Beneath the Porcelain Mask

37. I Have Loved None But You

"Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you."  
Persuasion,
Jane Austen.

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I didn't see Marius for the rest of the day. Jean claimed he'd gone to the village seeking his tailor's services. Jeremy was adamant that he was simply keeping a low profile until we'd left.

We sat in the parlour resting, Jeremy in his chair by the fire sketching, Jean reading his newspaper at his desk, and I on the love seat. Cossette played away at the piano, elegant and practised. Jean gave his sweet praise every time she finished, taking great joy in seeing her smile.

"Do you like music very much, Count Desrosiers?" I asked, my voice as polite as I could make it. He looked across at me; he'd been in a much better mood since we sat down.

"Why yes," he said. Jeremy looked up from his sketching. "Do you play?"

I was about to shake my head when Jeremy straightened in his chair, smiling fit to burst.

"Nikki plays with a grace Verdi and Mozart would be jealous of!" he declared. I frowned at him, but he merely grinned back. "Won't you play for us, darling?"

"Oh, yes indeed!" Cossette cried, jumping from the stool with childish claps. "Do play, Nikki! Oh, Papa, you do so love music! Let her play! Do let her, Papa!"

But Jean glanced at his piano and back at me. "That piano was my great-grandfather's," he muttered. "I'm not sure—"

"Oh, come now, Uncle!" Jeremy set his sketchbook aside entirely and stood. He paced across to me and offered his hand. I let him help me to my feet. "Let her play for you; if not by her personality and good nature, let her music win you over!"

Jean muttered to himself, but he stepped aside and gestured to the piano. "As you wish."

"Thank you, Monsieur le Comte, but I don't think—"

"Poppy-cock!" Cossette cried, and she grabbed my shoulder, steering me towards the piano stool. I opened my mouth to protest, but a fiery look overcame her eyes. "Play!" she ordered, pointing at the keys.

I rolled my shoulders out. Was no one satisfied in this house? Was I marrying into a family of jesters? Albeit, they were rich jesters. Perhaps if Jeremy's father had not been disowned, if Jeremy did not rely solely on his cousin's good nature (which I now held in questionable regard), I should be a very well-to-do woman.

But for now, I was sitting at the piano in a house I didn't quite belong in just yet, and flexing my fingers.

I set them to the keys, letting them dance for just a moment. Hundreds of compositions flickered through my mind, ones I or Erik had composed, or works by more reputable artists. I could not play one the Count knew. That would give him too many standards, and the piano was not my preferred instrument. I thought longingly of my violin at the Opera House. One of my own then.

La danse d'Aminta. Yes! I shuffled in the seat, making myself comfortable, and set my hands to work.

The piece began as a slow, gentle movement, a solo, alone in the world. Just a single piece of melody that could have been anything. I'd written this for Erik when he was particularly stuck on how Don Juan should go about wooing Aminta, but he'd called it too much of a ballet, and God knew he wouldn't be having those ballerinas on stage for any important moment of his opera!

Slowly, the dance introduced a second presence, on the lower scale. Don Juan stalked around in the background, while his object of lust pranced about, blissfully unaware of her audience. I watched the keys as the characters became images, real people before my eyes, personified by my fingers. Don Juan leapt forwards with a burst of chords, and a duet ensued.