Thank you for your continued interest and support. I appreciate it. I do not own Merlin or the characters, neither do I own Wicked In Your Arms.
After dinner that evening, the guests at the dowager's mansion all moved into the drawing room.
Gwen decided to take a spot on the sofa beside her sister Elizabeth.
Lady Phillipa quickly followed the dowager's directive and took up playing on the pianoforte.
She played well and the music soon became an airy background to the conversations in the room.
No one paid Gwen and her sister much heed where they sat together on the sofa. With the exception of the viscount, who dutifully paid them his polite attentions, everyone else seemed oblivious to them.
Elizabeth sent Gwen a smile and lifted one shoulder in a small shrug...
"Are you riding in the morning?" she asked when the viscount drifted away to converse with the marquis, Lord Hornsby.
"Perhaps. Or I might just take your example and sleep in," Gwen teased.
Elizabeth blinked wide eyes.
"You? Never. Surely the world would end first."
Gwen smiled... She always rose early and rarely missed an opportunity for a ride. Even in this weather, she enjoyed escaping outdoors.
Understandably, her sister enjoyed sleeping late since it was a luxury she never experienced before.
Before, she had children to dress and feed and countless chores to perform.
"You should sleep in, you know," Elizabeth said in all seriousness. "It feels marvelous waking up to sunlight streaming through your room. Much better than waking when it's still dark and then stumbling around beneath the eaves for your shoes, in your too small room you must share with five others.
"It does sound like something I should experience." Gwen grinned. "At least once."
"Quite." Elizabeth nodded. "I heartily recommend it." Her expression grew rather intent. "I vow to never go back to my old life where I'm forced to complete a day's work before the sun even rises."
Gwen nodded in understanding and hoped that her sister demanded more than that for herself. A life of luxury and indolence wouldn't guarantee her happiness, and she deserved more than that.
She deserved love.
'And don't you, as well?'
Gwen pushed the small voice aside. She knew it wasn't a question of what she deserved but more of a question of what she could expect.
Aside from her fortune, she possessed nothing to recommend her to these bluebloods. A fact made glaringly clear by how little notice they paid her.
She was no beauty... She lacked grace and youth and breeding.
Her sister on the other hand was young and pretty and charming. She could expect a love match. It was within her reach, and Gwen wanted that for her.
For herself, she was more practical.
Gwen observed Prince Arthur from the corner of her eye.
He stood at the mantel beside the duke, while the fire in the great hearth crackled behind them, casting a red glow on their dark trouser-clad legs.
Naturally, the two men of highest rank in the room would gravitate towards each other. But she remained secretly eyeing Prince Arthur.
He stood ramrod straight, one arm tucked behind him in a very military pose that appeared somehow natural to him.
And she wondered about that...
Did he ever relax?
Did he ever let himself go in the slightest?
In the privacy of his rooms, did he always carry himself with the same stiffness?
With those thoughts in her head, her fingers twitched against her silk skirts, tempted with the impulse to muss his hair and loosen his cravat...
To make him look more... human.
The Duke of Sussex swept a bored glance over the room. His gaze passed over Gwen and Elizabeth as if they were not even present.
Gwen followed his gaze where it happened to rest, stopping with interest on Lady Phillipa. Apparently, the prince wasn't the only one interested in her.
She was lovely and elegant as she played, the perfect wife for the likes of a duke.
Or a prince.
Lady Phillipa finished and Elizabeth was called upon next.
And Gwen listened with pride, impressed that her sister played so well. Even with a household overcrowded with children, Elizabeth's mother had installed a pianoforte in their small cottage to ensure that her daughters all knew how to play.
Not such a surprise, she supposed, from a woman who named her eldest daughter Elizabeth.
She had high hopes for her daughters... Hopes that might come to fruition, after all, with Elizabeth.
The duke's eyes followed Lady Phillipa's lithe figure as she reclaimed her seat between Portia and Lord Hornsby's granddaughter, the plump, apple-cheeked Willohmena.
