Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels 1)

“You play with great skill,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“Is that your favorite piece?”

“It’s my most difficult,” Helen said, “but not my favorite.”

“What do you play when there’s no one to hear?”

The gentle question, spoken in that accent with vowels as broad as his shoulders, caused Helen’s stomach to tighten pleasurably. Perturbed by the sensation, she was slow to reply. “I don’t remember the name of it. A piano tutor taught it to me long ago. For years I’ve tried to find out what it is, but no one has ever recognized the melody.”

“Play it for me.”

Calling it up from memory, she played the sweetly haunting chords, her hands gentle on the keys. The mournful chords never failed to stir her, making her heart ache for things she couldn’t name. At the conclusion, Helen looked up from the keys and found Winterborne staring at her as if transfixed. He masked his expression, but not before she saw a mixture of puzzlement, fascination, and a hint of something hot and unsettling.

“It’s Welsh,” he said.

Helen shook her head with a laugh of wondering disbelief. “You know it?”

“‘A Ei Di’r Deryn Du.’ Every Welshman is born knowing it.”

“What is it about?”

“A lover who asks a blackbird to carry a message to his sweetheart.”

“Why can’t he go to her himself?” Helen realized they were both speaking in hushed tones, as if they were exchanging secrets.

“He can’t find her. He’s too deep in love – it keeps him from seeing clearly.”

“Does the blackbird find her?”

“The song doesn’t say,” he said with a shrug.

“But I must know the ending to the story,” Helen protested.

Winterborne laughed. It was an irresistible sound, rough-soft and sly. When he replied, his accent had thickened. “That’s what comes o’ reading novels, it is. The story needs no ending. That’s not what matters.”

“What matters, then?” she dared to ask.

His dark gaze held hers. “That he loves. That he’s searching. Like the rest of us poor devils, he has no way of knowing if he’ll ever have his heart’s desire.”

And you? Helen longed to ask. What are you searching for? The question was too personal to ask even of someone she had known for a long time, much less a stranger. Even so, the words hovered on her tongue, begging to be spoken. She looked away and fought to hold them back. When she returned her gaze to Winterborne, his expression had become remote again. Which was a relief, because for a moment she’d had the alarming feeling that she was only a breath away from confiding every private thought and wish that she’d never told anyone.

To Helen’s great relief, Quincy arrived with the dinner tray. The valet’s white brows lifted fractionally as he saw her alone in the room with Winterborne, but he said nothing. As Quincy proceeded to arrange the flatware, glasses, and plate on the table, Helen regained her composure. She stood from the upholstered bench and gave Winterborne a neutral smile. “I will leave you to enjoy your dinner.”

His gaze swept over her, lingering at her face. “You’ll play for me again one evening?”

“Yes, if you like.” She left the parlor gratefully, steeling herself not to break into a run.

Rhys stared after Helen, while his brain sorted through every detail of the past few minutes. It was fairly clear that she had a disgust of him: She had recoiled from his touch, and she had trouble meeting his gaze. She had abruptly changed the conversation when it had strayed toward the personal.

Perhaps his looks weren’t to her taste. No doubt his accent was off-putting. And like the other sheltered young women of her class, she probably thought of the Welsh as third-rate barbarians. Helen knew that she was too fine for the likes of him – God knew Rhys wouldn’t argue.

But he was going to have her anyway.

“What is your opinion of Lady Helen?” he asked as Quincy arranged the meal on the table in front of him.

“She is the jewel of the Ravenels,” Quincy said. “A more kind-hearted girl you’ll never meet. Sadly, she’s always been overlooked. Her older brother received the lion’s share of her parents’ interest, and what little was left went to the twins.”

Rhys had met the twins a few days earlier, both of them bright-eyed and amusing, asking a score of questions about his department store. He had liked the girls well enough, but neither of them had captured his interest. They were nothing close to Helen, whose reserve was mysterious and alluring. She was like a mother-of-pearl shell that appeared to be one color, but from different angles revealed delicate shimmers of lavender, pink, blue, green. A beautiful exterior that revealed little of its true nature.

“Is she aloof with all strangers?” he asked, arranging a napkin on his lap. “Or is it only with me?”

“Aloof?” The valet sounded genuinely surprised. Before he could continue, a pair of small black spaniels entered the parlor, panting happily as they bounded up to Rhys. “Good heavens,” he muttered with a frown.

Rhys, who happened to like dogs, didn’t mind the interruption. What he found disconcerting, however, was the third animal that trotted into the room after them and sat assertively by his chair.

“Quincy,” Rhys asked blankly, “why is there a pig in the parlor?”

The valet, who was busy shooing the dogs from the room, said distractedly, “A family pet, sir. They try to keep him in the barn, but he will insist on coming into the house.”

“But why —” Rhys broke off, realizing that regardless of the explanation, it would make no sense to him. “Why is it,” he asked instead, “that if I kept livestock in my home, people would say I was ignorant or daft, but if a pig wanders freely in the mansion of an earl, it’s called eccentric?”

“There are three things that everyone expects of an aristocrat,” the valet replied, tugging firmly at the pig’s collar. “A country house, and a weak chin, and eccentricity.” He pushed and pulled at the pig with increasing determination, but the creature only sat more heavily. “I vow,” the valet wheezed, budging him only an inch at a time, “I’ll have you turned into sausage and collops by tomorrow’s breakfast!”