Page 37 of The Beautiful Ones

I looked up at him.

“You hear what others overlook,” he continued. “You hear the space beneath a melody and the breath between one note and the next. But you have not yet heard everything your own music contains.”

I wanted to ask what he meant. The words gathered behind my teeth and struck their familiar glass.

He indicated the final passage of the piece. “Play it again, Cécile. More slowly.”

No gentleman had ever addressed me by my given name with such ease. The intimacy of it warmed my face, though I knew I should have objected.

I began the passage again.

This time I drew each note out until the melody seemed to breathe beneath my fingers. Adrian hummed beside me, so quietly that I felt the vibration before I understood what I heard. His note entered the music without disturbing it.

“Listen,” he said.

He hummed the note again.

“Now find it.”

My hands faltered. I thought he meant for me to speak, and the glass rose inside my throat.

“Not speech,” he said, as though he had seen the fear. “No first consonant to catch you. No sentence waiting to go wrong. Only the note.”

He played it softly with one finger.

I drew breath.

A sound left me.

It was no more than an open vowel, quiet enough to disappear beneath the pianoforte, yet it was clear. It did not break. It did not repeat itself or close painfully around my throat.

I stopped playing.

Adrian's gaze remained steady upon mine.

“Again,” he said.

I found the note a second time. It emerged stronger, round and startlingly pure. The vibration moved through my chest and into my face. I pressed one hand to my throat, certain I had discovered some hidden instrument beneath my skin.

Behind us, Nicholas's laughter ceased.

Adrian lowered his voice. “Let the melody carry a word.”

He touched the final line of music and gave me one softly.

“Gardenia.”

The word should have been impossible. Its hard beginning should have trapped me. Its four syllables should have broken apart before I reached the second.

But the melody was already moving.

I placed my fingers upon the keys and followed it.

“Gardenia,” I sang.

The word flowed whole and clear through the room.

My hands fell still.