Page 20 of The Unlovable Lady

“You will stay and take a cup with us, will you not?”

“Yes.” Phoebe’s chin lifted. “And if Mama asks where I have been, I mean to tell her.”

Chapter Seven

Dover gave up his coat in the Allertons’ hall and went through to the long parlor, where the greens had gone up two days since. Holly lined the chimney-breast, a kissing-bough hung in the far corner, and beneath the candle-smoke came a smell of bruised bay, which meant Christmas to a man whether he willed it or no. Lady Holt was among the company, together with the Danforths and a scattering of young people, and best of all, every soul in the room let him be.

When he found a place near the instrument, his shoulders came down of their own accord. How long had it been since he had stood in a London room without watching the door? Years, surely. He still watched, of course, but he watched now as a man watches a fire he is glad of, which was a different thing altogether.

“You have come to the wrong house if you mean to be useful,” said Lady Holt, arriving at his elbow with a sheaf of music she had no intention of carrying herself. “My niece has taken every task worth the having.”

“Has she indeed.” He held out his hand.

“She has. You may hold these, and look as though you understand them, and be of no more help than the rest of the gentlemen, which is to say none.”

“I am told I read music badly.” He took the sheaf.

“You read it on the best authority in the room.” She looked him over, frank and unhurried, just as she had looked him over at Lady Ashcombe’s, and whatever she found this time appeared to amuse her. “Stand there and hold those and be improving to look at. That is the most one gets from a viscount before the tea is poured, in my experience.”

She went off toward the fire and the other mothers, which left Dover free to do the one thing no company could prevent. He looked for Rosalind.

She stood at the far end, near the instrument, where a young lady at the keyboard had discovered that her pages were out of order and could not find the beginning.

Rosalind was already moving. She took the music, sorted it, set the first sheet upon the stand, and said something low. The girl breathed out and began to sing.

Dover watched Rosalind rather than the singer. She had withdrawn a step to the wall, hands clasped before her now that their work was done.

She knew the music well enough to set another performer right, yet she had not taken the stool herself. She listened very still.

Dover wondered why, then let the question rest. Whatever the answer was, it was not his.

He went down the room to her, keeping his easy pace, since he had learned the use of it these last weeks. A man who crossed a room at a walk could arrive where he had no business arriving while looking like nothing at all. He came to stand near her at the end of the row, where the music covered low speech, and she knew he was there without looking round. She always did.

“Lord Dover.” Her eyes stayed on the girl at the keyboard. “You are too late for the holly and too early for the tea.”

“Then I am good for nothing at all?”

“Very nearly. Unless you mean to turn pages for the next performer. Though I have yet to decide whether you can be trusted with them.”

“You have a low opinion of my hands.”

“I have an opinion of every pair of hands in this room, my lord, and yours come near the bottom of it.” She tilted her head toward the window. “Do you see Mr. Layton over there? He has been beating time to the wrong song this half-minute, and he is very pleased with himself indeed.”

Dover looked. Mr. Layton had got up a stately private accompaniment with one finger upon his knee, a full bar behind the girl and entirely content. It was a small, foolish thing, and Dover’s mouth pulled at the corner, that familiar tug he had given up fighting in her company.

“Will you not tell him?” he asked.

“And spoil it for him?” She shook her head, hands quiet at her sides for once, because the work was done and nothing else needed them just then. “He is enjoying himself a great deal. I could never be so cruel.”

The girl came to the end of her song and won more applause than the song deserved, which was the proper work of a friendly room. Then came the small loosening between one piece and the next, when chairs shifted, the low talk swelled, a fan or two went to work, and the question of who should play now passed round on a current of polite reluctance. A footman came through with the first of the tea, while the room rearranged itself by inches.

Into that loosening, Lady Marbury made her move.

Dover had marked her arrival a quarter-hour since. She wore claret silk and a warm smile that stopped well short of her eyes, and she steered her elder daughter carefully before her. He had given her the bare courtesy a viscount owed a countess before returning to the music, believing himself safely beneath her notice. He had been wrong, for a viscount standing idle by the instrument was exactly the sort of thing Lady Marbury never wasted.

She made her move well, he would grant her that. Rather than bring the daughter at him directly, which was the crude way, she drifted toward the keyboard, wondering aloud what ought to be played next, drawing Miss Faulkner up beside her to consult, and contriving in the doing of it that Miss Faulkner should arrive at Dover’s elbow with an opinion already prepared.

“We are all at a stand for the next piece,” said Lady Marbury to the room at large. “Cassandra has the most decided notions about what suits an afternoon. There is no one whose taste I would sooner trust.” She drew her daughter forward. “She will tell you in a moment, Lord Dover, exactly what ought to come next, for she is never at a loss in these things.”