Return of the Viscount by Gayle Callen

Author:Gayle Callen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Historical romance, Fiction
ISBN: 9780062075789
Publisher: HarperCollins US
Published: 2012-07-30T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Cecilia followed the men to the main drawing room, where the pianoforte took up one corner, and several chairs and sofas were grouped nearby as if awaiting a performance. She wished Penelope had come to dinner that night, for she suddenly felt self-conscious and ridiculous. Oliver didn’t want to be there—perhaps he now only had one use for Cecilia, and that was as his business steward. And Lord Blackthorne? He said he would remain her husband, and he was doing everything possible to make her agree. She should feel . . . crowded, smothered, irritated, but, instead, she could barely keep her gaze off him, wished desperately that she could kiss him again.

Marriage to him would be the end of her perfect life, where she controlled her own destiny and answered to no one.

Except Lord Doddridge, she thought, feeling bemused. But he’d never bothered her, and certainly Oliver didn’t, at least as far as her management of the vast Appertan estates. But now there was Lord Blackthorne, and to honor her father, he was trying to remake Oliver into a dependable man. A very good goal, and she definitely—someday—wished that Oliver would be able to do the work she did.

Unless she was more selfish than she’d imagined, wanting the reins of the earldom without the title, and that was why she resisted Lord Blackthorne’s efforts with Oliver.

She watched Oliver pour himself a brandy, then begrudgingly offer one to Lord Blackthorne, who declined.

“I need all my faculties to decipher this book,” he said, picking up Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

She turned away, struggling to hide a smile. Who would have guessed such a sober man hid a sense of humor? She didn’t want to know these things about him. She went to the pianoforte. “I know I volunteered to play, my lord, but do not assume I am supremely talented. Every young lady learns to play. Whereas my brother—”

“Isn’t going to sing,” Oliver interrupted. “But I’ll turn the pages for you.”

She hid her disappointment, hoping he’d change his mind. At the keyboard, she tried to clear her head, to recapture what it had once been like to be a family, to spend an evening together. In her mind, she returned to their bungalow in Bombay, imagining her brother Gabriel still alive, teasing Oliver, making their mother smile and distracting her from the anxious looks she usually bestowed on their father.

“What are you thinking?” Lord Blackthorne asked, from his place on a nearby sofa.

She gave him a wry smile. “I am remembering evenings from my childhood, when our father used to have us perform.”

“He was very proud of you both,” Lord Blackthorne said. “There were nights when we were not permitted to sleep, waiting to move into position for a dawn engagement. We all took turns talking about our families, and your father participated just as freely.”

“What did he say?” she asked, feeling wistful, even as her fingers began to play a melody she knew by heart.

Oliver pretended to ignore them, leafing through sheet music with great concentration.

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