If Corbyn Hall had ever possessed a proper music room, it had long ago been cannibalized by some previous generation’s change of taste. What remained now, on the western side of the house, was a long, narrow chamber with a warped floor, three windows, and an elderly pianoforte that wheezed in protest whenever anyone attempted a scale upon it.
Thomas, naturally, adored it.
“It has character,” he announced, running his hand along the yellowed keys. “Nothing more dispiriting than a perfectly in-tune instrument. This one has opinions.”
“It has missing hammers,” Martha countered. “And at least one note that sounds like a dying goose.”
“All the more reason to play around it,” he said cheerfully. “It sharpens the mind.”
Richard, leaning in the doorway with his arms folded, watched the Harrow siblings with a mixture of amusement and wariness.
It was a week since Agnes’s fever had broken. She was, as children often are, already bouncing back with unnerving rapidity. Martha and her mother were slower to recover from the strain. Purple shadows still clung beneath Martha’s eyes, though she moved as briskly as ever.
Thomas had announced, two days earlier, that he would leave for London within the week, to resume his engagements.
“In the meantime,” he had said, eyes bright, “we must inoculate your daughters against dullness.”
“To that end,” he had added now, placing his violin case on the wobbly chair by the window, “we will have music.”
Mabel practically vibrated with excitement.
“Can I bang the drum?” she demanded.
“There is no drum,” Miriam said, with the weary superiority of the slightly older.
“Then I shall invent one,” Mabel declared, seizing an abandoned hatbox.
“Gently,” Martha admonished. “We are here to learn, not to dent.”
“Music requires denting,” Thomas said. “Of egos, at the very least.”
“You are not helping,” Martha muttered.
Agnes, wrapped in a shawl and settled on a cushioned chair by the fire, watched with wide, eager eyes.
“I like music,” she whispered. “Even when it is bad.”
“Then you will enjoy this afternoon thoroughly,” Miriam said.
“I am hurt,” Thomas protested. “Mortally.”
“You will recover,” Mabel said cheerfully. “Then you can die again when you play.”
Richard pushed off the doorframe and stepped into the room.
“You are certain,” he said to Thomas, “that this floor will hold?”
“It has held worse,” Thomas said. “Judging by the grooves, someone danced reels here once. Violently.”
“Probably my great-uncle,” Richard said. “He was fond of reels. And of falling down stairs after them.”
“Then we honour his spirit,” Thomas said, tucking the violin under his chin. “Shall we begin with something lively?”
“Begin with something tolerable,” Martha said. “We are not at Vauxhall.”
“No,” he agreed. “We are in Hertfordshire. Which requires more imagination.”
He drew the bow.
The first notes shimmered in the air, bright and quick: a country dance, lifted and refined by his skill but still carrying the earthy insistence of boots on floorboards and skirts swinging.
Mabel leapt to her feet almost at once, seized Agnes’s hands, and coaxed her into a sitting sort of jig, feet tapping on the hearth rug.
Miriam’s foot began to beat time, despite her attempt at reserve.
Richard found his own fingers tapping on his sleeve.
Martha closed her eyes for a moment.
She had not realized how much she missed this: music in a proper space, not snatched from a parlour at the rector’s or squeezed between sermons in a draughty church. The sound filled the bare room, made the stained plaster and scuffed skirting-board seem less forlorn.
“You will dance,” Thomas announced, finishing the reel with a flourish and pointing his bow at Martha and Richard like a conductor’s baton.
“No,” Martha said instantly.
“Yes,” Mabel crowed. “Miss Harrow dances!”
“I do not,” Martha lied. “Not any longer.”
“She does,” Thomas told them. “Beautifully. She was the terror of assemblies in Bloomsbury.”
“Thomas,” Martha hissed.
“Why should you not dance?” Richard asked, amused. “Is it forbidden by the Governesses’ Guild?”
“It is frowned upon,” she said. “We are supposed to sit and observe.”
