeping her eyes from straying to the balcony behind him.

“You were right,” he said, rising. “You have indeed learned the piece.” That was high praise.

Edie smiled at him. They were often at odds, but she loved him deeply. And under all his stiff demeanor she knew he loved her. “Thank you,” she said softly. “Good night, Father.”

He inclined his head, one musician paying respect to another. “Daughter. Good night.”

He collected his instrument, crossed the room, and left without another word.

Edie closed the door behind him and turned. Gowan had melted into the darkness. She could just see him, silhouetted against the starry sky. Rather than move toward him, she leaned back against the door and, like a wanton, let her leg slip through her nightdress. “Your Grace,” she said. “I am surprised to have a visitor at this hour of night.”

Gowan moved into the room. “I, too, am surprised.”

“What surprises you?” She remained where she was, willing him to come to her. Music exhilarated Edie; she had always known that. But she had never realized that it could drive a deeper intoxication, singing in her veins. This new, deeper one made her want to play the man before her like an instrument. Or let him play her . . . she wasn’t certain. It was an unfamiliar kind of madness, but just as all-encompassing.

Like the blood in her body, like the music in her soul.

Madness.

“Your father says that you rival the greatest player in all England.”

“He’s my father. He exaggerates.”

“I gather from what I heard tonight that he himself is one of the great players as well.” He had cut in half the distance between them.

“That’s true.” A thrilling sense of power was flowing through Edie’s veins. It was the feeling of a woman’s power, something she had never bothered to learn about. No wonder Layla flirted with other men . . .

Gowan frowned. “There is no one who plays the cello in all Scotland, I should think.”

“Hmmm.” Edie didn’t care. She enjoyed playing with her father, but she also loved playing solo, and happily did so for hours at a time. “How on earth did you reach my balcony?”

“I climbed. I thought to play Romeo to your Juliet and call you outside, but when I heard you playing I was drawn up, as if by music from a fairy mound.”

“A fairy mound? What is that?”

“In Scotland music leaks on occasion from the land of the fairies, which is located under a grassy hillock.” He came a few steps closer.

Edie smiled at him. She did not move. “So I lured you, as if ’twas magic from my strings?”

“Yes.”

“We were playing a Vivaldi concerto.”

He was silent a moment. “There is a great deal I do not know of music, my lady.”

“So I gather, if you had never heard of a cello.”

“In truth, I have never heard of a woman musician. Singers, yes. And certainly ladies play the pianoforte.”

Edie nodded, at peace with that. Public performance had never been a dream of hers. “I do not wish to play for an audience. Though I rather liked having one this night.”

“Will you play for me again?”

“Of course.”

He came closer still, close enough that his breath stirred the tiny curls on her forehead. “I arrived before your father entered the room.”

That look in his eyes . . . Hot color flooded Edie’s cheeks.

“You, playing a cello, is the most erotic thing I ever saw in my life,” he whispered. Then his mouth closed over hers.

H
er first kiss.

His lips were sweet on hers, tender somehow, even though they hardly knew each other. Yet it was possible he knew her better than anyone else.

H
is first kiss.

Her lips were like the sweetness at the heart of a honeysuckle blossom. For a second Gowan couldn’t believe that he was actually kissing her. Their lips brushed together once, twice . . . his tongue dipped inside her mouth.

She opened her lips to his with a surprised little sound. He leaned closer, bracing his forearms on the door. Their tongues tangled for a moment, then Gowan kissed her eyes and her cheeks and then, powerless to resist, returned to her mouth. They kissed until Gowan’s head was filled with images of Edie’s pale legs twisted with his, her body arched on the bed, a cry bursting from her throat . . .

No.

He would not dishonor his bride-to-be, no matter the fact that she had her arms wound around his neck and was kissing him feverishly, her tongue as bold and sensual as his.

No matter the fact that her slender fingers were playing in his hair, leaving little tingling reminders of her touch.

No matter that his heart was pounding as hard as hers. He could feel it through the insubstantial fabric of her nightdress, just as he could feel her breasts, soft and tremulous against his chest.

He turned his head away, hearing his own breath coming harsh from his chest. She murmured something and her lips skated across his jaw. He felt her lips touch his ear; a groan escaped his mouth.

“We cannot do this,” he whispered, putting his forehead against the cool wood of the door. “We must not.”

“Gowan,” she breathed, and Lord help him, her hands slid from his neck and down his chest.

“Edie. I will not dishonor you. My bride. My duchess.”

Her eyes were slightly glazed, her mouth pouty with his kisses. But she cocked her head, that formidable intelligence of hers snapping into place almost audibly. “How honorable of you.”

They stared at each other. She was a sonnet sprung to full life, but none of that mattered.

The little lopsided smile she had, with the kiss that she had never given to anyone,
that
was what caught his heart and put the groan in his throat.

“I must go back down the ladder,” he said hoarsely.

Her smile strengthened. “I find myself very glad to be marrying you, Duke.”

“I’m very happy to hear it, lass. In the circumstances.” He couldn’t help touching her, curving his hand around her neck and bringing her mouth to his again.

“I don’t believe that this is customary among—among the nobility,” she said with a little gasp, a while later.

Gowan shook his head. He couldn’t bring to mind a pairing that had erupted like theirs, in a burst of flame. He cupped her face in his hands. “We must be certain,” he said, the words growling out like a vow, “that we are not
quick bright things
that come to naught.”

Edie’s hands came over his. “I feel as if I should engage a governess and bring her along with me to Scotland. Was that Shakespeare again?”

He nodded.

“I never did like poetry all that much,” she said, turning her face so that she kissed his palm. “Although you might be able to change my mind.”