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“I remember you telling me how unpleasant they were, and how you did not wish them at our wedding,” he said. “Do you know what a swan song is? They say that just before swans die, they produce a lovely song, vocalizing as they never did in life. And so a ‘swan song’ has come to mean any final or grand gesture before...the end.”
He didn’t want to talk about endings and death, not here in the dark, with his father suffering a few floors away. The Marquess of Barrymore would have no swan song. He would die in horrible pain and agony, if the physicians were to be believed.
Minette touched one of the keys, sounding a mournful note. “Well, that rather changes my opinion of swans. Perhaps they are only misunderstood. I mean, how remarkable, to sing a lovely song in the face of death. I wonder what it sounds like.”
August’s throat felt tight. “I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone’s ever heard one.”
“But they must have, if such a legend exists.” She tapped the music. “Telemann wrote this concerto about it. Will you play it for me? I’d like to hear how Telemann imagined the sound.”
August dutifully leafed to the second part of the composition, the melodious swan’s song before the adagio and the swan’s death. He played the piece full out, there in the wee hours of the night, with Minette pressed against his left arm. When he finished, she laid her head against his shoulder and patted his back. “You are an excellent musician.”
“Thank you.”
“You haven’t any problems with Telemann at all, particularly this Schwaner— Schergang—” She took another stab at pronouncing the German title, slaughtering it badly. “Whatever it’s called. Say, do you remember when you gave me that porcelain swan? The one you found in France?”
“Of course I remember.” They had all bought trinkets for Minette on their Grand Tour, since she had been left behind with her auntie and governesses. August had seen the delicate swan in pink and ivory, and gold leaf, and known he must have it for her. He somehow preserved it unbroken until they returned to England. When he handed it over, she had flown into rhapsodies over its gold flecked wings and slanted eyes, and the red lips painted at the end of the beak. It had been a silly thing, but she had been so delighted.
“I’m sure it’s in one of my boxes somewhere. I kept everything you ever gave me.” She sighed against his shoulder. “I thought those keepsakes were all I would ever have of you. But now I have considerably more of you than I ever expected.”
“Yes.” And here he sat, picturing his considerable girth surrounded by her lips. She must have done the same, for her features rearranged into a self-conscious mask.
“Why did you leave so abruptly this afternoon?” she asked. “Did I make you angry? Was I being too...lewd?”
In the dark, with her sad, plaintive questions, he could only tell her the truth. “I left because I was afraid of insulting you. Because I was imagining doing things to you that I didn’t want to do.”
“Why not? Why wouldn’t you want to?”
“Because I fear you wouldn’t like them, or that you wouldn’t understand. I know you want to be a proper wife, an experienced lover like Esme, but Minette...” He took her hand and held it between his. “You’re still so young and sweet. No. Don’t pout. To me, you’re still an innocent. And I am not.”
“Josephine was innocent when she married Warren, and he was a terrible rogue, and they still managed to get along together.”
“Your brother didn’t know Josephine when she was a child. Your brother didn’t bring Josephine a little swan and watch her pirouette around the room in short skirts. Please, I beg you, try to understand. When you’re more mature—”
“How am I to mature when you persist in treating me like a child?”
“I’m trying to show you respect. I’m trying to protect you!” He bit off an oath. His temper was slipping again and she didn’t deserve it. She was the wronged one, the neglected one, the one who walked the halls of his home in the dark like a wraith. He squeezed her hand and let it go. “What are we to do about your night-roving problem? You can’t keep walking about in your sleep. You’ll fall from a balcony or something, and your brother will kill me.”
“I don’t know.” Minette pulled the blanket closer about her. “I don’t know what causes it, or how to control it.”
“What did Warren do to stop you wandering about as a child?”
“He slept beside me so he would know whenever I got up.”
Damn and blast. Of course that was the most reasonable solution, to sleep beside her in bed. She’d be safe and secure, and he could sleep an entire night through without being awakened by servants. That is, if he could fall asleep beside her. Perhaps he could simply lock her in her room, or tie her to the bed...
She shifted beside him, still going on about Warren watching after her, and being such a wonderfully protective brother, and the very pinnacle to sleep beside, since he didn’t snore.
August wondered if he snored.
“I suppose we ought to go to bed before dawn comes,” he said, cutting off her rambling with a sense of beleaguered purpose. “Shall we sleep in my bedroom, or yours?”
She looked up at him in surprise. “You’re going to let me? Aren’t you afraid I’ll disturb your sleep?”
“I doubt it can be any more disturbed than it’s already been. We can sleep in the same bed, but I ask that you lie as still as possible, and not talk as I’m trying to nod off.”
Minette laughed. “Warren had the same rules.”
Blast Warren. Blast Minette and her sleepwalking, and her bright innocence, and her goddamned swans. “My bedroom or yours?” he asked, snuffing the candle with his fingertips. Smoke scented the distance between them.
“Yours,” she said. “So you will feel less annoyed at the inconvenience.”
As he lay beside her later, he felt more annoyed than any man ever on earth. She felt too warm and comfortable as she huddled against his body, and smelled too alluring for him to find any peace. His bed was not his bed with Minette in it, just as his life was not his life, and his mind was not his mind. “You’re driving me mad,” he whispered into the dark.
But for once, she was not chattering or questioning or making excuses for her irritating capers. Her breath came slow and even, her pretty features angelic in repose.
Chapter Twelve: Trouble
November turned to December, and the house made preparation for holiday callers, although there wasn’t much cheer in the air. August put on a brave face, and provided a shoulder for his mother to cry on, and a body for Minette to sleep beside at night.
She didn’t sleepwalk anymore. No. Instead she slumbered upon his chest, or his shoulder, or nestled her face into the curve of his neck and stayed there all night, barely stirring. He was happy she was able to find restful sleep at last, but he barely slept at all.
To be safe, he left off taking his usual drink or two after dinner. He felt he must be ever sober and on guard, lest he enact another Mary-the-Maidservant interlude
, and debauch his wife half drunk, in darkness and sleepy confusion. He feared he would grasp her and press himself inside her with thoughtless, inelegant force, just because she was there and because he was so, so tired, and because he remembered far too well what it had felt like to be within her.
He ought to just take her. He told himself so every night, but when he reached for her, he would be assailed by poignant memories of her as a bright and trusting child. All his life, he had wanted to protect her, not defile her. He feared if he took her, their history would be lost, and he would never again be the object of her naive devotion.
And he wanted that naive devotion. Selfishly, jealously, desperately. He needed her devotion to make it through these dark days before his father’s death. Now that she was here, he understood he could never again send her away. He enjoyed their dinners and he enjoyed their pianoforte lessons, where she made laudable progress. He approved of the way she spoke to the staff and won them to her side. He admired the graceful manner with which she disregarded his mother’s numerous barbs. He enjoyed everything about his wife except that he must sleep beside her at night and shudder with unsatisfied need.
He watched her now from the parlor window with the best view of the garden, where Minette insisted his father take the sunshine on any passably seasonable day. The great Lord Barrymore lay slumped on his wheeled chaise, head to one side, eyes and mouth open, insensate and mute. Blankets and bandages shielded his mottled skin.
The man’s remaining life could be measured in days, not months, and yet Minette insisted on reading to him, and blathering away as if he could hear her. She read books to him, and smiled into his staring, ulcerated eyes. His mother could not bear to be in the same vicinity as her husband, but Minette...
“My lord?”
