“Which is very odd,” she pointed out, “considering all the great composers are men.”
He laughed, a deep booming sound. “A good point, my love. Artists are allowed to be men, but the great men of English society are not supposed to focus much on art. It’s really rather sad,” he confessed.
“It is indeed,” she agreed, her heart aching that he had not been able to share this with others but glad he was sharing it with her. “I love to read, something that is not always encouraged in ladies, as you know, and you love to play the piano, something that is not always encouraged in gentlemen. We are a formidable pair of doing what we are not supposed to do.” His beautiful eyes lit then with something powerful. As if at long last he felt...seen. Accepted.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Will you let me play for you now?” he asked softly.
“I would like it above all things,” she said honestly.
And much to her surprise, he stood and walked into an adjacent room.
She followed him and realized that it was a room solely devoted to a pianoforte.
A pianoforte of the most beautiful proportions. Its polished wood gleamed in the candlelight, for there were candles already glowing in the room.
And she came to another realization. His servants kept this room at the ready for him. Perhaps he played in here often, and she had simply not heard it because the library was at the opposite end of the house, which, given the proportions of the town home, was quite far away.
One would think that one would hear it, but she instead heard the carriages and shouts of the daily goings-on of Londoners more than she might hear her husband playing the piano.
She took in the room and its dark green walls. “Do you play every day?”
“Indeed, I do,” he admitted as he crossed to the simple bench. “It gives me a great deal of peace and pleasure. Come,” he said. “Sit beside me.”
And so, her heart full of hope, she did.
Chapter 11
Peter sat down at the pianoforte and stroked the ivory keys reverentially.
How he adored them; they gave him a peace and sense of calm that very little else did. Some gentlemen preferred boxing and fencing and riding to soothe their nerves. Nerves which all men had, though they would not admit to feeling them.
Peter loved all the supposedly masculine pursuits. He adored being outside, sitting a horse, holding a blade and feeling the clang of metal, or the feel of a fist landing.
But there was something about the reverberation of the piano strings being struck and filling a room with music that could lift his soul and make it soar.
So, sitting beside his new wife, he made the decision to let her see how much he loved the music that he could bring forth from the instrument with the help of Herr Beethoven’s compositions.
He paused for a single moment, preparing himself, and then he carefully rested his broad fingers on the keys and played.
He knew the music inherently now.
The complex notes were in his bones and blood and sinew in a way that most people never achieved. He did not need sheet music to play. And much to his pleasure, his wife, hisfriend, seemed to enjoy his pleasure as he let the music take him.
She sat beside him easily and shared in the joy of the music as he allowed it to fill the room. Her entire body grew languid against his, as if the spell was taking effect upon her as easily as it did him.
Something happened to him as he realized just how at home she felt with him. As he did with her. And he slipped then...into love. It was the only word he could think of as he let his mind soar with the notes of the music.
He was struck with surprise, even as he found himself drifting into the passion of the music. He found Herr Beethoven’s work mesmerizing. There was nothing sugary about it. Nothing sweet. No, it was full of the promise of pain and passion and heaven.
Just like Ophelia.
And when he struck the last note, and the last waning sounds of the layered notes of the song drifted through the air, he turned and looked at his wife.
Uncertain as to what he might find, he was amazed to find that she looked as if she had been transported to some unknown plane, but it was a plane that was known to him.
He knew it well.
And suddenly, he realized he was no longer alone. He’d found someone who wished toknowhim. To understand him. He didn’t have to pretend to be a devil may care fellow with her. Or a witty blade. He could simplybe. Just as he loved the wonder of her.