"Not then." She lowered the fork. "Later, perhaps."
He watched her for a moment. "Your father sounds like a wise man."
"He was."
"What else did he teach you?"
Matilda looked down at the instrument in her hand. The words came back with such clarity that for a moment she could almost hear her father's voice in the small stone church where he had once given lessons: "He used to say, 'A true note does not become false because a crowded room prefers another.'"
Robert went still. The sentence seemed to enter him more deeply than she had intended.
"That is either excellent musical advice," he said, "or a devastating assessment of society."
"With my father, it was often both."
This time, Robert laughed softly. It was not the polished laugh of a man entertaining a room; it was brief and real. Matilda looked at him before she could stop herself.
He noticed. "You are surprised."
"A little."
"How damaging to my reputation."
"I had not realized Your Grace possessed one that depended upon solemnity."
"It does not. Mine depends upon appearing amused before anyone notices I am not."
The admission was so unexpected that Matilda forgot to guard her expression.
Robert closed the book. "There. Now you look even more alarmed."
"You have confessed to dishonesty."
"Only social efficiency."
"Is that what gentlemen call it?"
"Dukes do. It saves time."
She laughed then, quietly but genuinely. Robert's face softened. For one strange moment, the room felt smaller—not intimate in any improper sense; Mrs. Canning was still near the window, and the door to the corridor remained open. Yet Matilda felt something unfamiliar: ease. It frightened her almost as much as scrutiny once had.
She looked back at the tuning fork. "Do you distrust everyone?" she asked.