Devotion (27 page)

"Distinctly spoken, if lacking in genuineness."
Moving again to the desk, she picked up the book, thumbed the charred pages, and said, "Shall we try again, Your Grace?"

Maria could not sleep this night any more than she could sleep the last fortnight, since the incident in the
library
—
more
to the point, since she had sent her written letter of resignation to the duchess. Any day now, her replacement would arrive. She would return to
Huddersfield
and continue her life as the vicar's daughter and all her aspirations of saving herself and her mother would be nothing more substantial than those ridiculous notions she had spun in her romantic mind of saving the Duke of Salterdon from an asylum. Salterdon lived to spite her—to spite the world, not to mention himself.

Certainly, the mood he had reflected the last two weeks had not ingratiated him to anyone at Thorn Rose. His personality had gone from bad to horrible. His belligerence had become insurmountable. Everyone tiptoed about as if on eggshells. They plotted to burn the house down . . . with him in it.

It seemed that Salterdon had every intention of sliding back into his mental inertia; repeatedly she was forced to coerce him from sleep, only to be confronted by a temper that was reminiscent of Beelzebub himself. She had liked him better when he was unconscious, and there had been times the last weeks when she would have gladly encouraged his mental hibernation, had the memory of the duchess's suffering not spurred her to rally, to face the dragon again, sword of contumacy raised in challenge.

To say that he disliked her as much was an understatement. To say that he would like nothing better than to murder
her
with his bare hands was too.

That thought alone continued to plague her.

Why should she care what he felt?

Why was she continually nagged by some odd spark of emotion she had experienced for him that brisk morning in the barn when she had seen something in his eyes and face that, suddenly, made him appear all too human and vulnerable . . . and
likable.

Oh, yes, that emotion had nagged her. It bothered her sleep. She could not eat. It made her heart break all the more now when he reacted toward her so furiously.

Dear merciful Father, please help the duchess to understand why I can not remain here.

She sat up in bed. The air felt frigid and cut uncomfortably through her thin nightdress. The idea of leaving the cozy warmth of the bed did not appeal to her, but tonight the feeling of disquietude would not leave her alone. The air felt charged and dis
turbed . . .
as if someone had been there, in the dark, watching her as she slept. The fact that rumors had reached Thorn Rose of recent robberies had not helped. Only last week
Melcombe
Manor, just a stone's throw- across the downs, had been seized by the awful thieves and ransacked: Lord
Melcombe's
daughter had been dragged to the wine cellar by a pair of hooded giants and . . .

She didn't want to think about it. Obviously, she was becoming as jelly-
spined
as Molly, who ran about the halls always in a twitter and vowing that Thorn Rose, vulnerable as a motherless lamb, would be next.

As always, the door to Salterdon's room was ajar. With candle in hand, she tiptoed to the foot of his bed, peered into the sheers like Beowulf gazing into
Grendel's
dark lair.

Empty!

Raising the candle higher, she focused harder on the tossed back counterpane and flannel sheets, the pillow with the indentation of his head—she spun around, causing the tiny candle flame to flicker threateningly— her eyes searched the room and discovered his chair was gone.

Maria ran to the
bellpull
to summon Gertrude, then reason took over and she froze, shaking, fingers gripping the tasseled pull as if it were a lifeline while her heart ran wild, as did her imagination.

"Think rationally," she said aloud. "No need yet to rouse the help. Panic won't help the situation."

Where the
blazes was
he?

She, of course, would be held responsible if something happened.

But what could have happened?

He could have fallen down the stairs, of course.
Oh God.
She had not meant it when she imagined him buried in a worm-eaten coffin!

He might even have thrown himself out a window: funereal personalities were known to take their own lives on occasion—Paul, in his lowest moments, had even spoken of it—
Oh God.

Running into the corridor, she plowed straight into Thaddeus and screamed, dropped the candle on her foot, causing her to dance backward and step on her gown hem that trailed the floor by two inches.

"
Blimy
," he muttered, and scooped up the candle before it burned out, held it between them and looked her over with raised eyebrows. "I reckon it's too much to hope you were
lookin
' for me."

"His Grace," she said, still shaking. "He's gone."

Thaddeus moved around her, into Salterdon's room while Maria hugged herself and curled her toes from the cold. The halo of light from the sputtering candle gilded one side of Thaddeus's face as he turned to look at her again. "So 'e is. I reckon it's too much to hope that the demons from 'ell come to collect 'is miserable soul. Shall we break open a bottle of '
Er
Grace's best champagne to celebrate?"

"Don't be daft," she replied, and took the candle from him.

Thaddeus moved after her down the corridor. "The duchess could do us all a favor and commit him to Royal Oaks."

