27. Here, Have Some Meat （part 1）

27

Here, Have Some Meat (part 1)

Music?

What a tepid word for the bounty of notes that blessed her hearing when Aphrodite returned from her errands late the following morning.

She placed the basket of vegetables, one of bread, upon the first empty space along with the cherished muff that warmed her hands and tiptoed toward the riveting sounds emanating from the drawing room.

The beauty, the majesty…

Though she knew its source, she refused to believe it. Utterly refused. Until she saw for herself. Yet even as she halted in the doorway… Even as she stood there watching his shoulders and back stretch and move as he reached and played, applied deft pressure one second, a whisper the next, and then followed both with force, depending upon the sounds he sought… Even as his overlong inky hair bounced, danced against his shoulders, her mind denied acceptance.

Never before had she heard such musicalness, such a variety come from a harpsichord.

’Twas nigh impossible to believe the man that she’d come to know, the mettlesome contrariant who had bade her to entertain him last eve could do this .

Yet the evidence was before her, but twelve feet away.

How was it this particular man, with so many facets, could wring such heavenly sounds from such an old-fangled instrument?

Matches his character, does it not?

It did, how it did. Brash, magnetically appealing… Yet with dark undercurrents. Secrets. Sadness that shadowed his soul…

She bit her lips against the sigh that shuddered from her lungs, unwilling to make a sound that might alert him to her presence and stop the magnificence.

Every second he played with such passion, such abandon swept her further under his spell. So much of him was wrong. Certainly wrong for her , for her never-to-be-admitted yearnings. This overly flirtatious, sometimes foul-mouthed earl. Here was a man born into the peerage. Someone used to all of the rights and privileges that came with the chance of his birth. Yet someone who willingly fought against tyranny—and had paid a severe price for that effort.

Yet now someone who sought to better himself, even if it was—to an uncomfortable degree—at her expense. At the expense of her heart, certainly, given how part of her was starting to think she wanted to experience anything and everything knowing him might allow for.

Even if that means turning tart in the process?

Aye, even if.

The sounds. The notes, in perfect tune or not. The melody and rhythm. The utter exhaustion of playing for over an hour after not touching a similar instrument for an age… The memories it wrought, rolling forth like a stampede. So, so damn many memories…intertwined with his childhood, his parents…school rollicks with his mates.

Dancing in Portugal with Ed amidst the conflicts… Soused, and with riotous laughter, not long before both their lives would be inverted.

Everything ceased to be, the dog dozing on the floor alongside the instrument, the anticipated return of Prim—and the fresh food she would bring with her.

His shoulders ached. Fingers throbbed. Soul rejoiced.

Warrick couldn’t remember the last time he engendered sweat upon his brow through efforts not having to do with his blasted legs. Couldn’t remember the last time his heart had soared at anything—save bantering about with the tight-laced governess who so easily held him in thrall, did she but know it. How she’d been gone these last two hours or more.

Had he ever before so fervently recalled the past—with pleasure, no less?—while basking in the present and hoping, praying for a different future?

Playing this instrument, his mother’s favorite, even his own, in spite of the three pianofortes they had between their townhouse and country residences when he’d been young, had helped him remember not only the past, but himself . Everything he’d denied since Spain.

Exhilaration hastened his fingers, quickened his lungs as he felt pride in accomplishing something he hadn’t since that last battle. Playing, and impressively so, even if no one was here to enjoy it save him and the dog.

For it was an accomplishment , his skill at the keyboard. Something he and his mother had honed together, with determined effort, to surprise his father one Christmas with the most beautiful of recitals; Mama with her spectacular voice and Richard her only accompaniment, she sought to grant her spouse a surprise. But the surprise had been upon them both, when Father and a friend had chanced upon them while practicing a few days before their planned performance.

That friend had been aghast that a young male and future peer would dare spend so much time at the aging instrument better suited for females. Warrick’s father had chided his friend for such a beetle-brained stance, immediately come over and hugged them both, heaping praise upon their heads, and more than a little astonishment toward his son of six—at how well he played after only a few lessons.

His father had recognized talent and had encouraged his son’s time at the instrument, saying it was good for such a boisterous lad to have some claim to refinement.

But now? With his breath gusting forth, his muscles beginning to tire, he felt anything but refined. Anything but practiced. His play turned wild.

