Page 5 of Caught by the Forbidden Duke
He was simply playing.
He looked up at her and smiled, small and real, and it reached the corners of his eyes. Annabelle couldn’t help but smile back; the child was just too precious to deny.
Then, in that moment, the door opened.
“James?”
The Duke of Silverford filled the frame: tall, broad, in evening clothes that fitted him with the ease of long habit. His fair hairwas in some disorder, and he was breathing harder than a man who had simply walked from a ballroom should be. His eyes went directly to the boy and stayed there, and the expression on his face was frazzled, to say the least.
His eyes, blazing as they were, went to James first, and he exhaled through his nose.
“Where,” he said, “have you been?”
Chapter Two
“Come here, James.”
The boy’s hands came off the keys. His shoulders drew up toward his ears, and his chin dropped, and he did not look at the doorway.
Annabelle rose from the bench. “We were only practicing, Your Grace,” she said. “A few notes. He’s been no trouble at all.”
He looked at her for the length of time it took to register her presence, then looked back at James.
She had spoken to the Duke of Silverford four times in total, all of them at Lucien’s elbow, all of them brief and impersonal in the way of people who shared a mutual acquaintance and nothing more. He was Lucien’s best friend. She had formed no strong impression beyond that and had not sought one.
She had heard about the boy from Helena some weeks ago. The Duke’s cousin and his wife, a carriage in bad weather, a six-year-old left with no one. He had gone to Silverford House.
Poor thing.
“James.” The Duke moved further into the room. “Come to my side.”
But James did not move. He pressed C, the first note she had shown him, and let it ring.
“James.” There was a hard-edged warning in the Duke’s voice.
“I want to stay here,” James finally said.
“Your Grace—” Annabelle began.
“Lady Annabelle.” He said her name without looking at her.
She kept on regardless. “He’s behaved perfectly. I could stay with him until he’s ready to come back downstairs. It would be no trouble at all.”
“That will not be necessary.” He addressed James directly, his voice measured and final. “You will come back to the ballroom with me now.”
“No,” James said, pressing the E like a wordless protest.
Then he pressed the G. The chord rang out, thin and bright, in the quiet of the room.
The Duke’s eyes moved to the piano; held there a breath, two, and when they came back to the boy, his jaw had set, and his mouth had gone flat.
“Stop,” he said, but James did not listen, choosing instead to press C.
The Duke started to walk to the bench. And Annabelle immediately stepped forward.
“I’ll keep him company,” she said. “There is no need for you to miss the rest of the evening on his account. He can come back downstairs when he’s?—”
“The boy must not be coddled.” He said it without heat, which was somehow worse than heat. “Every time he finds himself in an uncomfortable situation, we cannot simply find him a quieter room and leave him to recover from it.”
