Three Cousins Performed at the Pianoforte for the Duke — He Asked for the Girl Turning the Pages
Chapter 10
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The room went quiet in a way that rooms do not usually go quiet at a country house musical evening. Not the polite quiet: the other one. It lasted about forty seconds, and it was the only genuinely beautiful thing that happened at Wraysbury that spring, and everybody in that room felt it, and not one of them could have told you why it had happened.Cecily turned the pages. She turned them at the marks. She did not look at the room once.Georgiana finished the sonata, and there was real applause, and she stood up and went scarlet and looked at her mother, and her mother was already turning to see where the Duke was.The Duke had got up. He came down the side of the room, past the chairs, and people made way for him with a slight rustle. Honoria Sowerby began to move to intercept him with a smile already in place, because there was only one thing in that room he could possibly be coming for.He went past her.He went to the instrument, where Georgiana was still standing with her hands together, and he said, "Miss Georgiana, that was very fine. The slow movement particularly."Georgiana said, "Thank you, Your Grace.""You took it slowly.""Yes, Your Grace.""Why?"And Georgiana Sowerby, who was nineteen and honest and had not been coached for this because nobody had imagined it, said, "Because it says to."The Duke looked at her. "It says to?"