All the disappointments and angst, the sorrows and sadness, the fear and anger—both directed inward and not—that he had stifled these last two and a half years came tumbling out as he played. Ripped from his aching fingers not only pieces from memory of the great composers he favored, but as he mingled things together, made a hash of professional compositions, he also mixed in some measures he and Mama had created, and simply played.

Uncontrolled.

Loud and untamed. Balancing on the edge of what the harpsichord could handle and what he needed to release.

He played for himself. He played for his broken body. His healing body. He played for his mother. From the heart, everything he had, everything he could give her.

But then his right hand cramped. Convulsed in on itself, pain shooting up his arm.

Three fingers kinked, flexing against his palm. Unresponsive. He wrenched both arms from the keyboards. Tried not to rain down the curses blistering his lips. Tried?—

“That was stunning. Utterly magnificent.”

Her voice surprised him. Jerked the rest of him around.

Forgetting that his legs wouldn’t follow, his face and torso turned toward the interruption. He lost his balance, fumbled to regain it. And fell. Ended up on the floor with a hard thump. Another curse upon his lips. His right hand crooked and crumped, curling up into itself; embarrassment making his shoulders want to curl in as well.

Cannot even keep your seat? And you thought just last night to consider wooing the woman? Tut, Richard.

Fallen, are you, his vicious, doubtsome thoughts continued—and using the Bard to do it— and in a dark, uneven way.

Startled awake, not by the intense music but by its cessation—more likely by his heavy arse hitting the floor—the dog yawned to his feet and ambled over, snuffling first Warrick’s unresponsive legs and up to his shoulder. Then licked his chin. Warrick yanked his lips from the unwanted slather of wet tongue.

Anger—at himself, the weakness of his body—made him lash out. “Leave me. I did not invite you here.”

She ignored him. Ignored his shout.

But refused to ignore his feeble, fallen self. Instead, rushing forward, she shoved Mercury aside and reached for his hand. His cramping, on-fire hand.

Damn her.

“Leave off, I said.” Aphrodite’s recalcitrant patient gritted the words out through his tightly held jaw. She spared but a glance to see it was so, her attention focused on the misshapen coil of his hand, despite his continued grutchings. “I do not want your attention. I do not want you to—” To see , she surmised. “Go. I am not one of your charges to order about at will.”

“Nay, you are not. For they would not be so incredibly stubborn as to refuse my help.”

That halted his grumbling. But not the tension brimming from every clenched part of his body. “I know you are in pain. More importantly, I know how to help you.” Kneeling, she reached for his kinked hands. Needed to determine where to begin. “Lest you forget, I assisted my uncle when I was younger. I have seen this before.”

“Oh?” He fought her hold. “You have seen a grown man thwap onto his arse after butchering an innocent harpsichord?”

“Stop that. Both the complaints and struggling against me. We both know you did no such thing. And I speak of the spasmatic muscles, you difficult, difficult man. Shush. Let me concentrate.” And not salivate.

Now that she nestled the one that cramped the worst within hers, his hand seemed immense. The palm and fingers so much stronger , larger than they might have been, given all he did with his arms, hauling his body about. His fingers resisted her efforts, were clasped tight toward his palm.

So she dropped to her seat upon the floor and crossed her legs, shoved her cloak behind her shoulders and drew his arm across her lap until his hand rested between hers. Supporting the back of it with one of hers, she used the other to tend each individual muscle.

“What were you playing?” The remembered splendor of it caught her breath high in her chest. “’Twas beautiful and yet stark, too. Never have I heard it before.”

She had started at the base of his palm and now worked her thumbs from the bottom into the soft center, over and over, slow, repetitive strokes of her thumb she took higher with each stroke. Her half gloves doing naught to protect her from the nuances of touching his skin .

“A hash,” he responded, the words rough. “A bit of everything. Some Schubert, some Handel, a little Martinson.”

Swiftly did she grasp his meaning. “You wrote some of that yourself? It all blended together superbly.” After a time, little by little, his fingers began to unfurl. “Once again, you astonish me.”

Another clench, a tightening against her efforts, as an unexpected, ragged confession met her ears. “Mine was the raging parts.”

Quite without meaning to, she paused in her efforts, rose up on her knees and hugged her arms about his shoulders.

Before she could get lost in him, in his strength and scent, she hauled back, away from the temptation he presented using the action of standing to unfasten her cloak and sweep it from her, as well as the untying of her bonnet, to swallow that breath that still lodged in her chest. “My, ’tis warm in here, is it not? My walk this morning must have left me overhot. Here, let me finish.”

