"After I had had a few lessons at the pianoforte as a young girl," she explained to the gathered assembly, "my music teacher asked me to raise my hands and declared himself amazed that I was not in possession of ten thumbs. Fortunately for me, two of my brothers were within earshot and reported the remark with great glee to our father-intending the joke, of course, to be at my expense. The music teacher was dismissed and never replaced."
There was general laughter, though Lady Holt-Barron looked distinctly uncomfortable.
"A song, then?" Lady Potford asked.
"Not alone, ma'am," Freyja said firmly. "I have the sort of voice that needs to be buried in the middle of a very large choir-if it is to be aired at all."
"I sing a little, Lady Freyja," the marquess said. "Perhaps we can join our voices in a duet. There is a pile of music on top of the pianoforte. Shall we see what we can find while someone else entertains the guests?"
"Oh, splendid," Lady Potford said, and there were a few other murmurings of polite interest.
She should, Freyja realized belatedly, have made mention of rusty saws in connection with her singing voice, but she never liked to be quite untruthful. Hallmere was, as she expected, looking at her with polite interest-and a gleam of amusement in his eyes. And everyone else was observing with keen interest this first exchange between yesterday's antagonists.
She got to her feet and approached the pianoforte, near which he was standing.
"Miss Holt-Barron?" Lady Potford was asking politely, and Charlotte without a murmur of protest approached the instrument and began a flawless performance of some Mozart sonata.
The marquess picked up the whole pile of music and carried it to a wide, velvet-padded window seat. He sat on one side of it and Freyja on the other.
"Might I be permitted to observe, Lady Freyja," he said, "that you look particularly fetching in that shade of sea green? It matches your eyes. And might I apologize for not believing your claim to be the sister of a duke? No duke's sister of my acquaintance, you see, sleeps in unlocked inn rooms without any accompanying maid, or walks in a public park without a chaperone. Or punches men in the nose when they displease her."
"You would deny, I suppose," she said, picking up a sheet of music that announced itself as a song for two voices. But she saw at the very first glance that the singer of the top part had to soar to a high G and slipped the music to the bottom of the pile. "You would deny, I suppose, that you were about to steal a kiss from that poor girl?"
"Oh, absolutely," he agreed.
"Then you lie!" she retorted, snatching another sheet for a song in more than one part off the pile and glaring at him. "I am not quite stupid, despite your insinuation yesterday morning to the contrary."
"No!" he said, his eyes laughing at her-he was making no attempt to look through the music himself. "Did I do that? But why would I do something so ungentlemanly when the ghastly truth must have presented itself to the intelligence of everyone gathered around? It was rather a large gathering, was it not?"
Freyja was given the distinct impression that she might have met her match-something that rarely happened outside the members of her own family. She gave her attention to the music in her hands. It was all about cuckoos, and the songwriter appeared to have devised his whole piece so that the two voices-no, four-might deceive the audience into believing they were a flock of demented birds in a dither and unable to utter any sound but their own names. It was the sort of song most gatherings would exclaim over in delight and admiration. Freyja set it at the bottom of the pile.
"I feel compelled to defend my honor yet again," the marquess continued. "I was not about to steal a kiss, Lady Freyja. I was about to convey one and have one conveyed willingly in return. I cannot tell you how ill-timed your interruption was. She had lips like cherries and I was within moments of tasting their sweet nectar. Does one suck nectar from a cherry? But I daresay my meaning is clear enough anyway."
If his eyes danced any more merrily, they would be in danger of dancing right out of his head. And he was wearing some perfume. Freyja despised men who wore perfume, but this was subtle and musky and wrapped enticingly about her senses. Her eyes dipped to his lips, which had come so close to kissing the maid in the park, found them as perfect as the rest of him, and dipped lower to the pile of music. She had just remembered that those lips had actually kissed her.
"You are supposed to be helping me select a duet to sing," she said.
"I thought I would leave it to you," he said. "If you did not like my choice you would doubtless quarrel with it and with me and find some reason for punching me in the nose, and it is altogether possible that other people in the room might notice. And even if they did not, I derive no great pleasure from having my nose punched. Now why are you frowning so ferociously?"
"Nymphs and shepherds and Phyllises and Amaryllises," she said, frowning down in disgust at the music in her hands. "The last one was all about cuckoos." She set the piece with the other discarded ones beneath the pile and found another duet.
"Are you always so cross?" he asked her.
"In disagreeable company, yes," she said, looking coldly at him.
He grinned at her. "Do you ever smile?"
"I have been smiling all evening," she told him. "Until, that is, I was forced into this tête-à-tête."
"Almost, Lady Freyja," he said softly, "I am led to believe that you are trying to deliver me a resounding setdown."
"Almost, Lord Hallmere," she retorted, "I am led to believe that you must have some intelligence."
He chuckled softly, a sound that was drowned beneath the polite applause that succeeded Charlotte's playing. No one else took the instrument. Card tables were being set up and the guests were taking their places. No one attempted to include either of the two sitting on the window seat.
"Tonight," the marquess said, "you have been smiling what I suspect is your public Lady Freyja Bedwyn smile, the gracious expression that informs the world that you are someone of consequence and equal to any social situation. I have a mind to see your private Freyja smile, if there is such a thing."
There were not many men who would dare to flirt with her. And this was definitely flirtation-he had deliberately lowered his voice. Mock flirtation, of course. His eyes were still laughing at her.
"I have what my brothers describe as my feline grin," she told him, regarding him coldly. "Shall I oblige you with a display of that?"
He chuckled again and reached across the pile between them to take the music from her hands.
"Hmm," he said after examining it for a moment or two. "'Near to the silver Trent Sirena dwelleth.' I like the sound of her already. It gets better. 'She to whom nature lent all that excelleth.' The mind boggles, does it not?"
"Your mind obviously does," she said.
He did something then that had her itching to curl her fingers into fists. He let his eyes roam slowly down her body, starting with the rather wide expanse of bosom showing above the fashionably low neckline of her gown and moving on downward, giving the impression that he saw every curve beneath the barrier of her high-waisted gown and its loose, flowing skirts. He pursed his lips.
"'She to whom nature lent all that excelleth,' " he murmured again. And then he smiled-it was definitely not his grin this time but an expression of great charm clearly designed to make women turn weak at the knees. "Shall we move to the pianoforte bench, Lady Freyja, and try this one?"
She was weak at the knees with suppressed wrath, Freyja decided when she got to her feet. And then his hand came to rest against the hollow of her back. She looked haughtily over her shoulder at him.
"I am quite capable of crossing the distance between the window and the pianoforte without your guidance, I thank you, Lord Hallmere," she said.