Page 111 of Caught by the Forbidden Duke
“The second phrase, the difficult bar. You found it.”
James received this. “I practiced that bar the most. I always make that error.”
“You didn’t tonight.”
He weighed it. Then, “Annabelle said the error is part of the piece. That the composer wrote it hard there and everyone makes it and what matters is that you find it and go on.” He looked at his shoes, then up. “I think she meant that to be reassuring.”
“Was it?”
“Not when she first said it.” A pause. “Yes now.”
He looked at Dominic with his steady, direct look. “I think it is a true statement,” he said, “about more than the piece. I will need to think further about what it means exactly.”
“Take the time,” Dominic said.
Lady Rosenhall went to James at once and lowered herself to his level with the ease of a woman who had raised children and knew the angle mattered.
“You played very correctly,” she said. “The second phrase is the hardest part. You managed it.”
“I practiced it the most,” James said.
“That is how it is generally done,” Lady Rosenhall said. She straightened and addressed the general air: “He has an excellent ear.”
Miles reached Dominic’s elbow. He was not entirely composed. He cleared his throat twice. “He is extraordinary,” he said, and then stopped. He looked at Dominic. “You’ve built something here.” He put a hand on Dominic’s shoulder and held it, and did not clear his throat a third time. “I want you to know I can see it from here.”
Dominic said nothing. He watched Annabelle lean down and say something into James’s ear, and James nod once: small, full, satisfied.
From across the room, he saw Annabelle touch Lucien’s arm. Lucien turned, and she said something close to his ear, and Lucien went still.
Dominic had been watching for it. He had been watching for it all evening.
Lucien looked at his sister for a long moment. His face did several things, quickly, without managing any of them. Then he put both arms around her.
Annabelle’s head went to his shoulder. Her eyes came to Dominic across the room. She was smiling, and her eyes were bright in the way they went when something was too large to hold without showing at the edges.
He crossed the room.
Lucien stepped back from Annabelle and looked at him. Then he took Dominic’s hand and held it with the full force of it.
“Well,” Lucien said. His voice was not level. “Well.”
“Yes,” Dominic said.
Lucien put his free arm around Dominic’s shoulder once—briefly, firmly—and let go. “When?” he said.
“Spring,” Annabelle said. “March or April.”
Lucien exhaled. He looked at his sister and then at Dominic and pressed his lips together.
“Come,” he said. “I need to find Elinor.”
They found Elinor near the mantelpiece. She looked at Lucien’s face first as they approached, and then at Annabelle, and she was already moving forward before anyone had spoken.
She took Annabelle’s hands in both of hers. “Oh, Annabelle,” she said quietly.
They were talking in the way that required no outside assistance, and Dominic stood beside Lucien and let them have it. Lucien looked at him.
“Spring,” Lucien said again, as though the word required a second hearing.
