The Hellion's Waltz Page 11

  No, tonight Maddie Crewe was wearing a silk gown of bright sunshine yellow.

  It was bold, utterly vibrant, and Sophie couldn’t have called up a more alluring vision of sin if she’d been a hermetic saint with nature’s full range of pharmacopoeia. The skirts were voluminous with tucks and flounces. The bodice was tight and trim against Miss Crewe’s waist; the neckline a long, wide line. Her throat—her hips—the high, generous breasts beneath the silk—Sophie had never seen anyone so beautiful in all her life.

  She almost snorted. Of course the day Sophie wore her fine new gown was the day Maddie Crewe turned up in silk.

  “Good evening, Miss Roseingrave,” murmured Miss Crewe—but there was a siren’s song in her voice and a fire in her eyes that scorched Sophie down to her toes.

  She clearly relished the effect her frock had on Sophie.

  Miss Crewe strode into the instrument shop and turned, making yellow silk twirl and show off her slender ankles. “I hope you don’t mind me showing up so late.”

  “I was only practicing,” Sophie rasped. She coughed to clear her dry throat. “You look splendid. What’s the occasion?”

  Maddie’s smile dimmed, and she ignored the question to peer curiously at the dark shelves and shadowed music racks. Instruments gleamed as the gaslight played over wood and lacquer. “Was your London shop as grand as this?”

  Sophie laughed. “Not grander, but much larger. We only have room for one or two pianos here. In London, we never had fewer than six on display at any moment—plus another six in the workshop—every one of which my father had built.”

  Maddie walked to the Dewhurst and Ffolkes and ran her hands over the smooth curves of the piano case. “That must have kept him busy.”

  “He had journeymen and apprentices, of course—but yes. He was always looking for improvements he could make: differences in the frame, in the shape of the case, in the actions to make the keys more responsive to the touch.” Sophie couldn’t stop staring at Maddie’s hands. The way her gloved fingers stroked over sleek wood was doing awful things to Sophie’s pulse.

  Maddie tilted her head. “Is your father here at the moment?”

  “Yes.” Sophie swallowed. “Upstairs, with the rest of my family.”

  “So we won’t be overheard?”

  Sophie’s mouth opened on a gasp. Was Maddie Crewe going to ravish her right here on the floor with all those windows around them? The idea was perverse and dangerous—and it sent a bolt of searing heat through Sophie’s core. She imagined sitting Miss Crewe down on the piano bench, flinging up those lush skirts and diving beneath them, every string instrument in the place sighing in echo at every wanton cry. Sun-bright silk warming beneath her mouth, being torn away by her hands . . .

  She stepped closer—but paused when Maddie sighed. Her mouth was tight, her brow slightly furrowed. She looked . . . worried.

  She hadn’t come here for seduction.

  Sophie shoved lust aside for the moment. She guided Maddie to the piano bench and sat them both down: Maddie on the right, Sophie on the left. Green skirts folded against gold, contrast brightening both hues even in the low light. “If we are quiet, we’ll hear anyone coming long before they’ll hear us,” Sophie said. “Now: What’s the matter?”

  “We gave our demonstration to Mr. Giles tonight,” Maddie replied. “Mrs. Money and I, along with Alice Bilton and Miss Mary Slight.”

  She wriggled; Sophie felt the shift of figure and fabric and had to suck in air to steady herself.

  Maddie brandished one silk-sleeved arm. “This gown, you may be astonished to hear, can change from yellow to blue and back again with a simple electrical charge. It would be a smash hit among the fashionable sort. A guaranteed moneymaker for any silk merchant.”

  “Sounds too good to be true,” Sophie said wryly. She put out a fingertip—just one, for restraint—and stroked a line along Maddie’s knee. “It feels quite fine. Did the trick not work?”

  “Oh, it worked.” Maddie’s laugh was low, almost a sob. She began pulling at her gloves, removing them in frustrated little jerks and tugs. “It worked too well. Our Mr. Giles doesn’t just want to sell this fabric—he wants to make more of it.”

  “Make more—oh.” Sophie huffed out an appalled sound of horrified amusement. “Oh, I see.” She shook her head. “You underestimated your own gift for persuasion, Miss Crewe.”

