Morgan and Archer: A Novella

94 Pages·2013·0.62 MB·English

by  Burrowes Grace

Copyright © 2013 by Grace Burrowes Cover and internal design © 2013 by
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Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
About the Author
To the deaf and hearing impaired
One
In a sea of chatter and movement, silence and stillness caught Archer
Portmaine’s attention.
The ladies at the front of the shadowed box might have been any pretty pair
enjoying a night at the orchestra, the elder exhibiting the fashionable attire of a
young matron of means.
The younger woman held Archer’s focus when he ought to have been
scanning the other boxes for his quarry. She did this not by craning her neck or
leaning over the railing, but rather by unhurried and quiet inspection of the
glittering, laughing, bejeweled throng.
Archer had the niggling sense he’d seen her before, in a different setting. He
might forget the occasional face, but he did not forget the graceful turn of a
woman’s bare shoulders, or a chin that shaded toward determined but stopped
short of stubborn.
Her profile was classic, her brown hair tidily coiled at her nape, her cream
dress the very next thing to plain. She was quietly lovely, and yet, everything
about her begged to be passed over at a glance, everything except for her
stillness and the way she held her own counsel in a venue where talking—loudly
and cleverly—was more a part of the program than the music.
If the lady could chatter a bit while she perused the audience, or send the
occasional flirtatious glance to a random, lucky swain below, she might make a
passable spy.
Which notion would insult any proper lady mightily.
Archer left off watching the quiet young woman, lest even lurking at the back
of this box he’d be spotted by those whose paths he’d rather not cross.
He shrank closer to the velvet curtains, glad for whatever breeze had doused
the lights of the nearest chandelier. A man in pursuit ought always to be alert for
pursuers and avoid even so fascinating a distraction as a pretty young woman’s
silence.
***
“Did you know Valentine dedicated the final work on the program to you?”
Amid the hum and bustle of the orchestra tuning up and the audience
gossiping and greeting one another, Morgan James was barely able to discern
her sister’s soft words.
“What young lady wouldn’t want the Windham musical genius dedicating a
work to her?” Especially a young lady who owed the recovery of her hearing to
the selfsame musician?
Anna, Countess of Westhaven, studied her program by the limited light of the
theatre’s chandeliers. “You are over Valentine, aren’t you? Please say you are.”
“I am.” Morgan felt a curious relief to say the words honestly, a weight
winging aloft like the ascending scale of a flute warming up. “Valentine
Windham was the first gentleman I met who behaved like a gentleman, and he
was such a wonderful contrast to our late brother.” Why had she not realized
these things before?
“He is obsessed with his music though, enthralled with it,” Morgan went on,
“and Ellen understands this about him. I was alone in my own silent world for so
long, I cannot fathom seeking an isolated existence on purpose, regardless of
how much beautiful sound I could fill it with.”
“You are very sensible, Sister. Westhaven said I was fretting for nothing.”
Anna’s husband often made confident pronouncements about his family, and he
was right an aggravating percentage of the time.
“I consider Valentine a dear friend,” Morgan said, “and I’m certain he holds
me in the same regard. The last piece is a piano sonata. I look forward to hearing
it.”
She would also look forward to having the evening over, to being alone in the
commodious chambers Westhaven’s family provided her, where—oddly enough
—she’d begun to enjoy the silence and solitude.
Anna rose gracefully. “I’ll fetch Westhaven from the corridor. He gets caught
up by his father’s cronies from the Lords and is too polite to leave them talking
to themselves, which is their proper fate on what ought to be a social outing.”
The pretty, dark-haired countess bustled out of the box, off to rescue some
old curmudgeon from Lord Westhaven’s endless fascination with what he called
economics, leaving Morgan to wonder at her own proper fate.
Spinsterhood loomed close at hand, and likely a return of deafness not long
after that. The physician had warned her, after all.
A shadow along the back wall of the box moved, distracting Morgan from her
dismal thoughts. She caught the scents of rain on wool, laced with cedar. Cool
scents, masculine and beguilingly pleasant.
And yet, those scents belonged to someone who had no business in that dark
corner. People chatted and strolled in the corridor only a few yards away, so
Morgan couldn’t be alarmed, but neither was she pleased at the intrusion. “Make
yourself known, sir, and explain why you lurk in the Windham family’s private
box.”
As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, Morgan made out a few more details:
