With her hands lightly clasped in her lap, she was surveying the hall, her expression relaxed, her gaze interested. He could detect no remnant of the stiffness that had assailed her when they’d entered the foyer; that had faded away while they’d talked to all and sundry. Perhaps she’d simply been nervous.
“My apologies,” he murmured. “I didn’t anticipate...being quite such a cynosure of attention.” As she turned to him, he met her eyes. “I hadn’t realized the city’s dignitaries would press you into service as they did—that certainly wasn’t my intention in asking you to accompany me tonight.”
Sylvia searched his face, his eyes, and found nothing but sincerity. Well, that answers my question as to what moved him to invite me.
And that meant he’d invited her...purely for the pleasure of her company.
She thrust the distracting thought aside; now was not the time to dwell on that. Smiling, she reached out, laid her hand on his arm, and lightly squeezed. “No matter.” She paused, then added, “I was happy to help—because if you are to make a go of Cavanaugh Yachts and be sponsor of the school as well, then some of those who approached are people it will be useful to know.”
He heaved a put-upon sigh. “I know.” He gazed out at the murmuring crowd.
If he’d been a smaller man, she might have said he squirmed.
After a moment, grudgingly, he said, “I admit I don’t like swimming in social waters. In some strange way, moments such as those in the foyer make my skin itch.”
More specifically, they made him feel grubby, and Kit knew why. Whenever possible, his mother had ensured he attended her friends’ social events—the ton crushes at which she’d delighted in showing him and his siblings off. She’d insisted on parading them before her peers with the expressed intention of trading their hands for the largest gain offered to her. Essentially, she’d intended to sell them to the highest bidder.
Unsurprisingly, Lavinia had concentrated her efforts on Rand, her eldest son and then-heir to the marquessate. Kit had done his best to avoid her notice and slide around her directives to attend this soirée, that ball, but he hadn’t been able to avoid them all.
But that, thank God, was all in the past, and Sylvia was correct—he needed to gird his loins and seize the advantage his birth afforded him to further his business interests and those of the school, too.
The attendants were dimming the lamps in the hall below and an expectant hush washed over the audience.
Then the lead violinist swept onto the stage. After bowing to polite applause, with a flick of his coat tails, he took his seat, and the conductor appeared. After bowing deeply to the audience, the conductor strode to the lectern. He tapped the wooden frame with his baton, bringing the orchestra to attention, then with a majestic sweep of his arm, he led the assembled musicians into a pastoral air.
The music washed out and over the audience. Kit felt the knots of his earlier tension unravel. He enjoyed listening to such music—fanciful and imaginative and undemanding. He’d learned that it soothed in a way he couldn’t describe.
At the conclusion of the introductory air, he shifted in the chair, angling his shoulders so he could glance at Sylvia’s face without turning his head. Her expression was utterly serene, her eyes trained on the musicians; she was following the musicians’ movements with the eye of one who truly appreciated their efforts.
His last remaining knot of concern dissolved. She was enjoying the performance, possibly even more than he. Quietly satisfied, he returned his attention fully to the music.
When the first sonata came to an end and the musicians paused to rearrange their music sheets and catch their collective breath, Sylvia turned to Kit. When he regarded her, a faint lift to his brows, she searched his face and found no hint of boredom. From the glimpses she’d stolen during the performance thus far, it seemed he genuinely enjoyed attending classical music concerts. “I confess I hadn’t taken you to be an aficionado of classical music.”
He tipped his head. “I wouldn’t say I was any sort of aficionado, but...” His gaze drifted to the stage, and he shifted slightly in the chair. “Stacie—” His gaze swung back to Sylvia. “Eustacia, my sister. You met her at the wedding.” When she nodded, he went on, “She loves classical music—adores it, more like. But our mother didn’t approve of Stacie attending classical music concerts. To paraphrase Mama, she saw no benefit in Stacie attending such stuffy events. Much better that she spend every waking minute at balls and soirées and routs.” He looked at the stage. “So whenever there was a concert Stacie especially wished to attend, she would claim to be ill, and Mama would leave her at home while she went gadding as she always did. Then Stacie would slip out of the house, and I would meet her in the garden and take her to the concert.”
Smiling, Sylvia patted his arm. When he looked at her quizzically, she said, “What a very good big brother you were.”
He chuckled and nodded. “I was. After those outings, my halo positively shone. But in the end, I benefited as much as Stacie. By having to sit through those concerts, I learned to love listening to such music, too.”
The musicians were ready again. The conductor tapped his lectern, then led the orchestra into a piece by Haydn that was slated as one of the highlights of the concert.
Together with Kit, Sylvia gave her attention to the stage, but while the strains of the music wreathed through her brain, she found her thoughts dwelling on what he had revealed.
Stacie was a few years older than Sylvia and Felicia and, surprisingly for a highly attractive lady of her station, as yet unwed. Sylvia had spent only a day in Stacie’s company and had liked as much of Stacie as she’d seen, but had found her a touch reserved.
Sylvia had gathered, more from what was not said than from any specific comment, that their mama—Rand, Kit, Stacie, and their younger brother, Godfrey’s—had not been a model of maternal affection and support. Kit’s tale of Stacie’s concerts illustrated as much. Sylvia found such maternal deficiency difficult to imagine; in her case, although her mother had died when she was seventeen, her parents’ love and support had been the foundation stones of her life.
No more than Lady Creswick did Sylvia know the tale of the late marchioness’s demise, but like her ladyship, she suspected some story, possibly a grim one, was there.
What would it feel like to be the son of a lady who refused to allow her daughter to attend musical concerts purely because she saw no social gain in the exercise?
Sylvia pondered that as Haydn’s music wrapped around her.
The end of the second movement brought an interval. The orchestra retreated from the stage, and Kit stirred and looked at her. “Shall we adjourn to the foyer for refreshments?”
She smiled and picked up her reticule. “There’ll be refreshments served in the gallery on this level. We won’t need to go down.”
“Good,” he muttered under his breath, and she laughed.