  “We underestimated Mr. Giles’s greed, is what. We thought we were bringing him an easy, lazy way to profit—but he had to exploit it further, didn’t he? You could offer to sell him the whole world for sixpence and he’d demand you throw in the moon as well.” Maddie folded her gloves into an angry little package and set them on the piano case. “So now we have to find something even more outrageous to sell to him . . . and it means one more big step before the part where we get the money.”

  “And where you get revenge.”

  Maddie nodded confirmation. “I admit I don’t know which of those I’m more impatient for. And now there’s a whole other element to plan. It’ll have to involve weaving—or fake weaving, which is faster—and it will have to be even more complicated and persuasive than tonight’s trick. We’ll need people, lots of people, and that just means more chances for things to go wrong. And for us all to get caught.” She let out a sigh, which seemed to take all her momentum with her. Without it she looked vulnerable, anxious, and lost. She turned her head, one auburn curl quivering along the line of her throat. Her hand covered Sophie’s and Sophie could feel how she trembled. “Did you really mean it when you offered to help?”

  She sounded wistful, almost forlorn; Sophie charged recklessly to the rescue. “Of course I meant it.” She spread her hand until Maddie’s fingers slipped between hers and she could catch them close. “What do you need me to do?”

  Maddie shook her head, but her hand gripped Sophie’s tight. The tense lines around her mouth softened and her shoulders were freed of enough weight to let her shrug in reply. “I’m not even sure yet. I’ll have to work everything out with Mrs. Money—and we might need Miss Slight to help us with some machinery again . . .”

  “Ask Mr. William Frampton, too. He’s brilliant. Better yet: get Miss Slight to ask him for help. They’re . . . friendly.”

  “So I’ve gathered.” Maddie’s lips curved, a hint of her usual sharp humor coming back into her face. “It’s good to have friends in times like these,” she said. Her thumb curved underneath their twined fingers and stroked Sophie’s palm. “Friends with strong hearts—and beautiful hands.” She raised their joined hands and brushed a kiss over Sophie’s knuckles. Like a devoted knight in some long-lost ballad, paying tribute to his lady.

  Sophie broke out in a sweat. “It’s the piano playing, is all,” she demurred. “It keeps the fingers nimble.”

  “So teach me something,” Maddie replied, low and teasing. “There are so many ways I could use nimble fingers. You’d be astonished.”

  “I’d be delighted,” Sophie retorted. Maddie’s answering snicker was ample reward. “Start with your hands like so,” she said, demonstrating on the lower keys.

  Maddie tentatively reached out for the piano. Sophie showed her a simple melody, just a brief phrase. Then the same phrase, a third higher. Then the resolution that walked the melody down the scale again to its close. “Good,” Sophie said. “Just keep doing that—I’ll take care of the rest.” They started from the beginning, laughing and having to start over several times on account of missed notes and errors. Maddie was a quick study, though: before long she was banging away at the tune while Sophie filled in the more complicated lower parts. The bounce of the melody brought some of her usual good humor back, and chased away some of the shadows hanging over her.

  It was a duet Sophie had known for ages; she took this chance to observe Maddie’s hands closely and at leisure.

  Maddie Crewe’s hands were the furthest thing from delicate—they were sturdy, strongly muscular, callused in numerous places. If once they wrapped around
your heart, those hands would never let go. Sophie could still feel the pleasing pressure of them. Her chest was tight with longing—and with fear.

  The last time she’d wanted something this much—the last time she’d trusted someone this much—it had almost destroyed her.

  Maddie Crewe was beautiful—but even apart from her beauty, Maddie Crewe could ruin a person. She was certainly set on ruining Mr. Giles. But she could ruin Sophie, too, even without intending to—especially now that Sophie knew how those hands felt on her skin.

  Perhaps that was all just part of the game for Maddie. The thrill of breaking the rules could extend to far more than just the law. Perhaps Sophie was only a different kind of thrill. Someone to be enjoyed and then discarded when some new challenge beckoned.

  It wouldn’t be the first time. And Sophie was so tired of being left behind.

  Her father’s words ghosted through her mind: You can tell so much about a person by what they do, not by the flattering things they say.