Coming to the staircase, she paused, searched the lower darkness that looked as deep and black as hell's pit. "He's not insane."

"The crazies . . . they all line up at the barred windows and spit on folk as they walk by. Some howl like dogs."

She looked back at Thaddeus, the disturbing image his words painted making her shiver. "He's
not
insane," she repeated.

A sound came to her then, so indistinct she might have imagined it. Again! By-stepping Thaddeus, she moved back down the corridor, past Salterdon's room, her senses honing on
the
plink
plink
plink
that little by little became musical.

"The music room!" she cried aloud, and ran with her gown hem flapping around her ankles down one corridor after another, until reaching the music room, where she paused on the threshold, breathing hard, the candle dripping hot wax on her fingers.

In the pale orange glow of a solitary lamp, Salterdon slumped over the keys of the pianoforte, long fingers of one hand stroking a solitary ivory note.

Plink. Plink. Plink.

His hair, a riot of tumbling waves and unruly ends, curtained one side of his unshaven face and spilled over his shoulders.

Plink. Plink. Plink.

With the lamplight flickering across his intense features, he looked a little like the devil in contemplation. He looked like the little boy he once had been, sneaking into the music room against his father's wishes, practicing by the light of a candle, countenance a mixture of ecstasy and pain.

Thaddeus moved up behind her. She pushed him away. "I'll speak to him alone, Thaddeus."

"Think that's wise,
considerin
' how yer dressed?"

He flashed
her his
typical cheeky smile, and Maria frowned. "That will be all," she reiterated, and stared at him more sternly, until he put up his hands and backed away, dissolving into the darkness.

With a fortifying breath, she turned back to the door, hesitated only briefly at the threshold, then moved stoically toward her charge, who, upon seeing her from the corner of his eye, sat up abruptly and looked around. His eyes, normally so resolute in their obstinacy, were startled and desperate, making her pause, and shiver— as much from trepidation as from the cold.

Her throat and
hps
suddenly dry, she said, "Your Grace . . . you frightened me out of my wits. When I discovered you gone I couldn't imagine where you were this hour of the morning, or how you came to be here." With a sigh of exasperation, she added,
"I thought perhaps we had been set upon by those dreadful thieves, and that . . . Well," she sniffed.
"Never mind."

He slowly sat back in the chair, yet one hand lingered along the keys, fingertip lightly stroking up and down the length of it.

"I suppose I reacted rashly, but I
am
responsible for your well being, whether either of us like it or not."

As usual, he did nothing but regard her with those infuriating, enigmatic eyes while his long finger continued to slide up and down the piano key. Surprisingly, he had changed clothes and had done a fairly respectable
job
of it, except for his slightly wrinkled shirt, which was buttoned crookedly at his throat . . . and his
baie
feet.

"I suppose this is as good a time as any to tell you that I've decided to leave Thorn Rose," she announced, and the words seemed to
reverberate
the very air around them. "I realize your grandmother will be disappointed; I fear
I
was her last hope; she did so hold the faith that I could help you. At some point these last few days I realized that no one, least of all myself, can help you unless you desire to be helped." She attempted to smile. "Shall I see you back to your room, sir? Or, if you prefer, I could summon Gertrude."

No response, not even a flinch of surprise.

Her shoulders sinking a little, she turned away.
Foolish girl.
What had she expected? That he would plead with her to stay? No doubt he would be more than happy to see the back of her.

Plink. Plink. Plink.

She stopped.

Little by little, the simple
twang
of the singular note became two, then three, forming a rudimentary tune. Maria turned, her gaze locking on his fingers that moved a bit stiffly, slowly, but without the recognizable awkwardness, across the piano keys.

"Oh!" she cried,
then
covered her mouth with her fingertips, dropping the candle from the other, but hardly noticing. By now, his hands had found their comfortable rhythm, and the music lifted from the instrument like beautiful birdsong.

Swiftly, she moved to the instrument, danced around it on her tiptoes, hands fluttering over the highly polished instrument but not touching, like a butterfly hovering above a petal before dropping softly, lightly onto it.

At last, she landed, leaned upon the massive fixture, feeling the slight tremors of the music pass through her body while her gaze followed every movement his hands made upon the ivory and ebony keys. Dare she breathe? Mayhap she was only dreaming again. Mayhap she would awaken any moment to discover she had been caught up in another one of her silly fantasies— but, no, not even in her dreams could she have imagined such a moving, lyrical poetry of sound.

At last, she forced her eyes back to his, which were deep gray and gold with lamplight and watching her every reaction, even while his fingers continued to move, to fill the room with heartrending music.