More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress by Mary Balogh Page A

are beautiful hands,” he said, “as one might expect. They match the rest of your person. They change bandages gently without causing undue pain. One wonders what other magic they could create with their touch. Jane, you could be the most sought-after courtesan in all of England if you so chose.”
    She pulled her hands back then, but his own tightened about them a little faster than she moved.
    “I did add ‘if you chose,’ ” he pointed out, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “What other magic can they create? I wonder. Are they musical hands? Do you play an instrument? The pianoforte?”
    “A little,” she admitted. Unlike her mother, she had never been any more than a proficient pianist.
    His hands were still tight on hers. His dark eyes burned upward into her own. Her claim to be able to escape him at any time by simply walking out through the door was ridiculous now. By just a slight jerking on her hands he could have her down across him in a moment.
    She glared at him, determined not to show fear or any other discomfort.
    “Show me.” He released her hands and indicated the pianoforte on the far side of the drawing room. It was a lovely instrument, she had noticed before, though not as magnificent as the one in the music room.
    “I am out of practice,” she said.
    “For God’s sake, Miss Ingleby,” he retorted, “do not be coy. I always withdraw in haste to the card room whenever the young misses of the
ton
are about to demonstrate their party pieces at any fashionable entertainment. But I have degenerated to the point at which I am almost eager to listen to someone who openly admits that she plays only a little and is out of practice. Now go and play before my mind turns to other sport while you are still within grabbing distance.”
    She went.
    She played one of the pieces she had committed to memory long ago, a Bach fugue. By happy chance she made only two errors, both in the first few bars and neither glaring.
    “Come here,” the duke said again when she had finished.
    She crossed the room, sat in the chair she usually occupied, and looked directly at him. She had discovered that doing so protected her from being bullied. Itappeared to suggest to him that she was capable of giving as good as she got.
    “You were right,” he said abruptly. “You play a little. A very little. You play without flair. You play each note as if it were a separate entity that had no connection with what came before or after. You depress each key as if it were simply an inanimate strip of ivory, as if you believed it impossible to coax
music
out of it. You must have had an inferior teacher.”
    The criticism of herself she could take quite philosophically. She had never had any illusions about her skills. But she bristled when he cast such aspersions on her mother.
    “I did not!” she retorted. “How dare you presume to judge my teacher by my performance. She had more talent in her little finger than I have in my whole body. She could make it seem as if the music came from
her
rather than from a mere instrument. Or as if it came
through
her from some—oh, from some heavenly source.” She glared indignantly at him, aware of the inadequacy of words.
    He gazed at her in silence for a moment, a strange, unfamiliar glow in his eyes.
    “Ah,” he said at last, “you do understand, then, do you? It is not that you are unmusical, just that you are without superior talent of your own. But why would such a paragon come to an orphanage to teach?”
    “Because she was an angel,” Jane said, and swiped at the tears that threatened to spill onto her cheeks. What was the matter with her? She had never been a watering pot until recently.
    “Poor Jane,” he said softly. “Did she become a mother figure to you?”
    She almost told him to go to hell, language that had never passed her lips before. She had almost sunk to his level.
    “Never mind,” she said weakly. “You do not own my memories, your grace. Or me