Married to the Marquess (14 page)

He moved quickly and quietly to the music room and stopped outside of it, listening closely. He could hear quite clearly through the door, but the words were a little muffled. Not that it mattered, he could tell immediately that not only was his wife secretly musical, but she was also very gifted. Never in his life had he heard someone play with such feeling, and he prided himself on being a sort of connoisseur. Secretly, of course.

He turned the handle to the room as softly as he could, wincing as it creaked, his whole frame tense. If he could steal a few moments of witnessing unobserved, he would consider himself fortunate. Kate would never be so open and vulnerable as to perform, and, as he had never heard her in their five years of marriage, he highly doubted that it was something she did often at all, even for herself. If it had been a part of her life, she would have done so regardless of his being at home or not.

At last, the door opened enough for him to be able to see her, and his view was worth the effort of secrecy.

Though he had just seen her at breakfast, though he knew exactly how she looked, though he was not even certain that he even liked her, he had to catch his breath at the sight of her. She had never looked so at peace, so full of some private joy as she did at the instrument, her eyes closed as her fingers danced and her voice rang throughout the room. This was no tyrant wife of his; this was an innocent young girl in the bloom of her youth, full of hope for the days ahead.

For some reason he dared not identify, he found his throat inexplicably tightening and his eyes burning. Such a reaction was unwarranted and unprecedented from his wife, but then, he could not be certain the woman before him even
was
his wife.

When she had finished the song, he pushed open the door further, partially entering the room. “Kate?”

With a slight gasp of surprise, she shot up off of the bench and stepped away from the instrument as if it were a wild animal. “Derek! I’m sorry, I just…”

“Sorry?” he interrupted, coming into the room fully and looking at her in disbelief. “Sorry for what? Kate, that was beautiful!”

She looked startled for a moment, as if ready to deny it, but then she only blushed and ducked her head. “Thank you.”

“No, really, Kate, I am very impressed,” he said with real honesty, and not caring that she would see it. “I had no idea you could play.”

“I can a little,” she admitted, adding in a light shrug. “But it is no matter. It’s only a bit of entertainment, and quite superfluous. It serves no purpose.”

“Not everything has to have a purpose, Kate. All the purpose it needs is that you find pleasure in it.”

She looked up at him, tilting her head ever so slightly. The confusion in her eyes made him ache just a little. But she made no move to comment further, so he thought it best that he leave her to it. The compliment had been paid, and that was all he had intended to do.

“So you like music, then?” she asked just as he had turned to leave the room.

“I love music,” he confessed, turning back. “But that is entirely a secret, and I think only you know it. We must keep it that way.”

She nodded sagely, presumably storing that information into her head. He hoped she would not use it against him. “Do you really think that was good?” she asked in a quiet, curious voice.

“I know it was,” he responded immediately. “You have a gift, Kate.” At her doubtful expression, he frowned. Surely a woman as confident and composed as his wife would be well aware of her talents.

Unless…

“Kate, did nobody ever listen to you play?”

She shook her head. “Mother did not like it. She agreed that I could learn for the sake of accomplishment, but she…” She bit her lip and hesitated, but at his smile, she continued. “She did not feel it was a good use of my time. Nobody was permitted to listen. I never performed.”

“Well, pardon me for slighting your mother
again
,” he said with a brief smile, “but I think you should play often, any time you feel like it, and for however long you wish. If you enjoy it, that is.”

“I do,” she admitted softly, but he could hear the emotion behind it.

He nodded, smiling fondly. “Then play on, Kate, without reservation or purpose. Just play. And, if you will permit it, I would love to listen whenever you wish.”

“You would?” she asked, her eyes widening in surprise.

“I would.”

She looked surprised, and a little pleased, which triggered a warm, almost glowing sensation somewhere in the vicinity of Derek’s chest. “I think I would like that very much,” Kate told him shyly.

“Excellent,” Derek said with pride and animation, for she really was furiously talented. “When should the first concert be?”

Kate looked back at the piano, then at him again, her eyes dancing with excitement. “What are you doing right now?”

He laughed and moved to take a seat near the instrument. “Not a thing.”

“You don’t have somewhere better to be?” she asked as she took her seat, somehow looking more timid and uncertain than ever before. How many times had someone said that to a much younger, more innocent Kate who only wanted to show what she had accomplished?

“No,” he said honestly, his heart leaping to his throat at the tender vulnerability in her gaze. “No, I do not.”

If confusion were an illness, then Katherine would be so severely infected that she would have to be quarantined for the safety of any around her.

In all of the twenty-three years of her life, she had never known that one could feel so utterly bewildered, and the idea that it was her husband who was bewildering her was the most bewildering part of all.

She had known this man her entire life, had severely disliked him, hated him, really, for most of that time, and the feeling had been completely mutual, and she had not minded that. Now that they were becoming friends, however, she found that she did not know her husband at all.

To be fair, he did not know her either, nor had he ever seemed inclined to do so before this. But yesterday they had spent a good amount of time in the music room as she played and he critiqued, and quite intelligently at that, and it had been the most enjoyable morning she had spent in a long time.

