Miss Marianne's Disgrace by Georgie Lee Page A

mother’s sins were ingrained in Marianne and nothing would stop them from eventually coming out.
    â€˜I can see you’re not like her. Not like most women. I recognised it the moment you insisted I help Lady Ellington and then refused to leave her side.’
    â€˜What I did was nothing,’ she whispered, as unused to compliments as she was to embraces.
    â€˜It was everything. I’ve seen men sacrifice themselves for their fellow sailors, hold down their best friends while I sawed off a mangled limb. I’ve also watched cowards leave their comrades to suffer while they steal provisions, or hide in the darkness of the surgeon’s deck with a minor wound to avoid fighting. I doubt Lady Cartwright or any of her other guests would have done half as much as you did for your friend.’
    She stared at him, amazed by this near stranger’s faith in her and how freely he offered it to her. It frightened her more than her belief in her own weakness. If it was easily given, it might easily be revoked. She eyed the door to the music room, wanting to be through it and at the keys of the piano and away from this uncertain familiarity. She’d revealed too much already, foolishly making herself vulnerable. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to play now.’
    â€˜Of course.’ He pulled open the door, revealing the stately black instrument dominating the area in front of the large, bowed window at the far end of the room.
    She strode to it, relief washing through her. Music was her one constant and comfort, though even this had threatened to leave her once. ‘It’s beautiful.’
    She slid on to the bench and raised the cover on the keys. Flexing her fingers over the brilliant white ivory, she began the first chord. The pianoforte was as well tuned as it was grand and each note rang true and deep. They vibrated through her and with each stanza she played, her past, her concerns, Sir Warren and everything faded away until there was nothing but the notes. In them the only true happiness she’d ever known.
    * * *
    Warren didn’t follow her into the room. He leaned against the door jamb and watched as she drew from the long-silent instrument beautiful music laced with a strange, almost effervescent melancholy. Lancelot came to his side and leaned against Warren’s leg as Warren scratched behind the dog’s ears.
    The pianoforte faced the window overlooking the garden. She sat with her back to him so he couldn’t see her face, but the languid way she moved in front of the keys, her arms losing their stiffness for the first time since she’d happened into his study, didn’t escape his notice. The intensity of her focus and the graceful sway of her body in time to the music told him she was no longer here, but carried off by the piece to the same place he drifted to whenever a story fully gripped him. He was glad. She was too young to frown so much or to take in the world, or his compliments, with such distrustful eyes. He wished he could have brought her as much peace as her playing but, like him, her past still troubled her and she had yet to conquer it.
    It wasn’t the past facing him today, but the future. No matter how much he wanted to stand here and listen to her, he had to return to work. He needed the money. He left the door open to allow the notes to fill the study. As Warren settled in at his desk, Lancelot stretched out on the hearthrug and returned to his nap. Warren picked up his pen, dipped the nib in the inkwell and settled it over the last word, ready to write, to create, to weave his tale.
    Nothing.
    The deep notes of the piano boomed before sliding up the scale into the softer, higher octaves.
    He read the last paragraph, hoping to regain the thread of the story. It wasn’t so much a thread as a jumble of sentences as dull as the minutes of Parliament.
    The higher notes wavered, then settled into the smooth mid-tones like water in the