“Then we will call it… exercise,” he said. “Mrs. Harrow will approve.”
Mrs. Harrow, in a chair near the door, raised a brow. “Mrs. Harrow approves of anything that makes my daughter’s shoulders drop below her ears. Dance.”
“Mama,” Martha protested.
“Do not argue with a vicar’s widow,” Richard murmured. “It is a losing proposition.”
Thomas began another tune, gentler this time. A waltz, of all things. Slightly daring, but the narrowness of the room made a full turn improbable enough to render it almost respectable.
“The floor is uneven,” Martha said weakly.
“So are you,” Thomas said. “In your refusal. Brother-in-law—” He stopped himself with a wince. “I beg your pardon. Old habit. *My lord.* You will oblige me, will you not?”
Richard’s brows shot up.
“Brother-in-law,” he repeated.
Thomas flushed. “An unfortunate… slip. I meant… no implication. Only that you are…—”
“Stop talking,” Martha groaned.
Thomas obeyed. With his mouth. His bow, however, continued.
Richard stepped forward.
“Miss Harrow,” he said. “May I have the… exercise?”
She stared at him.
“You cannot be serious,” she said.
“On the contrary,” he replied. “I am entirely serious. My dancing was once the pride of two London Seasons. It would be a pity to let it go entirely to waste.”
“You have not been to London in five years,” she pointed out. “Your steps may be… rusty.”
“Then you must guide me,” he said lightly. “You are good at that.”
She clenched her jaw.
Mabel bounced. “Say yes, Miss Harrow! Please. Please. Please.”
Agnes clapped weakly. “Please,” she echoed.
Miriam, to Martha’s surprise, looked hopeful rather than mocking.
“Fine,” Martha muttered. “Once around. If the floor holds.”
“It will,” Thomas said confidently, fingers flying.
Richard extended his hand.
She hesitated a heartbeat—and then placed her gloved fingers in his.
His hand closed around hers. Even through the worn kid, the contact jolted her.
He led her to the small space between the pianoforte and the windows. It was hardly a ballroom; there was just enough room for a few turns.
“Left foot,” he murmured. “On the beat.”
“I know,” she said stiffly.
“Forgive me,” he replied. “I forget you had a life before conjugations.”
She huffed, half-amused, half-panicked.
He set his hand, cautiously, at the curve of her waist.
Her breath stopped.
“Too much?” he asked quietly.
“No,” she said, though her pulse thudded at her throat. “We… agreed. Courtesy. Necessity.”
“This is very necessary,” he murmured, with a glint that made her want to both laugh and strike him.
He moved.
For a moment, his body remembered more easily than his mind. He guided her into the first turn, steps smooth, unhesitating. She followed, her own feet finding the familiar pattern with relief and a strange, deep joy she had not expected.
They waltzed.
If one could call such a small circle a waltz. They traced a modest path, avoiding the wobblier boards. Her skirt whispered against his trousers. Her hand, on his shoulder, felt the firm line of bone and muscle beneath the linen.
“See?” he said lightly. “The floor holds.”
“For now,” she said. “Do not grow arrogant.”
He smiled, brief.
They turned again.
The room fell away, for a moment.
There was only the music, and the slide of his palm at her back, and the way their bodies—so often at cross purposes, facing each other across tables armed with arguments—now moved in the same direction.
She realized with a small shock that she trusted him not to let her stumble. Not here. Not in this.
It was a dangerous realization.
He felt it too, perhaps. She saw his throat work, felt the faint tightening of his fingers at her waist before he deliberately loosened them.
“Careful,” she whispered.
“Always,” he replied, though they both knew it was not strictly true.
One more turn. Another.
Then Thomas, perhaps mercifully, ended the waltz with a flourish.
They stepped apart.
The sudden absence of his hand at her back felt like stepping into a draft.
Mabel applauded wildly. Agnes smiled, cheeks dimpling. Even Miriam allowed herself a small, reluctant grin.
