Right into a pair of eyes as hard and bright as polished shillings.
She at once understood how a target must feel when an arrow pierces its red center. The jolt thrummed her from her scalp down to her ankles.
Her hand flew to her heart in a protective, slightly admonishing, gesture: the damned thing had skipped. It wasn’t entirely due to fright.
The man below was tall enough to reach the sconces without scaling a ladder, and after weeks here at The Grand Palace on the Thames, this was likely going to be the first thing she noted about anyone for the rest of her life. The light flattered yet exposed him: he wasn’t precisely young. The ruthlessly cropped hair and severe, elegant planes of his face implied he was humorless and unyielding.
The sensual swoop of his lower lip and the lines raying from the corners of his eyes tempted one to believe he occasionally laughed. Maybe even occasionally yielded.
His posture, however, was a warning against getting comfortable with that particular notion. Vast of shoulder, erect, he seemed singular of purpose and sleekly constructed for maximum devastation, just like an arrow.
Odd. She had not once in her life thought of a pair of lips as “sensual.”
He was holding a beaver hat between two hands, his coat was black and crisply tailored, and his buttons and boots were tended and glowing. He was every inch respectable.
And yet there was nothing about him suggesting the indolence of most of the gentlemen she’d met.
She’d warrant this man had needed totryin life.
And that he had quite conquered it.
“My apologies for startling you. I would have announced myself, but I was captivated by your song.”
His voice was grave and low, his delivery courtly. As if he was accustomed to soothing plebeians he’d frightened with his stern majesty.
She was both charmed and irritated.
“Oh, surely you jest, sir. I can hardly carry a tune. It’s one of my failings.”
“Is it? Have you many?” He sounded genuinely curious.
“I count them at night, instead of sheep.”
“I should think that would keep you awake. Perhaps you ought to have a brandy, instead.”
She wasn’t certain he’d meant it to be funny, but she fought and lost the battle to not smile.
For Tristan, what followed was like the moment of blindness that comes after inadvertently looking into the sun. It dazzled him mute.
He frowned, as if she’d been insubordinate.
A speculative furrow appeared between her own straight dark eyebrows.
“Canyousing?”
“Yes,” he replied, surprised and wary.
“As it so happens, we’ve planned monthly musicales at The Grand Palace on the Thames. It’s just we haven’t anyone to sing the masculine parts. Something to keep in mind if you’re musically minded.”
Oh, Christ. This was alarming. In his experience, when women wanted something they had a tendency to maneuvers rather than direct requests. He’d once had to extricate himself from the musical machinations of the wife of a superior officer, and it had been like fighting his way out of a fishing net. He’d prevailed, but not without injury: to his pride and her feelings.
Besides, he had the unflattering sense this maid asked every able-bodied man that question.
“I was actually looking for a pub,” he said. “And I thought I would inquire here, as the facade is so charming and respectable.”
She brought her hands together in a delighted little clasp. “Oh, did you think it was charming?”
Her face had gone radiant as the moon. And he should know: he and the moon were on intimate terms; how many nights had he navigated by it? Countless. It wasn’t a fanciful observation. It couldn’t be. He was not a fanciful man.