Page 22 of The Counterfeit Scoundrel
When they entered the musicale room, she was surprised to find this scandalous club would have such a magnificent rosewood grand piano. An older silver-haired gentleman sat at it, running his hands lovingly over the ivory, while three ladies stood nearby admiring his entertaining talent.
A few couples occupied the dimly lit room, some making use of those shadowy corners Bishop had referenced earlier, and she fought not to envision how his fingers might have played over a lady’s skin with the same efficiency and purpose as the pianist’s fingers worked at the gorgeous instrument or the cries and gasps that might have been emitted by those recipients of Bishop’s talents. She knew he had them and used them to perfection behind closed doors. She’d seen the way two of his latest paramours gazed at him adoringly. Mrs. Mallard would eventually as well, once she grew comfortable as a sinner. Although Daisy often wondered why the woman had begun coming to him when she hadn’t yet embraced the role of devotee.
How had they met? How had any of them met? Certainly, their acquaintance hadn’t begun here, since the club granted membership only to the unmarried.
With his arm shifting from beneath her hold, he guided it around, so his large hand came to rest at the small of her back and, with gentle pressure, he directed her toward the piano. A harmless place. Or it should have been, but his fingers remained splayed against the silk of her gown, sending out delicious tentacles of warmth that kept her entire body aware of his nearness. His ability to stir to life sensations with so light a touch was quite possibly lethal, and yet she had no desire to seek out safety and move beyond his reach.
The tune fell into silence, and those gathered around the piano clapped lightly, even Bishop, which meant he was no longer connected to her, and she rather resented the absence of his touch. But after a few meetings of his palms, he returned his hand to her back. And her breath settled into a calm and quiet acceptance.
“I say,” he began in a commanding yet low voice so as not to disturb those in the shadows who probably hadn’t even noticed the music stopping, “are you familiar with a lullaby about angels guarding a babe through the night?”
Every aspect of her went still. Within this place of decadence and sinners, he was asking about a lullaby? He’d actually remembered the memory she’d shared about her mother? While it had been only a few days since that conversation, she hadn’t thought he’d really paid attention to what she was saying, that it had just been trivial talk, something to fill the silence in passing, to politely listen to and forget.
“I recall a Welsh lullaby my wife would sing to our children,” the pianist said.
“If you’re married, why are you here?” one of the ladies asked, clearly offended that their unattached ranks had been breached.
“I’m a widower,” he responded sadly before striking the first chord.
Daisy wondered if it was a recent change in his marital status, and then he was forgotten as a tune floated forth and he accompanied it with the words. She was no longer in this room, but was a small child nestled on her mother’s lap, feeling safe, secure, loved. Tears stung her eyes as she remembered howshe’d longed for those moments of being carried into slumber. Every night until the last night, when Daisy was five, her mother had held her close and sung those words or hummed that tune. It didn’t matter if Daisy woke up later alone in her wooden slatted prison that she couldn’t escape—the box in which her parents placed her whenever they went out as a means to keep her safe when their need for the opium dragon became too great.
She became aware of a warm breath wafting over her ear. “Is that the one?”
Blinking back the tears before they’d fully gained their freedom, she shifted her attention to Bishop, to the warmth in his eyes, and perhaps a spark of hope that he’d given her the correct gift. “It is, yes. I’d forgotten how much I loved it.”
He smiled then, but it wasn’t the one that stole breaths. It was one that returned them, soft and gentle, barely there, but filling his eyes, one that signaled this is a moment I’ve shared with no other. This moment is ours and ours alone.
His hand wrapped around her wrist. His finger slid into her glove to stroke the sensitive skin where her pulse thrummed. “How did she die? Your mother?”
“Opium.” She remembered being hungry, cold, and scared. A phalanx of liveried footmen bursting through the door, followed by her aunt marching in like an avenging angel. A poker being used to pry the lock off her cage. “I recall little about her death except everyone garbed in black and her lying so pale and still in a box. I made such a fuss, crying and screaming. Inconsolable really. I suppose that’s the reason that when my father passed a short time later, theydidn’t show him to me but just told me he was gone. Auntie took me to visit their resting places in the city.” They’d not been interred at the family estate. It was only for those who’d actually held the title associated with the earldom. Not for a lesser son who’d brought naught but shame and heartache to his relations.
“I’m sorry,” Bishop said quietly. “And I apologize for asking. This isn’t the place for those sorts of memories.”
“They’re no longer fresh or vivid or painful. It’s like viewing them through gossamer. More like something I was told rather than something I experienced.” She couldn’t even recall what they looked like without studying the images nestled in a locket she always wore about her neck. She refrained from reaching for it now.
“I’m extremely grateful for that mercy. I wouldn’t want to do anything to cause you hurt.”
Her heart stumbled, and she wondered if he’d noted it where his finger continued to gently stroke. She was going to cause him and his reputation hurt, a great deal of it, when she turned over her report, when she spoke out against him. She should leave now, leave his presence, but it was so deuced hard when his gaze was wandering intently over her features as though he longed to touch each one with the edge of his finger, the tip of his tongue, the brush of his lips.
She thought she could actually detect a longing in those dark eyes, a yearning for her.
Then the moment was gone as the pianist transitioned from the lullaby into a more spirited song. Everything seemed to fade away, except for the man beside her. She wanted him to take her into the shadows, and if he wouldn’t, maybe she would grasp hishand and lead him into them, ignoring the danger to her heart that possibly awaited her there. His kindness was such a powerful aphrodisiac. In spite of her determination to resist him, she was falling—
“No, I said no.”
The trembling feminine harsh whisper caught her attention, and apparently his, because he jerked his head around. When he looked back at her, his brow was furrowed. “Excuse me. I won’t be long.”
Stunned, she watched as he crossed over to one of those corners, but she wasn’t about to wait, so she followed. A man had his hand wrapped around a small woman’s upper arm, his body positioned so she was fairly caged between him and the wall.
“I believe the lady indicated she is not interested in what you’re offering,” Bishop said calmly with such deadly menace that a fissure of dread raced up Daisy’s spine.
The gent swung his head around and glared. “I purchased her dinner.”
“That does not obligate her to spend the remainder of the evening in your presence, especially when it’s obvious to all in this chamber that you have become quite boorish.”
“She owes me.”
“You had her company for dinner. Be grateful for that. Now unhand her.”
