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“Would you like for me to look after your brother while he’s in residence, Your Grace? I noticed he didn’t bring along his valet.” The servant watched him closely.
“If Lord Phineas wants a valet, he can bloody well acquire one himself,” Ashley complained as he dropped onto his piano bench and turned to face the pianoforte. He laid a hand on the keys and plunked at them lightly, sending a gentle tune floating into the air. Having such a piece of musical equipment in his suite of rooms was a huge luxury, but he was a duke, after all. He could be as eccentric as he chose, and the censure from his peers could not be any worse than what he already dealt with. “You may go, Simmons,” Ashley directed.
The man bowed quickly. “As you wish,” he said as he disappeared as quietly as he’d come. Ashley had the best staff in England. They were loyal. They were discreet. Though it was well below his station to admit it, they were his friends. They were the people he talked to when no one else was about. And while Ashley did like to maintain a certain degree of propriety, he valued each of them, and each for a different reason.
Ashley laid his fingers on the keys and thought about the house party going on below stairs. By now, everyone would be heading for their rooms, probably with his mother’s money lining their pockets. He had no doubt there would gambling going on below stairs. It was his mother’s favorite recreational activity, after all.
He began a quick Beethoven tune, enjoying the way the sound of his pianoforte broke the quiet of the night. Perhaps he chose to play so often in the waning hours of the evening because it kept him from his melancholy musings. It kept him from absolute silence. He let his fingers tickle the keys as he played, in very much the way he would a woman’s body, gentle and soft, and then solid and strong.
The click of his door handle from behind him caught his attention, but only for a moment. “Did you forget something?” he asked Simmons.
A flutter of white lace entered the corner of his vision and caught him off guard. He looked up, startled, as the flutter settled beside him on the piano bench.
“What the devil?” he breathed softly, his fingers stilling over the keys. “Miss Thorne?” he asked hesitantly.
“Ashley,” she breathed softly, her voice like a whisper in the quiet of the night, one that threatened to shatter his very being.
“What are you doing?” He glanced toward the door, which she’d closed behind her.
“I heard music,” she said, a smile unlike any he’d seen before on her face. She gazed at his pianoforte as though it was a most wondrous object. She reached out a delicate little hand and stroked across its front. What he wouldn’t give to be a piano in that moment. Her wrist was encircled by a white lace cuff, which led to a billowy white sleeve. He let his gaze wander to her throat, which was enclosed in the same billowy lace. The lady had arrived at his suite of rooms in nothing more than a nightrail? And looking as though she was entranced. Perhaps she’d had as much to drink as he had.
“Are you foxed, Miss Thorne?” he asked, removing his hands completely from the keys. Her smile fell into a frown.
“Beg your pardon?” she asked quickly, as though shaking herself from a haze. “Why did you stop?”
“It’s not every day one is accosted by a strange lady in one’s bedchamber, Miss Thorne,” he said. “It’s a little disconcerting.”
“I did not accost you.”
“A man can hope,” he replied. And pray. And beg. And plead.
“I should not be here,” she said quickly, finally looking into his face. Her hazel eyes flashed with something he didn’t understand. She scooted to the edge of the seat as though she planned to retreat. He wasn’t quite ready for her to do that yet. He reached out a hand to still her.
“Stay,” he said softly. “For a moment.” He took a deep breath. “If you want.” He must sound like an inept adolescent. But he’d had enough liquor not to care. He still couldn’t believe that she wore nothing but her nightrail. Her toe hit the side of his stockinged foot. Even her feet were bare. It made him wonder what else was bare beneath that thin piece of virginal cloth.
“I should not be here,” she said again, as though trying to convince herself. “But I couldn’t resist when I heard the music. I had no idea you could play.”
Was he the one playing, or was she? “You came here because you heard me play?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “And it was beautiful.” She laid a hand on his leg and squeezed it gently. The touch shot straight to his heart. And other areas. “Will you play more? Just for a moment? Please?” She reminded him of an overly anxious child at Christmas.
“Miss Thorne…” he began. He should send her immediately from his chambers.
“My name is Sophia,” she said with a tiny laugh. “I gave you leave to use it, Ashley.”
His name on her lips hit him like a stab in the gut. “Say it again,” he prompted.
“Please?” she said. He’d been referring to his name. But he really just wanted to hear her talk. “Please,” she said again, her voice a little softer as she gazed at him with those beautiful eyes. He could deny her nothing.
Her hand still rested on his thigh as he turned back to the piano. It seared through his trousers like a brand. But she didn’t move it, even when he lifted his leg to adjust his seat. Only a little to the left, dearest, he couldn’t help but think. But then he laid his hands on the keys and picked up the tune where he’d left off.
He watched her face as he began to play. Her mouth fell open slightly, a harsh breath escaping her lips as the music began to fill the room. Her eyes closed, and her hand upon his thigh began to contract with the beat of the music. Dear God, she’d undo him with a simple touch.
“So lovely,” she breathed in one big rush of air.
“Yes, you are,” he agreed quietly. She appeared not to hear him. The piano filled the silence left by her wicked little breaths as she grew more and more comfortable against him. She leaned into his shoulder, the ruffles of her nightrail squished against his body. The side of her breast touched his arm, but she appeared not to notice.
No one could be such a practiced flirt, not even the most jaded of courtesans. He’d met plenty of women and bedded more than his share, and he’d never seen such an intriguing combination of innocence and beguiling beauty. She moved so that her breast brushed him, and he could no longer concentrate. His hands refused to play. They warred with his mind, which wanted to do nothing more than touch her.