The contrast between the two girls was remarkable.
Swathed in a gown of peach chiffon, Phillipa was a vision. And Gwen couldn't help taking a peek to see if the prince gawked in the same manner as the duke.
Alas, he did not. He was not looking at anyone really. He was gazing down into the great hearth... The fire's red-gold flames appearing to mesmerize him.
In that moment he didn't look arrogant, he simply looked intense and troubled.
Angling her head to the side, Gwen studied him curiously, wondering what went on inside his head.
She wondered what could possibly plague him.
His kingdom was war-free after many years...
He was the toast of every gala, the most coveted guest on any list...
He had his pick of brides... Therefore, he should be carefree, not this darkly pensive man.
Elizabeth finished her playing and Miss Portia Smythe rose to take a turn. She played liked a goddess...
And as much as Gwen disliked the girl...or rather as much as the girl appeared to dislike her...she enraptured everyone in the room, Gwen included.
The men were especially spellbound...
So Gwen risked another glance from the corner of her eye, satisfied to see that not every man had fallen beneath Lady Portia's spell.
The prince was still gazing into the fire as if he was above everything else taking place around him.
Even a beautiful woman like Portia Smythe was beneath his notice.
Deciding she'd spent enough time contemplating a man who certainly did not waste a moment's thought on her, she snapped her gaze away from him, telling herself not to look in his direction again.
The last thing she wanted was to be caught ogling him. He might think she wished to accept his indecent proposition from the other night.
Watching Portia, however, was a rather lowering experience. But the female knew how to win over an audience.
She played with her whole body. It was quite the sensuous display.
Everyone watched, riveted as she rolled her shoulders and dipped her cleavage towards the keys.
Lord Gilbert watched with his lips parted... And Gwen thought she even detected a small amount of drool gathering at the corners.
If he wasn't smitten before, he was well enamored of her now.
Despite her avowal of moments ago, Gwen feigned interest in the cuff of her sleeve and slid a look at Prince Arthur beneath her lashes, to see if he showed any similar effects.
She breathed easier...
For, although he no longer stared down into the fire, he was looking out at the room dispassionately, not at all agog over the stunning Lady Portia.
Her performance made no impact on him.
He wore his usual impassive expression, not even the hint of a smile cracking his face. And for once his stoicism didn't annoy her.
Dipping her head, Gwen smiled, slow and satisfied, as she recalled the only time she had seen the prince smile. It had been in her presence. She'd brought out his smile, and the realization gave her a surge of feminine power.
Then her smile fled with sudden memory. And her brow furrowed as she recalled that he had been smiling in the course of propositioning her, as if she was the lowest female and not a lady given due accord.
"Miss Davies, can you hear me? It's your turn now," came the dowager's voice.
Gwen winced as Elizabeth elbowed her ungently in the side.
"Perhaps she is deaf," Willohmena said, and giggled inanely.
The dowager stared expectantly at Gwen from her overstuffed chair. And with an imperious cock of her eyebrow, she motioned to the pianoforte...
As the hum of Lady Portia's final chords faded on the air, Gwen felt like cornered prey.
"Yes, Miss Davies. I should love to hear you," Portia said, as she rose with a soft swish of her skirts.
Gwen blinked and looked around...
She suddenly found herself the center of attention. A most unwelcome sensation, to be certain.
She stopped breathing, watching with a sick twisting in her stomach as Portia moved smoothly through the room to reclaim her seat.
'How did she sway her hips like that?' she thought idly.
With all eyes fixed on her, there was only one stare she felt as keenly as the prick of a knife... She knew it was him.. She knew the prince was watching her.
"M-me?" Despising the quiver in her voice, Gwen spoke again, her voice firmer. "You wish to hear me play?"
She flattened a hand against the bodice of her gown.
