“Glad we’re in agreement.” Liam grinned.
David slammed back his honey tea and set the glass on the table with a thud. He needed to have a conversation with Ashley, urgently. He’d walk out right now, go directly to her uncle’s townhouse.
The other men in the room looked at him expectantly.
With a mental sigh, he weighed his responsibilities and desires. Once more, duty took precedence over his personal wishes.
He’d talk with her tonight. He had to see his family and friend through the competition, help Liam win his needed share of the prize money. And they weren’t going to win any prizes with what they’d done in the last hour.
“Mansfield, you missed the key change,” David said, striding to the pianoforte. “That’s an E flat, not an E natural.”
Mansfield squinted at the sheet of music where David stabbed his finger. “Bugger,” he muttered.
“Did you lose count?” David asked Parker as he straightened. “You were late coming in on the second verse.”
“Um…”
This wasn’t going to work. Not in time for the competition. David rubbed his temples.
“I think we can learn to play the music,” Liam said. “Or sing the lyrics. But not both. Not in time for tomorrow night.”
“You two obviously can play and sing it well,” Templeton said. “The rest of us simply need more rehearsal time to become as proficient. You’ve composed a beautiful song. I want to do it justice.”
David locked gazes with Liam.
Liam nodded.
“Shove over,” David said, giving Mansfield a slight push.
Mansfield rose from the pianoforte bench and shook out his coattails. “I yield. With gratitude.”
David flipped his coattails back and sat on the bench, and confirmed the other men had abandoned their instruments and gathered around the pianoforte, sheet music in hand.
“Let’s try it this way, shall we?” David played the opening chords.
* * *
Ashley paced in front of the fireplace at the Mansfield townhouse music room. Except for the children, all of the Mansfield and Templeton ladies were present.
All of the men were gone. Tonight was the big night. The annual competition at the Noblemen and Gentlemen’s Catch Club.
Georgia pleaded with Ashley to stay long past when she and her aunt would have gone home after a musical evening at the Mansfield townhouse. Parker’s wife Deirdre dozed on the sofa, using Lady Bedford’s shoulder for a pillow. Lawrence was not competing but had gone as part of the audience, as had Uncle Edward. Clarissa repeatedly threw a child’s stocking stuffed with wool scraps for Tuffy, who would retrieve it and sit at her feet, panting and wagging his tail until she threw the toy again.
Lady Mansfield and Lady Templeton had faced each other over a chessboard for more than an hour yet hadn’t progressed much beyond opening moves with the pawns. Georgia sat at the harp, listlessly plucking a tune.
Last night Aunt Eunice had pleaded a headache, so Ashley and Uncle Edward had stayed home, poring over real estate listings and working on plans for the school. She wished she’d had a chance to see Ravencroft before the competition. To wish him luck, of course. Not because it was almost physically painful if she did not see him each day, talk to him each evening. Late at night in her room, alone, she heard the echo of his uneven footsteps, remembered his rumbling chuckle. How he’d toy with her hair. Their intimate conversations.
Ashley tugged her silk shawl higher up on her shoulders. Despite feeling silly, as she was not generally a superstitious person, tonight she had worn her pink dress with ruffles at the bottom that Ravencroft had noticed hanging in her dressing room, and topped it with the cream, red, and blue paisley silk shawl she’d worn the night he rescued her.
Just as Ashley worried she was going to wear a path in the carpet and must choose another route, they heard a commotion at the front door. Many footsteps and men’s voices filled the foyer and spilled down the hall. The women jumped up, practically pushing each other in their eagerness to see the cause for the commotion.
Lord Mansfield, Templeton, and Parker froze as they saw the women, their expressions carefully blank. The door to the street remained wide open. More men were visible behind them, waiting to enter.
“Well?” Lady Templeton tapped the toe of one silk-slippered foot.
No one moved or seemed to breathe.
Mansfield and Templeton exchanged glances, then shouted in unison, “We won!”