  So: What had Maddie actually done?

  She had warned Sophie away at first—but she hadn’t threatened her. She had teased her and kissed her senseless and more—but she hadn’t done anything Sophie hadn’t wanted her to do. Maddie Crewe had seen a man profit from hurting others, and she had put together a band of people determined to do something about it. And yes, their solution was technically illegal—but the more Sophie learned about Mr. Giles, the more she came to realize that doing what was legal was not always the same thing as doing what was right.

  Sophie realized she had already chosen. Law be damned: she was on Maddie Crewe’s side.

  She slowed her hands and brought the duet to a close. Maddie was laughing, playfulness back in her eyes, making them sparkle. Sophie’s heart ached with joy to see it. “Come to dinner with me,” she blurted.

  “Of course,” Maddie replied at once. “Where?”

  “Here. I mean: home. I mean—come join us. All of us.” Sophie shook her head, cheeks heating. Why could she not be graceful, just this once? She tried again. “Have dinner with my family. Meet my parents, endure my siblings. Then ask me to walk you home.”

  Maddie cocked her head. “But then you would have to walk home alone. In the dark. And so late at night . . .”

  “Yes, it does sound a little alarming, doesn’t it? Perhaps I shall just stay the night with you to be safe. Come home in the morning.”

  Maddie hummed with pleasure at that, but the crease between her brows said she wasn’t fully convinced yet. “Is this some sort of test?”

  “Naturally.”

  Maddie’s eyes narrowed.

  Sophie chuckled. “Haven’t you ever met a lover’s family before?”

  Maddie’s hand dove into her pocket and came up full of hairpins. “Just let me make myself respectable again,” she muttered, and began putting up her red hair into proper twists and coils.

  “Not too respectable, I hope.”

  Maddie let out a strangled noise.

  Sophie laughed. Imagine: she had managed to flummox someone as self-possessed as Madeleine Crewe.

  She immediately wanted to do it again.

  Maddie’s reply was tart. “I suppose your family has met everyone you’ve been friends with?”

  Sophie leaned closer. This was going to be fun. “Actually, my father dropped a hint the other day that they’re both aware some of my friendships have been more . . . friendly that others.” She heaved a heavy sigh. “And I thought I was hiding it all so cleverly.”

  Maddie reached out and played her part of the duet again, slow and sad. “My mother never said a word about any of the girls I flirted with—though she must have heard rumors. It’s a small enough town that everyone knows pretty much everything. It was only when she was dying that she told me about her past with Jenny. I wish . . .” She sighed and pulled her hands to her lap again. “I wish I’d been able to talk about it with her sometimes, is all.” She glanced ruefully at Sophie. “I’d thought I was so daring and depraved a seductress, an innovator of perversity. And my mother’d been doing it all years before I was born!”

  “It’s hard to keep secrets from people you care about.”

  “Yes,” Maddie said, with a significant gaze. “It is.”

  That was so close to a confession that Sophie’s courage failed her. She knew in her heart that she wasn’t the kind of person people like Maddie Crewe made impassioned declarations to. Flirtation, seduction, yes—people enjoyed having someone to touch and toy with—but anything that sounded like love proved too temporary, in Sophie’s experience. Her stomach twisted in a way she chose to pretend was hunger. “I’m famished,” she said. “Let’s go in.”

  Chapter Ten

  They heard the first echoes as soon as they entered the stairwell—but it was only when Sophie pulled open the door at the top that the full cacophony hit them.

  Maddie stopped dead right there in the hall. Sophie could hardly blame her. Between the sounds of Annie setting the table in the dining room to the right, and the ceaseless noise from her siblings in the parlor to the left overlooking the street, there was barely space to hear oneself think. Jasper and Julia were racing each other through a violin piece, repeating it faster and faster to see whose fingers faltered first. Mr. Roseingrave was reading aloud to Robbie from a history of the French Revolution, and Freddie was embellishing with the goriest details a twelve-year-old’s mind could dream up, while sixteen-year-old Robbie pedantically attempted to correct him on matters of anatomy. “Heads on pikes can’t grin, you ghoul.”