"Yes, Miss Davies. Do take a turn." The dowager motioned to the pianoforte with a sweep of her heavily beringed hand. "Such a lovely evening we're having. Our own impromptu musicale. Let us continue with it. "
"Indeed. Most entertaining, however..." Gwen said hesitantly.
She moistened her suddenly dry lips...
Elizabeth sent her a sympathetic smile, well aware that she did not know how to play. In fact, Gwen had never even seen a pianoforte until arriving in London.
She cleared her throat to finish...
"Uh, I'm not very good, you see..."
Lady Portia clapped her hands together...
"Oh, I'm certain you're most accomplished. Please, don't deny us."
"I can play!" Willohmena volunteered, half rising.
"That's quite all right, Willohmena, we've heard you play before. We'd like to hear Miss Davies." the dowager said.
At that, the marquis' granddaughter dropped down with a pout.
The viscount smiled kindly at Gwen...
"Shall I turn the pages for you, Miss Davies? I'd be most happy to oblige."
Miserable heat washed up her face. Even her father looked sorry for her, no doubt aware that she couldn't play.
Playing the pianoforte was a ladylike occupation, and she was no lady.
She moistened her lips again and admitted,
"Truth be told, I can't actually play."
"Oh!" Portia blinked with mock surprise, a slender hand drifting to cover her mouth as if Gwen had just confessed to murder.
Gwen glared at her, not fooled for a moment. She knew Lady Portia wasn't the least bit surprised. The girl had correctly guessed that she wouldn't know how to play an instrument that was commonplace in all elegant households of the ton.
Heat crept up Gwen's neck now...
Was it that obvious she was an impostor among them?
A simple, common girl playing at being a lady?
Portia lowered her hand...
"I...I didn't realize. I assumed you... Well..."
There was a beat of silence as her words faded. A moment of silence in which Gwen felt that infernal yawning gulf again...
Between her and everyone else in the room.
And the one person she both wanted and didn't want to glance at, to see how this evidence of her lack of breeding registered upon him...stood silent.
She could not bring herself to look at him again... To see in his eyes the conviction that he had been right.
She didn't belong here.
The dowager's kitchen maids were better suited to the role of lady than her.
"She can sing," Reginald Davies abruptly volunteered. "Like an angel!"
His ruddy face looked anxiously at the dowager.
Gwen glared at her father, shaking her head at him in mute appeal. But his eyes stared earnest and hopeful back at her and she realized he thought he was helping.
She had a passable voice...
He'd once walked in on her in the library singing an old Welsh ballad as she was browsing for a book.
He'd remarked on the song, that it was one her mother used to sing, which, at the time, had quickly silenced her.
She didn't want any comparisons made to the mother who had been so weak-willed as to fall for the likes of her father. As far as she was concerned, marrying Papa was the only good thing her mother ever did.
She wasn't anything like her... She was stronger... She would marry... And she would be a proper lady.
"Sing for us," the dowager commanded.
"Oh, I'm not really very..."
"Cease being so reticent, will you, Miss Davies." The dowager was beginning to look annoyed.
And so, Gwen sighed in defeat.
"Very well."
Rising, she moved near the pianoforte, reminding herself that her voice was passable. She wouldn't embarrass herself on that account.
And it wasn't as though anyone here would understand the lyrics. They were in Welsh, after all.
As she opened her mouth and began to sing, she took secret delight in knowing that she sang a tawdry tale of a buxom milkmaid to a room full of nobles.
But the prince watched her, his blue-grey eyes inscrutable as her lungs expanded and the words rose up from inside her to hang mournfully on the air.
She tried to look away from him, or at least let her stare sweep over the room, but it was hard to do so when he stared at her as if he understood every word.
As if he could see into the inner workings of her mind.
When she finished, the room was silent for a moment. Then the clapping began...
"What language was that? Gaelic?" Lady Portia asked over the applause as Gwen passed her on her way back to her seat.
"Welsh," she replied.
"My, how...rustic." '
"It was simply haunting," Elizabeth exclaimed, still clapping. "I have chills."
