“Brood, or breed?” asked Townsend, setting everyone off into more laughter. Warren shook his head, and then the two babies began to fuss.
Warren stood to walk about with George, while Aurelia cosseted Felicity, rocking her back and forth to soothe her. Minette was hardly much older when she’d lost her parents. In fact, she knew very little about being a parent, except that one must protect and love the little ones. She noted the way Warren whispered to George to calm him, and the way Aurelia tickled Felicity to make her smile again. She was glad her friends weren’t the sort to banish their children to the nursery, or leave them to grow up primarily in a servant’s care.
“Georgie always wants to walk about and play,” sighed Warren, “only he’s not capable yet, poor fellow.” He set him on Josephine’s lap, where the baby proceeded to kick his stubby little legs. “Say, Barrymore, play something, would you? Something to amuse the children.”
“Oh, yes, do,” pleaded the ladies.
“Of course I will, if Minette will help me. She’s been taking lessons, you know.”
“From who?” asked Townsend.
“From me, of course,” August said. “And she’s come a long way from last year, I’ll tell you.”
“Does that mean you won’t be treating us to Poggle and Woggle?” joked Warren in a drawling voice.
“The children might like Poggle and Woggle,” Minette pointed out.
“No, I’ve finished something else. A new piece.” Her husband sorted through the music he’d been working on earlier, and propped open the pages. “It’s called Minette.”
“Minuet?” She could feel herself blushing again.
“No.” A smile teased the corners of his mouth. “Minette. I wrote it for you, dear. I was going to call it Wilhelmina, only...”
Their friends erupted in more laughter as Felicity shrieked and waved her hands. “I believe the young lady wants us to commence with the music,” said Minette. “In fact, she sounds insistent.”
“You take the right hand. I’ll do the left.”
They seated themselves just as they had precisely one year earlier. She couldn’t help thinking how much had changed since then, and how far she had come from Flowers of August, and Lady Priscilla’s insults, and heartbroken tears in Josephine’s arms. August didn’t think her a child any longer, and he didn’t dismiss her as a nuisance. He had even written her a song...
As they began to play the notes together, tears misted her eyes. The song was pretty, even merry, but with an underlying tone of wistfulness that saved it from sounding like some reckless jig. It was a song for her, or about her. Goodness, she’d soon become too teary-eyed to read the music.
“I like this song,” she whispered to him.
“I’m glad,” he whispered back.
“It’s much better than Flowers of August.”
“Anything is better than Flowers of August,” he replied, hitting an especially resonant note.
Behind them, the children had quieted, entranced by the marvelous harmonies her husband was so adept at creating. The song rose to a bright and shimmering peak, a burst of happiness just like the happiness she felt in her heart. Her husband was so talented, and so amazing. She put her head against his shoulder. “Thank you, darling,” she said.
He smiled and patted her hand upon the keyboard, then laced her fingers with his.
“Minette,” said Josephine behind them. “How far you’ve come in your lessons. You must be very proud.”
“Indeed,” echoed Warren. Everyone agreed that she was ever so much more talented than before, but Minette thought she was still nowhere as talented as her husband.
“You must continue to play, so the babies will be entertained,” she said to August. She hoped that would give her some time to compose herself.
A moment later, she was laughing with everyone else as August launched into a jocular rendition of Poggle and Woggle, silly lyrics and all.
*** *** ***
August stayed up with the men for a while before he made his way to the guest chambers. He let his valet undress him and take charge of his clothes, then slipped into a night shirt and crossed to the bedroom.
He found Minette at the vanity table, brushing out her glossy curls. Her pale pink dressing gown gathered loosely at the waist, so he saw a hint of her beautifully curved bosom beneath her shift. He preferred to see her in pinks and florals, rather than black. After six months they had decided, with his mother’s blessing, to have done with mourning and dress in colors again.
He walked over to her, taking in the furnishings and the great curtained bed with a rueful smile. “The Townsends have a jolly sense of humor, don’t they? To put us back in this room?”
“Where else would they put us?” Minette’s laughter rang out in the echoing chamber. “I have many memories of this room, you know. Most of them bad.”
“Then we shall have to make better ones.” August picked her up, sat down in her place, and deposited her in his lap. They peered into the vanity glass together, her light hair beside his dark waves, her blue eyes next to his hazel ones. The tortoiseshell mirror lay on the table before them. “Thank you for my present,” he whispered. “Although I only ever see myself in you.”
Minette touched his cheek. “What a poetic thing to say. If you start writing poetry in addition to composing music, you shall become too captivating for words. Honestly, I don’t know how I could ever match up, with my poorly embroidered handkerchiefs.”
“You’re accomplished at conversation,” he pointed out.
“Little good that does a person.”
“Ah, but you’re good at other things too.” He cupped her breast and ran a thumb across her nipple to feel her shudder against his chest. As he fondled her, she lifted his mirror and angled it so both of them could look into it at once.
“There is an old wives’ tale that if you peer into a looking glass on Hallowe’en night, you’ll see your true love reflected back at you.” She grinned at him in the glass. “If only we’d tried that last Hallowe’en, it would have saved everyone a lot of trouble.”
“You’re trouble personified,” he said, giving her a pinch. “And you always knew your true love, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did. But you took some convincing. A mirror might have helped.”
No, nothing would have helped him but to be forced into a marriage with Minette. Perhaps some Hallowe’en magic had been at work, or perhaps they’d always been fated for one another. He put her on her feet and nudged her toward the bed, and went about the room extinguishing candles until it was as black as it had been that night. The fire’s muted glow disappeared completely when they drew the bed’s heavy curtains.
Minette giggled in the black void and reached out to him, and nearly poked him in the eye. He found her shoulders and drew her close, and kissed her deeply in the darkness. “I can’t see you,” she complained when he released her. “I can’t see a thing.”
They groped about until they located the edge of the bed curtain, and pulled it open again. As soon as he saw Minette, he forced her back upon the pillows and divested her of her dressing gown and shift while she squirmed and giggled some more. When she was naked in the firelight, she turned her attention to his night shirt and pushed it up over his head. He gazed at her lips as she fondled his cock with maddeningly erotic attention.
“Taking my measure?” he asked.
“And an impressive measure it is,” she answered in her adorable, shameless way. “It’s too bad that first encounter took place in the dark. I couldn’t see anything of your remarkable physique, only what I felt with my hands, and I was too shy to touch you very much. I remember so little! I honestly have no memory of how I ended up in your bed.”
August pulled her closer, burying his nose in her hair. “I remember plenty of things. I remember how soft you were, and how lovely you smelled. If I wasn’t half drunk, I would have realized you weren’t a kitchen maid.”
“Thank goodness you were half drunk.”
r /> He rolled her over and gave her bottom a spank. “Saucy little miss, aren’t you?”
“But I can be as naughty and saucy as I like now that I’m breeding. Aurelia and Josephine tell me one of the great benefits of increasing is that they are spanked a lot less.”