  “Why not?” Freddie complained. “If the man with the frog legs can make ’em kick without the rest of the frog—”

  Jasper missed a note, and groaned as Julia jeered in triumph.

  “They go rotten, is why.”

  “What about the princess who nailed the horse head up—”

  “That was a fairy tale!”

  “What about the Frank monster?”

  “Frankenstein. And when did you read that, anyway?”

  “Borrowed it from you.”

  “You stole it—and you’ll give it back or I swear—”

  Julia’s bow shrieked on the violin strings. Jasper stopped playing to argue that was a fault; Julia argued vehemently that it didn’t count because it was a deliberate expressive choice, on purpose—

  Maddie clutched at Sophie’s elbow, looking rather green around the gills. “No wonder you’re so quiet,” she muttered. “How does anyone else get a word in edgewise?”

  Sophie chuckled and leaned close. “You have to find other ways of getting attention,” she said, and nipped at Maddie’s earlobe.

  The soft gasp that resulted was the most musical sound in the world. Maddie’s smile was shy and charmed, as if Sophie had surprised her in the best way.

  Sophie’s heart buoyed her up, and courage propelled her into motion: she grabbed Maddie by the elbow and led her inexorably into the parlor. “Good evening, everyone, I’d like you to meet—”

  Mr. Roseingrave closed his book and stood up; everyone else carried on.

  Sophie tried again. “This is my friend Miss—”

  Mrs. Roseingrave looked up from her mending, and took a breath to fill her singer’s lungs. “Quiet!” she called—it was less of a shout and more a sword of sound, tempered to slice through the tangle of voices.

  The noise cut off abruptly.

  Sophie tucked her arm through Maddie’s and spoke into the silence left by the trailing ends of sentences. “Everyone, allow me to introduce Miss Madeleine Crewe. She’ll be joining us for dinner tonight.”

  The Roseingrave siblings scrambled to attention, instruments and arguments cast aside. One by one they bowed and curtsied and offered their names, as polite as any parent could hope.

  Sophie’s mother came forward last, offering her hand and a gentle smile. “So pleased to meet you, Miss Crewe.”

  Maddie’s eyes flicked to the ear trumpet Mrs. Roseingrave held in her other hand, its narrow end resting
in the shell of her ear. “And you, ma’am,” she said. She spoke clearly but not overly loud. “How are you finding life in Carrisford?”

  Mrs. Roseingrave’s smile grew. “We like it more with each new friend we find.” She turned and waved at her son. “Freddie, go tell Annie we’ll need another place set for dinner.” The boy scampered out.

  Mr. Roseingrave bowed over Maddie’s hand. “So tell me, Miss Crewe—how did you and my daughter meet?”

  Sophie felt the weight of the whole world slam down on her.

  Heavens, in all her lust and longing she’d forgotten that she would have to explain.

  Mr. Roseingrave’s brow furrowed ever so slightly.

  Maddie sent Sophie a slantways smile, mischief lighting her up like a lamp. “She accosted me in the street, sir.”

  Robbie snickered.

  Mr. Roseingrave’s eyes widened. “Our Sophie?”

  “Oh yes.”

  Sophie’s face was stiff with horror. Was Maddie going to tell them everything? It was one thing to know herself that Maddie was planning a swindle for justified reasons. It was quite another to present the scheme to her father over small talk in the parlor.

  Maddie nodded, seeming quite at her ease now that she had found some trouble to stir up. “I am a silk weaver, you see, and I’d left some fabric behind in a draper’s shop, while negotiating over the price. Your daughter noticed and came running to make sure everything was alright.” Her hand patted Sophie’s where it rested in the crook of her elbow. “It was a kind impulse, and made a very strong impression on me.”

  Sophie was torn between wanting to bask in the compliment and wanting to tear her hair out by the roots.

  Mr. Roseingrave made an approving noise. “You’re a weaver, then . . .” he said, and so the conversation continued until Annie announced dinner.

  Dinner in the Roseingrave house was never a quiet affair. Voices murmured and laughed; conversations flowed over and around and through one another like currents in a mighty river. It made it easy for Sophie to let herself be buffeted by the stream while she tried to calm the racing of her heart.