"That was lovely, Miss Davies. And sung with such feeling," said the viscount. "You must tell us what it means."
Several others in the room echoed the request. Except Portia, her face flushed at the viscount's praise.
"Oh, a love ballad, I'm sure," Elizabeth insisted.
"Of course." Gwen lowered her gaze at the lie. "A love song."
"How quaint," Portia inserted, her voice tight. "Peasant songs always have such charm. Thank you for treating us. It's not something we get to hear every day."
Gwen's cheeks caught fire... Trust Portia to deliver a thinly veiled insult.
Then again, perhaps it was not so thinly veiled...
However, a heavy pause of silence filled the room as the girl's words sank in. No one save her could meet Gwen's eyes.
Lord Gilbert seemed suddenly fascinated with the carpet pattern. But the implication was there... That Gwen was a peasant.
"You were marvelous, Miss Davies."
The rich, rumbling voice broke the deep silence. And Gwen started at the sound of it, her gaze flying to the man near the fireplace.
All heads swiveled in the direction of the usually aloof prince...
And everyone stared at him, clearly surprised that he had spoken such high praise on Gwen's behalf. Of course, no one was more surprised than her.
Did he mean his words?
A glimpse of his face hardly indicated that she'd managed to impress him. And yet, if she hadn't impressed him with her singing, then why had he spoken up?
It was unfathomable that he should wish to spare her from Lady Portia's ridicule.
Why should he care how others treated her?
His face still looked carved from stone. His jaw square, hard and chiseled, but his eyes glowed molten.
"Quite the highlight of my evening," he added with a sharp nod of his head.
At those words, goose bumps broke out across her skin and the tightness in her chest eased.
She fought off the ridiculous urge to smile...
"Th-thank you."
"Quite so!" Mr. Davies exclaimed. "I told you she was a fine singer!"
"Indeed. It was a lovely ballad. Reminds me of the songs my nanny used to sing to me when I was a girl. She was Welsh, too, you know," the dowager said even as she began to rise.
Panic fluttered in Gwen's belly... The dowager didn't understand Welsh, did she?
"Also like my dear nanny, you've practically lulled me to sleep," the old lady went on. She stopped before Gwen and smiled rather sleepily. "Thank you for a splendid end to the evening."
Then she gave her a fond, two-fingered pat on the cheek. and took her leave.
After the dowager's departure, the other guests also began to rise, while the prince departed without a word or glance.
Gwen watched the broad expanse of his back as he vanished from the drawing room, still wondering why he had bothered to speak out on her behalf.
Her father, the duke and Lord Gilbert moved towards the library, possibly for a round of cards...
"That's my girl," her father said. He gave her shoulder a squeeze of approval as he passed her.
She shouldn't have cared, but the simple gesture made her feel a warm glow of pleasure. Almost like he might really care for her as a father cares for his child.
Portia sent her a baleful glare as she swept from the room, apparently unhappy that she did not completely fall on her face tonight. All thanks to Prince Arthur.
Willohmena took her grandfather's elbow and guided him through the room. His knees popped , Gwennieas he passed Gwen, but that didn't stop him from looking her over with a salacious light in his eyes.
And with that, she tore her gaze from him with a shudder.
"Are you coming?" Elizabeth asked.
Gwen nodded.
So her sister looped her arm through hers and smiled.
"You were wonderful. Even the prince said so," Elizabeth said.
"Yes. Why do you think he said those things?"
"Because you were good. Obviously."
Gwen gave her a doubtful look...
"He doesn't strike me as the type to praise someone for being merely good."
Her sister squeezed her arm...
"Perhaps he fancies you."
"Unlikely!" Gwen snorted.
"Well, who cares? The evening was a success, dear sister. And Lord Gilbert certainly looked at you with approval."
"Yes," she murmured. All due to the prince. A fact that would greatly mystify her late into the night.
Stay safe!