Page 17 of Caught by the Forbidden Duke
“Usually,” she agreed. “What sort of stories do you like best?”
He thought about this with the same gravity he gave to each new note. “Ones about animals.” He pressed E and held it. “Miss Hartley reads me one about a fox. He’s clever. He tricks everyone.” He moved to G. “I like that.”
“Do you consider yourself clever?”
He sat with the question for a moment. “Sometimes,” he said.
Annabelle found this a more honest answer than most adults managed. She was about to introduce F sharp when the door, which she had not latched, pushed open slowly.
Newton, Elinor’s cat, came in at a stroll.
“Oh, there you are,” Annabelle smiled at the animal.
Newton crossed the floor without haste, conducting his inspection of the room with the unhurried authority of an animal who had never once been unwelcome anywhere, and arrived at the piano bench. He looked up at James.
James looked down at Newton. The cat put both front paws on the edge of the bench and stepped, without invitation, into James’s lap. The purring began almost at once: low and sustained, the sound of an animal entirely satisfied with its own decision.
James went very still. His hands came to Newton’s sides with care, as though he were handling something fragile he didn’t think he had permission to hold. Newton pushed his head into James’s chest and increased the volume of his purring.
“That,” Annabelle said, “is Newton.”
James looked at her. “Why is he called Newton?”
Annabelle grinned, leaning back as she thought about it. “My sister-in-law named him. She has a fondness for sciences,” she explained with a fond gleam in her eye.
James looked back down at the cat. Newton settled deeper into his lap and closed his eyes.
“He’s very loud,” James said.
“That means he’s happy. Do you want to pet him?”
James nodded, then stroked him once, from the crown of his head to the base of his back, and Newton’s purring increased by several degrees. James looked at Annabelle with bright eyes.
“Annabelle,” he said.
“Yes?”
“I think Newton is the best cat.”
“I will tell Elinor you said so,” she said. “She will be extremely pleased.”
He looked back down at Newton with the settled satisfaction of someone who had formed a correct opinion and was at peace with it. Then, without moving the cat, he reached for the keys with his right hand and played the five-note run: C, D, E, G, E.
Newton did not move.
James played it again.
They continued the lesson, adding F sharp and beginning a longer sequence that James approached with steady, unhurried patience. He made errors and corrected them on his own before she could indicate anything. Newton slept in his lap throughout, rising and falling with each breath, his purring a low and constant thread beneath the notes.
At twelve, Annabelle said, “We’ll stop there.”
James looked at her. “Thursday?”
“Thursday. Same time.”
He nodded and sat for a moment with his hands loose in his lap, Newton still warm and settled against him. He stroked the cat once more, then looked at the keys.
“Can I learn a real song?” he asked. “Not just notes.”
