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Ursula peered into the sea of bodies and caught sight of the back of Hugo’s head. Finally, someone answered her prayers. She wrinkled her brow to appear quizzical.
“I’m sorry, I was distracted. I’m not sure what you intended.” She waved a hand in her most dismissive manner. “We’ll have to discuss it more, later. I just saw—I have to go.”
Ursula pressed through the crowd, impolite or not, until she was at Hugo’s side, where she belonged, matching his strides.
“Please tell me you found something to make this evening bearable?” she whispered.
He spun to face her and his countenance brightened. “Mercy me, you’re here. How did you manage an invitation?”
She hooked her arm into his. “We’ll talk about that later. I have a story and a plan to solve all our problems. Just take me somewhere—anywhere in this place that’s not more of the same.”
“I know just where we can go.” He led her to the staircase.
She closed her eyes for a moment and let her heart settle to normal. Everything would be bearable now.
* * *
Where in tarnation had Ursula disappeared to? Again. Jay’d turned his back for one moment and she was gone. It was almost as if she didn’t like him. Or worse, forgot about him if he wasn’t in her line of vision.
Had she already found Hugo? Did she just make a beeline for the man?
Jay frowned. No, she’d made a beeline for the plan. Hugo was part of the plan.
The asinine part of the plan.
He wandered around the party, aimless, carrying both flutes like a dolt. He downed the first and laid it on a tray. As he was about to make quick work of the second, a deep voice whispered in his ear.
“Upstairs, to the left, three doors down.”
Jay jolted and gazed downward at the retreating back of Judah Nunes. The crowd swallowed Ursula’s father before he could form a question to ask. The mystery man strikes again, though at least wrangling the invitation for his faux future father-in-law to serve as chaperone had some benefits. Everyone should have a second pair of eyes.
Though whether Judah was friend or foe was still undetermined. The memory of the man’s eyes on him, not his daughter, when she relayed her Hugo-marrying-strategy...he—Ursula—both of them, were the subject of some sort of plot, though damned if he knew what or why. Still, he should go up. If not, the festivities would become even more tedious.
Jay clutched both the rail and the wall as he took the steps of the polished wood spiral staircase two at a time. He twisted the knob of the indicated door. Ursula and Hugo wouldn’t be engaged in—no, impossible. She’d probably be dictating a contract to him. He chuckled, pressed forward and his mouth dropped open.
Hugo was draped over the back of an armchair, chin in hands, while Ursula sat at a blonde wood spinet. His eyes grew wide as he focused on the sound. She was fantastic, natural. Who’d have thought little-miss-balance-sheet could do anything remotely artistic?
He’d never heard the piece, but the notes spoke to him. If he could add a harmony, right below her notes... Jay strolled to the bench and sat next to her, sliding his hands over the keys.
Ursula tilted her head and frowned, but as he played on, joining with her, the corners of her lips turned upwards. She bent towards the keys and the music swirled around them, their hands crossing and melding.
Everything in Jay’s mind stilled as his heart, the breath in his lungs, the blood in his veins, pumped in time with her, with it.
He’d never played with anyone else before, only picked out tunes as a party trick. The connection, from his ears to his chest to his stomach, everything flowed and synchronized with the sound, with Ursula. For an instant, it was as if both were one.
The sound stopped, she’d finished. Ursula raised her chin, her lips parted. Her blazing morning glory eyes beckoned. Bewitched, he leaned down, his hand reaching of its own accord and—
“I didn’t know you knew how to play.” Hugo’s voice interrupted the moment.
“I just have an ear.” Jay swiveled around to face the younger man. Perhaps Hugo wasn’t so inconsequential after all.
Ursula cleared her throat. “You have a very good ear. Have you heard Robert le diable?”
“No.” A smile tugged on his lips.
“That’s extraordinary.” Her astonishment was genuine. “My ear is fine. My aptitude is for patterns and numbers so once I hear something I can play it, but being able to arrive, while a piece you’ve never heard has already begun—that’s incredible, Jay.” Sincere, and not one harsh note. One would’ve thought the words were spoken by an entirely different woman.
“Yes, it is.” Hugo’s voice was flat.