Not giving him a chance to agree nor argue, she sat back down and caught his hand back up in hers, working her touch as deep as she could.

After he asked of her morning and she shared about her errands, he told her of a surprise delivery from the butcher, something about her uncle’s regular weekly order being delayed because of the holidays, Aphrodite responded appropriately—she hoped, for her mind was consumed with her task: relieving his pain.

To that end, she continued rubbing along the middle and then the upper parts of his palm, pressing in between the beds of each finger, until feeling the muscles loosen.

She worked his thumb by itself but it was the others that gave him the most trouble. The last three fingers more than the first. So that was where she focused. Concentrated her efforts.

Told herself she didn’t notice how much his scent drew her. Not quite readily identifiable… A hint of the plain lye soap Uncle favored, but so much more. Whispers of musk and spice. His shaving soap, perhaps?

Richard’s scent and no other’s.

She told her ears to stop hearing every sharp inhale he made, every subtlety of his breathing, as it slowed, deepened as the seconds and then minutes passed.

Minutes that grew heavier with every pained breath, with want. With the heat that invaded her limbs. That flushed her skin and brought sweat dotting her brow.

Gracious. How did nurse-tenders ever manage to wear anything at all, if this was how very hot touching a man made them feel?

Each second passed as a weight. Every moment she eased the constricted muscles burdened with silence. With intensifying want—hers. With increasing irritation and grumbling—his.

As the clock ticked and awareness grew, she brushed her fingers, her hand, over his again and again. Until the tense, tightly held muscles released completely and allowed his hand to lie flat. Spread wide, the back supported no longer by her opposite hand, but against her inner thigh.

About the same moment that realization sank in, a quivering that pierced her belly, he flexed his other hand in the air between them, the one that hadn’t cramped nearly as bad, and ran it up her shoulder, paused with it just beneath her nape and tensed—as though to support her efforts?

Time froze. Tendrils from his grip on her neck flowed like fireflies dancing along her veins.

Her touch slowed even more. Languid now. Stottered. But it didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop.

Just kept touching and touching him. Her breathing turned ragged. The thumping of her heart jagged. She refused to look away from his big, masculine hand. He had pushed up the sleeves of his shirt, looked as though one had ripped at some point. Because, easier than should have been possible, she was now stroking upward, past his wrist and to his forearm—and the more tender flesh approaching the bend of his elbow.

He caught his breath. On a gasp. A groan.

Dare she hope, his was as uneven as hers? But when she started to turn, to check and see if he was ready to rise, his hand at her neck tightened and he shoved her forward.

He pushed off the middle of her back, rising swiftly and clumsily, climbing back upon the bench. “Get out.” He forcefully jerked his knees around until he faced the instrument once again, giving her his back. “I didn’t ask you to come in. I did not ask for your help.”

Stunned to numbness at the sudden rejection, hurt beyond reason, she scrambled to standing. “Why do you do that? Make me like you, care for you, and then?—”

“Aphrodite.” His hard voice could have broken boulders.

The prickling, tingling in her feet punished her as she straightened, swept one arm across her damp forehead. Still feeling the imprint of his hand upon her spine, her nape, she could not move.

“I said get out!” The anger toward her hastened her feet. Fired her temper.

“Fine, then. You can make your own dinner. I shall be feeding myself and Mercury and going upstairs—where the company is, no doubt, far superior!”

With a swirl of skirts and a stiffening of her spine, she left the big, unfriendly, perplexing lump of harpsichord talent and frustrating male behind her.

Only to be hauled back into his orbit not three seconds later.

“Aphrodite!”

For no other reason than because he rarely asked her for anything (orders to entertain him notwithstanding)… Only because until today he’d certainly never yelled at her or even for her, did she turn, make her hesitant way back to the sitting room.

“What?” Having him hear the hurt in her soft voice wouldn’t do. So she firmed it. “Have your say, for I am retreating upstairs. You may fend for yourself.”

“’Tis only what I deserve.” A low murmur that weakened her resolve. Then still facing the instrument and away from her, but louder, “My humblest apologies. I should not have shouted at you, whipped you with voice nor words.”

He remained seated upon the bench, giving her his back but naught else. “I wish to be alone. But I do thank you. My…hands… are better.”