Page 92 of The Music of Love

His naïveté charmed her. Portia could play for twelve hours without opening her eyes. So could any musician worth their salt. “I’ve committed a few things to memory. What do you like?”

“Bach?” he said with a hopeful smile.

“I believe I can accommodate your request.”

Stacy approached and held a glass toward her. “I thought you might enjoy something to sustain you.”

Portia took the glass of lemonade. “Thank you.”

He turned to his brother. “Sorry old man, I should have brought you a brandy.”

Robert grinned. “I want nothing that will dull my senses. I wish to be astoundingly alert when Portia plays. She has allowed me to choose the music.”

Stacy’s brows rose at his brother’s use of her Christian name.

Portia sensed an odd tension between the two men, as though they’d gone a lifetime without brotherly competition and were now taking up their roles with a vengeance. She’d heard them taunting one another about the dart games they’d played in some Plymouth pub. They had been playful but there was rivalry beneath the laughter.

A footman rolled her father-in-law’s chair to a halt not far from them and Portia realized he’d not been in the room for the earlier playing. The man really was objectionable and took no pains to hide it. He glanced over at her and gave her a sneering smile, as if he’d heard her thoughts.

Portia ignored him and turned to the other guests, all of whom were taking their seats and looking expectant. She handed Stacy her glass and stood. She never felt nervous performing, whereas Ivo became so sick before some of his performances it had been unclear whether he’d be able to go on. Of course he’d played before monarchs all over Europe, not in family drawing rooms.

Portia surveyed her small audience. “I’ve had a request for Bach.”

She sat at the piano, stretched her hands, closed her eyes, and played.

Stacy could hardly tear his eyes away from his wife long enough to look at the faces in the room. His brother was thoroughly captivated and Stacy could not blame the man, especially given the iceberg he’d married.

The desiccated old man in the wheeled chair sat with his eyes closed, a beatific expression on his gaunt, age-ravaged face. The quote “music hath charms to soothe a savage breast,” came to mind. Not that the old bastard deserved soothing of any kind: physical, spiritual, or emotional. A twinge of shame shot through him at the uncharitable thought and Stacy ruthlessly suppressed it. The Earl of Broughton deserved no pity and surely did not want any.

He turned away from the bitter old man and back to the piano, the usual chaos of emotions assaulting him as he studied his wife: admiration, pride, frustration, possession, lust, desire, regret, and on and on.

Portia looked magnificent. She wore dark blue tonight and the color created yet another version of her. Red turned her into human fire but this dark shade of blue made her precision and grace personified. Her arms were delicate yet strong, drawing notes of surpassing beauty from the instrument before her. He drank in her gently sloping shoulders, her elegant throat, and her distinctive, kissable nose. Stacy’s body heated and his vision blurred; as usual, he became hard just looking at her.

He would end the foolishness between them tonight. The door between their rooms would not remain locked any longer. He felt eyes on him and turned. His father was staring at him. It was perhaps the first time he’d looked the man square in the face. The amount of malice he saw took his breath away. This man—his father—hated him.

For the first time Stacy truly understood: there would be no tender father-son reconciliation; there would be no apology forthcoming for his banishment; there would only be unrelenting loathing. This was a man who’d discarded his own child the way other people discarded rubbish. How could Stacy ever expect anything other than contempt from such a person? He smiled at the foolish thought and saw his father recoil, as if he’d not imagined such a freak was capable of humor.

When Portia’s final notes settled over the room the applause was deafening for such a modestly sized audience. Even the earl raised his hands for a few seconds.

“She is magnificent!” Robert sprang to his feet, his eyes blazing with admiration.

Stacy smiled up at his older brother, yet another man who’d fallen under Portia’s spell. Well, he thought, rising to his feet beside him, who could blame the man for showing excellent taste?

Chapter Twenty-Five

Portia had just given her earrings to Daisy to put away when the connecting door to Stacy’s room opened and her husband entered. He’d not yet undressed as they’d just come from the drawing room minutes before.

“Would you please excuse us, Daisy?”

Daisy dropped a hurried curtsey before leaving.

Stacy gestured to the door through which he had come. “Will you join me in the sitting room, Portia?”

The elegant sitting room attached to his suite had a fire burning and Portia took the chair that was closest; she was always cold.

Stacy went to pour a drink. “Do you care for any brandy? Or should I ring for something else—milk?”

“Not tonight.”