Oscar glowered, but Nancy’s curiosity ignited. “Will you play something?” She said it quickly, before she could be embarrassed by the request. “I should like to hear.”
Oscar eyed her, then the piano, as if weighing whether the instrument would detonate upon contact. “I do not perform. Not for an audience.”
Adrian’s grin grew. “But you will for your wife, surely.”
Oscar looked at Nancy. Something passed between them—defiance, challenge, or perhaps just resignation. He stepped over, removed his coat, and sat beside her on the bench. “Only one piece,” he said. “Then we return to normalcy.”
Adrian perched on the edge of his seat. “Define ‘normalcy,’” he muttered.
Oscar’s hands hovered above the ivory for a moment, the long fingers poised as if testing the air for currents. Then, with no warning, the first notes poured out: swift, precise, almost sharp with purpose. The music was something baroque, but it moved like a living thing—restless, twisting, never quite settling. Nancy could only stare at his hands as they moved, the muscles of his forearms coiled with control.
She had expected technical proficiency. She hadn’t expected artistry. Or the way the music seemed to echo his personality: fierce, spare, refusing to be sentimental but, in its very restraint, heartbreakingly lovely.
Oscar played for a full minute, then stopped abruptly, lifting his hands from the keys with a finality that rang louder than the notes themselves.
Adrian whistled. “There it is. The coldest man in England and yet he plays like the very devil in love. You never fail to astonish me, Scarfield.”
Oscar said nothing, only flexed his fingers and set them neatly in his lap.
Nancy wanted, absurdly, to touch his hand again. She folded her own in her lap.
Adrian rose, then extended a hand to Nancy. “Come, Your Grace. Let us dance, before your husband’s mood sours entirely.”
Nancy was so startled that she almost refused. “There is no music,” she said, by way of protest.
Adrian lifted a brow. “There is always music. Scarfield, do us the honor.”
Oscar regarded them both, then, without a word, began to play a waltz—light at first, then gradually gathering in force. Adrian bowed, took Nancy’s hand, and swept her into a turn.
She followed, at first uncertain, then letting herself fall into the rhythm of the thing. Adrian was a graceful partner: sure-footed, but not rigid, leading her easily around the small patch of cleared floor. She caught Oscar’s eye as they passed the piano, but his gaze was fixed somewhere above her head, as if counting the beats and not the bodies.
“Does your husband always look as if he’s being forced to chew glass at a ball?” Adrian murmured.
Nancy stifled a laugh. “Only when he is actually enjoying himself. He finds it distasteful to admit.”
“Such a shame,” Adrian replied, guiding her through another spin. “You would make a magnificent pair, if only you both relented.”
Nancy felt herself blush, not from the remark, but from the way Adrian held her at the small of her back, firm and steady. It was perfectly proper, but it had been some time since anyone had touched her with such confidence.
“Are you always so forward, Lord Eastmere?” she asked.
He grinned. “Only when I sense a kindred spirit.”
She let herself enjoy it, just a little: the music, the movement, the way her body fit the pattern of the dance as though she’d been born to it. Adrian made her laugh twice, once with a wicked impression of the Prince Regent, once with a muttered joke about Oscar’s “funeral face.” By the time the waltz neared its final measures, Nancy had nearly forgotten her own self-consciousness.
Until Oscar stopped playing.
The silence was abrupt, jarring. Nancy and Adrian came to a halt in the middle of the floor.
Oscar stood from the bench, expression inscrutable. “It is late,” he announced, his voice colder than the brandy in his glass. “We should call it a night.”
Adrian, still holding Nancy’s hand, looked at her, then back to Oscar. “Already? I was only just beginning to have fun.”
Oscar met his friend’s gaze, then said, “My wife and I wish to retire for the evening.”
There was something in his voice—possessive, almost territorial—that caught Nancy entirely off-guard.
Adrian, unoffended, bowed with mock elegance. “As you wish. Your Grace, it was a pleasure.” He released her hand, then moved to collect his coat.
