Chloe sat down, feeling as if she were on trial as he placed the music on the" stand. She flexed her fingers. "I haven't practiced in ages."
"It doesn't matter. Relax and do the best you can." He sat in the chair she'd vacated and closed his eyes, prepared to listen. He opened them very rapidly after the first few bars and his expression became inscrutable.
Chloe finished with a flourish and turned to face him with a smile of triumph. It had been easier than she'd expected.
"Mmm," he said. "That was a slapdash performance, lass."
"It was perfectly correct," she protested. "I know I didn't play a wrong note."
"Oh, no, you were note perfect," he agreed. "Your ability to sight-read is not at issue."
"Then what was wrong with it?" She sounded both hurt and aggrieved.
"Couldn't you tell? You raced through it as if the only thing on your mind was to get it over with as soon as possible."
Chloe chewed her lip. She was not enjoying this, but honesty required that she admit the criticism. "I suppose it's because at the seminary we had to practice until we got a particular piece right. Then we could stop."
Hugo pulled a disgusted face. "So practicing was punishment for failure. Good God, what a criminal way to teach." He stood up. "Your mother was a most accomplished musician… Move up."
"Was she?" Chloe shifted along the bench as he sat beside her. "I never heard her play." His thigh was hard and warm against the thin muslin of her gown, and she kept her leg very still, knowing that the minute he became aware of their proximity he would move away. And that was the last thing she wanted.
The laudanum must have killed the artist as effectively as it killed the mother, he thought sadly, too engrossed in music and his train of thought to be aware for once of the slight, fragrant body so close to his. "She was a harpist as well as a pianist, and she sang like an angel."
"/ can sing," Chloe said, as if this might compensate for her lamentable performance at the keyboard.
"Can you?" He couldn't help smiling at this anxious interjection. "In a minute, you may sing for me, but now we're going to improve on your rendering of 'Larkrise.'
Listen to this." He played the opening bars. "There's a bird in there… not a herd of rogue elephants. Try it."
Chloe produced a faithful rendition of his pauses and tones as he took her through the piece stave by stave. "There's nothing wrong with your ear," he commented at the end. "We'll just have to cure the laziness."
"I am not lazy," Chloe protested. "But no one taught me properly, you said so." Her expression was one of half-laughing indignation as she turned her face toward him in the candlelight. "You can teach me."
His breath caught. Such heart-stopping beauty didn't seem possible. She shifted on the bench and her thigh pressed against his, sending a jolt of arousal through his loins.
"Stand up," he commanded sharply. "You can't sing sitting down."
Chloe didn't move for a second, and her eyes were filled with awareness as they searched his expression. A smile quivered on her lips… a smile of pure sensual invitation.
"Stand up, Chloe," he repeated, but evenly this time.
She did so slowly, still smiling, her skirt brushing across his knees, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder as if in support. "What shall I sing?"
" 'Larkrise,'" he said, clearing his throat. "The tune will be familiar. You can read the words as I play."
Her voice was true but untrained, lacking Elizabeth's power and intensity, and she still had a tendency to rush. He wondered as the last note died whether it would be interesting to see how he could improve on what nature had given her.
"There, I told you I can sing," she declared. "Wasn't that pretty?"
"My child, you lack discrimination," he said, embracing the role of mentor and tutor with relief. It gave him much-needed distance. "There's nothing wrong with
your pitch, but your voice is weak because you don't breathe properly. Why were you in such a hurry?"
Chloe looked somewhat crestfallen and, as he'd intended, the sensual invitation was quite vanished from both face and posture. "I didn't think I was."
"Well, you were. But we can do something about it if you'd like to."
"You would teach me?" A speculative look was in her eye, but she was looking down at the music and he didn't see it. She was thinking that music lessons would of necessity involve more of this closeness; and the closer they became, the sooner she would be able to overcome his inconvenient sober prudery.
"If you'd like me to," he repeated. "You have to do it because you want to. And that means practicing because you want to and not because I tell you you must."
"How long would I have to practice every day?" she asked cautiously.
Hugo threw up his hands. "As long as you feel it's necessary to achieve what you want to achieve."
"But what if I don't achieve what you want me to achieve?"
"Then the lessons will cease, since clearly you won't be interested."
"Oh." She frowned. "How well did you know my mother?"
It was a legitimate question, one he'd been expecting at some point. He made his voice matter-of-fact. "Quite well. But a long time ago."
"Why didn't you see her recently? You lived so close and she had no friends. But she must have counted you as a friend. She wouldn't have made you my guardian otherwise."
He'd prepared his answer to this during the long night watches of the insomniac. "She withdrew from the world after your father's death. You know that yourself."
"So, she didn't want to see you?"
"I don't think she wanted to see anyone. But she knew she had my friendship, regardless."
"I see." Still frowning, Chloe wandered over to the window. The evening star had appeared, hanging over the valley. "You must have known my father, then."
He stiffened. All the preparation in the world couldn't prevent his blood from racing or his palms from sweating. "I knew him."
"How well?"
There was only one honest answer. "Very well."
"I don't remember him at all. I was three when he died, you'd think I'd have some vague memory… a smell, or an impression, or a sensation. Wouldn't you?"
Stephen had had nothing to do with his daughter. Hugo doubted he'd laid eyes on her more than a couple of times in those three years. He had a son, and the son had a stepson, and only they were important in his scheme of things. If Elizabeth had given him a son, it would have been different. The child would have come under the father's influence from his earliest moments. A girl child was of considerably less interest than the hunters in his stable.
"He was in London a great deal," Hugo said.
"What was he like?"
Evil… unimaginably evil… corrupting all who fell under his influence with the devil's enticements.
"Not unlike Jasper to look at. A bruising rider, a clever man, very popular in Society, which is why he spent so much time in London, I believe… he and your mother were somewhat estranged."
"And then he died in the accident," she stated flatly. "I'm surprised a bruising rider should have broken his neck on the hunting field."
It was the official explanation, one that protected the
Congregation's secrets. Stephen Gresham was buried in the family vault, the victim of a riding accident.
"Supper's ready." Samuel appeared in the open doorway.
With relief Hugo ushered his immediately diverted ward out of the library.