She hid her disappointment, hoping he’d change his mind. At the keyboard, she tried to clear her head, to recapture what it had once been like to be a family, to spend an evening together. In her mind, she returned to their bungalow in Bombay, imagining her brother Gabriel still alive, teasing Oliver, making their mother smile and distracting her from the anxious looks she usually bestowed on their father.
“What are you thinking?” Lord Blackthorne asked, from his place on a nearby sofa.
She gave him a wry smile. “I am remembering evenings from my childhood, when our father used to have us perform.”
“He was very proud of you both,” Lord Blackthorne said. “There were nights when we were not permitted to sleep, waiting to move into position for a dawn engagement. We all took turns talking about our families, and your father participated just as freely.”
“What did he say?” she asked, feeling wistful, even as her fingers began to play a melody she knew by heart.
Oliver pretended to ignore them, leafing through sheet music with great concentration.
“He spoke often of stories of Lord Appertan at Eton,” her husband said. “I heard about a particular archery incident.”
Oliver remained hunched over the table full of music, but he was no longer searching through them, his fingers still, his head tilted. Cecilia felt sad even as the amusement of that famous family incident returned.
Lord Blackthorne looked at her brother. “Did you really try to prove you could shoot your arrow through the skirt of your tutor’s academic gown without hitting the man himself?”
For the first time in a long while, Oliver wore a smile that wasn’t tinged with arrogance or sarcasm. Cecilia started to laugh. All her concerns slipped away, and she pretended she had back her brother of old.
Oliver sipped his brandy and eyed Lord Blackthorne. “I pinned him to a tree. I was quite the hero, even when I was flogged afterward.”
Lord Blackthorne just shook his head. “You were lucky you didn’t pierce his leg—or anything else.” He glanced at Cecilia. “He spoke of you, too. For a woman who claims she doesn’t like the adventure of the Indian countryside, it seems you could be quite daring.”
“Tell me something he said about me,” Cecilia said with an eagerness she didn’t try to hide.
Lord Blackthorne gave her his faint smile. “I heard you used to go on long walks even as a child—and without permission. There’s an ancient castle ruin nearby, isn’t there?”
She threw back her head and laughed in a most unladylike way. Her husband’s eyes sparkled as he watched her, and to hide the warmth of her response, she glanced at her fingers moving on the keys.
“I was convinced there was a hidden dungeon there, no matter how many people told me otherwise,” she said. “I had to go explore.”
“I like that spirit of adventure,” Lord Blackthorne said softly.
She couldn’t meet his eyes. “Yes, well, I could have been seriously hurt.”
“But you weren’t,” he countered. “I hear you found the undercroft and were convinced that instead of storage, it housed evil knights.”
“It was my special hiding place,” she mused, far-off memories moving slowly through her mind. “I did my studies there by candlelight when I was older. It’s been a long time since I went back. It really is too dangerous.”
“I’d like to see it,” he answered.
They looked at each other for long moments, and she imagined taking him there, showing him the places she’d hidden unafraid, knowing he’d take that as proof that she could be the kind of wife he wanted, one who’d follow the drum into any adventure. She looked away.
“I take it you weren’t very daring at school, Blackthorne,” Oliver interrupted.
“I didn’t go to school.”
Oliver boldly asked the question she wanted answered. “Why not?”
“Because my father refused to send me. He preferred to have us tutored at home.”
She looked back down at her fingers moving over the keys. Tutored at home? How very strange for a viscount’s heir.
Oliver grunted. “There were days I wished I’d been allowed to stay home.” Then he glanced speculatively at Lord Blackthorne. “Did you wish you could have gone?”
“Yes. From what I understand, you often meet your lifelong friends there. Luckily, I met mine in my regiment.”
“Do you miss them?” Cecilia asked, feeling a pang of sorrow for Hannah.
