“So music is your fatal flaw, I assume.” He tried for teasing but was horrified to find that his tone fell just shy of sympathetic.
That would not do. Neither of them wished for his pity.
She nodded. “You assume correctly.”
He rocked back on his feet. After years of hating Pru’s smugness and her superior attitude, he was horrified to find that he liked this humble side of her even less.
She looked...shorter. She seemed to be shrinking right in front of his eyes. He tilted his head to the side. Had she always been so small?
Funny, he’d always seen her as a formidable enemy. A sword-wielding virago from Greek mythology. Of course she wielded sharp words in lieu of a sword, but even so, the image had stuck in his mind and finding out now that she was—well, human…
It was upsetting.
Her gaze flicked up to meet his and she stiffened. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“As though you feel sorry for me.”
He scoffed. “Trust me, Pru, you are the last person I’d feel sorry for.”
“Good.” She straightened and he had a flash of the warrior, and the world righted itself nicely. She glanced toward the pianoforte with the sort of set chin and straight shoulders one would expect from a soldier going into battle. “I will master this topic, and once I do I will prove to my aunt and to...to everyone that I can be the perfect wife.”
“Perfect,” he repeated. Ought he to tell her that no one is perfect? He eyed her closely. It seemed cruel to burst her newfound hope. “Of course you will.”
She shot him a quick look. Suspicion again. She feared he was mocking her...and he was. But only a little.
He moved to stand beside her so they were both facing the instrument. “You will master music, Pru.” He grinned. “I will make sure of it.”
Her expression wavered between wariness and hope. “Truly?”
He leaned down, catching a whiff of a floral scent that was soft and sweet and beguilingly feminine—and totally at odds with every other hard edge of her personality. “I promise.”
5
She shouldn’t have been surprised that a man like Damian was making promises he couldn’t keep.
What was more shocking was that he seemed to be unaware that he would fail. “Right.” He lifted a fist to his mouth, his expression uncharacteristically grim as he eyed her hands on the keys as though they were a riddle he could not quite solve.
She just barely held back a sigh. After all, for three days straight now he had made good on his promise.
Or at least, he’d tried.
He’d tried harder than she would have thought he was capable of trying. For a gentleman who’d made a name for himself as a lazy ne’er-do-well, he was shockingly devoted to this cause.
She grimaced as she followed his gaze to her fingers, which were rather stumpy as her aunt had helpfully pointed out over supper the night before.
She moved her hands from his critical gaze now, wiping them on her skirts. As always, the moment she lifted her hands to play, the metronome ticking away above her head and her new tutor hovering behind her, her silly palms grew clammy. Her fingers felt frozen. And her heart…
Well, her heart seemed to be in competition with the metronome, racing faster and faster until it left that relentless even ticking in the dust.
“This is not working.” His words were gruff and quiet, but they struck her like a bolt of lightning.
She jumped out of her seat, panic rising up her throat. “Please do not give up on me.”
His eyes widened but she’d known this moment was coming—it always came eventually. Even Miss Grayson’s kind old music instructor had patted her hand gently and told her she was a lost cause.
Not in so many words, of course, but the meaning was the same.
“Pru, we cannot—”
“Please.” She clasped her clammy hands together pleadingly. Her pride raged. Her sense of fairness rebelled. But she’d been bracing herself for this moment for the last few days and had promised herself that she would not let him go without a fight.
For, whether she wished to admit it or not, she needed his help.
Badly.
It might be in vain, but she had to at least try not to humiliate herself in front of her aunt and her would-be husband. If her aunt was correct, and entertaining was so vitally important to Mr. Benedict then she needed to be up to snuff.
Or at least passable.
At this point, she would settle for passable.
“I assure you, I have been working diligently on the exercises you gave me,” she started, the words coming a bit easier now that her pride was well and truly trampled beneath her feet. She’d rehearsed what she’d say when the time came when Damian decided she was beyond saving and threatened to quit. “I have been working every minute of the day and—”
“That is precisely the problem.”
She blinked up at him. “Er...pardon?”
He pressed his lips together, his nostrils flaring with irritation. “I said, that is your problem.”
“My problem? But you told me to practice and everyone knows that practice makes perfect.”
“Who told you that lie?”
She was only moderately relieved to see that his irritation was giving way to his usual amusement. Even if it was at her expense, she preferred this teasing, mocking Damian. When he was serious—or worse, sympathetic—she knew not what to make of him.
“First of all,” he continued, his arms crossed as he looked down his nose at her. “Perfection does not exist in the world of music.” He lifted a hand to jab a finger in her direction. “That is your second problem.”
Her brows came up. “I have two problems now?”
His sigh was exaggerated. “Pru, you have more problems than I can count, but for now, I am merely concerned with the problems that are making this—” He jabbed a finger toward the pianoforte, “sound like an instrument of torture.”
“I-why that-I never...” Her blustery protests trailed off meekly as her gaze once
