and violet flecked with gold. Something flickered in his memory, though he couldn’t grasp its source.
Where had he—
“Mr. Hall.” She tucked a stray lock of brown hair behind her ear, hugging the head closer to her chest. “I didn’t know you would be here.”
She frowned, glancing at his wrinkled clothes, his unshaven jaw and scuffed boots. For an uncomfortable moment, he wanted to squirm under that sharp assessment. He pulled a hand through his hair in a futile effort at tidiness, then experienced a sting of annoyance over his self-consciousness.
“Are you…” He shook his head to try to clear it. “I’m afraid this room is closed in preparation for Lady Rossmore’s ball.”
She tilted her head. “You don’t remember me.”
Oh, hell.
Out of sheer habit, Sebastian attempted to muster a charming smile, though it had been so long since one had come naturally to him that his face felt like pulled clay.
“Well, far be it from me to forget a woman as enchanting as yourself. Your name has slipped my mind, though of course I remember… that is, I must be out of my wits to—”
“For pity’s sake.” She seemed to be trying hard not to roll her eyes. “My name is—was—Clara Whitmore. My brother and I both took piano lessons from you years ago when we stayed in Dorset.”
Sebastian struggled to make his brain work as he looked at her round, pretty face, her curly brown hair pulled into an untidy knot. A streak of grease or oil smudged her cheek. She looked like a thousand other ordinary women—a shopkeeper’s daughter, a clerk, a schoolteacher, a milliner’s apprentice.
Except for her eyes. And a tiny black birthmark punctuating the corner of her smooth left eyebrow, like the dot of a question mark.
“Does your father reside in Dorset still?” Sebastian asked.
“No, I’m afraid that property has been long abandoned.” Her eyes flickered downward, shading her expression. She shifted the head to her other arm. “So, Mr. Hall, I’ve continued to hear great things about you over the years. You were at Weimar last summer, were you not?”
The admiring, bright pink note in her voice clawed at him. His fingers flexed, a movement that caused tension to creep up his arm and into the rest of his body.
“Yes.” His voice sounded thin, stretched.
Clara blinked, a slight frown tipping her mouth again. Her eyes were really the strangest shade—a trick of the light, surely. No one had eyes that color. He certainly didn’t recall having noticed them when she was his student. He didn’t even recall having noticed her.
Discomfort pinched Sebastian’s chest. He wouldn’t have noticed her back then. Not when women had flocked to him with bright smiles and hot whispers. Among such birds of paradise, Clara Whitmore—even with her unusual eyes—would have been a plain brown sparrow.
She still is, he told himself.
He straightened his shoulders, glancing at the waxen head with an unspoken question.
“My uncle is debuting an automaton tomorrow evening at Lady Rossmore’s ball,” Clara explained. “Well, I’m debuting it on his behalf, as he was called out of town rather suddenly.”
A surge of comprehension rolled through Sebastian as the pieces began locking together in his blurred mind.
“Then you are Mr. Granville Blake’s niece,” he said. “I’d expected… that is, Lady Rossmore said he might be here.”
“He’d intended to be, but owing to the circumstances, I’m to carry out his duties.” Clara touched the automaton’s head, drawing Sebastian’s gaze to her long fingers. “This is Millicent, the Musical Lady. Part of her anyhow. She plays four tunes on the piano.”
“How”—ridiculous—“interesting.” Though he’d heard Granville Blake dabbled in all sorts of mechanical toys and automata, Sebastian was interested in only one of the man’s many projects.
And now he apparently had to be interested in the man’s niece as well.
“You oughtn’t be here alone,” he told her. “Especially at this hour.”
“We’ve permission to set things up,” she replied. “This is the only opportunity we have to assemble Millicent and her piano. And I’m not alone. My uncle’s assistant Tom is just outside loading the remaining crates.” She glanced behind him to the piano resting beside the stage. “Will you be performing at the ball?”
His jaw tensed. If Lady Rossmore had not told him Mr. Granville Blake would be in attendance, Sebastian would have spent the following evening wreathed in the smoke and noise of the Eagle Tavern.
“I will be in attendance,” he said, “but not performing.”
“Oh. Well, I do apologize for the interruption. I didn’t even know anyone else would be here. Once Millicent