Red Rose by Mary Balogh

that Henry would not be at all disappointed with a girl. The visit lasted for more than an hour. Rosalind felt as if she had known her new friend for years. She promised to return the following week, after the ball, if the new arrival had still not put in an appearance.
    The visit to Lady Martel occupied only a single afternoon. Rosalind helped keep her mind off the ball for much of the rest of the time by busying herself with music and reading. She paid a few visits to the library at times when she knew that the earl was not at home. She discovered a volume of Mr. Pope’s poems and carried it off to her room, where she spent many hours reading his poems carefully. She thoroughly enjoyed “The Rape of the Lock” and read it many times. But on the whole she found his tone unnecessarily caustic. Much of what he wrote was the product of a bitter mind. And he had had some deformity, she had read somewhere. She shuddered. She hoped she would never allow her physical condition to warp her mind or her attitude to life.
    And she spent many hours in the music room. She was fascinated by the harpsichord and played it often. It was especially suited to the music of Bach, she found. But it was the pianoforte that became her particular love. She played Haydn, Mozart, all the music she had ever learned, in fact. And she sang to her own accompaniment. She sang old ballads and newer love songs.
    In the music room she could completely forget herself. It was a large room at the far end of a wing of the house that contained none of the apartments that were in daily use. The instruments stood in the middle of the room, far from windows and doors. Here she could play and sing undisturbed and undetected. Here she could be happy and forget such things as balls and society and stubborn, arrogant guardians.
    She would not have felt so contented had she known that on an afternoon three days before the ball the Earl of Raymore, on his way to his room to change from his riding clothes into an outfit more suited for dining out, heard the distant sound of music. He stopped in his tracks and listened. His jaw set in annoyance when he realized that the sounds were coming from the music room. Only carefully selected guests, including the professional performers that he invited to play at his annual concerts, were allowed to touch the instruments there. One of his wards must be tinkling away in her best schoolroom manner. What sacrilege!
    He changed direction grimly and strode toward the door of the music room. It was probably Rosalind Dacey. She was the one who fancied herself as an accomplished musician, he seemed to remember. He would make it perfectly clear to her that she was welcome to practice in the drawing room when he was not there, but that the music room was very definitely out of bounds.
    He stopped just outside the door, his hand stretched toward the handle but not quite touching it. She was singing. He did not recognize either the words or the melody, but the song was so simple and so haunting that it halted his progress completely:
    My Luve is like a red, red rose That’s newly sprung in June
    Raymore felt a momentary sharp pang whose source and meaning he could not identify. She should always sing. She had a contralto voice that was soft and throbbing with feeling. It was sheer beauty.
    And I will come again, my Luve, Tho’ ‘twere ten thousand mile!
    The song was finished. The earl’s hand had fallen to his side, but he still stood and listened as she continued to play the melody. After a while she began to hum again.
    When she started to play Beethoven, the Earl of Raymore moved away from the room without opening the door. She was good, he was forced to admit. He would leave her alone with her music. She could probably do no harm to his prize possessions, after all.
    He did not intend to, he did not particularly want to, but he found his feet taking him toward the door of the music room for the