“Unless you learn to work with it instead of against it,” she countered in a quiet voice. Instead of expanding the conversation, Sarah fit the mouthpiece of the flute to her lips and proceeded to play one of her favorite passages from a Mozart piece. While her fingers flew and the notes filled the air, she kept her focus on Andrew.
The change was extraordinary.
He relaxed by increments, went so far as to lean a shoulder against one of the aged oak trees. The lines of strain faded from his face, making him look years younger. His stormy eyes softened. By the time she finished, the hints of a smile flirted with those impossibly chiseled lips. “I must admit, Sarah, that I could listen to this for a string of days and never find myself bored. You are quite good.”
“I’m glad you’ve enjoyed it.” Another round of heat filled her cheeks. Music was said to soothe the savage beast. Perhaps this was her purpose in life now, why she’d been destined to meet him. Once he forgot to hold onto his anger, he was rather pleasant and certainly handsome—and he could begin to heal. “Andrew?”
“Hmm?”
“Will you tell me about your family? You and I will wed in four days, and I’d like to hear about the people who are close to you.” Was she daring too much by pushing him against his apparent boundaries?
“You know how I feel about them.” Warning rumbled in his voice.
“I really don’t, since you won’t open up to me.” Sarah frowned as he pushed off from the tree. Would he leave when the discussion butted into the personal?
“You are quite unrelenting,” he muttered.
She snorted. “I rather think I’m inquisitive about my groom-to-be.” Resettling the flute in her lap, she looked at him. “If you are allowed to order me about—”
“Without success, I might add—”
“—Then I should be given the same right.” There was a certain amount of satisfaction in arguing with him, even as benign as this was.
His lips twitched but he didn’t let himself smile. “Fine.” Andrew raked the fingers of one had through his hair, upsetting the perfect waves. “My mother is…” He cocked his head to one side. “Well, she’s the dowager countess, and she detests the moniker.”
“I don’t blame her. Listen to the word as you say it.” She demonstrated and then shivered. “It conjures up images of an old woman.”
Again, he almost smiled. “You will be the dowager someday too.”
She pulled a face and stuck out her tongue.
“My mother dotes on my brothers.”
“How many do you have?” Finally, she would have a modicum of information about him.
“Two. Finn and Brand.”
“Odd names.”
He rolled his eyes heavenward. “Their full names are Phineas and Hildebrand.”
“Oh!” A giggle welled up and she couldn’t stop it. “How unfortunate for them.”
“Indeed.” Amusement winked in his eyes.
Sarah called herself back to the discussion at hand. “I’m certain your mother loves you as well as she loves them.”
“Perhaps, but she’s rather out of sorts with me at the moment. Has threatened to write to my cousin and force me to sign a power of attorney to him so he can run the estate, unless I come up to the mark.”
“Ah, now I understand your urgency.”
“Indeed.” He pressed his lips together before continuing. “When I left, I was in a terrible temper and had said some horrid things about Finn.” Regret danced across his face.
“Like what?” She enjoyed the peek into his life but knew he would cut that tenuous thread between them soon. For whatever reason, he wasn’t a man who liked sharing personal stories or letting anyone close.
“Finn came back from the war injured—quite severely.” He rubbed his gloved fingers over his heart as he’d done in her presence twice now. “He’s in a Bath chair, paralyzed. I fear for his future, and Brand, from all accounts, will have a tough time of it as well. He lost an eye while serving.” The last was said on a gasp. The color faded from his face. “I let them fight out there without putting myself into danger like I should have.”
The behavior he showed was more than displaying his temper; he was genuinely upset to the point of nearly having an attack of nerves. Finally, she was beginning to understand perhaps the first layer of his angst. “Don’t let the anger win, Andrew. Focus on me and keep talking.”