He’d asked her about acquiring a new chef and she perked up at that. Though she had never spoken of it, the meals were not particularly palatable in their home. But as she did not usually care, she hardly felt right to complain. And the tarts in particular had always been delightful, which he assured her would still be at her disposal. He seemed quite adamant about that part, actually.

And he’d asked her about the new chef. Not informed her what he would do, but asked and consulted with her. Like a true married couple would.

With all of that, she had begun to think that perhaps things just might work out between the two of them after all. And she had to admit, but only to herself and only to the very most private part of her, that his calling her Kate was not the irritation it had once been. She would like to be Kate. Kate was open and honest and fresh, while Katherine was stuffy and haughty and held herself with far too much pride.

Someday she would tell him. Someday she would stop correcting him. But for now, she would only do so in her mind.

But this morning her thoughts were whirlishly dancing around the subject of her husband. She never knew quite how to behave around him, even when things were innocent. And why was he being so attentive with her? It was not yet certain if they were even going to succeed in this friendship of theirs. It had potential, if they would work at it, but nothing was certain. Still he treated her with more kindness than anybody except her father had done, and they had not fought in a number of hours, which was a record for their marriage.

All of these things jumbled about in her mind as she now hurried along the busy streets of London, making her way to the one place she never thought she would go for advice.

“Katherine?” a rather imperious voice called from a window in the building before her.

She looked up and almost sighed in resignation as her sister was trying to force the top half of her body out of the open window, and having quite a bit of difficulty in doing so. “Hello, Aurelia.”

“What are you doing here?” Aurelia tried to hiss, though her voice carried quite a good deal.

“I came to speak with you,” Katherine said plainly. There seemed no point in trying to hide it.

“Have you really?” Aurelia asked in surprise, and not a little suspicion. “On what topic?”

Katherine looked around, and saw that very few people were heeding them at all, which she hoped was a typical thing for members of her sister’s neighborhood. “My husband,” she replied at last.

A scheming light entered her sister’s gaze and she smiled down at Katherine. “It is about time, I daresay. Do come in.”

“Thank you,” Katherine muttered dryly as her sister removed herself from the window.

In short order, the two sisters were ensconced in Aurelia’s rather hideous drawing room and a tea was before them. A plate of biscuits stacked so high it looked impossible that it had been carried up from the kitchens as it now sat on the tray, and Aurelia made no attempt to restrain herself from devouring them.

“Where are the children?” she asked politely as she sipped her tea.

Aurelia waved a pudgy hand dismissively. “Damien and Vincent are up in the school room, and the girl is upstairs with the wet nurse.”

“The girl?” Katherine felt her ire rising at that. Alice was a beautiful child, only a few months old, and rather sweet tempered, and if her sister changed that, Katherine would be enraged.

“What else am I supposed to call her?” Aurelia asked with an incredulous laugh.

“Oh, I don’t know, perhaps Alice? As that is the name you gave her.”

Her sister’s eyes narrowed. “Really, Katherine, you ought to have checked your attitude before entering. This is my home and I may refer to my children however I wish to. Honestly, I think Mother’s ghost might be inhabiting your body at present.” She reached for another biscuit, giving her a disapproving glare. “And besides, it is not as though that child adds anything to the world. She will not amount to anything, I know. I had so hoped for another son. I have no idea what to do with a girl.”

Fighting for control, Katherine took in a steadying breath, then released it slowly. “If you care so little for Alice, then why did you even have her?”

“Why, for my own amusement, of course!” Aurelia cried in surprise, taking a large bite of biscuit. “You did not honestly think that I went through all of that out of love or admiration for Nigel, do you?” She laughed at her own words. “Good heavens, but that man is an idiot. I declare, I do not know how I put up with him at all.”

“He does wait on you hand and foot and treat you as if you were royalty or deity,” Katherine pointed out with no small amount of sarcasm and distaste.

Her sister missed the spirit in which the words were said. “Oh, I know,” she gushed with a smile. “And it is for that reason alone that I keep him around. It is vastly amusing. But as far as conversation or wit or anything useful, he is perfectly a waste. Husbands are such bores, don’t you think?”

“I hardly know,” Katherine said with more honesty than she had meant to. “My husband is a trifle difficult to understand.”

“What is there to understand?” Aurelia laughed as if it were the most ridiculous assertion she had ever heard. “What was it that Mother said? ‘Our duty as women is to make sure that our husband is well respected and his estate envied, but every intelligent being of sense knows that the real power in the world lies with the wives’.” Aurelia grinned at the memory and nodded. “I do not think she ever spoke truer words to us, do you?”

Actually, Katherine did not. “Not in the case of my husband, I can assure you. He is a mystery.”

“Dear Katherine,” Aurelia said as she sat forward and put her tea down, watching her sister in a sort of triumphant amusement, “haven’t you learned how to milk your husband for all he is worth yet?”

“My husband is not to be ‘milked’, Aurelia,” Katherine muttered with no small amount of irritation. “He is not a cow. And he does not worship the ground I walk on as yours does.”

Aurelia trilled a laugh that was not at all amusing. “Then you are not doing it right, dear. The man should be eating out of the palm of your hand.”