I selected a piece and began, not as adeptly as I would have liked. My fingers felt stiff and clumsy on the keys. Isabel turned the pages for me.
“I shouldn’t be doing this. This isn’t what these people paid for.”
“Hush. No one who has the pleasure of listening to you could find anything wanting.”
I compressed a smile. I only recognized Mr. Darcy’s line because it had involved a piano and I could relate to Lizzy in that scene. She knew full well the deficiencies in her playing, but like me, she hadn’t taken the time to practice. I focused on the music in front of me and imagined that’s what this was—a practice session.
At the last note I glanced up. Everyone had gathered near. Helene began to clap.
“Play another and we shall dance.”
Isabel sprang into action and led an impromptu lesson in nineteenth-century country dances, and I warmed to the music.
During my third piece, Isabel determined her pupils were ready to step out on their own. They paired up and she found herself without a partner. With a sigh she lowered herself onto the bench beside me and resumed turning the pages.
I almost felt sorry for her. Until halfway through “Turner’s Waltz,” when Grant arrived. I heard her gasp before I caught sight of him. He was stunning. There was no other way to say it. He was dressed in Regency-style regimentals. At least, I assumed the British army didn’t still wear such tall hats and bright-blue coats. He removed his hat and shot me a wry glance as he led Isabel from the bench beside me to the floor.
I returned to the music and was soon swept away by Turner, Haydn, Mozart, and an Irish jig. Lost within music I hadn’t played in the two years since my mom had died and hadn’t felt for years before that.
I added a final flourish to the jig, sending Clara into giggling fits while Aaron and Grant stomped and swung the women around like Texans in a bar dance. The Muellers confined themselves to clapping and an occasional foot tap—not because they were surly, but because they were exhausted. And Gertrude stood on the edge of it all with a small smile and bright eyes.
Yes, the music worked its magic, as did the people—Gertrude’s emerald-green silk with pearls woven through her silver hair; Helene’s diamonds dancing in the candlelight; my own wrist looking equally dazzling; the Lottes dancing, mesmerized by each other; and Isabel and Grant, dancing a final and closing waltz as Sonia and Duncan snuffed the candles in the ballroom.
After the others went upstairs, Gertrude and I sat back down and discussed the next day’s plans over a cup of hot cocoa. She brought me to the Blue Room to lay out Nathan’s clothes together.
When she flipped on the light, I gasped. “I wish we could’ve stayed here. I love this room.”
It was slightly smaller than ours, with blue toile wallpaper and matching curtains. Not frilly curtains, straight ones with clean lines and right angles. The area rug was bright blue woven with navy. It was thick and chunky as if made from the ropes that rigged ships. It was a man’s room, a sailor’s room, clean, neat, and comfortable. An imposing wood-framed bed sat in the center of the interior wall, a wardrobe filled one corner, and an armchair and ottoman another.
“I’m glad you like it. It was my brother Geoffrey’s room. The Green Room was mine.”
“It’s so comfortable. Not that ours isn’t exquisite, it’s just that . . . I have three brothers. I guess I’m more used to this.” I ran my fingers down the drapery, then remembered Isabel’s admonishment: Do not weigh the draperies. “Do the rooms look like they did when you were a child?”
Gertrude scoffed. “Back then the wallpaper was peeling, the paint around the windows disintegrating. The lead frames had warped at least a century earlier, and right up in that corner there was a leak that dripped nine months of the year. Geoffrey used my blue sand pail to catch it until we were teenagers. Then he mounted a catching system made from a canvas tarp and garden tubing. It was all a mess. I don’t remember a time it wasn’t . . . Wait here.”
She returned moments later with a rolling portable wardrobe. She unzipped the canvas side and began withdrawing coats.
“Not that one.” I scrunched my nose at the coat she laid on the bed. “I promise you it’s too large. He’s more narrow, and taller. Do you have anything slimmer?”
She looked like she wanted to laugh, but instead she pulled out three more coats.
“These two.” I laid aside a dark green and a bright blue.
She then pulled out shirts, neckties, and three pairs of breeches. “Too small? Too big?”
I shrugged. “How would I know?”
“I have no idea.” That time she did laugh.
. . . A company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation.
The line from Persuasion came to me on a shaft of morning sunlight. I recalled the enchantment of the previous evening, then let it drift away as I watched the sunbeams strike our room’s many shades of green.
I stretched and glanced to Isabel’s bed. She was gone—again. I took a deep breath. Day two. I reached for my phone to send a quick text to Dr. Milton when another thought hit me.
Nathan. I calculated the time. Five hours.
I pulled a dress from my wardrobe, this time a rich cream one with blue detailing. The fabric was sumptuous, a soft thin wool, and it fit. It dropped long enough to reach my toes, and the front pleats made me look like I had cleavage. I twisted my ponytail into a bun and secured it with the stretch of electrical wire I’d used on Isabel’s hair the night before. I even dabbed on blush and mascara.
Showtime.
I stepped into the gallery. Then I felt it—a shock of pure energy. It was noiseless. There was no change in pressure or sound. It simply felt like a charge reverberating through and around me, like when the guys in the lab set off experiments to see if my hair stood on end when I walked in the door.
I looked down the stairs and there he was, right below me, looking around but not up. Four hours early.
I closed my eyes, thankful for a moment to allow the heat in my face to cool. I shifted my weight to step back when a chuckle reached me.
“Look at you.” The words were soft, almost flirtatious. I backed away further.
I took a deep breath and stepped forward. “You’re early.”
“There was a seat on an earlier flight out of Dallas.”
I leaned over the railing. “Stop grinning like that. Wait till you see what you have to wear.”