“You did not fall,” Mabel announced. “Either of you.”
“I am stunned,” Martha said. Her voice shook only a little.
Richard bowed, a touch mockingly.
“Thank you,” he said. “For the… exercise.”
She curtseyed, more formal than she felt.
“It was… tolerable,” she said.
His eyes, flecked with humour and something far warmer, met hers.
“High praise,” he murmured.
***
Later, when the girls had been shooed out to the garden with shawls and admonitions about damp grass, and Mrs. Harrow had been coaxed back to the blue room for a rest, Thomas lingered in the music room, putting the violin away.
“You did that on purpose,” Martha said, arms folded.
“Did what?” he asked innocently.
“Waltz,” she said. “You might have chosen a reel. A march. A hymn.”
“I did not think a quadrille would suit the space,” he said. “Or the… atmosphere.”
She glared.
He sobered.
“I am leaving in a day,” he said quietly. “I wished… to see you remember you have a body.”
She blinked.
“It is very difficult to forget,” she said. “It has an inconvenient tendency to ache and demand food.”
“You know what I mean,” he said.
She looked away.
“I will not,” she said slowly, “be… foolish, Tom.”
He slung the violin case over his shoulder.
“You are not foolish,” he said. “You are many things. Foolishness is not among them.”
“Then do not… push,” she said.
He hesitated.
“I only…” He blew out a breath. “When I left you last, you were—”
“Raw,” she supplied.
“Yes,” he said. “Brittle. Angry. Desperate. You are… less so now. This house, these children, even that blasted marquess—they have given you something to do with all of that. I am… glad. I do not want to see you turn to stone.”
“I am in no danger of that,” she said dryly. “There are too many leaks.”
He smiled.
He stepped closer, dropped his voice.
“He loves you a little,” he murmured.
Her heart jolted.
“Do not,” she said sharply. “Do not say that.”
“It is obvious,” he said.
“Not here,” she whispered. “Not to me. Not now. Do not hang that word above my head when I have nowhere to put it.”
He winced.
“Forgive me,” he said softly. “I… forget, sometimes, that words weigh more heavily on you than on most.”
She swallowed.
“I cannot afford to carry hope,” she said. “Not… that kind. It would unbalance me.”
He nodded.
“Then I will take it with me,” he said lightly. “My case is empty; I can pack it there. When—if—it becomes more than ‘a little,’ you may claim it from me in London.”
She laughed, in spite of herself.
“You are incorrigible,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “You knew that when Mother bore me.”
He sobered again.
“I will look after her,” he said. “From afar. You must not fret.”
“I will,” she said. “Regardless.”
“I know,” he replied. “It is your other flaw.”
He kissed her forehead, in a rare, brotherly gesture, then turned toward the door.
“As for your marquess,” he threw over his shoulder, “do not let him brood himself into foolishness while I am gone. He needs your scolding more than ever.”
Martha watched him go, a mix of affection and apprehension knotting in her chest.
She did not see, in the shadow of the half-open door, the figure who had paused just out of sight, hearing enough of their low-voiced exchange to capture a single phrase—*He loves you a little*—and carry it away like a splinter.
***
The figure, of course, was Mrs. Pritchard.
She had come searching for Thomas to remind him of a parcel he had promised to send into the village. Hearing voices, she had stopped, as any housekeeper worth her salt would, to ascertain whether the voices concerned spilled soup or scandal.
They did not, quite. But they spoke of something potentially more hazardous to the household’s equilibrium.
He loves you a little.
Pritchard knew quite well who *he* was. And who *you*.
She retreated down the passage, expression set.
The house depended, more than it ought, on the presence of that stubborn governess and the increasingly human marquess. Pritchard had no desire to see either of them shattered by misplaced hopes.
She would, she decided, watch.
And if hope began to outweigh sense, she would intervene.
Housekeepers, like hedgerows and old houses, had their own ways of tempering storms.
***