Viola was worried about the threat to Blanche, of course, but all she could think, all her foolish heart was saying was . . . he’s not going to propose to anyone today.

Chapter Twenty-One

West still wasn’t back. Viola knew because every ten minutes she left the pianoforte to look out the window for his carriage.

It was growing dark. He’d said he would report back to her when he found anything certain about Lord Laxton’s whereabouts, and whether he posed a further threat to Blanche. But he could have forgotten. He might be out carousing with his friends on the town. And why not? She and West had been spending so much time together, but it was all for his sisters’ sake.

She mustn’t confuse his attentiveness and the conversation they’d had last night with anything other than a developing friendship based on proximity and mutual goals.

They could go no further than friendship. And yet . . . seeing him holding that adorable toddler on his shoulder had given her a strange pang in the chest. Despite his protestations to the contrary, she was convinced that he would make a wonderful father.

Parenthood had changed her friends and their husbands. The pride and pure, joyful love she saw shining in their eyes when they were with their children sometimes made her feel like a ragged street urchin with her nose pressed against the display window of a confectioner’s shop.

Longing for impossible things.

She stopped pressing her nose to the music room’s window and returned to the pianoforte bench. She was supposed to be working on lyrics and music for the Christmas carol commission, not mooning over West.

The way his large hand had cradled her neck, positioning her for his masterful kiss.

That kiss.

Her body responding, vibrating and ringing with a new song.

A lyric came to her: In the darkness comes a chime . . .

Not a bad line for a Yuletide carol. Her left hand shaped low, minor notes, dark and somber, while her right hand found a shimmering, hopeful treble counterpoint.

In the darkness comes a chime.

Wild bells, unseen but real . . .

The two melodies called her ears in different directions and tugged at her heart. She heard a cello begin to play along with her left hand, solemn and sonorous, painting a dark, starless night with sweeping strokes.

Then orchestral bells rang out, spiraling into the night, calling for starshine, awakening hope.

The two melodies circled round and round until finally they met and merged in joyful unison.

The music spoke what she wanted to say to West.

I love you, and I think you can learn to love me, too.

It was all just a fantasy. Moonbeams and fairy tales, as West called it. Even if they loved each other, they could never be together. They were separate notes strung together by circumstance. They were an arpeggio; the notes of a chord played individually, never as a single unit.