Priscilla’s hands fell into her lap as she gazed at the music on the stand. How strange that since that day, she had felt drawn to the piano on occasion when words were simply insufficient. The once dreaded instrument conveyed emotions in a way she simply could not.
She breathed in slowly, lifted her hands, and placed them on the keys. She started to play but did not even reach halfway down the page before her treacherous fingers slipped again.
Priscilla glared at them. They simply would not do what she instructed them. It was no good. She could not play this morning.
Priscilla looked listlessly through the sheets of music. Mozart, Bach, Salieri…none of them seemed right for this morning.
“Scales, then,” she said under her breath. “Something to refresh the mind. C major.”
The easiest scale, no sharps or flats, but even that did not seem to come outright. Her left hand moved slower than her right, the difference slight but excruciating to a musical ear.
Frustration poured down her fingers, and she slammed them down on the keys, creating a horrendous discord that echoed around the room.
Priscilla stared at the piano, unseeing.
“Why are you hurting me, Charles? Did you get what you wanted from me, and then decide Miss Lloyd was a better dancer? A better lover? Have you bedded her, too?”
Slowly, without allowing the pain in her heart to tempt her to slam it, she closed the lid of the piano and put the music away. It took only ten or so steps before she had left the piano, stepped into the drawing room, and flopped onto the settee.
She closed her eyes. There was not a sound in the house. Mrs. Busby and Annabelle, their lady’s maid, were both out. Her mother was in town, enjoying a better social life than she had ever had. Mrs. Seton, charming, beautiful, witty, was always in demand.
She was completely alone in the house. Alone, and likely to remain that way for a long time.
Priscilla opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. An elegant pastel pattern had been painted onto it a few years ago, Mrs. Seton following the fashion that had swept across the continent and into English homes.
The sun moved behind a cloud, and the blues and greens darkened. Priscilla blinked. The cloud moved, and the room was filled with light again.
Try as she might, she could not prevent the conversation she had shared with Charles only last night from creeping into her memory.
“I know what you must think of me. I know how this must look, and I –”
“That is because that’s exactly what it is – you lied to me! You, Charles. You lied to me.”
Priscilla sighed, her fingers twisting together. She knew Charles, or at least had thought she had known him, and he would never act like this. What was he hiding? What hadn’t he told her?
Or perhaps she was not asking the right questions. Perhaps the question should be, who was he protecting?
Perhaps, and the very thought made her stomach curl with pain as it crossed her mind, he was not only charming and devilishly handsome with her.
Perhaps Charles was a natural seducer. If he had bedded Miss Lloyd, and they had been thoughtless, she could be with child.
Priscilla sighed. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. It was the lack of knowing that was so – so damned annoying! Even the thought of the forbidden word made her smile.
“Damn,” she whispered, even though the house was empty. “Damn, damn, damn.”
The small rebellion gave her no relief. If Miss Lloyd was indeed with child, then Charles’s actions made perfect sense. He would have to marry her, there was no question about it. He was too much of a gentleman to even consider leaving her alone to face the world.
And the child – her stomach swooped painfully – would be his. Charles’s child. It could look like him, the same smile, the small twinkle in the eyes…
Priscilla forced herself to sit up like a lady. It did her no good attempting to guess how Charles had betrayed her, why he had made such promises, and then rescinded them.
He would have acted differently, of course, if they had been incautious. If they had not protected themselves.
She placed her hands on her stomach. There was no life there, no fluttering movement of a child growing. A small part of her wished they had not been so careful. If she had fallen with a child…
“No,” she said firmly. “No, Priscilla. You would never have tried to entrap him.”
Probably, she thought silently. Her love for him notwithstanding, she could not imagine a world in which they were married, but he had felt trapped by her actions.
She wanted him to want her! Was that so very difficult?
The sun disappeared again, dropping the room into shadow. A flicker of light in a looking glass on the wall reminded her of the flickering candlelight at the Donal wedding.
That was where it had all started, the Donal wedding. She had spoken with Miss Lloyd for the first time, and that conversation had sparked all her actions. The engagement picnic, the walks, the way she dressed…
It had all seemed so funny at the time. A witty, clever way to ensure she gained Charles all for herself without anyone getting hurt. It had seemed possible then, what was it – only a few weeks ago?
Priscilla swallowed. Frances had not wanted him, so what was the harm in Priscilla having him?
But it had all gone wrong, and in ways, she could never have predicted. What had she achieved, other than to hurt everyone?
Just as she rose to trudge up the stairs, the door opened and almost slammed into the wall.
“Aha, I thought I would find you here!”
Priscilla stared. It was Miss Ashbrooke, beaming and removing her bonnet for what was intended to be, clearly, a visit.
“And you know, ’tis quite shocking in my opinion that such an eligible young lady is at home during visiting hours,” Miss Ashbrooke continued, evidently unconcerned