height, blond hair, broad shoulders. Westhaven’s plummy baritone came drifting
in from the passage, followed by Anna’s quieter tones, something about not
leaving Morgan alone.
The intruder pressed a finger to his lips, a signal for silence, then winked and
blew Morgan a kiss. His teeth gleamed in a smile, audacious behavior indeed for
a trespasser.
Anna sailed into the box, followed by her husband at a more decorous pace.
“My love, I was not lecturing old Quimbey, I was engaged in Socratic
dialogue such as men of reason and intellect often enjoy with one another.”
Westhaven did not sound as if he were defending himself, but Morgan knew her
sister’s husband well.
Next, he’d start in with the nuzzling and cozening, and sure enough, as he
assisted Anna into her seat at the front of the box, he leaned down closer than the
situation warranted. “You were about to take him on yourself, weren’t you,
dearest Wife? You’re as inclined to rational discourse as any member of either
House. Morgan will support me in this observation.”
The earl was subtle about it, but managed to land his lips on Anna’s neck
right there in the theatre box with a stranger looking on. Morgan turned and rose,
intending to take the stranger to task again… only to find he no longer lurked in
the shadows.
The smiling, kiss-blowing, silent man who bore the scent of fresh night air
and northern forests had simply vanished.
***
Valentine Windham crossed the green room and possessed himself of Morgan
James’s hand. “My dear, you are looking delectable, as usual.” He bowed low
but did not presume to kiss her knuckles. “Panford, allow me to appropriate the
lady’s company for a moment. I cannot take my leave without hearing her
opinion of the night’s performance.”
Val kept his tone jovial, though he’d spoken nothing less than the truth.
Panford was a talented, handsome cellist—also quite married and the sole
support of a wife and several small children. Val tucked Morgan’s hand around
his arm and waited just long enough for Panford to stammer his parting.
“The performance was delightful,” Morgan said. “The Sixth is a lovely piece,
cheerful and lively.”
Val walked her in the direction of the refreshment table. “And the piano
sonata?”
Morgan had a sense of reserve Val had taken some while to puzzle out. A
person deprived of sound for ten years learned a quality of focus that the hearing
population never acquired. Despite the restoration of her hearing, Morgan yet
had that stillness, an utter calm that was unusual in a woman with only a few
Seasons to her name.
“In the first two movements, you were trying to create silence with sound,”
she said. “That is quite a challenge.”
He’d been trying to re-create her world, her calm. “Did I succeed?”
She smiled up at him, a winsome flash of teeth and benevolence. “Oh, yes,
Valentine. You succeeded, and the robust, romping final movement was a pure
delight. I do thank you.”
Her smile allowed something inside him to unknot, to come to a restful
cadence, for Morgan’s discernment regarding music was as keen as it was
honest. He’d tried thinking of her as a sister, but she wasn’t quite, and yet, as
young as she was, he’d never considered pursuing her with marriage in mind.
“Morgan, would you thank me for introducing you to that blond fellow by the
mirror?” He’d spoken softly, as if they flirted or exchanged confidences—or as
if Val might have been willing for her to ignore his question.
“Who is he?”
Val suffered a small pang of chagrin that she didn’t dismiss the man
altogether, though the fellow had been studying her for some minutes in
repeated, all too casual passing glances. “I thought you preferred the tall, dark-
haired, handsome types.”
“With green eyes and bottomless musical talent? Those fellows are fine to
have as friends, they are wonderful to have as friends, in fact, but whoever he is,
he’s a credit to his tailor.”
The blighter was good-looking enough, if a woman’s tastes ran to golden
hair, aristocratic features on the skinny, aesthetic side, and eyes of an infantile
blue all wrapped up in conservative evening attire. Women, in their well-
intended generosity, might call those eyes captivating.
“He is Archer Portmaine, a cousin to my sister Maggie’s husband. He was
Hazelton’s business partner, also his heir until the baby showed up. You might
have been introduced to him at Ben and Maggie’s wedding.” Though if Morgan
had been introduced to Portmaine, she’d forgotten the encounter—cheering
thought.
Curiosity lit in Morgan’s eyes at the mention of Portmaine’s role in the
business. “He’s an investigator?”
“Keep your voice down, if you please. I haven’t any idea what the man’s
prospects are. Portmaine might still be employed in such a capacity, but
Hazelton himself no longer snoops.”
Val hoped. As a man with a wife, a mother, and five sisters taking an interest
in his welfare, Val hardly needed one of those sisters marrying a professional
investigator.
“Introduce us, please.” Morgan sounded very certain.
Valentine tended to the civilities, keeping Morgan’s hand on his arm the